Chapter XVII

Between Lom Palanka and Sistova, a stretch of about 150 miles--which, by-the-way, we paddled in less than two days and a half--there are only three towns on the river, Cibar Palanka, Rahova, and Nicopolis, and these are all Bulgarian. There are two or three busy grain-shipping stations on the Roumanian side, however, and we could see on the edge of a low plateau, miles back from the river, frequent prosperous-looking places, and, opposite Nicopolis, the church-towers of Turnu Magurelli, one of the most important towns in southern Roumania, rising above the trees. This shore of the river is, for almost the entire distance referred to, a broad, low marsh, intersected by numerous lagoons and shallow, irregular lakes, often ten miles or more in length. The lonely picket-stations are the only human habitations along the bank. In agreeable contrast to this dull and desolate waste of marsh and willow swamp, is the rich pastoral country of Bulgaria opposite. Although villages and farm-houses are not numerous, we saw everywhere abundant signs of life. The meadows were dotted with hay-stacks, and great net-works of deeply-worn cattle-paths scored the smooth slopes of the hills, all burned yellow by the summer sun. Before the greatest heat of the day came on, immense herds of cattle and buffaloes, driven by Turkish cowboys, rushed panting down the hill-side in a cloud of dust to cool themselves in the stream. The buffaloes wallowed in the muddy places, and then lay down with the tops of their heads alone visible above water, like uncouth amphibious animals. Great flocks of sheep stood on the shore by the water’s edge, crowding together in a solid mass, and holding their heads close to the ground to escape the heat from the direct rays of the sun, and multitudes of goats were scattered all over the steep and arid slopes. The shepherds dig little shallow caves in the mud bluffs, with steps leading to them, where they lie and sleep for hours in the daytime; others curl up in the gullies, so that every yard of shade on the rough bank has its human or its animal occupant, and sometimes men and goats, both seeking to avoid the sun, lie down peacefully together in the same narrow cleft or in the shadow of the same projecting corner.

In the broad straight reaches of the river the frequent

sand-banks were covered with water-fowl. Thousands upon thousands of noisy wild-geese, hosts of ducks, plover, and other game birds, rose into the air as we approached, almost deafening us with their cries. Wheeling round in broad circles, they settled down again before we had fairly passed them. Ranks of solemn pelicans awkwardly flopped into the water, and swam ahead of us in stately dignity scarcely out of pistol-shot, turning their huge, ill-balanced beaks from side to side, and if we came too near, flew up with a tremendous splashing and fluttering. Tall herons soared away out of the shallows on every side, and swans and storks sailed overhead in graceful flight. Sometimes we paddled in the full light of noonday up to within a few yards of slender, white cranes wading among the water-grasses, and once approached within a paddle’s length of a large gray heron standing on one leg and blinking in the brilliant glare of the sun. The flora of the river-bank in this region is best described in a quotation from Alfred Parsons’ note-book: “By the camp opposite Kalafat was a very handsome sedge with brown flowers, a mass of blossoms of the flowering rush, and plenty of excellent dewberries. A flat below Lom Palanka was covered with a thorny, leguminous shrub, tufts of small purple flowers and prickly red seed-pods, small yellow asters, tall scabious with pale blossoms, and chiccory, which has been a constant flower for a long distance down the river. The slopes above the limestone cliffs below Rahova were covered with feather sumac and lilac bushes. Wild-grape vines grow all over the willows on an island above Sistova, and the marshy lake near there had great yellow patches of villarsia. On the edge of this lake grow arrow-head and flowering rush, and where the land is drier are seen purple and yellow dwarf thistles, a small scentless heliotrope, and a white scutellaria. Tamarisk grows on the sandy flats.”

The river life was mostly confined to the larger craft; very few small boats were seen, and almost no fishermen. The great clouds of canvas on the Turkish vessels gleamed above the trees behind the islands far in the perspective, and the black smoke of tow-boats with their trains of loaded lighters was a constant feature in the ever-changing landscape. Occasionally a huge flat-boat of the roughest build, piled high with a cargo of red and yellow earthen-ware, melons, sacks of charcoal, and other miscellaneous merchandise, floated down in the gentle current, steered by Turks in costumes of varied hue, the whole reflecting a mass of glowing color in the stream. Each of the river towns we passed was the centre of great activity. Crowds of peasants’ carts laden with grain covered the broad strand in the vicinity of the steamboat-landing, waiting their turn to discharge their loads into the lighters. When the grain is harvested and threshed, the farmers load their rude carts, and lead the slow and stupid buffaloes, often several days’ journey, to the nearest river town, where they find a certain market for their produce. The whole country is covered with trains of creaking carts, and peasants’ bivouacs are

scattered all over the scorched hill-sides and everywhere along the dusty highways. They carry no tents nor shelters of any sort, and only the simplest food for themselves and their beasts. When night overtakes them they lie down on the ground beside their carts, and, wrapped in their rough coats, sleep as peacefully as their tired oxen. Their whole outfit is as rude and uncouth as it was centuries ago, and the native carts have not improved in build since they transported the supplies of Trajan’s armies. The only iron used in their construction are the linchpins and the rings which bind together the great hubs; the roughly-hewn felloes, the different parts of the body of the cart, and of the yoke as well, are all held together by wooden pegs.

