The general configuration of the surface of the country may be described as an irregular inclined plane sloping down from the summits of the Carpathians to the northern or left bank of the Danube, and it is traversed by numerous watercourses taking their rise in the mountains and falling into the great river, which render it well adapted for every kind of agricultural industry. The character of the gradients will be best understood by a reference to the map, with the aid of the following few figures. The towns of Galatz and Braila or Ibrail, situated on the Danube, are fifteen mètres above the sea-level, a mètre being, as the reader doubtless knows, equal to 1.095, or as nearly as possible 1-1/10 yard. At Bucarest, the capital, which is thirty or forty miles inland, the land rises to a height of seventy-seven mètres;[6] still further inland, where the elevation from the plain to the hill country becomes perceptible, the town of Ploiesti is 141 mètres above the sea, whilst Tirgovistea and Iasi (Jassy), each receding further into the hills, stand respectively at altitudes of 262 and 318 mètres, the last-named city (the former capital of Moldavia) reaching therefore a height of over 1,000 feet above the sea-level. Or again, the plain which stretches along the whole extent of the southern part of the country may be said to occupy, roughly speaking, about a third; then comes a region of hills rising to a height of about 1,500 feet; and beyond these the Carpathian range, forming, as it were, a great rampart to the north and east, reckons amongst its eight or nine hundred peaks many that rise to a height of 6,000 to 9,000 feet above the sea-level. The highest of those summits is either Pionul (in Moldavia) or Caraïman, near Sinaïa (Wallachia), the summer residence of the Court, which are nearly 9,000 feet high; the latter is easily accessible, even to ladies if they are fair climbers, and affords a magnificent view of the surrounding scenery.[7] The aspect of the country, as the traveller moves inland from the Danube to the heights of the Carpathians, is very striking; and as the writer travelled at one time or another along the greater part of the river, both by land and water, and from the bank at Giurgevo to the frontier in the mountains, a brief account of his impressions and observations may be found more interesting than a mere dry geographical description of the different zones.[8] [Footnote 3: The mode in which we ascertained these measurements was by comparing four, independently made. One was by Mr. Weller, the artist of our maps; the second by the author, being the average of four or five maps; the third by an English official friend in Roumania, who has all the best maps at his disposal; and the fourth from Baedeker. Designating these respectively as _a_, _b_, _c_, and _d_, we obtained the following very approximate results:--