DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62355#0011
PREFACE.
THE DANUBE ILLUSTRATED.
In the accompanying work on the Danube, I have endeavoured to combine
as much interesting matter as the nature and limits of the undertaking would
admit. I have followed nearly the same plan as that which I first adopted
in the " Switzerland Illustrated ;" and for whatever scenes I have not described
from actual observation, I have been studious to select the best authorities,
both English and German; whilst my own manuscripts have, in several
instances, been enriched by the graphic notes of Mr. Bartlett, taken during
his recent voyage down the Danube. Keeping in view the picturesque
character of the task, I have aimed at conciseness; and instead of loading
the text with a weight of mere historical matter, I have endeavoured to
lighten it with legends, traditions, anecdotes, and ballads, many of which are
now, for the first time, printed from the original manuscripts.
Of the great public establishments in these countries, I have had no cause
to speak but with respect. The subject of politics I have purposely avoided:
he who travels in search of the " picturesque," admiring the scenery, and
sharing the hospitality of the different states through which he passes, will
find his time and taste more agreeably occupied, than in criticising the forms
and peculiarities of governments, on which no stranger can judge correctly,
till he has made the country, for some months at least, his home, and the
laws by which it is governed his almost exclusive study. In this tour along
the vast territories of the Danube, I have walked, so to speak, hand in hand
with the Illustrator, directing my pen to the description of such points of its
scenery as most forcibly arrested his pencil, and awakened the remembrance
of deeds and circumstances which bore the stamp of history. In some of
these descriptions I may have used more brevity than the subject might have
THE DANUBE ILLUSTRATED.
In the accompanying work on the Danube, I have endeavoured to combine
as much interesting matter as the nature and limits of the undertaking would
admit. I have followed nearly the same plan as that which I first adopted
in the " Switzerland Illustrated ;" and for whatever scenes I have not described
from actual observation, I have been studious to select the best authorities,
both English and German; whilst my own manuscripts have, in several
instances, been enriched by the graphic notes of Mr. Bartlett, taken during
his recent voyage down the Danube. Keeping in view the picturesque
character of the task, I have aimed at conciseness; and instead of loading
the text with a weight of mere historical matter, I have endeavoured to
lighten it with legends, traditions, anecdotes, and ballads, many of which are
now, for the first time, printed from the original manuscripts.
Of the great public establishments in these countries, I have had no cause
to speak but with respect. The subject of politics I have purposely avoided:
he who travels in search of the " picturesque," admiring the scenery, and
sharing the hospitality of the different states through which he passes, will
find his time and taste more agreeably occupied, than in criticising the forms
and peculiarities of governments, on which no stranger can judge correctly,
till he has made the country, for some months at least, his home, and the
laws by which it is governed his almost exclusive study. In this tour along
the vast territories of the Danube, I have walked, so to speak, hand in hand
with the Illustrator, directing my pen to the description of such points of its
scenery as most forcibly arrested his pencil, and awakened the remembrance
of deeds and circumstances which bore the stamp of history. In some of
these descriptions I may have used more brevity than the subject might have