When Rustzuk is reached, the Danube has attained a width of about two and a half miles, the right bank still marked by low hills, the left still flat and marshy. Rustzuk is a large town of about forty-six thousand inhabitants, having a picturesque appearance from the water, with its scattered houses on the hillsides, its trees, and the slender minarets which pleasingly vary the lines of other buildings. Long-regarded as a place of great strategic importance, the town suffered much during the wars of Turkey with her neighbours. It was bombarded by the Russians from the opposite shore in 1877; since Bulgarian independence was assured it has developed rapidly; and, no longer a fortified place—it was dismantled in accordance with the terms of the Berlin Treaty of 1878—is now an important trading centre, having communication with the Black Sea port of Varna. Though most picturesque as seen from the Danube, Rustzuk is an interesting town, its mixed population affording considerable variety of costume, and its large Turkish bazaar retaining much of Oriental colour.

Opposite, on the Rumanian bank, is the growing town of Giurgevo, situated on flat marshy land. This town, founded by the Genoese in the fourteenth century, and named by them after St. George, is becoming an important centre for the transhipment of merchandise, having railway communication with Bukarest, and being one of the ports for the extensive grain-growing districts of the country. Though only accessible by steamers at high water, it has another port in connexion with it, little more than two miles further down-stream at Smarda.

During the Crimean War, Giurgevo was so obstinately held by the Turks, that the fortress was not given up before thirty thousand of the besiegers had fallen, and until scarcely a roof was left to shelter the townspeople. It was from Giurgevo that the Russian forces bombarded Rustzuk before crossing the river and making that indomitable attack on Plevna which was even more indomitably withstood.

The country between Giurgevo and the capital, Bukarest, is part of that vast plain which lies to the left of the Danube during most of its course after leaving the foothills of the Carpathians below the Iron Gate. The following description of a drive across this plain, was written before the coming of the railways: “We left Giurgevo at a brisk pace, and commenced our journey across a vast plain, which seemed to be interminable; I never saw such a plain in my life; hour after hour we hurried forward, the horizon never rising an inch, and nothing appearing to vary its straight, unbroken line, whichever way we turned. There was no road, but we followed the track of wheels, lightly marked in the dust, and generally without turning or deviating one iota from its course, which seemed to have been drawn on the globe with a gigantic ruler. Sometimes we would pass through a wood, and occasionally we crossed a river on a bridge formed of unhewn logs. Storks flew heavily from us, and herds of horses, cows, and buffaloes, lazily moved aside as we rushed past them in a cloud of dust, for the Wallachian drivers are unsparing of their team. We saw only two villages, Bungasko and Roman, at which latter place we crossed the river Ardjish, where the huts of the peasants seemed to be merely square holes dug in the ground with a roof of branches covered with mud, and a door in one end, accessible by a slope cut for the purpose, but also serving to lead rain water into it.... After ten hours’ drive we reached the gates of Bukarest.”[17]

Below Rustzuk and Giurgevo, the Danube widens yet again, until it is about three miles from bank to bank, though the far-stretching surface of the water is still diversified with many willow-grown islands, and at times with exposed sandbanks. The shores (in early summer) “present a never ending succession of pasture lands, so rich, so verdant, so luxuriant, that one might almost fancy they were the reality of the Indian’s dream of Paradise, where the green hunting fields have no end.” Tutrakan, a small, picturesquely situated town on the Bulgarian bank, and Oltenitza (whence a railway runs to Bukarest), on the low Rumanian shore, are the next stopping places, after which the river finds its way through a veritable network of islands and marshy tracts abounding in many species of waterfowl, and “greatly beloved by sportsmen in search of game.”

It was probably hereabouts that, during the latter part of the fourth century, the great migration of Goths crossed the Danube into the Roman province of Lower Mœsia. The Goths, pressed southwards by the harrying Huns, “an unknown and monstrous race of savages,” had appealed to the Emperor Valens and were allowed, under the harshest conditions, to put the great river between themselves and their powerful enemies. Gibbon, in the course of a very full account of the movement, says: “the prayers of the Goths were granted, and their service was accepted by the imperial court; and orders were immediately despatched to the civil and military governors of the Thracian diocese, to make the necessary preparations for the passage and subsistence of a great people, till a proper and sufficient territory could be allotted for their future residence. The liberality of the Emperor was accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions, which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans; but which distress alone could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they passed the Danube, they were required to deliver their arms; and it was insisted that their children should be taken from them, and dispersed through the provinces of Asia, where they might be civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to secure the fidelity of their parents.... The imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the Danube, the whole body of the Gothic nation; but the execution of this order was a task of labour and difficulty. The stream of the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, had been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage, many were swept away and drowned, by the rapid violence of the current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was provided: many days and nights they passed and repassed with indefatigable toil, and the most strenuous diligence was exerted by the officers of Valens, that not a single barbarian, of those who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be left on the opposite shore.”

