The first stopping place of the steamer on the Servian shore is Semendria, a town of old-time importance which is indicated by the extensive ruined fortress right on the river bank. This fortress--some idea of the size of which may be gathered from the fact that it has eleven massive castellated towers along the town-side wall--is sometimes described as Turkish, but is said to have been originally established in the first half of the fifteenth century by the Servian prince, Georg Branković on the site of an earlier Roman stronghold. The many Servian, Turkish and other costumes noticeable among the crowd under the trees on the bank above the landing place, give a touch of Oriental colour to the scene. [Illustration: OLD TURKISH FORT, SEMENDRIA] As we leave Semendria and pass a number of beautiful tree-covered islets, four steersmen are again found necessary to control the wheel, owing to the swiftness of the stream. As the river nears the end of the ten-mile-long island of Ostrovo--said to be the scene of Maurus Jókai’s romance “Der Goldmensch”--we pass the influx of the Servian river Morava. An interesting scheme has been formulated for regulating the waters of the Morava, which flows northward, and those of the Vardar, a stream which rises on the southern side of the same watershed, and connecting the two streams by means of a canal, so that a new waterway should be established, 382 miles long, connecting the Danube at this point with Salonika on the Ægean Sea. Several small towns are passed, but nothing that makes a special impression to vary the general one of the broad river, the low hills and trees, until on the right we see the bold ruins of the Servian fortress of Rama. Beyond are quarries, and then high hills of sand--broad expanses, bare and clean as the desert, forming a curious contrast to the tree-grown slopes immediately beyond. Ahead, the view is shut in by the hills of a spur of the Carpathians. On the left the ground becomes hillier, and at Báziás we reach a small quaint village on a low hillside--a village the quaintness of which is not to be recognized from the steamer, for the steamer-quay and railway yards and station occupy the foreshore. Those who pause here will find the little village--built so closely on the rock face that the houses above those on the single, strangely uneven street are reached by narrow paths, hung with wild clematis and other climbers, and series of steps--reminiscent of Clovelly, though widely different from its Devonshire equivalent. Glimpses into the balconied yards of some of the houses, with their flowering oleanders, suggest Italy. The view of the broad river and the bare hills of Servia from above the village, or from the Kossuth memorial stone on the steep bank, is particularly pleasant.