Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, August, 1878Various
History
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 22, August, 1878
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Kalafat and Turnu-Severinu are small towns which would never have been
much heard of had they not been in the region visited by the war.
Turnu-Severinu is noted, however, as the point where Severinus once
built a mighty tower; and not far from the little hamlet may still
be seen the ruins of Trajan's immemorial bridge. Where the Danube is
twelve hundred yards wide and nearly twenty feet deep, Apollodorus
of Damascus did not hesitate, at Trajan's command, to undertake the
construction of a bridge with twenty stone and wooden arches. He
builded well, for one or two of the stone piers still remain perfect
after a lapse of sixteen centuries, and eleven of them, more or less
ruined, are yet visible at low water. Apollodorus was a man of genius,
as his other work, the Trajan Column, proudly standing in Rome, amply
testifies. No doubt he was richly rewarded by Trajan for constructing
a work which, flanked as it was by noble fortifications, bound the
newly-captured Dacian colony to the Roman empire. What mighty men were
these Romans, who carved their way along the Danube banks, hewing
roads and levelling mountains at the same time that they engaged the
savages of the locality in daily battle! There were indeed giants in
those days.
[Illustration: RUSTCHUK.]
When Ada-Kale is passed, and pretty Orsova, lying in slumbrous quiet
at the foot of noble mountains, is reached, the last trace of Turkish
domination is left behind. In future years, if the treaty of San
Stefano holds, there will be little evidence of Ottoman lack of
civilization anywhere on the Danube, for the forts of the Turks will
gradually disappear, and the Mussulman cannot for an instant hold
his own among Christians where he has no military advantage. But at
Orsova, although the red fez and voluminous trousers are rarely seen,
the influence of Turkey is keenly felt. It is in these remote
regions of Hungary that the real rage against Russia and the burning
enthusiasm and sympathy for the Turks is most openly expressed. Every
cottage in the neighborhood is filled with crude pictures representing
events of the Hungarian revolution; and the peasants, as they look
upon those reminders of perturbed times, reflect that the Russians
were instrumental in preventing the accomplishment of their dearest
wishes. Here the Hungarian is eminently patriotic: he endeavors as
much as possible to forget that he and his are bound to the empire
of Austria, and he speaks of the German and the Slav who are his
fellow-subjects with a sneer. The people whom one encounters in that
corner of Hungary profess a dense ignorance of the German language,
but if pressed can speak it glibly enough. I won an angry frown and
an unpleasant remark from an innkeeper because I did not know that
Austrian postage-stamps are not good in Hungary. Such melancholy
ignorance of the simplest details of existence seemed to my host meet
subject for reproach.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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