OLD TURKISH FORT, SEMENDRIA
As we leave Semendria and pass a number of beautiful tree-covered islets, four steersmen are again found necessary to control the wheel, owing to the swiftness of the stream. As the river nears the end of the ten-mile-long island of Ostrovo—said to be the scene of Maurus Jókai’s romance “Der Goldmensch”—we pass the influx of the Servian river Morava.
An interesting scheme has been formulated for regulating the waters of the Morava, which flows northward, and those of the Vardar, a stream which rises on the southern side of the same watershed, and connecting the two streams by means of a canal, so that a new waterway should be established, 382 miles long, connecting the Danube at this point with Salonika on the Ægean Sea.
Several small towns are passed, but nothing that makes a special impression to vary the general one of the broad river, the low hills and trees, until on the right we see the bold ruins of the Servian fortress of Rama. Beyond are quarries, and then high hills of sand—broad expanses, bare and clean as the desert, forming a curious contrast to the tree-grown slopes immediately beyond. Ahead, the view is shut in by the hills of a spur of the Carpathians.
On the left the ground becomes hillier, and at Báziás we reach a small quaint village on a low hillside—a village the quaintness of which is not to be recognized from the steamer, for the steamer-quay and railway yards and station occupy the foreshore. Those who pause here will find the little village—built so closely on the rock face that the houses above those on the single, strangely uneven street are reached by narrow paths, hung with wild clematis and other climbers, and series of steps—reminiscent of Clovelly, though widely different from its Devonshire equivalent. Glimpses into the balconied yards of some of the houses, with their flowering oleanders, suggest Italy. The view of the broad river and the bare hills of Servia from above the village, or from the Kossuth memorial stone on the steep bank, is particularly pleasant.
From this little place—terminus of a railway from Temesvár—begins the wonderful Danube-side road that continues thence, through all the gorgeous scenery which we are nearing, to the Rumanian frontier. A short walk along this road from Báziás shows the rocks to be peculiarly rich in wild flowers, offering endless delight to the botanizer. This road is known as the Széchenyi road, having been made by the Hungarian government during the years 1834-8 at the instigation of that Count Stephen Széchenyi to whose patriotic zeal modern Hungary seems to owe no small degree of the impetus which has made it as a nation re-born.
The inquirer into the history of modern Hungary is for ever coming across one or other of the practical things by which this nobleman sought at once to emphasize the solidarity of the Magyars and to initiate works that should be of permanent value to the nation. To him is owing in no small measure the rehabilitation of the national language, to him is owing the foundation of the Hungarian Academy, to him was owing the first putting of a regular line of steamers on the Danube, and to him we owe this road which is carried through all manner of obstacles for about a hundred miles, a road, innumerable inviting spots along which we see as we travel down the river.