From the picturesque point of view, there is something of sameness in the last few hundred miles of Danube scenery—nothing of outstanding beauty or grandeur of scenery is to be looked for below the Iron Gate, though there is an undoubted beauty of its own belonging to a broad river passing through a great and variedly fruitful plain. The chief charm of the lowest part of the journey down the Danube is, however, to be found less in scenery than in the varieties of people to be seen, and the great variation of national costume as the traveller touches at towns in Servia, Rumania, and Bulgaria.
It was at Turn Severin that Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen landed “under a feigned name and with a false passport,” from an Austrian steamer, on 20 May, 1866, when he had been called, by an almost unanimous vote of the Rumanian people, to be their ruler in place of Prince Alexander, who had been forced to abdicate. A conference of the Powers at Paris, had decided that the Prince of Rumania must be a native, but the Rumanians had decided on Prince Charles, and acting on Bismarck’s advice, he decided to confront the Powers with a fait accompli—hence the secret arrival at Turn Severin, where incognito was thrown off, and the prince was hailed with delight. He has justified the coup by proving one of the wisest and best of European sovereigns.
Shortly below Turn Severin the river, after running in a south-easterly direction, sweeps round a curve, until it flows for a short distance in almost the opposite way, bringing into sight again the hills that have been left, and the distant Balkans to the south-west. Divided by various islands and at low water exposing many sandbanks, the river goes on past villages on either side, with signs of pleasant prosperity which suggest that Michael Quin’s forecast may yet be fulfilled. When he wrote, the people of Wallachia had largely migrated to Hungary, owing to the continuously unsettled condition of their own land; but he confidently predicted that when the population increased, when their habitations improved and their industry came to be encouraged by the influence of order and the laws, and they should feel themselves safe from the spoliation of marauding armies, then they would be enabled “to convert the whole of that region into a Paradise.”
Both Servia and Rumania are largely and progressively agricultural and pastoral countries, and much of the flat country through which the river winds, is pasture and forest. The villages that are passed on either bank do not call for special mention, until, at Kossiak, is reached an important centre of the salt industry, and, at Radujevac, the last town in Servia—for shortly beyond it the river Timok, which flows in from the south, forms the frontier line between Servia and Bulgaria. Radujevac, the last of the Servian river-ports, is a small town and the station for Negotin, a town lying some few miles to the south, which latter is the centre of a large vineyard district that gives its name to a wine that is said to be particularly good; indeed the Negotin wine “is exported abroad in large quantities via Radujevac, and after being artificially treated, is often re-imported into Servia, in the guise of an expensive dessert wine.”
Beyond Radujevac, before the frontier river, the Timok, is reached, are many remains of old Roman fortifications, reminiscent of the timid and fruitless precautions of Justinian which, said Gibbon, “expose to a philosophic eye the debility of the empire. From Belgrade to the Euxine, from the conflux of the Save to the mouth of the Danube, a chain of above four score fortified places was extended along the banks of the great river.” The broadening stream, broken up by many islands, turns south as it nears Widdin on the right, and Calafat on the left bank, places both of them associated with Russo-Turkish warfare. Widdin is an important town, and when occupied by the Turks, was strongly fortified. It stands on low, marshy ground, but in improving scenery, for behind in the distance are seen the rounded summits of a range of the Balkan mountains. The mosques and minarets, which it retains from the time when it was Turkish and the centre of an important pashalik, give it a picturesque appearance from the river.
Widdin is supposed to be one of the places where, in the year 233, Constantine the Great defeated a great gathering of the Goths. In one of the poems of Cynewulf, the fighting on the Danube shore is most vigorously presented; “Battle was brought against him, the thunder of war; the hordes of the Huns and the Hrethgoths assembled a host; fierce-hearted the Franks went forth, the people of Hugas. Spears shone and wreathen mail; with shout and ringing shield they flew their battle flags. There were the heroes assembled, openly gathered together—and the throng of folk fared forth. The wolf of the weald chanted his song of battle, hid not his war-runes; the dewy-feathered eagle screamed as he followed the foe. Straight through the cities that mighty battle throng hasted away to war, in hosts as many as the King of the Huns might summon to the fray, of warriors round about. That horde went out, with chosen bands confirmed their forces—till in a strange land on the Danube’s rim, stark of heart, those spearmen tarried nigh to the water’s surging, with the noise of multitude.”
Impressive, indeed, is the long account of the battle between the Roman troops and the barbarian host. One passage may be recalled in the neighbourhood of the contest: “With strong hand the cruel foe dealt forth a shower of darts and spears, their battle-adders, over the yellow shield into the host of the hated. But stout of heart they strode, pressed on as occasion offered, burst through the hedge of shields, drove home the sword and ruthless hastened on. Then was the ensign lifted up, the battle sign before the troops; they sang a song of triumph. Golden helms and lances gleamed over the battle-plain. The pagan peoples perished, without quarter sank in death. And straight they fled away, this Hunnish folk, as the King of the dwellers of Rome, urging the strife, bade that holy tree be lifted up. The heroes were scattered afar. Some the battle took; some held their lives hardly on the armies march; some half-quick, half-dead, fled away into fastnesses, sheltered themselves behind the stony cliffs, held the land round about the Danube; and some were drowned in the flowing stream at the end of life.”[16]
Calafat, on the Rumanian bank, opposite Widdin, is the terminus of a railway from Bukarest, with a steam ferry to Widdin; is said to have been founded by the Genoese in the fourteenth century; and to owe its name to the large number of workmen ( calfats) whom they employed here in repairing ships. At both of these places are still to be seen trenches and batteries used in the wars of 1854 and 1877; in the latter year Widdin was bombarded from Calafat, and in 1885 it was besieged yet again during the Servo-Bulgarian War. The history of Widdin is, indeed, largely a history of warfare from the time when it was the Mœsian Bononia of the Romans; and it had been besieged many times—thrice in the nineteenth century—before the Servians made their unsuccessful attempt in 1885.
Below Widdin, the Danube turns eastward again, and flows sinuously in that general direction for nearly two hundred miles, before taking its final north-easterly trend. The wide river, with many islands, continues through low land, on the left being the vast Wallachian or Rumanian plain, largely hidden by the islands formed by the river, while on the right it is in great part also flat, though now and again the monotony is broken by higher ground. Lom-Palanka, for instance, a town of about six thousand inhabitants, and the railhead for Sofia, is described as being beautifully situated on wooded hills, but beyond both shores become monotonously flat and broken with ditches and pools, close-grown with reeds and other aquatic vegetation.
The next place of note, Somovit, on the Bulgarian side, is the railhead of another line to the capital. The railway to Sofia passes through Plevna, which stands about twenty-five miles south of Somovit. Plevna was the centre of the most remarkable incident in the latest Russo-Turkish War, when it was defended in stubborn and magnificent fashion by Osman Pasha against a mighty Russian and Rumanian army. Twice in July, 1877, did the enemy unsuccessfully attack the town. In September (7-13) they made a grand assault, and were repulsed with a loss of eighteen thousand men. In October, Plevna was formally invested, but Osman held out until 10 December, when he was compelled to surrender. It had taken the Russians one hundred and forty-two days to capture the town, and they had lost forty thousand men in the operation, while the defenders had lost as many as thirty thousand. Those travellers who, after journeying down the Danube, wish to visit Sofia, are recommended to journey thither from Somovit rather than from Lom-Palanka, not only because it gives the opportunity of seeing the scene of historic battling, but because the railway line “runs through a perfect Alpine region.”