CHAPTER IV.

Leave Widdin.—­The Timok.—­Enter Servia.—­Brza Palanka.—­The Iron Gates.—­Old and New Orsova.—­Wallachian Matron.—­Semlin.—­A Conversation on Language.

I left Widdin for the Servian frontier, in a car of the country, with a couple of horses, the ground being gently undulated, but the mountains to the south were at a considerable distance.  On our right, agreeable glimpses of the Danube presented themselves from time to time.  In six hours we arrived at the Timok, the river that separates Servia from Bulgaria.  The only habitation in the place was a log-house for the Turkish custom-house officer.  We were more than an hour in getting our equipage across the ferry, for the long drought had so reduced the water, that the boat was unable to meet the usual landing-place by at least four feet of steep embankment; in vain did the horses attempt to mount the acclivity; every spring was followed by a relapse, and at last one horse sunk jammed in between the ferry boat and the bank; so that we were obliged to loose the harness, send the horses on shore, and drag the dirty car as we best could up the half dried muddy slope.  At last we succeeded, and a smart trot along the Danube brought us to the Servian lazaretto, which was a new symmetrical building, the promenade of which, on the Danube, showed an attempt at a sort of pleasure-ground.

I entered at sunset, and next morning on showing my tongue to the doctor, and paying a fee of one piastre (twopence) was free, and again put myself in motion.  Lofty mountains seemed to rise to the west, and the cultivated plain now became broken into small ridges, partly covered with forest trees.  The ploughing oxen now became rarer; but herds of swine, grubbing at acorns and the roots of bushes, showed that I was changing the scene, and making the acquaintance not only of a new country, but of a new people.  The peasants, instead of having woolly caps and frieze clothes as in Bulgaria, all wore the red fez, and were dressed mostly in blue cloth; some of those in the villages wore black glazed caps; and in general the race appeared to be physically stronger and nobler than that which I had left.  The Bulgarians seemed to be a set of silent serfs, deserving (when not roused by some unusual circumstance) rather the name of machines than of men:  these Servian fellows seemed lazier, but all possessed a manliness of address and demeanour, which cannot be discovered in the Bulgarian.

Brza Palanka, at which we now arrived, is the only Danubian port which the Servians possess, below the Iron Gates; consequently, the only one which is in uninterrupted communication with Galatz and the sea.  A small Sicilian vessel, laden with salt, passed into the Black Sea, and actually ascended the Danube to this point, which is within a few hours of the Hungarian frontier.  As we approached the Iron Gates, the valley became a mere gorge, with barely room for the road, and fumbling through a cavernous fortification, we soon came in sight of the Austro-Hungarian frontier.