In a great number of barrows scattered about the Bulgarian hills below Rustzuk, some travellers have recognized relics of this great migration, which was to cost Rome so dear. These barrows, it is said, “are of Gothic origin; and if opened would most probably disclose the same contents as those in Britain—such as bones, armour, pottery, ornaments and idols. Their appearance on these wild hills, with the unchanged soil and aspect of the surrounding country, forcibly recalled our minds to that period when its plains were occupied by the Northern hordes, all ready to burst the feeble barrier of the Roman empire, then fast declining. Here
‘Tombs sentinel the plain,
Itself a tomb that undulates with dust.’”
The next place of importance below Rustzuk is Silistria, “the citadel of the Danube,” about sixty miles further down-stream, and this, too, like other of the Bulgarian towns along the Danube side, has long been notable as a fortress, “forming, as it does, with Rustzuk and Shumla, a connected triangle, which must be broken before any enemy could attempt the passage of the Balkans in this direction with safety.” In Roman times it was, as Durostorum, the headquarters of a legion, and one of the most important towns of Lower Mœsia. There are several records of its withstanding sieges and of its capture in the long past. In 1810 it was taken by the Russians and the fortifications destroyed, only to be rebuilt and attacked again by the same enemy nearly twenty years later, when it withstood for nine months a siege in which the assailants lost three thousand men. Again, in 1854, it stubbornly kept off the attack of the Russians under Gortschakoff, while, when it was invested during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, it held out so stubbornly that it was not evacuated by the Turks until after the conclusion of peace. It used to be regarded as the strongest fortified town in Turkey, and its war record seems to bear out that reputation. After the war of 1828, Silistria was for some years in the hands of the Russians, as it was to be garrisoned by them until the Turkish war indemnity was paid. It is said that the town and the surrounding country soon gave evidence of the superior industry of the Russian peasants, who were introduced and settled there during the period of occupation.
Shortly beyond Silistria the Danube leaves Bulgarian territory, after which Rumania is on both sides of the stream, for the land on the right, the Dobrudja, extending from the Danube to the Black Sea, was awarded to Rumania by the Treaty of Berlin. Both sides, too, become flat alike. The river is still greatly diversified by islands covered with bushes and reeds—“more resembling a sea studded with innumerable islets than a river”—while the avi-fauna is particularly rich, immense flocks of wild swans, wild geese, pelicans, herons, and other waterfowl being often seen. Miss Skene described how, in journeying up the river, the steamer in which she travelled was compelled to moor hereabouts at night, in a wilderness by no means devoid of beauty. “We lay under a wooded bank with many little fairy islands around us, all covered with green bushes, whose very wildness and want of cultivation were their principal charm ... pelicans and storks stalking about on the lonely islands, uttering at times a wild cry, which more than anything I know brings most forcibly to the mind the images of solitude and desolation.” Through scenery thus indicated, the river continues for many miles of the northerly course which it takes beyond Silistria.
About forty miles below that place a lengthy railway bridge—the only one below Belgrade—crosses the Danube, connecting Bukarest with the Black Sea port of Costantza (Kustendji), near to which place was Tomi, where Ovid spent his long years of exile. Before the bridge comes in sight an interesting relic of the Roman occupation is to be noted in the Wall of Trajan—a double rampart of earth, which runs from near the village of Rasova to Kustendji. The railway bridge, which crosses the main stream of the Danube and the Borcea arm, is over two and a half miles in length, and one of the most remarkable examples of this kind of engineering; it has sixty-eight spans, the longest of which—one of those over the main stream—is a cantilever over six hundred feet in length. When it is realized that the foundations of the piers are laid in water the mean depth of which is nearly a hundred feet at ordinary water level, and that the bridge is made at a height of more than one hundred and twenty feet at low water, to enable sailing ships to pass through unhindered, the boast that its completion is one of the greatest engineering feats of modern times will scarcely be regarded as an exaggeration. The bridge was completed and opened for traffic in 1895, having cost a sum of close upon a million and a half sterling.
The broad river flows on, past many islands, past occasional villages, for many miles, to Hersova, a small town on a height which, like so many of the places along the Lower Danube, suffered severely in the wars between Russia and Turkey. This has been described as “a species of oasis in the desert, prettily situated on an undulating eminence, with a fortified castle, and a large garrison; its chief importance arising from the circumstance that it covers every point in this direction where an enemy might attempt to effect a landing in that rectangular peninsula called the Dobrudja.”[18] On the left bank just beyond—where the tributary Jalomitza flows in—is another landing place, Gura-Jalomitza, near which a branch of the river goes off to the right, forming an extensive island or fen, which is described as a mass of reeds, and intersected by streams and channels, radiating in every direction, and said to abound in wildfowl and herds of half-wild swine. Near the lower end of this island, there stands on the left bank the important town of Braila, the chief Rumanian port of entry, an important centre of the grain and timber trades, and a town with over fifty thousand inhabitants. Its chief interest is as a commercial and shipping centre, for it has nothing of architectural beauty to show, and its surroundings are flat and monotonous. Not far from Braila there are remains of a bridge, which tradition says was built across the Danube about five hundred years before the beginning of our era by Darius the Great. About ten miles below Braila, the larger port of Galatz is reached, a town situated between the confluence of the Sereth and of the Pruth, with the Danube, and where the great river makes its final bend eastwards to the Black Sea, still about ninety miles distant.
Galatz has extensive quays and a very large shipping trade, vessels of 2500 tons being able to come thus far up the river. It is a thriving and growing port, with a population not far short of a hundred thousand. The main part of the town is built on the rising ground that lies between the two tributaries named.
In St. Mary’s church here is the tomb of the Cossack chief Mazeppa, immortalized in literature by Byron’s narrative poem. Mazeppa was a member of a noble Polish family, who, being page at the Polish Court, intrigued with the wife of one of the nobles, was discovered, and by the irate husband was lashed naked to the back of a wild horse, which was then turned adrift—
“I will not tire