a great part of the way from Vienna to
the defile of Kazan, and the whole distance from Orsova to the Black
Sea, it resembles in colour and appearance our river Humber, and we have
heard American travellers compare it to the Mississippi. For hours and
hours at a time it flows between perfectly flat banks, on which nothing
is visible but reeds and willow bushes. The surface of the river is
enlivened by innumerable floating water-mills, which lie at anchor
either in midstream or close to the banks, and obtain their motive power
from the rapidly flowing current. These are used for grinding the maize
and other cereals of the country. Here and there a small town or
fortification presents itself on either bank. On the Bulgarian side are
the towns of Vidin, Nicopolis, Sistova, and Rustchuk, with their domes
and minarets, and idle laughing crowds of gazers, either men
picturesquely clad, or women sitting perched, on the rocks, and looking
like so many sacks of floor all in a row. These certainly break the
monotony of the great stream, but the general appearance of the river
from Verciorova, where it begins to bathe the Roumanian shore, to its
mouth at Sulina is one long flat reach, higher, as we have already said,
on the Bulgarian than on the Roumanian side.

[Illustration: TERMINAL PIER OF TRAJAN'S BRIDGE ON ROUMANIAN SHORE.
(FROM A SKETCH BY THE AUTHOR.)]

But although that is the stretch of the river which comes strictly
within the scope of our survey, there is another portion, lying
immediately above it, that well merits a passing notice, more especially
as we know that it played an important part in the Roman conquest and
the subsequent colonisation of ancient Roumania. There is perhaps no
river scenery in Europe to equal, and certainly none which excels, that
part of the Danube stretching for about seventy-five miles from
Bazias--the terminus of a branch of the railway from Vienna to
Verciorova--to the so-called 'Iron Gates.' It is here that the river
cuts its way through the Carpathians, and whilst along its general
course it varies in width from half a mile to three miles or more, in
the Kazan Pass, a defile having on either side perpendicular rocks of
1,000 to 2,000 feet in height, it narrows in some parts to about 116
yards, and possesses a depth of thirty fathoms. The banks closely
resemble those of a fine Norwegian fiord, rising more or less
precipitously, and being covered with pines and other alpine trees, and