We noticed at Nicopolis the first of the series of Russian monuments along the river which commemorates the bravery of those who fell in the late war--a plain stone shaft on a hill-top just above the town; and when we landed there found every evidence of increasing prosperity and enterprise in new buildings, public squares and promenades, and general improvements. A friendly young soldier-policeman piloted us about, acted as our cavass or special guard, saw that we were not cheated at the shops, and at the same time busied himself with keeping order in the drinking-places, and cleared the streets when they became congested with traffic. He did not so much as ask to see our papers, and we began to be more hopeful about our trip along the Bulgarian frontier, and looked forward to landing at Sistova, twenty-five miles below, with no disagreeable anticipations.

The large biweekly passenger steamer on its downward trip reached Sistova a few moments after we did, and we were just in time to witness the exodus of twenty-five Turkish families who were leaving the country for Asia Minor by way of Chernavoda, Kustendji, and Constantinople. The whole remaining Turkish population of the town had turned out to see them off, and veiled women in solemn rows along the shore looked from a distance like so many queer river birds. We were assured by the agent of the steamboat company that similar emigrations are of frequent occurrence, but that most of the families sooner or later wander back again, after having found that their condition is not bettered by change of residence. Sistova has improved since the war in much the same way that Nicopolis has, but the river-front remains unchanged, and looks to-day very much as it did when, after the crossing in June, the Russians built their pontoon-bridge from the low island opposite and marched their armies through the town to Plevna and the Balkan passes.

We made an interesting excursion of three days to the battle-fields of Plevna, fifty miles distant from Sistova, across a rolling country, sparsely inhabited, but producing a great deal of wheat and Indian-corn. The heat was intense and the dust terrible, but every moment of the excursion was crowded with interest and novelty. Travelling, as the natives do, by private conveyance, and stopping at the khans, which are still the only houses of entertainment in country places, we were thrown into intimate relations with the people, and, it must be confessed, found little in their character to encourage the belief in their capacity for immediate improvement. It is undoubtedly a fact that the peasants between the foot-hills of the Balkans and the Danube are the least agreeable specimens of the race to be found in the country, and it would be unfair to judge of the young nation by the inhabitants of a particular district. Their most curious characteristics are their emotionless expression and their habitual silence. We seldom saw them smile, and almost never heard them laugh. All the river people we met until we crossed the Bulgarian frontier were

cheery and more or less communicative, and we heard singing, laughter, and constant merry chatter among the people as we passed. But in Bulgaria these cheerful sounds no longer came to our ears; villages near the river were as silent as the grave; the peasants at the landing-places stared at us stupidly as we went along, and no one ever hailed us pleasantly or showed any intelligent interest in our fleet.

Russian monuments are seen on several hills between Sistova and Rustchuk, about thirty-five miles below, and scarcely a mile of the river but has some interesting history in connection with the struggle along the Danube in the early part of the summer campaign in 1877. By a curious coincidence, we happened to camp the afternoon we left Sistova near the very place where, fourteen years before, on the same date, the writer had crossed the river at the end of a long courier’s ride, described in the pages of HARPER’S MAGAZINE not long since. It is not strange, therefore, that as we paddled down the beautiful calm reach the following morning the familiar lines of the landscape stimulated a flow of reminiscences of the campaign. Nearing Pyrgos, and in sight of the monument on one of the great rounded hills where the battle was fought in which young Sergius Leuchtenberg, the cousin of the present Czar, was killed, we were startled by the unmistakable sound of the grunt of a Gatling-gun and the rattle of small-arms. We could not at first believe our ears, each of us thinking this dramatic and suggestive accompaniment to the tales of the war was a mental distortion of ordinary noises brought about by our preoccupation with the subject. However, as we paddled along, increasing our stroke in our growing excitement, we discovered that the sounds came from the hills near Rustchuk, and although we could see no smoke, we could accurately distinguish the reports of rifles in irregular scattering succession, like the prelude of a great battle. Our mystification increased with every moment, and we hastened on past the low willow-fringed shores on the Roumanian side, studying the rocky bluffs across the river and the billowy summits of the bare hills to find a solution of the enigma. The sounds ceased as suddenly as they began, and as we rounded a wide bend full of islands, and came in sight of the minarets of Rustchuk and the great buildings in Giurgevo on the low hills far across the marshes opposite, we met a small Bulgarian gunboat with a machine-gun at the bow and discovered at the same time, on a broad plateau under the old Turkish redoubt back of the town, the summer encampment of the garrison. What we had heard was, undoubtedly, the morning target practice on land and the trial of the machine-gun on the river.