In a great number of barrows scattered about the Bulgarian hills below Rustzuk, some travellers have recognized relics of this great migration, which was to cost Rome so dear. These barrows, it is said, “are of Gothic origin; and if opened would most probably disclose the same contents as those in Britain—such as bones, armour, pottery, ornaments and idols. Their appearance on these wild hills, with the unchanged soil and aspect of the surrounding country, forcibly recalled our minds to that period when its plains were occupied by the Northern hordes, all ready to burst the feeble barrier of the Roman empire, then fast declining. Here

The next place of importance below Rustzuk is Silistria, “the citadel of the Danube,” about sixty miles further down-stream, and this, too, like other of the Bulgarian towns along the Danube side, has long been notable as a fortress, “forming, as it does, with Rustzuk and Shumla, a connected triangle, which must be broken before any enemy could attempt the passage of the Balkans in this direction with safety.” In Roman times it was, as Durostorum, the headquarters of a legion, and one of the most important towns of Lower Mœsia. There are several records of its withstanding sieges and of its capture in the long past. In 1810 it was taken by the Russians and the fortifications destroyed, only to be rebuilt and attacked again by the same enemy nearly twenty years later, when it withstood for nine months a siege in which the assailants lost three thousand men. Again, in 1854, it stubbornly kept off the attack of the Russians under Gortschakoff, while, when it was invested during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, it held out so stubbornly that it was not evacuated by the Turks until after the conclusion of peace. It used to be regarded as the strongest fortified town in Turkey, and its war record seems to bear out that reputation. After the war of 1828, Silistria was for some years in the hands of the Russians, as it was to be garrisoned by them until the Turkish war indemnity was paid. It is said that the town and the surrounding country soon gave evidence of the superior industry of the Russian peasants, who were introduced and settled there during the period of occupation.

Shortly beyond Silistria the Danube leaves Bulgarian territory, after which Rumania is on both sides of the stream, for the land on the right, the Dobrudja, extending from the Danube to the Black Sea, was awarded to Rumania by the Treaty of Berlin. Both sides, too, become flat alike. The river is still greatly diversified by islands covered with bushes and reeds—“more resembling a sea studded with innumerable islets than a river”—while the avi-fauna is particularly rich, immense flocks of wild swans, wild geese, pelicans, herons, and other waterfowl being often seen. Miss Skene described how, in journeying up the river, the steamer in which she travelled was compelled to moor hereabouts at night, in a wilderness by no means devoid of beauty. “We lay under a wooded bank with many little fairy islands around us, all covered with green bushes, whose very wildness and want of cultivation were their principal charm ... pelicans and storks stalking about on the lonely islands, uttering at times a wild cry, which more than anything I know brings most forcibly to the mind the images of solitude and desolation.” Through scenery thus indicated, the river continues for many miles of the northerly course which it takes beyond Silistria.

About forty miles below that place a lengthy railway bridge—the only one below Belgrade—crosses the Danube, connecting Bukarest with the Black Sea port of Costantza (Kustendji), near to which place was Tomi, where Ovid spent his long years of exile. Before the bridge comes in sight an interesting relic of the Roman occupation is to be noted in the Wall of Trajan—a double rampart of earth, which runs from near the village of Rasova to Kustendji. The railway bridge, which crosses the main stream of the Danube and the Borcea arm, is over two and a half miles in length, and one of the most remarkable examples of this kind of engineering; it has sixty-eight spans, the longest of which—one of those over the main stream—is a cantilever over six hundred feet in length. When it is realized that the foundations of the piers are laid in water the mean depth of which is nearly a hundred feet at ordinary water level, and that the bridge is made at a height of more than one hundred and twenty feet at low water, to enable sailing ships to pass through unhindered, the boast that its completion is one of the greatest engineering feats of modern times will scarcely be regarded as an exaggeration. The bridge was completed and opened for traffic in 1895, having cost a sum of close upon a million and a half sterling.

