About This Book
Before us lies the valley of the Drave, one of those endless wildernesses where even the wild beast loses its way. Forests everywhere, maples and aspens a thousand years old, with their roots under water; magnificent morasses the surface of which is covered, not with reeds and water-lilies, but with gigantic trees, from the dependent branches of which the vivifying waters force fresh roots. Here the swan builds her nest; here too dwell the royal heron, the blind crow, the golden plover, and other man-shunning animals which are rarely if ever seen in more habitable regions. Here and there on little mounds, left bare during the long summer drought by the receding waters, sprout strange and gorgeous flowers, such perhaps as the earth has not brought forth since the Flood overwhelmed her. In this slimy soil every blade of grass shoots up like gigantic broom; the funnel-shaped convolvuluses and the evergreen ground-ivy put forth tendrils as stout and as strong as vine branches, which, stretching from tree to tree, twine round their stems and hang flowery garlands about the dark, sombre maples, just as if some hamadryad had crowned the grove dedicated to her. But it is only when evening descends that this realm of waters begins to show signs of life. Whole swarms of water-fowl then mount into the air, whose rueful, monotonous croaking is only broken by the melancholy piping of the bittern and the whistle of the green turtle. The swan, too, raises her voice and sings that melodious lay which now, they tell us, is only to be heard in fairy-land,—for here man has never yet trod, the place is still God's.
