THROUGH WILD EUROPE 263 



taking advantage of the passing down the Sulina 

 arm of a long string of iron corn-barges or lighters in 

 charge of a tug. When we reached a fishery depot 

 we parted company, and here I had a meal with 

 these men, tasting for the first time fish stew and 

 soup. The Danube fish are excellent ; and, travel- 

 ling with the secretary and inspector of fisheries, 

 we had the pick of the fish in all the depots we 

 passed, as well as from the lodkas and nets of the 

 fishermen. The Sterlet, resembling a small Sturgeon, 

 is without bones except a grisly backbone, and is of 

 excellent flavour, though to eat it in perfection it 

 should, I think, be cold, as prepared in the Budapest 

 restaurants. A Carp, cooked in the open by these 

 Russian sailors in a big iron pot slung on an oar 

 over a reed-fire, is food for a gourmand. The 

 Danube Salmon (Salmo kucho) and Fresh-water 

 Herrings are also splendid eating ; the latter espe- 

 cially are almost fatter and richer in flavour than 

 the Salt-water Herring. 



These three men were willing and obliging — 

 at least two of them were, the other, a silent yellow 

 man with a Tartar-like cast of face, spoke hardly a 

 word, good or bad, to anybody. He must have 

 come from some far-remote corner of the great 

 Russian Empire, for neither of his compatriots could 

 understand his speech. All that was known of him 

 was that he had been one of the mutineers of the 



