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 cliffs 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 maybe 
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. 
