The Rhine--romantic, cultivated, artificial, with a rough subcurrent and a muddy bed--through Germany.

The Seine and the Thames--shallow--shallow--shallow.

And we--who live upon their banks! The Volga--immense, stupendous, a great power, an influence two thousand four hundred miles long.

Some have seen the Danube, and think they have seen a great river.

So they have; but the Russian giant is seven hundred miles longer.