On our departure from Buyukdèrè, we had been half amused and half annoyed by the efforts of a young Turkish officer, to appear unconcerned at the rough treatment that we were experiencing from the tempest-chafed waves of the Black Sea. He sang, he shouted, he tossed his arms above his head, and yelled forth his Mashallahs at every roll of the vessel; but ere we had been tossing about many hours, the exulting tones died away in a querulous treble, which announced that his exultation was destined to be short-lived; and on the morrow I remarked that he walked the deck with a step as tremulous as that of a lady; and was one of the first to make his escape on shore.
The two little Greek girls who were bound for Galatz were still lying upon the deck, rolled in their fur pelisses: in that state of hopeless and resigned misery which is the last stage of seanausea; and when we retired for the night their young brother was sitting beside them, with a pale cheek and heavy eyes, as though he, too, had not escaped a portion of their suffering.
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Danube—Cossack Guard—Moldavian Musquitoes—Tultzin—Galatz—Plague-Conductors—Prussian Officer—Excursion to Silistria—Amateur Boatmen—Wretched Hamlet—The Lame Baron—The Salute—Silistrian Peasants—A Pic-Nic in the Wilds—The Tortoise—Canoes of the Danube—The Moldavian State-Barge—Picturesque Boatmen—The Water Party—Painful Politeness—Visit of the Hospodar—Suite of His Highness—Princely Panic—The Pannonia.
At three o’clock on the following day, we entered the Ghiurchevi mouth of the Danube, which is only two hundred fathoms in width; and extremely difficult of access for sailing vessels. The shores at this opening are low, marshy, and treeless, presenting as desolate an appearance as can well be conceived; and are only relieved at intervals of about a mile, by the rude mud huts of the cordon sanitaire of Cossacks, placed along the Moldavian coast to enforce the quarantaine. The appearance of these reed-roofed hovels was beyond expression wretched; and the long lances of the guard, stuck into the earth along the front of the tenement, and the apparition of a mounted Cossack appearing and disappearing among the tall reeds which were the solitary produce of the land, were almost requisite to convince us that they could really be the habitations of human beings.
Beside many of these hovels an extraordinary erection attracted our attention; it consisted of four tall wooden stakes driven into the ground, and supporting, at about the height of eight feet from the earth, a small platform of wicker-work, thatched in some two feet higher; which we ascertained were constructed as sleeping-places, wherein the unhappy dwellers in the Moldavian marshes took refuge against the clouds of musquitoes that infest the Danube; and which, being of immense size, inflict a sting that is far from contemptible. Fortunately for their human victims, these voracious insects fly low, never trusting themselves to the current of wind that, as it sweeps along, might overcome their strength of wing; and thus this solitary medium of escape from their virulence is adopted all along the river.
At ten o’clock at night, we arrived off Tultzin, where we remained only an hour; and then profited by the moonlight to pursue our voyage to Galatz, which we reached at five in the morning, and anchored beside the Quarantaine ground; a small space railed off for the exclusive use of the steam company, and separated from the road leading into the town by a double palisading of wood about breast-high.
Here commenced our land miseries! We were looked upon as a society of plague-conductors, and treated accordingly. Parties of the Galatzians collected along the outer fence to contemplate the infected ones whose contact they dreaded; and meanwhile we enjoyed the privilege of walking up and down an avenue formed of coals on the one side, and tallow packed into skins on the other.