The aspect of the country improved throughout the whole day; abrupt and precipitous heights, wooded to the very summits—stretches of corn and pasture land—multitudinous herds of cattle—and laughing plains, gay with grass and wild flowers, flitted rapidly by; while the bold cloud-crested mountains above Orsoru formed a noble background to the picture. At noon we were abreast of Florentin, the last Bulgarian village on the bank of the river; and decidedly the most picturesque locality on the Lower Danube. The hamlet was nestled beneath a rock, three of whose sides were washed by the river, while the fourth was protected by a deep ditch; and the tall, bluff, perpendicular rock itself was crowned by a Gothic castle, whose gray outline, apparently nearly perfect, cut sharply against the sky; and completed a tableau so strikingly beautiful as to elicit an universal exclamation of delight. We ran past Scala Glavoda in the night, from which circumstance I lost the opportunity of seeing Trajan’s Bridge, whose arches may be distinguished beneath the level of the water; and at midnight we anchored at a straggling village about half a league above it. Here we took leave of the Pannonia; and, as the river is not navigable for a considerable distance for any thing but flat-bottomed boats, whose wearisome course against the current is secured by the assistance of oxen, who tow them lazily on their way; we were obliged to proceed to Orsova by land. Custom-house officers came on board to examine the merchandize with which the vessel was freighted, but they did not interfere with the luggage of the passengers; and, as soon as bullock-cars had been secured, we despatched our packages on shore, whither we shortly followed them. On the opposite shore rose the mountains of Wallachia, just touched upon their summits with the brilliant tints of the newly-risen sun, and clothed with many-coloured foliage. The hills, beside which we had passed during the previous day, had closed upon us in the rear; and the chain which terminates in the _Porte de Fer_, or Iron Door, a bar of rock that nearly traverses the Danube, and over which its waters toss and boil in impotent violence, shut in the forward view. In the bottom of the gorge ran the river, whence arose the column of steam escaping from the chimney of the Pannonia; and the Servian shore was scattered over with the multifarious properties of the passengers. The village ran along the bank of the river, and consisted of log huts, most ingeniously constructed, lined with a cement formed of clay, and thatched, like those in Bulgaria, with reeds, and the straw of the Indian corn; interspersed with small tenements of wicker-work raised on poles, and serving as store-houses for fruits and grain.