The broad river flows on, past many islands, past occasional villages, for many miles, to Hersova, a small town on a height which, like so many of the places along the Lower Danube, suffered severely in the wars between Russia and Turkey. This has been described as “a species of oasis in the desert, prettily situated on an undulating eminence, with a fortified castle, and a large garrison; its chief importance arising from the circumstance that it covers every point in this direction where an enemy might attempt to effect a landing in that rectangular peninsula called the Dobrudja.”[18] On the left bank just beyond—where the tributary Jalomitza flows in—is another landing place, Gura-Jalomitza, near which a branch of the river goes off to the right, forming an extensive island or fen, which is described as a mass of reeds, and intersected by streams and channels, radiating in every direction, and said to abound in wildfowl and herds of half-wild swine. Near the lower end of this island, there stands on the left bank the important town of Braila, the chief Rumanian port of entry, an important centre of the grain and timber trades, and a town with over fifty thousand inhabitants. Its chief interest is as a commercial and shipping centre, for it has nothing of architectural beauty to show, and its surroundings are flat and monotonous. Not far from Braila there are remains of a bridge, which tradition says was built across the Danube about five hundred years before the beginning of our era by Darius the Great. About ten miles below Braila, the larger port of Galatz is reached, a town situated between the confluence of the Sereth and of the Pruth, with the Danube, and where the great river makes its final bend eastwards to the Black Sea, still about ninety miles distant.

Galatz has extensive quays and a very large shipping trade, vessels of 2500 tons being able to come thus far up the river. It is a thriving and growing port, with a population not far short of a hundred thousand. The main part of the town is built on the rising ground that lies between the two tributaries named.

In St. Mary’s church here is the tomb of the Cossack chief Mazeppa, immortalized in literature by Byron’s narrative poem. Mazeppa was a member of a noble Polish family, who, being page at the Polish Court, intrigued with the wife of one of the nobles, was discovered, and by the irate husband was lashed naked to the back of a wild horse, which was then turned adrift—

Byron makes Mazeppa tell his story to King Charles XII. of Sweden after the close of “dread Pultowa’s day.” Mazeppa died of poison in the same year as the battle of Pultowa. Owing to his alliance with Charles his name was execrated in Russia, and he was hanged in effigy. His tomb in the Galatz church is believed to have been rifled during one of the Russian occupations.

Reaching its junction with the Pruth about ten miles below Galatz, the Danube passes from Rumanian territory on the left bank, and reaches Russian. Between the Pruth and the Black Sea is Bessarabia, which was detached from Rumania and ceded to Russia by the Treaty of Berlin, Rumania receiving by way of inadequate compensation the tract of Dobrudja already mentioned. From here the Danube runs east past the small Russian town of Reni and the Rumanian fishing village, formerly a Turkish fortress, of Isaccea, to the point where, near Tulcea on the Rumanian side, it branches at the beginning of the extensive delta. Primarily these branches are two—the St. George’s to the south-east and the Kilia to the north, which forms the Russian frontier. Each of these branches forks again, cutting the vast delta into a maze of reedy islands.

On the Kilia branch are the towns of Ismail and Kilia, which may be more particularly referred to before we follow the course taken by the river steamers to the Black Sea. Ismail is a fortress and river-port, with upwards of thirty thousand inhabitants, and visited by over a thousand vessels each year.

Thus Byron described the place when narrating Don Juan’s experiences at the time that Ismail “was beleagured both by land and water, by Souvarov,”

The whole story of the siege—with many “asides”—is told in the seventh and eighth cantos of “Don Juan,” which tell of the hero’s exploits between his strange adventures on the Bosphorus and those in “the chief city of the immortal Peter’s polished boors.”

Kilia, the other Russian river-port, much nearer the mouths of this northern arm of the Danube, is a growing place; but the depth of water in the channel is not sufficient to make the Kilia branch of the river of great importance, although it is that by which the greatest volume of Danube water reaches the sea. Returning to the head of the delta, and following the main or southern branch, we have near its commencement the Rumanian town of Tulcea, another town of growing importance as a commercial and shipping centre, where the works of the European Danube Commission (the headquarters of which are at Sulina) are established. That Commission has made the Sulina channel, which branches to the left from the St. George’s arm, the chief navigation stream. Sulina, a widespread low-lying town about the middle of the eastern side of the great delta, has grown from being a village of a few mud huts to a town of five thousand inhabitants since the improvements of the navigation under an International Commission were begun over half a century ago. The extent of those improvements may be gathered from a couple of passages written by British representatives on that Commission. Sir Charles Hartley, who was chief engineer to the Commission from 1856 to 1907, wrote some years later a description of the scene as it was when he began his labours in 1856:

“The entrance to the Sulina branch was a wild, open seaboard, strewn with wrecks, the hulls and masts of which, sticking out of the submerged sandbanks, gave to mariners the only guide where the deepest channel was to be found. The depth of the channel varied from seven to eleven feet, and was rarely more than nine, feet.

