are built without the slightest regard to taste or
symmetry, one perhaps projecting halfway across the street, while
its neighbour falls quite into the background. In some places
wooden booths were erected along each side of the street for the
sale of the commonest necessaries of life and articles of food, and
these places were dignified by the name of "bazaars." Curiosity led
us into a wine-shop and into a coffee-house. In both of these we
found only wooden tables and benches; there were hardly any guests;
and the few persons present belonged to the humblest classes.
Glasses and cups are handed to the company without undergoing the
ceremony of rinsing.

We purchased some eggs and butter, and went into the house of one of
the townspeople to prepare ourselves a dish after the German
fashion. I had thus an opportunity of noticing the internal
arrangements of a house of this description. The floor of the room
was not boarded, and the window was only half glazed, the remaining
portion being filled up with paper or thin bladder. For the rest,
every thing was neat and simple enough. Even a good comfortable
divan was not wanting. At four o'clock we quitted the town.

The Danube is now only broad for short distances at a time. It is,
as it were, sown with islands, and its waters are therefore more
frequently parted into several streams than united into one.

In the villages we already notice Greek and Turkish costumes, but
the women and girls do not yet wear veils.

Unfortunately it was so late when we reached the fortress of
Silistria that I could see nothing of it. A little lower down we
cast anchor for the night. At an early hour on

April 1st

we sailed past Hirsova, and at two o'clock stopped at Braila, a
fortress occupied by the Russians since the year 1828. Here
passengers were not allowed to land, as they were considered
infected with the plague; but our officer stepped forward, and
vouched for the fact that we had neither landed nor taken up any one
on the right bank of the river; thereupon the strangers were allowed
to set foot on terra firma.

By four o'clock we were opposite Galatz, one of the most
considerable commercial towns, with 8000 inhabitants,--the only
harbour the Russians possess on the Danube. Here we saw the first
merchant-ships and barques of all kinds coming from the Black Sea.
Some sea-gulls also, heralds of the neighbouring ocean, soared above
our heads.

The scene here is o