Rustchuk is the most important Bulgarian town on the river, and situated as it is on the main route to Constantinople, _via_ the Rustchuk-Varna Railway and the Black Sea, and only two hours by rail from Bucharest, is one of the best-known cities on the lower Danube. It is at present in the disagreeable phase of transition from an old Turkish town to a modern trade centre, and has neither the picturesqueness

of an old place nor the comforts of a new one. Imposing shops, with all sorts of Viennese and Parisian goods, chiefly neckties and ready-made clothing, crowd the shanties where native rawhide sandals are made, and the street butcher slaughters his animal before the plate-glass window of a large grocery, filled with English, French, and German delicacies. Some of the streets are well paved and kept in repair, while in others the passer often stumbles over the half-buried shells thrown into the town by the Russians in 1877.

For about thirty miles below Rustchuk both shores are flat and devoid of life. We had our old enemy, a head-wind, against us; and, indeed, from this point to the end of our journey--about 300 miles below--we scarcely had an hour’s relief from this persistent opposition to our progress. We had fought our way for a few miles, when we overtook a tow-boat with several large Greek grain lighters steaming down-river at less speed than we were making. As we ran alongside, the captain of one of the lighters cordially invited us to tie up and take it easy. Perhaps it was not a very sporting thing to do, but it appealed to us as an excellent scheme to defeat the efforts of the head-wind and to see the landscape at our leisure, and we therefore promptly accepted the invitation, and fastened our canoes to the lighters. In this way we slowly went on for several hours, until we came to the town of Turtukai, on the Bulgarian side, where the hills again crowd the river. There we cast off, and instinctively avoiding the Roumanian pickets, whose unwelcome attentions we had escaped for several days, paddled down to a beautiful camping-ground in the middle of a group of islands covered with poplar, wych-elm, willows, and brambles, and a tangle of wild-grape vines growing to the tops of the highest trees.

From the important part the town and fortress of Silistria

has played in the history of European Turkey for the last hundred years, we anticipated finding a stronghold far more grand and imposing than any on the river, with the possible exception of Belgrade and Peterwardein. Whatever may have been in past times the strategical importance of the place, it certainly gave us little notion of its strength. It occupies the whole of a low point projecting far into the

river, which here spreads out into a broad shallow reach, filled with long low islands. Along the greater part of the water-front of the town are two walls, one within the other, more resembling embankments to protect the town from inundations than constructions for military purposes. Behind these walls, as seen from the river, domes and minarets rise above the roofs of the town, which rambles back from the river to the great bare slopes behind. All over the tops of the hills are visible the lines of great earthworks, rounded and softened by the weathering of many seasons. After the usual passport formalities, we wandered about the town for an hour or more, waiting for it to wake up, and had sufficient leisure to examine the extensive improvements in progress here, which bid fair to reduce at no distant date the picturesque old town to the commonplace level of a modern city. We could not help, however, being interested in the building of an enormous school-house, which will be, when finished, the most imposing modern structure in the town--a gratifying indication of the successful enforcement of the compulsory education law in Bulgaria.

After the hundreds of miles of uninteresting scenery on the Roumanian shore, it seemed as if monotony could go no further, but opposite Silistria the far-off hills recede still more, the bank grows flatter, and at last degenerates into a swamp, with nothing but the wretched picket huts to break the interminable line of small willow-trees. Sluggish branches of the river straggle off to the left and cut the morass into two large islands, honey-combed with lakes and intersected by lagoons. High grass-covered hills skirt the right bank, and here and there, at long distances apart, villages make irregular brown patches on the yellow slopes. The long reaches become more and more desolate, and in the narrow channels among the numerous islands there is the solitude of an unexplored wilderness, and the banks are a tangle of great trees and undergrowth. Black mud everywhere covers the shallows, and the banks are lined with a sticky, fetid deposit, and sometimes, after sunset, the odor emanating from this mass of river scourings is almost overpowering. We often landed on what appeared to be a hard beach, only to find it a jelly of mud, with a thin crust of sand on top, through which we broke at every step. All the river men we met were suffering from the Danube fever, which, in the lower river, is the constant scourge of the population.