“The site now occupied by wide quays extending several miles in length was then entirely covered with water when the sea rose a few inches above ordinary level, and that even in a perfect calm; the banks of the river near the mouth were only indicated by clusters of wretched hovels built on piles and by narrow patches of sand skirted by tall reeds, the only vegetable product of the vast swamps beyond.

“For some years before the improvements, an average of two thousand vessels of an aggregate capacity of 400,000 tons visited the Danube, and of this number more than three-fourths landed either the whole or part of their cargoes from lighters in the Sulina roadstead, where, lying off a lee shore, they were frequently exposed to the greatest danger. Shipwrecks were of common occurrence, and occasionally the number of disasters was appalling. One dark winter night in 1855, during a terrific gale, twenty-four sailing ships and sixty lighters went ashore off the mouth and upwards of three hundred persons perished.”

That indicates something of the old-time dangers of navigating the channels of the Danube delta. By the making of Sulina a safe port, the building of lighthouses, and the constant dredging and building up of the banks of the Sulina arm of the river, a wonderful change has been wrought, there being now a continuous channel at the entrance “twenty-four feet in depth, 5200 feet in length, and three hundred feet in width between the piers.” The change, even within the first few years of the Commission’s starting work, was remarkable; for while in 1855 out of 2928 vessels navigating the lower Danube thirty-six were wrecked, out of nearly the same number ten years later only seven were wrecked. Other changes may best be indicated in the words of Sir Henry Trotter, the present British representative on the Danube Commission:

“Freights from Galatz and Braila to North Sea ports have fallen from fifty shillings to about twelve shillings or even ten shillings per ton. Sailing ships of 200 tons register have given way to steamers up to 4000 tons register carrying a dead-weight of nearly 8000 tons; and good order has succeeded chaos. From 1847 to 1860 an average of 203 British ships entered the Danube, averaging 193 tons each; from 1861 to 1889, 486 ships averaging 796 tons; in 1893, 905 vessels of 1,287,765 tons, or 68 per cent. of the total traffic, and rather more than two and a half times the total amount of British tonnage visiting the Danube in the fourteen years between 1847 and 1860. The average amount of cereals (principally wheat) annually exported from the Danube during the period 1901-1905 was 13,000,000 quarters, i.e. about five times the average annual exportation during the period 1861-1867. It has been calculated that between 1861 and 1902 the total tonnage of ships frequenting the Danube increased fivefold, while the mean size of individual ships increased tenfold.”[19]

Sir Henry Trotter’s authoritative account of the varying navigation of the Danube may conveniently be given here as, though this book is addressed to those who are likely to visit the river as travellers and pleasure-seekers, there may be some who are interested in such details. “The result of all the combined works for the rectification of the Danube is that from Sulina up to Braila the river is navigable for sea-going vessels up to 4000 tons register, from Braila to Turnu Severin it is open for sea-going vessels up to 600 tons, and for flat barges of from 1500 to 2000 tons capacity. From Turnu Severin to Orsova navigation is confined to river steamers, tugs and barges drawing six feet of water. Thence to Vienna the draught is limited to five feet, and from Vienna to Regensburg to a somewhat lower figure. Barges of 600 tons register can be towed from the lower Danube to Regensburg.”

The international body known as the European Commission of the Danube, which has so splendidly justified itself, was called into existence by the Treaty of Paris of 1856, and may thus be regarded as one of the beneficent results of the Crimean War. The Commission was to consist of delegates, one from each country, representing Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia and Turkey, their task being “to designate and cause to be executed the works necessary below Isaccea to clear the mouths of the Danube as well as the neighbouring parts of the sea, from the sands and other impediments which obstructed them, in order to put that part of the river and the said parts of the sea in the best possible state for navigation.” Since the formation of the Commission its sphere of influence has been extended up stream to Braila, and a Rumanian representative has been added to the body. The Commission was at first financed by loans, but by 1887 had cleared off all debts, and has now an average annual income of about £80,000 for carrying on its work.

