CHATAL SAINT GEORGE
TOULTCHA
the north-east to the south-east at this point. The first Russian town, Reni, with its turnip-shaped church-spires and ugly warehouses, stands on a high bluff overlooking this bend of the river, and offers nothing of interest, not even at the water-front, where there is little or no activity, and few craft of any kind. The hills abruptly recede again just below the town limits, and the river sweeps majestically round towards the east, and takes an almost straight course to the first branching in the delta. Both shores are now quite flat and well cultivated, and on either side frequent picket stations are the only houses in sight. To the south and east, across a narrow strip of meadow land, the great hills of the Dobrudscha, dotted with ancient tumuli, extend far into the distance, where a range of mountains cuts sharply against the sky with bold, jagged outlines; to the north, the irregular base spurs of the line of low hills which touch the river at Reni are seen jutting out over the great marsh at intervals until they vanish in the perspective. The wind veered round in the middle of the forenoon and almost died away, and as we alternately sailed and paddled down the long straight reach towards the delta, past the red-roofed town of Isaktcha on the Roumanian shore, half hidden behind a wooded island, and the great Russian monastery of Saint Theraspont across the river, we heard not so much as a single hail from the soldiers on either bank, although we often passed close to their stations. In the early afternoon we saw before us a stone jetty with a spindle on the end, and soon found that this marked the place where the river divides and the delta actually begins, forty-five miles below Galatz. The fork is known as the Chatal d’Ismail, and the embankment was built by the Danube Commission to divert the strength of the current from the Kilia arm into the main stream. Three or four miles to the south the white houses of Toultcha shone brightly among the dark green foliage of the trees, and numerous windmills were waving their arms on the rocky promontory below the town. A half-dozen miles farther to the eastward is the Chatal Saint George, where the stream divides into the Sulina and the Saint George arms.