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Photo by Frederick Moore 



THE IRON GATE 01^ THE DANUBE 



Most people think of the famous Iron Gate as a narrow and gloomy defile where the 

 waters of the river are hemmed in by stupendous cliffs. In reality the Iron Gate is a fairly 

 wide portion of the river, but guarded by rocks, which at high water are entirely hidden 

 from sight. Through these dangerous rocks a deep, wide channel has now been blasted, and 

 a jetty formed from the stone thus obtained is shown in the picture. 



between these two Balkan States whose 

 peasants fought side by side in a terrible 

 struggle against the Turks only 35 years 

 ago? It is an interesting history. 



Like most of the other Balkan peoples, 

 the Rumanians are the descendants of 

 one of the great pre-Turkish invasions 

 of southeastern Europe. They are the 

 children of those Romans who conquered 

 the ancient Dacians, intermarried with 

 them, and gave them the Latin language, 

 which has continued, with few variations, 

 to this day. 



When the Roman Empire began to 

 shrink and other invasions swept over 

 these outpost provinces of Rome, this 

 Daco-Roman race took refuge in the 

 mountains and maintained their distinct- 

 ive characteristics and language in the 

 same way that several other Balkan peo- 

 ples also succeeded in doing. When the 

 invasions had passed through the coun- 



try they again descended to the plains 

 more or less an intact race. 



The final successful invasion of the 

 Balkan Peninsula, that of the Turks — 

 whose desire was to conquer Europe for 

 Mohammed — came at a time when these 

 people were beginning to develop ideas 

 of nationality. Their local governments 

 were medieval and primitive, and they 

 seem to have been quite as barbarous as 

 the Turks. The Turks, indeed, were 

 greatly superior to them in several ways, 

 especially in military organization, and 

 therefore succeeded in obtaining domina- 

 tion over them. 



THE SUBTEE GREEK HOSPODARS 



Soon after the Turkish conquest the 

 Greeks, though always boastful as a race 

 of revenging themselves upon the Turks, 

 were yet willing, personally, to make 

 themselves rich by conducting the civil 



1063 



