From Berlin to Bagdad and Babylon

by J. A. Zahm

Among the many things that especially impressed me in Roumania was the large number of gypsies. In no part of the world, it is said, are they so numerous in proportion to the population as among the descendants of the ancient Dacians. The chief reason for this is that these strange, dark-eyed, music-loving nomads from India have met a kinder reception here than in other countries, where they have been regarded as pariahs and often treated with harshness bordering on cruelty.

From Giurgevo to the Black Sea the broad, multi-islanded Danube sweeps majestically through the ever-expanding, reed-covered lowlands—the home of many kinds of water-fowl—and the far extending acres devoted to pasturage and agriculture, which contribute so much to the commerce and wealth of the Balkan Peninsula. Near the village of Rassova, on the right bank of the river, we see what remains of Trajan’s wall, which extends from the Danube to Constanza on the Black Sea. This earthen rampart was constructed during the Roman occupation of the country to prevent barbarian incursions into the colonial possessions of the empire. But, like the wall of Probus, connecting the Danube with the Rhine, it withstood but a short while the ever-increasing onrush of the savage hordes from the north.

Not far from this relic of Roman dominion in this part of the world is the colossal steel railway bridge across the Danube, completed in 1895, and justly regarded as one of the greatest engineering achievements of modern times.

At Braila and Galatz—Roumanians great ports of entry—we were greatly impressed by the activity and enterprise of these flourishing entrepôts of commerce. But I must confess I was here more impressed by what tradition declares to be the spot where Darius Hystaspes built a bridge across the Danube at the time of his famous campaign against the Scythians, more than five centuries B. C.[23]

And what a war-theater this ill-fated land has been since that far-off time! Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Trajan, and countless leaders of barbarian and Turkish hordes have been here or in the vicinity during the twenty-five centuries that have intervened between the advent of Darius and his resistless legions. Certain spots of the earth seem to be perennial battle centers and the land bordering this part of the Danube, as history shows, is one of the most notable of them.

It is in this part of the Danube that one begins to have an adequate idea of the size of this historic waterway and of its transcendent importance in the mercantile life of Europe. It is surpassed by no other European river except the Volga. From its source in the lovely park of Prince Fürstenberg, at Donaueschingen, to where it delivers its mighty tribute to the Black Sea, the length of the Danube is nearly eighteen hundred miles—more than two-thirds of that of our famed Mississippi.

But in the amount and character of the traffic it bears and the number of people it serves, the Danube is incomparably superior to the Volga and even to our great “Father of Waters.” The Volga, like the Mississippi, is only a national river, while the Danube majestically sweeps through many principalities and kingdoms and empires of Europe and assures easy relations between regions widely separated. And, as the Danube in the past has served as the great natural route for the migrations of nations and the warring hordes of Asia and Europe, so it is now, more than ever before, one of the world’s great highways of commerce and industry, and from present indications the day is not far distant when, economically, it will be the greatest.

The reason for this seemingly paradoxical assertion is not far to seek. The importance of rivers is not due to their length and volume of water, but rather to the density of the population on their banks and to the industrial productivity of the peoples who dwell in their vicinity. Thus, the Danube not only passes through some of the most fertile lands in the world, where intensive agriculture is carried to the highest degree of efficiency, but also facilitates the exchange of commodities of all kinds between distant nations and delivers supplies and the necessary raw material to the countless industrial centers of middle Europe.

Of the affluents of the Danube that are navigable, or large enough to float rafts, there are more than sixty, while the number of inhabitants along the course of the Danube alone is more than fifty millions. Add to this the myriads of people who dwell along its numerous tributaries and this immense number will be greatly augmented. It will not only far exceed the number of people who live along the Volga and are benefited by its traffic, but will also far surpass that of the Mississippi basin, if it does not indeed equal that of the entire United States. It was for this reason that Napoleon considered the Danube the king of rivers and Talleyrand declared that “the center of gravity is not Paris nor Berlin but the Mouths of the Danube.”[24]

If these two eminent personages were now living they would have much stronger reasons for entertaining such views than existed a century ago. For, thanks to the genius of modern engineers, the value of the Danube as a great commercial highway has been immensely enhanced. By dredging the canal at the Iron Gate, by jettying the Sulina branch of the delta and by making innumerable other improvements along the course of the river, the European Danube Commission, which has had charge for more than half a century of the betterment of this great international waterway, has eliminated the dangers to navigation which previously existed and has made the river navigable for much larger craft than was before possible. Since the establishment of this International Commission by the Treaty of Paris in 1856, the amount of traffic passing through the mouth of the Danube has increased enormously. According to a recent official report of the Commission, “Sailing Ships of two hundred tons register have given way to steamers up to four thousand tons register, carrying a dead weight of nearly eight thousand tons and good order has succeeded chaos.”[25]