While gazing at the sun-bathed vineyards, ruin-crowned heights and broad, verdant plains which followed one another in rapid succession as our steamer bore us seawards, I was especially impressed by the multiplicity of languages I heard spoken by the passengers. For among my fellow travelers were Germans, French, Turks, Serbs, Croats, Russians, Bulgarians, Roumanians, Greeks, Albanians, Italians, Poles, Slovaks, English, and Americans, and probably several others whom I did not recognize. There was, indeed, a Babel of tongues such as one would scarcely find elsewhere. How the famous polyglot, Mezzofanti, would have reveled in such a gathering where he could have held converse with all of them, as he was wont to do with the students of the Propaganda, in Rome, who came from all parts of the world and with the languages of all whom the illustrious Cardinal was perfectly familiar.[17]

And variety of garb of this motley crowd was almost as manifold as was that of their languages and dialects. From the sedate Englishman in tweed to the animated Roumanian in his Phrygian cap of liberty, the tarbooshed Ottoman dreamily fingering his tespis (string of beads), the sad-faced Serb with his conical Astrakan cap, and the voluble Albanian in a snow-white fustanella, there was every conceivable variety of wearing apparel. And the styles and colors of the dresses worn by the women exhibited even greater diversity. They could be compared only with those of the infinitude of shades and adornments of the feathered songsters of a large aviary or of the multitudinous flowers of a botanical garden.

From Belgrade eastwards Oriental color becomes rapidly more pronounced. This results from the long occupation by the Ottomans of the country through which we are now passing and constant communication between Turkey and the Balkans.

The first objects of note to arrest our attention below Belgrade are the great ruined fortress of Sendria and, further downstream, the ruins of the two castles of Galambocz and Laszlovar. These massive strongholds, located on opposite sides of the river, guarded what was long known as “The Key of the Danube.” They, like the scores of ruins which we have passed on our way from Ratisbon, are rich in historic and legendary associations of the most interesting character.

Near Galambocz is shown a great cavern, in which, legend has it, St. George slew the dragon. When we reflect that practically nothing is known of the patron of chivalry and the champion of Christendom, except that he suffered martyrdom at or near Lydda in Palestine before the time of the Emperor Constantine, it becomes difficult to account for the existence of this dragon-slaying tradition in this spot. Its origin may be due to pilgrims or Crusaders, who brought it from the Holy Land in the same way as they popularized the cultus of the Saint in England as early as the days of Arculph and Richard Coeur de Lion.

But after all, it is no more difficult to account for the contest between St. George and the dragon here than at “a stagne or a pond like a sea,” near Silena in Libya, as we read of it in Caxton’s version of the Legenda Aurea, or, to explain the associations of the martyr-knight with the Order of the Garter, the Union Jack or the white ensign of the British Navy.

Immediately below Galambocz we enter the wildest and grandest scenery along the Danube. The foaming rapids and the towering cliffs of the gorge of Kazan recall the famed cañons of Colorado or Montana, although in magnitude and grandeur it is far inferior to the stupendous gorges of the Arkansas or the Yellowstone.

But far more interesting to me than the gorge itself was an inscription at the lower end which is cut in the solid rock and commemorates the completion of the marvelous roadway which the Romans constructed along the western face of this formidable defile. To me it seemed one of the most extraordinary of all the countless achievements of imperial Rome in the entire length of the Danube valley. The inscription reads:

IMP. CÆS. D. NERVÆ. FILIUS. NERVA. TRAJANUS.
AUG. GERM. PONT. MAX....

But even more noteworthy than the wild Kazan ravine and the wonderful Roman thoroughfare is the celebrated Iron Gate at the confines of Serbia, Hungary and Roumania. This narrow defile long constituted an almost impassable barrier to intercourse between the peoples of the upper and lower Danube. During low water, navigation, except for the smallest craft, was impossible, until the completion, in 1896, of a channel which was blasted out of the living rock on the Serbian side of the seething cataract. This canal guarantees a sufficient depth of water the entire year for steamers of considerable draft and contributes enormously to the importance of the Danube as a highway of international commerce.

