CHAPTER VIII

[IENNA offers an unsightly water-front to the
Danube navigator. A succession of huge pas-
senger and railway bridges span the river, and
but for the constant busy traffic seen upon them
would appear unnecessarily numerous in full proportion to
their ugliness. At one end they touch the marshy, desolate
shores of the great plain of the Marschfeld, which stretches
away to Hainburg and Theben at the Hungarian frontier, and
at the other their solid piers and embankments either stand
isolated on waste ground, or are supported by ragged and scat-
tered settlements along the bank, with here and there a huge
manufactory. From the level of the water a broad veil of
smoke rising above the trees is the only visible indication of
the proximity of the great city, except it be the bridges them-
selves and the numerous tow-boats and excursion steamers.
