In an old guide book it is recorded that a little beyond Nicopoli is Pellina, a Latin settlement of about two thousand souls, who chose this spot to avoid persecution, to which they, as Christians, were subject in Nicopoli. “As the steamboat passes along, a number of them generally assemble on a hill, having a bishop at their head, and cry aloud, ‘Brothers, come to us!’ imagining the passengers to be of the same creed as themselves. The captain returns their invitation by a salute.” As I have not travelled this portion of the Danube, I cannot say whether this picturesque incident still occurs. The passing of Turkish rule has long since done away with any occasion for it. Even when Miss Skene journeyed up the river, Christian “Infidels” were sometimes very badly received, for she recorded landing at one place, to which she gave no name (possibly it was Nicopoli), where she and her companions were stoned back to their vessel. Opposite Nicopoli is the small Rumanian town of Turn-Magurelle, with ruins of a Turkish fortress. The broad river--like an inland sea, as one traveller puts it--flows on past many reedy islands, from which now and again large flocks of pelicans are to be seen, until, beyond a very large island, another Bulgarian place of historic importance is reached at Sistov, a very picturesquely situated town, about the base and on the slopes of a hill surmounted by ancient ruins. These ruins are part of the fortress, destroyed by the Russians in 1810, where the Treaty of Sistov, between Austria and Turkey, was signed in 1791. It was probably here that Miss Skene landed when she got the view of the river described in the following passage. She tells how after “a fortnight’s imprisonment on board” the captain’s permission to land for half an hour was hailed with delight, and how she and her companions adopted his suggestion of making “for the ruins of an old castle visible on the summit of the hill.” Sistov was still a Turkish town, inhabited by a people who looked with disfavour on Christian visitors. “It was with considerable difficulty that we made our way through the assembled villagers, whose gestures and cries were most expressive of the hatred and contempt with which they regarded us. Happily the steamer and its contents engaged them so much, that we succeeded in getting clear of the village altogether, by a circuitous road, which was particularly like a road anywhere else, and ascended to the summit of the hill. The ruins were merely those of an old Turkish castle, in no way remarkable, but as soon as we disengaged ourselves from them, and got out on to the open brow of the hill, the view which then burst upon our sight was most remarkable.