Shortly below the Iron Gate we were shown remains of the mammoth stone bridge which was built by Trajan across the Danube. This was even a more astonishing achievement than the construction of the roadway through the gorge of Kazan. I had often admired the wonderful, lifelike reliefs of Trajan’s column in Rome, which represent, among other things, the celebrated campaign of the emperor in Dacia, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to contemplate the remains of the road and the bridge he built during this memorable period of his reign. Dacia, which embraced modern Roumania, is noted as being the only province that the Romans ever possessed north of the Danube. And “the last province to be won, it was,” as Freeman puts it, “the first to be given up; for Aurelian withdrew from it and transferred its name to the Mœsian land, immediately south of the Danube.”[18]

But the remarkable thing about Roumania, as the same eminent historian observes, is that although it has been cut off “for so many ages from all Roman influences, forming, as it has done, one of the great highways of barbarian migration, a large part of Dacia, namely, the modern Roumanian principality, still keeps its Roman language no less than Spain and Gaul. In one way the land is to this day more Roman than Spain or Gaul, as its people still call themselves by the Roman name.”[19]

The Roumanians are not only proud of their Roman origin but take special pleasure in recalling the fact, especially when conversing with foreigners. “We are,” they will tell you, “neither Slavs, nor Germans, nor Turks; we are Roumanians.”

Roumania, they will insist, is a Latin islet in the midst of a Slavic and Finnish ocean which surrounds it. This island when known as Dacia was in reality a new Italy and its inhabitants were the Italians of the Danube and the Carpathians. In a recent speech delivered in Rome, the distinguished Roumanian historian, V. A. Urechia, proudly claimed the capital of the Cæsars as the mother of his country—“Nous sommes ici pour dire à tout le monde que Rome est noire mère.”

A short distance below the ruins of Trajan’s bridge we pass, at the embouchure of the Timok River, the frontier of Serbia and Bulgaria. Thenceforward, until we reach the Black Sea, we have Bulgaria on our right and Roumania on our left. But there is little on either side to arrest our attention, for the history of this part of the world is little more than a chronicle of the horrors of warfare and marauding armies from the time of Alexander the Great. No part of Europe, not even Belgium or northern Italy, can point to so many battlefields in the same limited area, and none of the many peoples inhabiting the vast Danube basin have suffered more than Roumania from the calamities of war—of the long and bloody struggle between the Cross and the Crescent for the mastery of this part of Europe.

As I surveyed the broad plains of Bulgaria, I vividly recalled the thrill of horror that stirred the civilized world when my old friend and schoolmate, Januarius A. McGahan, of Perry County, Ohio, there penned his famous letters to the London Daily News on the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria.[20]

He told the Ottoman authorities that their depredations and carnage would have to cease forthwith or he would have the Russian army across the Danube in six months. They laughed him to scorn. But he was as good as his word. In a brief space of time the Russians, accompanied by their brave Roumanian allies, were in Bulgaria, and at Plevna and Shipka Pass the fate of Turkey in this part of Europe was sealed and the greater portion of the Balkan peoples was at length liberated from the Turkish yoke. The Russians, under their gallant commander, Skobeleff, pushed on to San Stefano, within sight of the domes and minarets of Constantinople. Then, by orders from St. Petersburg, the conquering general was halted in his course just when Russia’s long-coveted goal, the capital on the Golden Horn, was within his grasp.

The chivalrous McGahan, whom his distinguished associate, Archibald Forbes, declared to be the most brilliant war correspondent[21] that ever lived, was stricken with typhus and after a very brief illness died in Constantinople, June 10, 1878, in the early bloom of a glorious manhood. His chief mourner was his bosom friend, the noble Skobeleff, who, with unfeigned emotion, declared at the grave of his illustrious friend, whom he loved as a brother, that his heart was interred with his beloved Januarius and that he had nothing more to live for.

The grateful Bulgarians erected a splendid monument to the memory of McGahan, whom they recognized as their deliverer from the age-long domination of the hated Turks. On this monument were inscribed the words, Januario Aloysio McGahan, Patri Patriæ. Some years later his remains were transferred to his home town, New Lexington, Ohio, and in its modest little cemetery is seen above his last resting-place a plain block of granite which bears beneath the deathless hero’s name the simple but well-earned tribute—Liberator of Bulgaria.

