TO INEADA IN TURKEY. 
401 
attributed to the ignorance of pilots, and to 
a deficiency of proper charts. We had on < 
board two excellent sextants, and observations 
were daily made at noon : by these we found 
our latitude to be 44°. 44'; the ship lying at the 
time five leagues and a half to the south of 
the island. A third sextant, on board the vessel 
commanded by the Captain’s nephew, was also 
employed by him: this enabled us, by compa- 
rison, to detect with greater certainty the errors 
in the French charts. 
Having passed the Isle of Serpents, we fell in 
with the current from the Danube. So great is 
the extent over which its waters diftuse them- 
selves, owing to the shallowness of this part 
of the Euxine, that, although the discharge bo 
scarcely adequate to our notions of so con- 
siderable a river, the effect is visible for several 
leagues, in a white colour thereby communicated 
to the sea. Dipping buckets in the waves, we 
observed that the water was almost sweet, at 
the distance of three leagues from the mouth 
of the river, and within one league it was fit 
for use on board. The shore is flat all the way 
from Odessa to the Danube ; and it is so low near 
to the river’s mouth, that no other object appears, 
to those who approach the shore, than tall reeds 
rising out of the water, or the masts of vessels 
CHAP. 
X. 
Mouth* 
of die* 
Danube . 
