To pass the desert to a throne—
What mortal his own doom may guess?”
Byron makes Mazeppa tell his story to King Charles XII. of Sweden after the close of “dread Pultowa’s day.” Mazeppa died of poison in the same year as the battle of Pultowa. Owing to his alliance with Charles his name was execrated in Russia, and he was hanged in effigy. His tomb in the Galatz church is believed to have been rifled during one of the Russian occupations.
Reaching its junction with the Pruth about ten miles below Galatz, the Danube passes from Rumanian territory on the left bank, and reaches Russian. Between the Pruth and the Black Sea is Bessarabia, which was detached from Rumania and ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Berlin, Rumania receiving by way of inadequate compensation the tract of Dobrudja already mentioned. From here the Danube runs east past the small Russian town of Reni and the Rumanian fishing village, formerly a Turkish fortress, of Isaccea, to the point where, near Tulcea on the Rumanian side, it branches at the beginning of the extensive delta. Primarily these branches are two—the St. George’s to the south-east and the Kilia to the north, which forms the Russian frontier. Each of these branches forks again, cutting the vast delta into a maze of reedy islands.
On the Kilia branch are the towns of Ismail and Kilia, which may be more particularly referred to before we follow the course taken by the river steamers to the Black Sea. Ismail is a fortress and river-port, with upwards of thirty thousand inhabitants, and visited by over a thousand vessels each year.
“The fortress is called Ismail, and is placed
Upon the Danube’s left branch and left bank,
With buildings in the Oriental taste,
But still a fortress of the foremost rank,
Or was at least, unless ’tis since defaced,