h-west of it the Bulgarian
line from Rustchuk to Varna.) The kingdom presents the form of an
irregular blunted crescent, and it is very difficult to speak of its
'length' and 'breadth;' but so far as we are able to estimate its
dimensions they are as follows:--A straight line drawn from Verciorova,
the boundary on the west at the 'Iron Gates' of the Danube, to the
Sulina mouth of the same river on the east, is about 358 miles; and
another from the boundary near Predeal in the Carpathians, on the line
of railway from Ploiesti to Kronstadt, Transylvania, to the southernmost
limit below Mangalia on the Black Sea, is about 188 miles.[3]

The approximate area of Roumania is 49,250 square miles, and when it is
added that the area of England and Wales is nearly 51,000 square miles,
the reader will be able to form an estimate of the extent of the
country.[4] But having made this comparison, let us carry it a step
further. According to the latest estimates of the population there are
about 5,376,000 inhabitants in Roumania against 25,968,286 (according to
last year's census) in England and Wales; in other words, with an area
equal to that of England, Roumania has about one-fifth of its
population, or about the same as Ireland.[5]

The general configuration of the surface of the country may be described
as an irregular inclined plane sloping down from the summits of the
Carpathians to the northern or left bank of the Danube, and it is
traversed by numerous watercourses taking their rise in the mountains
and falling into the great river, which render it well adapted for every
kind of agricultural industry. The character of the gradients will be
best understood by a reference to the map, with the aid of the following
few figures. The towns of Galatz and Braila or Ibrail, situated on the
Danube, are fifteen metres above the sea-level, a metre being, as the
reader doubtless knows, equal to 1.095, or as nearly as possible 1-1/10
yard. At Bucarest, the capital, which is thirty or forty miles inland,
the land rises to a height of seventy-seven metres;[6] still further
inland, where the elevation from the plain to the hill country becomes
perceptible, the town of Ploiesti is 141 metres above the sea, whilst
Tirgovistea and Iasi (Jassy), each receding further into the hills,
stand respectively at altitudes of 262 and 318 metres, the last-named
city (the former capital of Moldavia) reaching therefore a height of
over 1,000 feet above the