“On the opposite side, we could only see that it was green, and lovely, and most richly clad, but on the Servian shore where we stood, and feasted our eyes with the details, we might well be enraptured with the scene. We stood on a green lawn, where the short, soft grass looked as though it had been cut daily by some careful hand; and so thickly was it strewn with the sweetest wild flowers, that no English garden ever freighted the wind with a heavier load of perfume. So profuse and inexhaustible were indeed all the productions of Nature in this beautiful solitude that she seemed to have lavished all her powers in embellishing it, and revelling in the wild beauty she produced, till every inch of ground was bursting with life and vegetation. From the summit of the high hills that rose behind us, down to the very edge of the water, the forests of young wood contended with the young shrubberies, and close over the river, the laburnums and wild yellow roses hung in graceful festoons, till their very blossoms were shed into the wave. Then, as we proceeded to walk on over the rocks, and through the thick brushwood, the innumerable birds that burst from every bush, and scarcely seemed startled at our approach, showed how rarely a human foot invaded their green haunts. At times we would catch a glimpse of a deer bounding through the thicket, and they tell us that these woods are full of wild boar and bears, as well as game of every description. The sun continued to shine brightly, and we walked for an hour or more amongst this beautiful scenery—the buzzing of a thousand insects in the warm air, the singing of the birds, the innumerable odours from the hill, all seeming to indicate that this was the very domain of a living summer.”
It was autumn when I journeyed down the Danube, but even then, at every place I stayed and along such stretches of the river as I explored afoot, the wealth of flowers was such as to suggest how much greater it must be in spring and summer. And it may be said that, impressive as is the ever-changing panorama seen from the comfortable steamers, the river becomes the more endeared to us the more we can explore of such details as cannot be seen, or can be but glanced at from the water. Certainly much of the Servian shore looks so inviting as to suggest that Miss Skene’s enthusiasm was not too fervid.
Shortly after we emerge from between the hills that border the cataracts of the Iron Gate, the hills fall away on either side, and we pass between banks low on the Servian and higher on the Rumanian shores. Small villages are seen, the second of these on the right being Kladova, which is interesting as having been the Roman station of Egeta—the starting point, presumably, of the two important lines of conquest represented by Trajan’s road along the Danube bank and by the other which passed north into Dacia from a bridge across the river, some of the bricks of which “are alive at this day to testify.”
This bridge crossed the Danube from the Servian shore, some distance below Turn Severin, a Rumanian town which is presumed to take its name from the scrap of an ancient tower supposed to have been built by Severinus. Trajan’s bridge is described by Gibbon as having consisted of twenty-two stone piles with wooden arches; other writers refer to it as a stone bridge, which seems to be more likely, if it be true that, when it was destroyed by Hadrian with the object of preventing the invasion of the Goths, its ruins stopped the course of the river. Gibbon refers to the river here as being shallow and the current gentle; but it was assuredly rapid enough when I was there to suggest that Apollodorus, the architect, must have had a sufficiently formidable task when he set about building the bridge for Trajan. Only scraps of the bridge-head are now visible. Michael Joseph Quin, who made a steam voyage down the Danube in 1834, appears to have been one of the first of the moderns to fix the situation of the bridge and to describe it. The “Count” of his notes, it may be mentioned, was Count Széchenyi, “the great Hungarian,” who was then superintending the making of his great road, and with whom Quin had the good fortune to travel some distance down the river below Orsova:
“On our return to the steamer, some discussion arose as to the exact site of Trajan’s bridge across the Danube, which, though recorded in history, had hitherto puzzled all the commentators; as, in fact, no trace of that once magnificent edifice had been discovered for many ages. The Count suggested that, as the river was now so low, there was a chance of our settling the question by a personal examination. Accordingly, we proceeded on foot along the Wallachian (Rumanian) shore, until we arrived at the ruins of an ancient tower, built on an eminence, which had evidently been raised by artificial means. The tower was of Roman construction, and, as we conjectured that it might have been intended as a guard station for the defence of the bridge, we ascended the eminence with no slight feelings of curiosity.
