ROUMANIAN PICKET GUARD
scouts of modern commerce began to corrupt the native taste of the peasantry with the crudities of modern productions.
In the long reaches below Radujeváç a wider landscape meets the eye. Far to the north the high Carpathians raise their noble heads in grand array, and stretch away to the eastward until their forms are lost in the shimmering distance across the Roumanian plain, while to the south the bold outlines of the Balkans may be faintly distinguished, half hidden by summer clouds. The river takes longer and more stately curves, and flows with somewhat sleepy current. No obstacles now impede its course, no cliffs and crags narrow its channel, and it winds peacefully along without a check until it pours its great flood through a dozen outlets into the Black Sea. Nor is this peaceful stream without its own peculiar charm and beauty. The sunny, smiling landscapes never tire the eye or fatigue the mind, for the majestic stream opens new vistas at every bend, and discloses ever-varied combinations of shore and stream and distance.
CHAPTER XVI
N one of the pleasantest reaches, a short way below the mouth of the magnificent stream which marks the Bulgarian frontier, the Roumanian town of Kalafat, with its great church and public edifices, shows an imposing mass along a high bluff, and looks down with the conscious pride of newness on the old town and fortress of Widdin, among the green meadows on the opposite shore. From the earthworks of Kalafat, Prince Charles fired his first shot against the Turks in 1877, which found an answering echo until Bulgaria was free and Roumania became a nation. The grim old stronghold of Widdin still shelters a large Turkish population, and above the rigid lines of its half-ruined parapets the slender points of numerous minarets still rise, mute symbols of a faith that lingers even now on the banks of the Danube. It was a pleasant, quiet afternoon when we slowly paddled down the beautiful reach, enchanted by the peaceful landscape and the pastoral beauty of the river-banks. Kalafat, dominating the great bluff, was accurately reflected in the mirror of the stream, and below, the slender minarets of Widdin and a cluster of masts, showing high above a wooded island, carried the eye away in agreeable perspective. A storm of wind and rain which swept over the country an hour or two before had cleared away, leaving the sky blue and cloudless. Dreaming of the time when the smoke of hostile cannon drifted across the meadows and veiled the face of the high bluff, we floated down towards the distant fortress, scarcely moving a paddle, lest we should sweep all too soon past the charming spot. The sound of dashing water like a cataract suddenly startled us, and we saw just below us, only a short distance away, the whole surface of the river violently agitated, as if a line of rocks or a rough shallow stretched across from bank to bank. Hastily consulting the map, we found there was no such obstruction marked at this point, and we were puzzled to know what was in our path. Our ignorance was of brief duration, for even before we had taken up our paddles again a sudden gust of wind struck the canoes, and we were in the midst of tossing, angry surges. The willows on the bank bent down like corn in a summer gale, and showed their leaves all white in the sunlight. The pure dome of the sky was unbroken by a single cloud, but the wind came tearing up the stream like a cyclone. From the bluffs of Kalafat to the meadows of Widdin the great sleepy river had suddenly become a seething, foaming waste. Our only shelter was under the low mud banks on the Bulgarian side, whither we slowly fought our way, obliged to keep our bows to the wind, and at the same time to draw shorewards with all possible speed. For some moments we were buffeted by the waves and beaten about by the vicious blast, but at last we managed to gain the shelter of some large willows, and landed in the mud opposite Kalafat. We got ashore not a moment too soon, for the river, threshed by the flail of continuous gusts, grew rougher and rougher, and the waves broke with crests like ocean billows. At the spot where we landed was moored a rude fishing-boat, and two young Bulgarian fishermen sat under the trees on the bank above busily weaving rough baskets out of unpeeled willow twigs. Their camp was a bed of boughs under the gnarled, crooked trunk of a tree; their outfit
