PAGE
[ALONG THE DANUBE.]Edward King.[137]
[THE PARIS EXPOSITION OF 1878.]Edward H. Knight.[155]
[SENIORITY.]Howard Glyndon.[169]
[T.B.C.] ["FOR PERCIVAL."] [170]
[A WELSH WATERING-PLACE.]Wirt Sikes.[187]
[NOCTURNE]Margaret J. Preston.[196]
[T.B.C.] [THROUGH WINDING WAYS.]Ellen W. Olney.[197]
[A SEA-SOUND.]John B. Tabb.[213]
[THE BRITISH SOLDIER.]H. James, Jr.[214]
[A SAXON GOD.]Marguerite F. Aymar.[222]
[MUSIC NOTATION.]Marie Howland.[232]
[SAMBO: A MAN AND A BROTHER.]S. A. Sheilds.[242]
[THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE.]Lucy H. Hooper.[247]
[OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.] [252]
[LITERATURE OF THE DAY.] [262]

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
[SOMENDRIA.][137]
[RUSTCHUK.][139]
[SISTOVA.][141]
[NICOPOLIS.][143]
[THE DANUBE AT TRAJAN'S BRIDGE.][145]
[BOATS ON THE DANUBE.][147]
[ORSOVA.][149]
[BELGRADE, FROM SEMLIN.][151]
[THE IRON GATES.][154]
[THE TROCADÉRO AND GROUNDS.][155]
[THE ENGLISH QUARTER, ON INTERNATIONAL AVENUE.][159]
[BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE MAIN BUILDING AND ITS SURROUNDINGS.][161]
[VIEW IN THE PARK OF THE TROCADÉRO, SHOWING THE PAVILIONS OF PERSIA AND SIAM.][165]
[BERTIE LISLE.][170]
["SHE DREW A SOFT WHITE CLOAK ROUND HER, AND WENT BY."][177]
[MUSICAL RESTS. ][236]
[MUSICAL NOTES.][236]
[MUSIC EXAMPLE 1.][240]
[MUSIC EXAMPLE 2.][240]

[page 137]

ALONG THE DANUBE.

Ada-Kalé is a Turkish fortress which seems to spring directly from the bosom of the Danube at a point where three curious and quarrelsome races come into contact, and where the Ottoman thought it necessary to have a foothold even in times of profound peace. To the traveller from Western Europe no spectacle on the way to Constantinople was so impressive as this ancient and picturesque fortification, suddenly affronting the vision with its odd walls, its minarets, its red-capped sentries, and the yellow sinister faces peering from balconies suspended above the current. It was the first glimpse of the Orient which one obtained; it appropriately introduced one to a domain which is governed by sword and gun; and it was a pretty spot of color in the midst of the severe and rather solemn scenery of the Danubian stream. Ada-Kalé is to be razed to the water's edge—so, at least, the treaty between Russia and Turkey has ordained—and the Servian mountaineers will no longer see the Crescent flag flying within rifle-shot of the crags from which, by their heroic devotion in unequal battle, they long ago banished it.

The Turks occupying this fortress during the recent war evidently relied upon Fate for their protection, for the walls of[page 138] Ada-Kalé are within a stone's throw of the Roumanian shore, and every Mussulman in the place could have been captured in twenty minutes. I passed by there one morning on the road from Orsova, on the frontier of Hungary, to Bucharest, and was somewhat amused to see an elderly Turk seated in a small boat near the Roumanian bank fishing. Behind him were two soldiers, who served as oarsmen, and rowed him gently from point to point when he gave the signal. Scarcely six hundred feet from him stood a Wallachian sentry, watching his movements in lazy, indifferent fashion. And this was at the moment that the Turks were bombarding Kalafat in Roumania from Widdin on the Bulgarian side of the Danube! Such a spectacle could be witnessed nowhere save in this land, "where it is always afternoon," where people at times seem to suspend respiration because they are too idle to breathe, and where even a dog will protest if you ask him to move quickly out of your path. The old Turk doubtless fished in silence and calm until the end of the war, for I never heard of the removal of either himself or his companions.