“Looking down the river, which is here of no very great width, and divided by a sandbank, which, however, cannot be perceptible in the ordinary state of the Danube, we distinctly observed the water curling over a series of impediments extending in a right line from bank to bank. At both extremities of this line we perceived on the land the remains of square pillars; and on approaching the ruin on our side, we found it constructed of blocks of stone, faced towards the river with Roman tiles, evidently forming the buttress of the first arch of the bridge. In the river itself we counted the remains of six or seven pillars, which had manifestly served to sustain as many arches, connecting the bank on which we stood with the opposite one. No doubt, therefore, could remain that here was the site of Trajan’s celebrated bridge, a marvellous work for the times in which he lived, considering that it had been constructed on one of the most remote confines of the Roman empire.”
There are here but low, crumbly banks to the river, and in parts the water is very shallow. Coming up-stream hereabouts on an early October morning, I went on deck, hoping to see the sun rise over the broad Rumanian plain, but found everything hidden, even the near banks, in a thick fog. The steamer had made an early start that it might pass the Iron Gate as soon as it was clear daylight, and thus get through the Kazán for Zimony (Semlin) before night. The start had been too early, for before the sun was up the vessel ran aground on the Rumanian shore, and stuck fast for two or three hours, while another steamer was sent from Turn Severin to haul it off. Even then we were so fast that the first attempt of the sister ship to tug us off resulted in the snapping of the steel cable. The second attempt was successful, and when we continued our journey the fog had entirely gone, and under a brilliant morning sunshine the Servian shore, with its villages and greenery, looked particularly beautiful. The Rumanian scenery was almost entirely shut off by the high bank.
Turn Severin, but little of which is seen from the landing place, lies inland, pleasantly situated on elevated ground partly hidden by trees. To reach it, we cross the railway from Bukarest, which closely neighbours the Danube from Turn Severin to Orsova, and pass the prominent buildings of medicinal baths. A town of over eight thousand inhabitants, with a shipyard on the river, it seems to be a growing place, desirous of taking on anew something of its old-time importance, for it is supposed to have been of considerable size in the Roman period. With its public garden, its handsome theatre and other buildings, its cafés, and general air of comfortable prosperity, it is an agreeable town, giving pleasant first impressions of Rumania.
Unfortunately, we reached Turn Severin in the late afternoon, when little beyond a general impression was to be had, for a stay was rendered impossible owing to the fact that our journey down the Danube was taken at a time when a cholera “scare” made landing anywhere beyond the confines of Hungary a matter of difficulty, and staying a matter of impossibility, except to those prepared to undergo four or five days of quarantine before being allowed to travel about. It is certainly well that every precaution should be taken to prevent the spread of disease, but during the scare which synchronized with our journey, the restrictions, once the traveller got beyond Hungary, were such that further progress was rendered difficult. We were only allowed to land and visit Turn Severin as an act of grace, and conditional upon our not staying in the town for the night! The same difficulty, we were told, would confront us all down the rest of the river, and though we had hoped to reach Sulina on the Black Sea, we had to leave the lower journey through the Danubian plains unachieved and return. To complete the story of the river to its mouth it is thus necessary to rely upon the records of other travellers.
The precautions taken against the cholera, both at Servian and Rumanian landing places, during this “scare” included the spraying of the people who landed with disinfectants. A man with a can on his back like a fire-extinguishing apparatus, and a hose for doing the spraying, was waiting for those who landed on the shore; beside this, at Turn Severin, was a travelling disinfecting engine, in which the travellers’ belongings were subjected to treatment. Had time permitted, it might have been amusing to pass the necessary days in quarantine, as it would certainly have been interesting to have had the opportunity of seeing the last portion of the river’s course.