BOUCHAREST. 
779 
and the charge for going forward also deposited in the same 
place, before starting. Seated in our curtained waggon, we set 
forth over a perfectly flat and uninteresting country, occasionally 
marked by a few huts, exhibiting no inconsiderable hints of dis¬ 
comfort within, from the dirt and dilapidated appearance of all 
without. At five o’clock we reached the post, which is called 
Ordaja, or Daya. Happy we were in approaching it, during 
the frozen season ; for had a hot sun been there, to draw “ its 
reeking honours” about us, we should have been glad to have 
left our sense of smelling on the other side of the Danube. 
However, the people were extremely civil; a striking contrast to 
our hosts of Roumili. The carriages are light, the driver sitting 
on the near-wheel horse, and go at a prodigious rate. Our second 
post was called Kara-Keer, distant four hours. At the third, 
named Kopsham, we changed our wheels for traineaux, the snow 
lying very deep; and soon after we crossed a bridge of boats 
over the river Argish, that flows into the Danube. I halted no 
where, except to change our carriages ; nor would it have been 
desirable, the post-houses being all so disgustingly filthy. From 
Kopsham we were only six hours in arriving at Boucharest, 
which city we reached at seven o’clock in the morning. 
February 7th. — We drove directly to the house of Mr. 
Fleshhaken de Hacknau, the Austrian Consul, who also acts for 
Great Britain. I brought letters from Sir Robert Liston and 
Count Lutzoph, and was received with answering hospitality. 
This city stands on a tract of low marshy ground, on the 
northern bank of the river Doumbowitza. A few centuries ago, 
a poor little village called Bouchar, was all of the name which 
stood here ; Tirgovist being at that time the capital of Valachiaj 
and certainly, by all .descriptions, the salubrity of its situation, 
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