Below Widdin, the Danube turns eastward again, and flows sinuously in that general direction for nearly two hundred miles, before taking its final north-easterly trend. The wide river, with many islands, continues through low land, on the left being the vast Wallachian or Rumanian plain, largely hidden by the islands formed by the river, while on the right it is in great part also flat, though now and again the monotony is broken by higher ground. Lom-Palanka, for instance, a town of about six thousand inhabitants, and the railhead for Sofia, is described as being beautifully situated on wooded hills, but beyond both shores become monotonously flat and broken with ditches and pools, close-grown with reeds and other aquatic vegetation. The next place of note, Somovit, on the Bulgarian side, is the railhead of another line to the capital. The railway to Sofia passes through Plevna, which stands about twenty-five miles south of Somovit. Plevna was the centre of the most remarkable incident in the latest Russo-Turkish War, when it was defended in stubborn and magnificent fashion by Osman Pasha against a mighty Russian and Rumanian army. Twice in July, 1877, did the enemy unsuccessfully attack the town. In September (7-13) they made a grand assault, and were repulsed with a loss of eighteen thousand men. In October, Plevna was formally invested, but Osman held out until 10 December, when he was compelled to surrender. It had taken the Russians one hundred and forty-two days to capture the town, and they had lost forty thousand men in the operation, while the defenders had lost as many as thirty thousand. Those travellers who, after journeying down the Danube, wish to visit Sofia, are recommended to journey thither from Somovit rather than from Lom-Palanka, not only because it gives the opportunity of seeing the scene of historic battling, but because the railway line “runs through a perfect Alpine region.” The next place after Somovit, also on the Bulgarian shore, is Nicopoli, picturesquely situated at the foot of bold cliffs and up the slopes between them. For here the left bank has taken on new beauty, and in front of it the Danube stretches, about two miles in width, its surface broken by a number of islands about which pelicans and various waterfowl abound. Its mosques and minarets remain as indications of the long period that it was a Turkish town, and to suggest something of the past when the Crescent and the Cross fought strenuously together for the mastery.