364 Mr. W. H. Simpson's Fortnight 



Danube^ appears then to consist of an undulating upland, having 

 its watershed within a few miles of the Black Sea, to which it 

 slopes rather rapidly. The point where the Danube and Black 

 Sea Railway (about forty miles in length) crosses the height of 

 land is very near its eastern terminus. Speaking from memory, 

 the elevation is between 250 and 350 feet. Further north, at 

 Baba-dagh, where primary or plutonic rocks are said to burst 

 through the calcareous strata forming the main bulk of the mass, 

 these elevations are greatly exceeded. The Danube below Sili- 

 stria, flowing eastwards, is gradually deflected northwards by this 

 mass, as it cats its way into the cliff's on the Bulgarian shore 

 as far as Tchernawoda, where it is within forty miles of the sea. 

 At this point its course is completely turned, at first even a 

 little towards the W. of N.; but although foiled in its attempts 

 to penetrate the uplands of the Dobrudscha, its summer floods 

 appear to have inundated the numerous valleys that debouche 

 upon it. What share the river itself may have had in the 

 erosion of these valleys is, of course, a geological question. Thus 

 are formed chains of lakes and swamps, which constitute the real 

 marshes of the Dobrudscha. The aspect therefore which this 

 district presents to the Danube, its western boundary, is that of 

 an immense in-curving sweep of land about 300 or 400 feet high, 

 which often comes to the water's edge in low precipices of a 

 softish rock, apparently calcareous, but which is also perforated 

 by swampy hollows reaching far back into the heart of the 

 country. The view from these heights, looking immediately 

 down upon the chief arm of the river, and across into the low- 

 lying but richly wooded islands of Wallachia, is probably one of 

 the most striking in Turkey. It suggests the idea of standing 

 on one of the bastions of an immense fortress, which has the 

 largest river in Europe for its ditch. In this region may be 

 seen the Griffon and Cinereous Vultures, the Egyptian Neophron, 

 Sea-Eagles in plenty, the Imperial Eagle, and a small dark variety 

 of the Golden Eagle. Some of these are pretty sure to be on 

 the wing, not to mention the less obvious birds of prey, which 

 breed in the almost boundless extent of forest and morass that 

 covers the flat islands stretching northwards and westwards till 

 lost in the distant horizon. 



