From Belgrade, the Danube, though with many bold windings that now and
again give us the impression that the river is turning sharp corners,
follows a general easterly course until it passes beyond the Hungarian
frontier. Here we are journeying between two Roman provinces, that of
Mœsia on the right which is now Servia, and that of Dacia, the only
province established by Rome beyond the Danube which is now part of
Hungary. Here, too, it may be mentioned the river was known to the
Greeks as the Ister, the main stream being regarded as that of the
Save, which rises near the confines of Istria.
Leaving Belgrade, we pass between the citadel-topped hill and the
tree-grown War Island. When we reach the broad main stream again, the
left or Hungarian bank, broken into islands, continues flat and thickly
wooden with low greenery. On the Servian side are bare rounded hills
which, as we near them, are seen to be dotted with red-roofed white
houses and patches of crops. A tandem team of oxen may be observed
ploughing a steep and stony hillside that appears too precipitous for
cultivation. Through a break in the hills we get a glimpse of the
higher mountains of the Balkans.
Leaving the Servian capital early in the morning, the autumn sunrise
as we pass between these greatly contrasting banks is peculiarly
beautiful. White mist, irradiated by the golden light, affords constant
change of view as the steamer passes through varying banks of it. The
mist appears, indeed, to rise and fall, as now we go through a thick
veil, and now have one or the other and again both shores clearly
visible. As the sun rises higher and the mist disperses, wisps of it
appear to rise columning up from the surface of the water.
An hour or so below Belgrade, where the river has attained a width of
about a mile and a quarter, we reach on the left, opposite a large
island, the mouth of the Temes, one of the Alföld rivers, which
flows down from Temesvár. Here is the landing place for Pancsova, a
considerable lowland town, which stands about three miles up the Temes.
On the Servian side nearly opposite, is Vischnitz, and some distance
below we pass Krotzka, the scene of a disastrous battle between the
Austrians and the Turks in 1739. Austria had joined with Russia in her
war against Turkey, and the Austrian army, advancing from Belgrade,
here encountered the enemy, and were defeated with such great loss that
they were compelled to sue for a peace, by which they had to restore
to the dominion of the Sultan, Belgrade, Orsova, and other territories
which they had acquired by an earlier treaty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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