HE navigation of the Danube from Galatz to the mouth is controlled and regulated by an international commission, which was called into existence by the importance of the commerce with the corn-producing countries along the lower river. Forty-five miles below Galatz the river divides into two branches, the left-hand one, the Kilia arm, taking a general north-easterly course, with many turns and subdivisions, past the Russian towns of Ismail and Kilia, and, a short distance beyond the fishing-village of Vilkoff, flows into the Black Sea through seven narrow channels. The right-hand branch, actually the main stream, divides again ten miles below the first fork, the former running in a general easterly direction to the port of Sulina, on the Black Sea, and the latter arm winding sluggishly on towards the south-east under the extreme eastern spurs of the great range of Dobrudscha hills. Each side of the irregular equilateral triangle bounded by the Kilia and Saint George’s arms and the sea-coast measures about fifty miles in a straight line, and the larger part of the tract thus enclosed is marsh and swamp-land, covered with a dense growth of tall reeds, interspersed with numerous lakes and cut up into countless islands by narrow lagoons. In the whole of this great delta there are only a few square miles of ground higher than the general level of the marsh, and these are two broad ranges of sand-dunes running north-east and south-west several miles inland, marking the line of
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the ancient sea-coast when the waves and wind raised this barrier long before the memory of man. These sandy elevations are now covered with a forest of oak-trees, and support a sparse population. With this exception the delta is uncultivated, and the few natives who inhabit the great marsh are almost all engaged in fishing. They build themselves rude huts out of the tall reeds, make their beds, and even their net-floats, out of the same useful plant, and during the summer months set their nets in every lake and lagoon, preserving their catch in salt or carrying it at convenient times to the distant markets. This great waste is at all seasons most impressive, and in summer, when the reeds have grown to their full height and are in blossom, the landscape, although monotonous in the extreme, often has great elements of beauty. Narrow waterways, seldom more than a fathom broad, intersect the marsh in all directions, and only the natives who are familiar with the intricate windings of these thoroughfares can find their way from one point to another of this labyrinth. Some of these waterways are known to have existed in the period of Roman occupation, and the race of fishermen who now make use of them have preserved their type, their dress, their boats, and their implements practically unchanged since the time when Ovid was exiled to the shores of the Euxine. Myriads of wild-fowl breed in the solitude of the broad morass, and fish abound in its quiet waters. In the autumn, when the frost has killed the reeds, great tracts of the delta are often swept over by fires, consuming all the vegetation above the level of the mud, but clearing the way for a new and vigorous growth in the spring. Only during the winter months is the marsh passable for vehicles or even for pedestrians, and when the whole region is frozen hard the mails and the few passengers who are obliged to travel are carried on sledges straight across from one station to another over the level surface of land and water.
