The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-12-27

Semlin, Austria Hungary. Dec. 27- A month ago the scene of fierce com Hungary and Germany on one side, and Serbia on the other, the Danube has now returned to more peaceful aspects. Were it not for the partly ruined towns and villages on it's Ser blan bank, four military pontoon with troops and army materials, all traces of the struggle would be lack ing in the Danube landscape.
 Along the Hungarian bank men plough broad; and fertile acres in the plains, and where the hills and noun ta1ns come close to the water. hum dreds of women and children gather grapes, the harvesting of which was retarded by the military operations. An occasional smoking stack height ems the impression that life among the Hungarian shore is again normal. though the masses of soldiers in the streets and along the river jetties in dicate that the region is still in the base zone in rear of a large army
 The Associated Press correspon- dent made the trip up the Danube from Lom Pa1anka, Bulgaria, to Or sova, Hungary, aboard the Austrian monitor Savas a craft into which all the fruits of experience in Danube warfare during the last year have been embodied For a boat of her tonnage. the Sava, as also her sister ship, the Temes, must be looked up- on as a remarkable example of how much heavy and light artillery may be crammed into small space. Her main battery would do credit to a small cruiser, while a speed of from p to 26 knots makes the Sava class an enemy to be respected.
 k~,-- Vt 5:3O a. m. Driving sheets of rain and a cold wind drove everybody in to the ships cubby-hole of a mess room. Hot tea and rum helped to cheer those whom long walk through Lom Palanka's muddy streets, and finally a tight-rope performance on the timbers of an uncomp1eted jet ty had robbed of good humor. The officers and men of the Austrian Danube fleet have all seen service in the navy and being genuine sea- farer and a light-hearted Austrian to boot. the commander of the Sava ex- plained to the, passenger that in addi- ton to having run the risk of slipping from a wet string-piece of the jetty into the deep, muddy water of the 'sbluei' Danube, he might, during the course of the day,7 sail skyward, inn peIled by a Russian rnines
 we have so far fished up over V have reason to believe that there are another three hundred in the river, but the heavy rains which have made life in Serbia for our troops one long round of bad languages. have also caused the river to go up about four feet The Sava draws a little over four feet and the mines generally lie from two to four feet under the nor nal water level. So we are fairly safe"
 "It would be interesting to know how the Russians hoped to get those mines out of the way in case they had to do the job,'' continued the commander. ."The worst type Of them all, also of Russian manufacture, re- mains alive,.( ready to go off at the slightest touch, so long as you ex- ert the slightest pull on the ring by the mine cannot be brought out of it's horizonal, or floating position, with out its electric contact arrangen ent becoming alive. Then, off she goes. The only way of getting rid ofSthese mines is to shoot them. Probably that is how the Russians intended to get rid of them afterwards. If they did they overlooked the fact that the mine has first to be found and that in dragging for it you are bound to up- set it sufficiently to cause. the ex- plosion."
  seemed a lake of fluid mud The monitor division commander came on deck-a very dignified but affable man of about 45. and the very t-baau'' ideal of naval officer. From him the Associated Press correspondent learn ed what part the Austrian monitor fleet had played in the crossing of the Danube by the troops of the Central Powers. The heavier guns and mor- tars had been assigned to reducing several Serb artillery positions near Belgrade. while the machine guns had been trained upon some infantry po- sitions close to the banks. The mon- itors had succeeded in enfi1ading sew eral Serb positions. The result was a rout, said the division chief. One of the roles of the monitors had been to draw the fire of the Serb and Brit monitors being thoroughly detested by the Serbs, the ruse had worked, al- though ordinary field artillery could do no more than blister the paint on the monitors armor, as an inspec- tion of the ship showed.
 The Sava had been very lucky, ex- p1ained the division commander, though her sister ship, the Temes, whose original name bearer still rusts and rots in the Save river west of Gypsy Island, had not been so fortu- nate. A heavy shell struck her deck, penetrated a hatch into the crew S quarters, and killed and wounded six. But otherwise the Temes did not suffer and, as if to prove the re- marks of the commander, the monitor at just that moment made bend in the river, heading another large con Voy of barges.
 With patrol boat in tow, the Sava nosed her way through the liquid mud, past 1ow-1ying banks, submerged islands, marked only by tree-tops, mis- erabIe Serb and Rumanian villages, and the houseboat waterrniI1s peculiar to the Danube. ScenicaIly a trip on the Danube in the late fall is not un- interesting. This is especially true in the hill region close to the famous ''Iron Gates.' The yellow and gray foliage of the willow trees is effective ly contrasted by the blue of the hills in the background Where the hills