Sulina is the termination of the Danube Steamship Company’s service, which starts, as we saw, from distant Passau on the Austro-Bavarian frontier. Thanks in no small measure to the Danube Commission, which has its palatial offices and works here, the town has developed into a first-class port. The great delta on which it is situated (about a thousand square miles in extent) “mainly consists of one large marsh covered with reeds, and intersected by channels, relieved in places by isolated elevations covered with oak, beech and willows, many of them marking the ancient coastline.”

Captain Spratt, R.N., in the course of a report on the mouths of the Danube more than half a century ago, drew attention to a curious periodical phenomenon, to which I have seen no reference by later writers, possibly the clearing of the channels by dredging has made it cease: “The river does not appear to be subject to very sudden or frequent floods; but about every five or seven years the whole delta becomes overflowed for a foot or more, generally in the month of May or June, by a progressive rising of the waters on the melting of the snow (called by the natives the Plimera), which obliges the inhabitants of Yuzlin and the lower hamlets to quit their cottages for a time, and retire to Besh-Tepeh and Tulcha; but the Russian guard-houses are never deserted, the houses being more substantially built of wood, and raised about two feet above the ground.”

So great is the deposit carried hither by the many mouths through which the great river discharges itself into the Black Sea, that one authority states that in thirty years the delta was extended in one part by as much as two miles. Only about nine per cent. of the water is discharged by that which has now been made the main navigable channel, by far the greater portion—as much as sixty-seven per cent.—going by way of the Kilia mouths, where in ordinary flood times as much as three thousand cubic feet of mud and sand are poured into the sea per minute. Such is the volume and force of the water poured by the Danube into the Black Sea, that it is said to be “perceptible at the distance of fifty miles from its mouths.” Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke, in the voluminous account of his travels (1798-1802) recorded that “having passed the Isle of Serpents, we fell in with the current of the Danube. So great is the extent over which the waters diffuse themselves, from the shallowness of the sea, that, although the discharge is scarcely adequate to our notions of so considerable a river, the effect is visible for several leagues by the white colour communicated. 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 perfectly fit for use on board. The shore is very flat all the way from Odessa to the Danube, and so low near 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 lying in the river.”

Dr. Clarke’s disappointment as to the “inadequate” mouth of the Danube suggests that he did not realize that the sea coast—“nowhere two feet above the sea”—of the delta between the Kilia and St. George’s mouths is over fifty miles in length. His reference to the Isle of Serpents suggests that, though more than twenty miles to the east of Sulina, the story of that island, the shores of which are reached by its waters, may fittingly form a termination to the story of the Danube.

The island is variously described (and in the same work) as being “about one mile in circumference” and about one mile in length by half a mile in breadth “surrounded for the most part by precipitous cliffs, sixty to one hundred feet in height, with deep water near them.” It is marked by a lighthouse, which was extinguished during the Crimean War, and the relighting of which bid fair for a time to lead to a renewal of hostilities after the treaty of peace had been signed. Apparently the ownership of Serpent Island was not specified in the treaty, for it is recorded that “with more than their usual promptness” the Turks sent a small detachment of soldiers to the island to relight the beacon. Shortly after, some Russians arrived with the same object, and, it was recorded shortly after the event, “Admiral Lord Lyons acts with decision, and prevents the Russians throwing in a reinforcement. Questions are raised by Russian chicanery on the operation of the Treaty with respect to the Isle of Serpents, and, a place almost as obscure, the town of Bolgrad on the new frontier. Insignificant in themselves, they are of paramount importance; the one as almost commanding the principal entrance of the Danube, the other its navigation. Russia persists in her claims. England, nearly deserted by her allies, resolutely demands their cession to Turkey in fulfilment of the Treaty. Her fleet reoccupies the Black Sea; she nails her ensign to the mast, and is prepared, single-handed, to carry her point. It is felt that she has the spirit and strength to do this; she alone has come out of the war with unimpaired resources—rather, she has only just gathered her strength. Russia recoils from a renewal of the contest and capitulates. Fido-Nisi (Serpent Island) and Bolgrad are the trophies of this bloodless triumph.”

