The Rhine may, perhaps, fairly be compared with the Upper Danube, between Lintz and Vienna, even between Vienna and Pesth. There is no great disparity so far, either in the size of themselves or of the hills and plains through which they run. The traveller’s tastes, artistic and historical, decide his preference. The constant succession of ruined holds of the old oppressors of the earth which he meets on the Rhine, are wanting on the Danube. It is certainly a satisfaction to see such places thoroughly ruined—to triumph over departed scoundrelism wherever one comes on its relics. As a compensation, however, he will find on the Danube a huge building or two, such as that of the Benedictine Monastery at Molk, or the Cathedral and Palace of the Primate of Hungary at Gran, of living interest, and with work still to do in the world. There is not much to choose between the banks of the two streams in the matter of general historical interest, though to me the long struggle between the Christian and the Moslem, the footprints of which meet one on all sides, gives the Danube slightly the advantage even in this respect. There are longer gaps of flat uninteresting country on the eastern stream, no doubt, which may be set off against the sameness and neatness of the perpetual vineyard on the western; and on the Danube you get, now and then, a piece of real forest, which you never see, so far as I remember, on the Rhine.

Below Belgrade, however, all comparison ceases. The Rhine is half the size of its rival, and flows westward through the highest cultivation and civilisation to the German Ocean, while the huge Danube rushes through the Carpathians into a new world—an eastern people, living amidst strange beasts and birds, in a country which is pretty much as Trajan left it. You might as well compare Killiecrankie to the Brenner Pass, as any thing on the Rhine to the Kazan, the defile by which the Danube struggles through the western Carpathians. Here the river contracts in breadth from more than a mile to between 200 and 300 yards; the depth is 170 feet. The limestone rocks on both sides rise to near 2000 feet, coming sheer down to the water in many places, clothed with forest wherever there is hold for roots. Along the Servian side, on the face of the precipice, a few feet above the stream, run the long line of sockets in which the beams were fastened for the support of his covered road by Trajan’s legions. A tablet and an inscription 1740 years old still bear, I believe, the great Roman’s name, and a memorial of his Dacian campaign, though I cannot vouch for the fact, as we shot by it at twenty miles an hour; but I could distinctly see Roman letters. On the left bank the Austrians have carried a road by blasting and masonry; and a cavern which was held for weeks by 400 men against a Turkish army in 1692 commands the whole pass.

We had scarcely entered the defile when some eight or ten eagles appeared sweeping slowly round over a spot in the hanging wood, where probably a deer or goat was dying. I counted upwards of thirty before we left the Kazan; several were so near the boat that you could plainly mark the glossy barred plumage, and every turn of the body and tail as they steered about upon those marvellous, motionless wings. One swooped to the water almost within shot, but missed the fish, or whatever his intended prey might be. A water ouzel or two were the only other living creatures which appeared to draw our attention for a moment from the sway of the mighty stream and the succession of the dizzy heights. Below the pass the stream widens again. You lose something of the feeling of power in the mass of water below you, though the superficial excitement of whirl, and rush, and eddy, is much increased. Here, at Orsova, a small military town on the frontier line between Hungary and Wallachia, we turned out into a flat-bottomed steamer, with four tiny paddle-wheels, drawing only some three feet of water, which was to carry us over the Iron Gates, as the rapids are called; and beautifully the little duck fulfilled her task. The English on board, three ladies and five men, had already fraternised; we occupied the places in the bows. The deck was scarcely a yard above water, and there were no bulwarks, only a strong rail to lean against. The rush of the stream here beat any mill-race I have ever seen, and the little steamer bounded along over the leaping, boiling water at the rate of a fast train. Twice only she plunged a little, shipping just enough water to cause some discomposure amongst the ladies’ dresses, and to wet our feet. We shot past the wreck of a Turkish iron Steamer in the wildest part, which had grounded on its way up to Belgrade with munitions of war. The Servians had boarded and burnt her, and there she lay, and will lie, till the race washes her to pieces, for there is nothing to be got out of her now except the iron of her hull. Below the Iron Gate, a fine Austrian steamer received us, and we moved statelily out into the stream on our remaining thirty hours’ voyage. We had left the mountains, but were still amongst respectable hills covered with forest, full of game, an engineer officer who was on board told us, and plenty of wolves to be had in the winter—too many, indeed, occasionally. A friend of his had knocked up a little wooden shooting-box in these Wallachian forests—a rough affair, with a living-room below, a bedroom above. He had found the wolves so shy that he scarcely believed in them; however, to give the matter a fair trial, he asked three or four friends to his box, bought a dead horse, and roasted him outside. The speedy consequence was such a crowd of wolves that he and his friends had to take refuge in the bedroom and fight for their lives; as it was, the wolves were very near starving them out. And now the river had widened again, and water-fowl could rest and feed on the surface.

