The Turks originally applied the name Iron Gates (Demir Kapou) to the rapids just below Drenkova as well as to those near Orsova, calling them respectively Upper and Lower Iron Gates. The name, which signified obstructions to navigation rather than natural gateways in the mountains, is now commonly applied to the lower rapids only, and the traveller who has passed through the Kasan defile usually expects to find a still more wonderful gorge at the Iron Gates below. He is sure to be disappointed, for the Iron Gates are only a series of dangerous rapids at the point where the river broadens out after leaving the mountains, and the scenery there is, by comparison with that of the Kasan defile, tame and uninteresting. With the Carpathian ends the series of remarkable gorges and defiles which has marked the course of the river at intervals from its source down, for the vast plain of Roumania extends from the foot-hills here to the shores of the Black Sea. The Iron Gates have been since earliest history of great military and political importance, forming as they do a natural barrier on the great water-way between the East and the West. According to Strabo, the Danube ended here and the Ister began, for the lower river was known to the Greeks as the Ιστρος. There is no record of any mention of the upper Danube before the first century B.C., when it was discovered by the Roman armies under Cæsar, who probably gave it the name Danubius. Max Müller, in his study of the origin of the name of the Danube, says that the Latin name is probably a translation of the Aryan word danu, which, in the védas, means moist, or an adaptation of the old Persian word of the same spelling which means a river. It is scarcely necessary to add that the river has now a different name in several of the countries through which it flows. The Germans call it the Donau, the Hungarians the Duna, the Roumanians the Dunari, and the Servians, Bulgarians, and Russians the Dunai.
The Iron Gates marks in the history of our trip the loss of the Admiral of the fleet who, having exhausted all the time at his disposal, was obliged to leave us here, to the regret of all of us and his own intense disappointment.
The International Corps of Engineers, who are carrying out the improvements of navigation on all the rapids of the Carpathian gorge, have begun to cut a canal through the rocks at the Iron Gates along the Servian bank. The work has been in progress since the autumn of 1890, and will be completed in 1893. Trajan’s engineers actually completed part of a similar canal a few rods farther inland, and the material of the ancient enbankments is now employed in the construction of the modern dikes. Like the conscientious travellers we were, we inspected the works, and at the invitation of the engineers, spent a pleasant half-day there. In common with so many other undertakings the world over, the labor is mostly in the hands of the Italians, who look exactly like so many workmen on the Croton Aqueduct. At noon they gathered at the doorway of the ГОСТИОНИЦА НЕВ ЈОРК—GASTHAUS NEWY JORK—quite the same as at the corner groceries of the One-hundred-and-something Street above the Harlem River, and only left the spot during the hour of rest to watch the futile rage of a flock of Servian and Roumanian geese at a sleepy Hungarian eagle chained to a perch—an active symbol of a possible political situation which appealed strongly to the ready Italian wit.
We had our usual enemy, a violent head-wind, on the day we trusted our fleet to the mercies of the Pregrada rapids at the Iron Gates, and we had a busy quarter of an hour escaping the whirlpools and avoiding the cross-seas. Unable from our low position to judge of the best channel in the surging waves, we kept as straight a course as the angry and baffling currents would permit, and came out safely in the comparatively smooth waters below, where we had a moment to look at the landscape from mid-stream, and to vote it disappointing after the grand scenery of the Kasan defile. For a mile or two farther on we found we must steer with care, for vicious swirls would suddenly appear and almost snatch the paddles from our hands. Great sturgeon weirs near the Servian shore marked the end of the violent currents, and after passing these we floated tranquilly away down a reach dotted all over with gourds marking the nets and sturgeon lines, which here are set on every side. A pleasant open country was now before us, with hot yellow hills and a town on either hand—Kladovo, with brick fortress and modern earthworks, on the Servian shore, and Turnu Severin high up on a bluff across the river just below. As we had not yet landed in Roumania, we decided to coast along the left bank and see if the landing-place was more interesting than the long straggling modern town which looked so commonplace and unattractive. As we drifted down close to the groups of quaint craft, studying
REMAINS OF TRAJAN’S BRIDGE, TURNU SEVERIN
these novel vessels, the first we had seen with masts and sails, we noticed, on the river-bank below, the ruined pier of Trajan’s bridge, and thought we would land there and make a sketch of it. As we passed the town we saw a soldier in a white linen uniform trying his best to keep pace with us; but as he made no sign, we did not dream he had any other motives than those of curiosity. Just above the ruins a party of soldiers was bathing, a sentinel stood guard in front of a sentry-box, and a few rods farther down men were washing horses, and women were beating clothes on the rocks. We turned our bows towards the bank at the ruined pier, when a sharp hail from the sentinel caused us to look up. “Keep off!” he commanded in vigorous Roumanian. But we, seeing no fortifications anywhere, and having no more sinister intentions than the mild pursuit of art, knew no reason why we should not go ashore where the natives were at work, and continued to paddle slowly towards the mud bank. “Keep off! keep out in the stream!” he yelled again. “Is there a war here?” we asked, with an attempt at humor. “No; but you sha’n’t land! Keep off, or I’ll shoot!” “Shoot away; you can’t hit!” we retorted, believing it to be the idle threat of a soldier only half in earnest. But he grew more and more excited as we approached, and, drawing a cartridge from his pouch, showed it to us, and pushed it into his rifle. Just at this moment the soldier whom we had seen running along the shore came up breathless, and took command of the military force, promptly ordering the sentry to cover us with his rifle, until the bathing soldiers might seize our canoes. We held off for a few moments, just out of reach, and then, thinking the farce had gone far enough, went ashore and surrendered ourselves to the corporal, the sentry, and the dozen half-naked soldiers. Armed with two expensive and hitherto useless passports, we followed the corporal a long distance into the town to the headquarters, showed our papers to the officer of the day, who immediately gave us our liberty, with polite apologies for the annoyance his men had caused us. When we reached the canoes again, we distributed cigarettes to the bathing party who had guarded our fleet, and sent a few up the bank to the belligerent sentinel, who did not scorn the gift from his recent enemy. A little Jew boy standing near, not having received his share of the cigarettes, remarked, with some feeling and unconscious humor, “If the sentinel had fired at you, I suppose you’d have given him cigars!”
Floating down a great loop of the river in a dry and yellow landscape, we recovered from the excitement of our first adventure with the military, and, as we went along, watched the chattering Servians harvesting on one shore, and the Roumanian women, in the simple costume of white linen chemise, and long woollen fringe hanging behind from the girdle which binds a brilliantly colored apron to the waist, drawing water in classic-shaped jars, or spinning