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
TURKISH WOMEN AT SISTOVA
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