A steam voyage down the Danube, vol. 1 of 2 : With sketches of Hungary,…
"A steam voyage down the Danube, vol. 1 of 2" by Michael J. Quin is a travel narrative written in the early 19th century. It follows the author’s steamboat descent of the Danube toward the Black Sea and Constantinople, weaving vivid landscape description with observations on peoples, customs, politics, and the practical hurdles of pioneering steam navigation. The opening of the work begins with a preface clarifying that regular steam travel then
reached only as far as Galacz, noting Russian restrictions at the river’s mouths and praising the Danube’s finest scenery between Belgrade and Moldava. The narrative proper starts with a moonlit arrival at Pesth, crowded embarkation, and lively scenes on board—Hungarian ladies, Tyrolese emigrant families, a graceful young countess, a flamboyant Moldavian raconteur, and a Spanish‑speaking Servian Jew. Quin sketches Pesth and Buda, floating mills, river commerce, and a proposed stone bridge symbolizing equal taxation, then records a stop at Tolna (ferocious dogs, a chaotic inn) and a candid portrait of Hungarian rural society—idle petty nobles, roaming brigands, and sharecropping arrangements—gleaned from an English groom turned steward. Further downriver he captures Mohacs market life and women’s hard labor, a grounding on sandbanks, consoling Tyrolese songs, boisterous card games, and the parting at Peterwardein. At Semlin he visits a Greek church and hears mixed reports of plague in Constantinople, then passes Belgrade at quarantine distance as the Danube broadens into a vast, island‑studded lake alive with birds and radiant sunsets. A stormy night brings him to Vipalanka and on to Moldava, where extreme shallows force a switch to a fisherman’s flat boat; the section closes amid bustling quays, a striking Wallachian beauty at her distaff, quarantine‑barred haggling, swarms of curious children, and the first, dramatic rise of the mountain chain that narrows the river. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Quin, Michael J. (Michael Joseph), 1796-1843 |
|---|---|
| Title | A steam voyage down the Danube, vol. 1 of 2 : With sketches of Hungary, Wallachia, Servia, and Turkey, &c. |
| Original Publication | London: Richard Bentley, 1835. |
| Credits | Richard Illner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | DB: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia |
| Subject | Europe -- Description and travel |
| Subject | Danube River |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 78133 |
| Release Date | Mar 7, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 303 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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