A telegram from Passau announced the
startling news that the waters of the Inn had risen eleven feet since
the afternoon of the previous day, and further news came that the Danube
had risen twelve and a half feet in the same time. Following close upon
this came intelligence of a disastrous inundation at Vienna which had
caused loss of life and property. The boats and barges in the winter
harbour of the Austrian capital had been dragged from their anchorage,
covering the river with the _debris_ of wreckage; in short, widespread
mischief was reported generally from the Upper Danube.
There was a prevalent idea that Buda-Pest had been saved by the flood
breaking bounds at Vienna, but events proved that our troubles were yet
to come. There was a peculiarity in the thaw of this spring which told
tremendously against us. It came westward--viz., down stream instead of
up stream, as it usually does. This state of things greatly increased
the chances of flood in the middle Danube, as the descending volume of
water and ice-blocks found the lower part of the river still frozen and
inert. Even up to the 21st the daily rise in the river was only six
inches, and if the large floes of ice which passed the town had only
gone on their course without interruption all might still have been
well. Unfortunately, however, this was far from being the case. It seems
that at Eresi, a few miles below Buda-Pest, where the water is shallow,
the ice had formed into a compact mass for the space of six miles, and
at this point the down-drifting ice-blocks got regularly stacked, rising
higher and higher, till the whole vast volume of water was bayed back
upon the twin cities of Buda and Pest, the latter place being specially
endangered by its site on the edge of the great plain.
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