April xvii.
Thro a pleasant tract of country, containing a grateful variety of arable ground, pasture, and woods, we arrive in seven hours at Uzungée Alon. By the way we passed several villages, as likewise a large market town, wherein are seven mosques, and a palace of the pashá of Nicopoli, which goes by the name of Rásgrad. The cadí of this place, with an alaí chiaush, and other officers, came an hour out of town to meet his Excellency.
April xviii.
Thro a like country, only a little more woody, we continue our journey to Uppéer. And from thence the day following, where we first begin to see the Danube, we proceed thro a rich, pleasant, and well cultivated country, till about twelve a clock we arrive at Tutracán, on the banks of the river.
April xx.
We stay at this place, employed in the care of transporting his Excellency’s equipage on the other side of the water; and in the mean time cannot but reflect with pleasure on the agreable tract of ground, which for five days we had passed thro in Moesia Inferior. A country, which (however decried by Ovid, and disparaged by our modern geographers) for the richness of its soil, variety of rising and falling ground, elegancy of prospect, and a competent provision of wood and water, is perhaps not to be paralleled by any other spot in the universe. But tho the whole tract of this country, which descends gradually from the foot of the Haemus to the banks of the Danube, is rich both in arable and pasture ground; yet the inhabitants seem excessive poor, and are defended from the injuries of the weather by houses very meanly built.
April xxi.
His Excellency and his retinue this day pass the Danube, between Tutracán and the mouth of the Argisch, about eight in the morning, at a passage about a mile broad. Upon landing, his Excellency was complimented from the Prince of Valachia by his cousin german Count Tomáso Cantacuzéno, and was received by a guard of fifty men, and two coaches of six. In the finer of these his Excellency rode about a mile into Valachia, along the banks of the Argisch, and then alighting was entertained under three rich tents, sent likewise by the Prince for his reception.