The tiny island that thus, for a time, threatened to bring about war, was anciently associated with one of the world’s war heroes, for it was long known as Achilles’ Island, not only having on it a temple to that hero, but being popularly believed to be the very residence of the deified Achilles. It was also at one time known as Leuce, or the White Island, on account, it is supposed, of the multitudes of white seabirds that at certain seasons of the year more or less covered its surface; and it is further mentioned by ancient writers as “the bright island,” and by Euripides as the White Shore of Achilles. Arrian, the pupil of Epictetus, wrote an account of a journey round the Euxine or Black Sea for the Emperor Hadrian, in the course of which he said: “Sailing out of that Ister [Danube] which is called Psilon, with the wind from the north, the Island of Achilles appears.... It is related that Thetis gave this island to Achilles, and that he still inhabits it. His temple and statue, both of very ancient workmanship, are seen there. No human being dwells there; it has only a few goats, which mariners convey as votive offerings. Other offerings or sacred gifts are suspended in honour of Achilles, such as vases, rings, and precious gems. Inscriptions are also read there in the Greek and Latin tongues, in different metres, in honour of Achilles, and Patroclus who also is there worshipped.” The Greek historian goes on to refer to the “innumerable” seabirds that he saw on the island, adding, “these birds alone have the care of the shrine. Every morning they repair to the sea, and, dipping their wings in the waves, sprinkle the temple, and afterwards sweep with their plumage its sacred pavement.”

Seeing that the island was at one time regarded as the resort of the spirits of dead heroes, it might be explained by Pythagoreans that these spirits, in avine form, thus did honour to Achilles. Arrian continued, “it is said, also, that Achilles has appeared, in time of sleep, both to those who have approached the coast of this island, and also to those who were sailing a short distance from it; instructing them where the island was safely accessible, and where the ships might best lie at anchor. They even say, further, that Achilles has appeared to them, not in time of sleep or in a dream, but in a visible form, on the mast or at the extremity of the yards, in the same manner as the Dioscuri; and that, although the latter appear, evidently and clearly, to persons who navigate the sea at large, and, when so seen, foretell a prosperous voyage, the figure of Achilles is seen only by such as approach the island.” The appearance of Achilles, was, there can be little doubt, that of St. Elmo’s Fires—a lambent electrical discharge at one time known as Castor and Pollux.

To turn from the record of an ancient traveller to that of a modern one, Dr. Clarke, whom I have already quoted, gives the following description: “At four o’clock in the morning we were called upon deck by the captain to see the Isle of Serpents, anciently Leuce, lying off the mouths of the Danube, celebrated in history for the tomb and temple of Achilles. It is so small that, as we passed, we could view its whole extent. Judging by the eye, it appeared to be near a mile in length and less than half a mile in breadth. It is quite bare, being only covered with a little grass and very low herbage. When carefully examined through a telescope, there did not seem to be the smallest remains of antiquity. I made a sketch of it from the south-east. On the south side appear cliffs about fifty feet high.

“Many absurd stories of Turkish and Russian mariners are founded upon a notion that the island is covered with serpents. An opportunity rarely occurs whereon ships can lie to in order to visit it; and, if this were to happen, not a man of any of their crews would venture on shore, although there are twenty fathoms of water within a cable’s length of the island, and any vessel may sail close to it. The Russians relate that four persons belonging to the crew of a ship wrecked there no sooner landed than they encountered a worse enemy than the sea, and were all devoured by serpents. Ammianus Marcellinus records a similar superstition as prevailing in his time concerning the dangers of the place.”

Here we have an indication of the reason for the island’s name; and though the legends of sailors being devoured by them are of course mere legends, the existence of the serpents seems beyond question. Captain Spratt, in his Admiralty survey of the mouths of the Danube, says “the modern name of Fido-nisi or Serpent Island, has no doubt arisen from the abundance of these reptiles upon the island; and they are still very numerous, being veritable sea-serpents, or water-snakes, living upon the fish in the sea, and inhabiting the cliffs on the coast. More than twenty of them were seen coiled together under a shelving rock that received the rays of a warm October sun; and many having fallen into the wells and cisterns died there: the water in them is not now drinkable, so that water for the Turkish troops is obliged to be brought from the Danube. The serpents are jet black, except along the belly. They have a small head, and are from four to five feet long, and, although said to be harmless, are a very disagreeable-looking species.”

A traveller on the lower Danube has recorded the number of fresh-water snakes seen swimming along with their heads erect above the surface, and it may be that the reptiles of Serpent Island were (perhaps are, though I have found no recent reference to them) a colony of such that found the water about their island still sufficiently fresh. The true sea snakes are described by writers on natural history as only found in Asiatic seas.