On the left bank of the Danube, slightly northeast of Plevna, is the little town of Giurgevo, which was founded centuries ago by that wonderful commercial metropolis, Genoa. Like its great rival, Venice, it was long celebrated for its commercial and military activities in the Levant and in the Crimea. But that its merchant princes should have extended their trade to the lower Danube in that early period when the navigation of this great river was so difficult and dangerous is indeed remarkable.

From Giurgevo I made a hasty trip to Bukharest. I did not wish to pass “The City of Delight,” as the attractive capital of Roumania is named, without calling on some friends there whom I had not seen in several years. But neither the capital nor the country was what it had been but a few years before. A note of sadness, in consequence of the ravages of the recent war, seemed to dominate the joyful greetings of an erstwhile happy and pleasure-loving people. It will, I fear, be a long time before one can again apply to Roumania the epithet—Dacia Feli—Happy Dacia—which it bore in the days of long ago, when it was one of the most flourishing colonies of the Roman Empire.[22] But the self-reliant people of Roumania are not depressed or discouraged by the present condition of their war-tried country. These descendants of the Dacians, whom the Romans called “the most warlike of men,” have abiding confidence in their recuperative power and their ability to make good their claim to an honorable position among the nations of the civilized world. Their native proverb—Romanul non père—The Roumanian never dies—shows in three words what manner of men they are and what may be expected of them when they shall have rallied from the havoc of war and shall again be free to devote themselves to the stimulating arts of peace.

Among the many things that especially impressed me in Roumania was the large number of gypsies. In no part of the world, it is said, are they so numerous in proportion to the population as among the descendants of the ancient Dacians. The chief reason for this is that these strange, dark-eyed, music-loving nomads from India have met a kinder reception here than in other countries, where they have been regarded as pariahs and often treated with harshness bordering on cruelty.

From Giurgevo to the Black Sea the broad, multi-islanded Danube sweeps majestically through the ever-expanding, reed-covered lowlands—the home of many kinds of water-fowl—and the far extending acres devoted to pasturage and agriculture, which contribute so much to the commerce and wealth of the Balkan Peninsula. Near the village of Rassova, on the right bank of the river, we see what remains of Trajan’s wall, which extends from the Danube to Constanza on the Black Sea. This earthen rampart was constructed during the Roman occupation of the country to prevent barbarian incursions into the colonial possessions of the empire. But, like the wall of Probus, connecting the Danube with the Rhine, it withstood but a short while the ever-increasing onrush of the savage hordes from the north.

Not far from this relic of Roman dominion in this part of the world is the colossal steel railway bridge across the Danube, completed in 1895, and justly regarded as one of the greatest engineering achievements of modern times.

At Braila and Galatz—Roumanians great ports of entry—we were greatly impressed by the activity and enterprise of these flourishing entrepôts of commerce. But I must confess I was here more impressed by what tradition declares to be the spot where Darius Hystaspes built a bridge across the Danube at the time of his famous campaign against the Scythians, more than five centuries B. C.[23]

And what a war-theater this ill-fated land has been since that far-off time! Philip of Macedon, Alexander the Great, Trajan, and countless leaders of barbarian and Turkish hordes have been here or in the vicinity during the twenty-five centuries that have intervened between the advent of Darius and his resistless legions. Certain spots of the earth seem to be perennial battle centers and the land bordering this part of the Danube, as history shows, is one of the most notable of them.

It is in this part of the Danube that one begins to have an adequate idea of the size of this historic waterway and of its transcendent importance in the mercantile life of Europe. It is surpassed by no other European river except the Volga. From its source in the lovely park of Prince Fürstenberg, at Donaueschingen, to where it delivers its mighty tribute to the Black Sea, the length of the Danube is nearly eighteen hundred miles—more than two-thirds of that of our famed Mississippi.