The hot evening, for hot enough it was, though cool in comparison of the day, brought them out in flocks round the islands and over the shallows. I was just feasting my eyes with the sight of wild swans, quite at their ease in our neighbourhood, when three huge white birds came sailing past with a flight almost as steady as the eagles we had seen in the Kazan. “What are they?” I said eagerly to my companion, the engineer. “Pelicans,” he answered, as coolly as if they had been water-hens. In another moment they lighted on the water, and I saw their long bills and pouches. Fancy the new sensation, sir! But on this part of the Danube there is no want of new sensations. Our first stop at a Bulgarian village—or town, perhaps, I should call it, for it boasted a tumble-down fort, with some rude earthworks, and half a dozen minarets shot up from amongst its houses and vineyards—may be reckoned amongst the chief of these. What can be more utterly new to an Englishman than to come upon a crowd of poor men, who have their daily bread to earn, half of whom are quietly asleep, and the rest squatting or standing about, without offering, or thinking of offering, to help when there is work to be done under their noses? One was painfully reminded of the eager, timid anxiety to be allowed to carry luggage for a penny or two which one meets with at home. Here one had clearly got into the blissful realms where time is absolutely of no account, and if you want a thing done, you can do it yourself. Our arrival was evidently an event looked forward to in some sort, for there were goods on the wharf waiting for us, and several of the natives had managed to bring down great baskets full of grapes, by which they had seated themselves. We were all consumed with desire for grapes, and headed by the steward of the vessel, who supplies his table here, rushed ashore and fell upon the baskets. It seemed to be a matter of perfect indifference to the owners whether we took them or let them alone, or how many we took, or whether we paid or not. The only distinct idea they had, was that they would not take Austrian money. Our English emissary returned with six or seven huge bunches for which he had given promise to pay two piastres to somebody. The piastre was then (ten days ago) worth one penny, it is now worth twopence—a strange country is Turkey. There were some buffaloes lying in the water, with their great ears flopping, to move the air a little, and keep off flies. A half-grown Turkish lad was squatted near the head of one of them, over which he was scooping up the water with his hands, the only human being in voluntary activity. His work was thoroughly appreciated; I never saw a more perfect picture of enjoyment than the buffalo who was getting this shower-bath. The costumes, of course, are curious and striking to a stranger, but turbans and fezzes, camel’s hair jackets, and loose cotton drawers,—even the absence of these in many instances, and the substitute of copper-coloured flesh as a common garb of the country—are after all only superficial differences. It is the quiet immobility of the men which makes one feel at once that they are a different race, and the complete absence of women in the crowds. The cottages, in general, look like great mole-hills. They look miserable enough, but I believe are well suited to the climate, being sunk three or four feet in the ground, which keeps them cool in summer and warm in winter. Our Crimean experience bears this out. The mud huts sunk in the ground and thatched roughly were far more comfortable all weathers than those sent out from England. The campaign between the Russians and Turks at the beginning of the late war became much clearer to me as we passed down the river. It must be a very difficult operation to invade Bulgaria from the Principalities, for the southern bank commands the dead flat of the Wallachian banks almost all the way down. The serious check which the Russians got at Oltenitza was a great puzzle in England. We could not make out how it happened. Omar Pasha seemed to have made a monstrous blunder in throwing a single division across the river, and we wondered at his luck in getting so well out of it. The fact is that it was a real stroke of generalship. The Russian corps were about to cross at points above and below. Omar’s cannon posted on the Bulgarian heights completely commanded the opposite plain, where a considerable stream runs into the Danube. This stream protected the left flank of the division which crossed, and they threw up earth-works along their front and right. The Russians recalled the corps which were about to cross, thinking to annihilate them, and attacked under a plunging fire from the Turkish artillery on the opposite bank, which, combined with that from the earth-works, was unendurable, and they were repulsed with enormous loss. It is by no means so easy, however, to understand why they did not take Silistria. Here they had crossed, were in great force, and had no strong position to attack. The famous work of Arab Tabia, the key of the position which was so gallantly held by Butler and Nasmyth with a few hundred Turkish soldiers under them, is nothing but a low mound, which you can scarcely make out from the steamer. Why they should not have marched right over it and into the town is a mystery.

The village of Tchernavoda where the steamer lands passengers for Constantinople, consists of a very poor inn, some great warehouses for corn, and some half-dozen Turkish cottages. An English company has made the railroad across to Kustandjie, on the Black Sea, so that you escape the long round by the mouths of the Danube. I fear it must be a very poor speculation, but it is very convenient. The line runs through a chain of lakes, by which it is often flooded. Once last winter the water came nearly into the carriages. The train was, of course, stopped, and had to remain in the water, which froze hard in the night. I believe the passengers had to proceed over the ice. If any young Englishman who combines the tastes of a sportsman and naturalist wants a field for his energies, I can’t fancy a better one than these lakes. The birds swarm; every sort of duck and sea-bird one had ever heard of, besides pelicans, wild swans, bitterns, (the first I ever saw out of a museum) and herons, and I know not what other fowl were there, especially a beautiful white bird exactly like our heron, but snowy white. I saw two of these. I don’t believe they were storks, at least not the common kind which I have seen.

We had been journeying past the scene of the late conferences, and of the excitement which was so nearly breaking out into war a month or two back, and had plenty of Servians and other interested persons on board; but, so far as I could learn, everything is quieting down into its ordinary state—an unsatisfactory one, no doubt, but not unlikely to drag on for some time yet. Should the Servians and other discontented nationalities, however, break out and come to be in need of a king, or other person of that kind, just now, they may have the chance of getting two countrymen of ours to fill such posts. We left them preparing to invade Servia on a shooting and exploring expedition, armed with admirable guns, revolvers, and a powder for the annihilation of insects. They were quite aware of the present unsettled state of affairs, and prepared to avail themselves of anything good which might turn up on their travels.