Below Ismail the Danube was a perfect forest of masts, and we had some difficulty in steering our way through the maze of ships. The river is very narrow in many places. A child could easily throw a stone across it. The Turkish and Russian labourers in the fields on the Bulgarian and Bessarabian shores are within hail of each other. And every breeze blows waifs and strays across the narrow boundary. Turkish and Russian wild-fowl, wiser than men, chat amicably together about their prospects for the winter, and call blithely to each other from shore to shore among the reeds. The character of the country on both sides of the river is very much the same--flat and uninteresting. Now and then, however, a charming little valley opens among woods and waters in the distance, and here and there rises a solitary guard-house, or a few fishermen burrow among rocks and caverns. Thirty hours after our departure from Galatz we steam into the crowded port of Sulina, where one thousand sail are wind-bound. On Saturday, January 19th, will be Published, Price Five Shillings and Sixpence, cloth boards, THE TWELFTH VOLUME OF HOUSEHOLD WORDS, Containing from No. 280 to No. 303 (both inclusive), and the extra Christmas Number. _The Right of Translating Articles from_ HOUSEHOLD WORDS _is reserved by the Authors_. Published at the Office. No. 16, Wellington Street North, Strand. Printed by BRADBURY & EVANS, Whitefriars, London. FOOTNOTES: [A] Numbers 264, 268, 274, and 279. [B] Reported in the Manchester Guardian of March 28, 1855. [C] Reported in the Manchester Guardian of March 28, 1855. * * * * * Transcriber’s note New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. In the original on page 15, the footnote is referenced in two places in the text. In this version a duplicate footnote was added. Spelling has been retained as originally published except for the corrections below. Page 1: “a man in Paris have an” “a man in Paris has an” Page 3: “and disagreable company” “and disagreeable company” Page 9: “Madame Rosa's bourdoir” “Madame Rosa's boudoir” Page 9: “lived where Michael Angelo” “lived where Michelangelo” Page 13: “yielded the pas” “yielded the past” Page 15: “members of the Asociation” “members of the Association” Page 22: “mends it himself” “tends it himself”