But in the amount and character of the traffic it bears and the number of people it serves, the Danube is incomparably superior to the Volga and even to our great “Father of Waters.” The Volga, like the Mississippi, is only a national river, while the Danube majestically sweeps through many principalities and kingdoms and empires of Europe and assures easy relations between regions widely separated. And, as the Danube in the past has served as the great natural route for the migrations of nations and the warring hordes of Asia and Europe, so it is now, more than ever before, one of the world’s great highways of commerce and industry, and from present indications the day is not far distant when, economically, it will be the greatest.

The reason for this seemingly paradoxical assertion is not far to seek. The importance of rivers is not due to their length and volume of water, but rather to the density of the population on their banks and to the industrial productivity of the peoples who dwell in their vicinity. Thus, the Danube not only passes through some of the most fertile lands in the world, where intensive agriculture is carried to the highest degree of efficiency, but also facilitates the exchange of commodities of all kinds between distant nations and delivers supplies and the necessary raw material to the countless industrial centers of middle Europe.

Of the affluents of the Danube that are navigable, or large enough to float rafts, there are more than sixty, while the number of inhabitants along the course of the Danube alone is more than fifty millions. Add to this the myriads of people who dwell along its numerous tributaries and this immense number will be greatly augmented. It will not only far exceed the number of people who live along the Volga and are benefited by its traffic, but will also far surpass that of the Mississippi basin, if it does not indeed equal that of the entire United States. It was for this reason that Napoleon considered the Danube the king of rivers and Talleyrand declared that “the center of gravity is not Paris nor Berlin but the Mouths of the Danube.”[24]

If these two eminent personages were now living they would have much stronger reasons for entertaining such views than existed a century ago. For, thanks to the genius of modern engineers, the value of the Danube as a great commercial highway has been immensely enhanced. By dredging the canal at the Iron Gate, by jettying the Sulina branch of the delta and by making innumerable other improvements along the course of the river, the European Danube Commission, which has had charge for more than half a century of the betterment of this great international waterway, has eliminated the dangers to navigation which previously existed and has made the river navigable for much larger craft than was before possible. Since the establishment of this International Commission by the Treaty of Paris in 1856, the amount of traffic passing through the mouth of the Danube has increased enormously. According to a recent official report of the Commission, “Sailing Ships of two hundred tons register have given way to steamers up to four thousand tons register, carrying a dead weight of nearly eight thousand tons and good order has succeeded chaos.”[25]

But this is not all. The far-reaching utility of the Danube has been greatly augmented by the construction of such canals as the one which connects it with the Tisza, and still more by the famous Ludwig Kanal which links it with the Rhine. It was a matter of particular pleasure to the late King Charles of Roumania when the Roumanian flotilla of gunboats was able, thanks to the Ludwig Kanal, to steam directly from London to the Black Sea by way of the Rhine and the Danube.

And yet more. When the projected Danube-Salonica Canal, the Danube-Elbe and the Danube-Oder Canals, both under construction, shall be completed, the Danube will tap the greatest industrial centers of middle Europe and will reduce by one-half the trade water route between the Suez Canal and the ports of the North and Baltic Seas as compared with the present water route by way of Gibraltar.[26]

Recalling the days when the Danube was controlled by the robber barons who tenanted the massive castles along its banks, and trade was all but paralyzed; when Genoese and Venetian merchants sailed their small craft down its treacherous waters to collect grain from the fertile fields of Wallachia and hides and furs from the vast plains and forests of Russia; when it was but a Turkish River as the Black Sea was but a Turkish Lake, we can better appreciate its various phases of development during the past and more fully realize the vast expansion of trade which it has witnessed since its navigation was, in 1856, declared to be free to all nations. And looking forward to the time when all the numerous artificial waterways, now projected or nearing completion, shall extend the arms of the Danube to all the commercial and industrial metropolises of Central Europe, we can well believe that historic river will then, from the standpoint of international trade, be not only the most important river in Europe, but also the most important in the world. Then, indeed, will this highway of commerce be, in the words of Napoleon, the king of rivers, and then, too, will be verified the statement of Tallyrand, if it was not justified when he made it a century ago, “Le centre de gravité de l’Europe n’est pas à Paris, ni à Berlin, mais aux Bouches du Danube.”[27]