314 SKELA GLADOVA. 



retto, recently constructed for the accommodation 

 of travellers landing in Wallachia. There were 

 some doubts in the mind of our worthy captain 

 as to whether, in consequence of the flooded state 

 of the Danube, occasioned by the melting of the 

 snows, we should be able to pass the rapids at 

 the Iron Gates. In case we could not do so, we 

 should have had seven days' quarantine on the 

 Wallachian frontier, in the lazaretto above-men- 

 tioned, preparatory to five days more at Orsova, 

 on entering the Austrian territories from Walla- 

 chia. 



Skela is on the Wallachian, and Gladova, a 

 fortified place, on the Servian side. A steamer 

 runs from Skela every fortnight^ in pratique with 

 the Wallachian side, but does not communicate 

 with the Bulgarian shore, going only as far as Ga- 

 latz and back. The other steamers stop at Glado- 

 snitza, which is a little higher up on the Servian 

 shore, and where we were transferred, at half-past 

 four o'clock in the morning, to a flat-bottomed 

 barge, with a very rattletrap gear and covering of 

 wood, leaking considerably, and causing no little 

 wonder in our minds how so fragile a contrivance 

 * Now every week. 



