Opposite, on the Rumanian bank, is the growing town of Giurgevo, situated on flat marshy land. This town, founded by the Genoese in the fourteenth century, and named by them after St. George, is becoming an important centre for the transhipment of merchandise, having railway communication with Bukarest, and being one of the ports for the extensive grain-growing districts of the country. Though only accessible by steamers at high water, it has another port in connexion with it, little more than two miles further down-stream at Smarda. During the Crimean War, Giurgevo was so obstinately held by the Turks, that the fortress was not given up before thirty thousand of the besiegers had fallen, and until scarcely a roof was left to shelter the townspeople. It was from Giurgevo that the Russian forces bombarded Rustzuk before crossing the river and making that indomitable attack on Plevna which was even more indomitably withstood. The country between Giurgevo and the capital, Bukarest, is part of that vast plain which lies to the left of the Danube during most of its course after leaving the foothills of the Carpathians below the Iron Gate. The following description of a drive across this plain, was written before the coming of the railways: “We left Giurgevo at a brisk pace, and commenced our journey across a vast plain, which seemed to be interminable; I never saw such a plain in my life; hour after hour we hurried forward, the horizon never rising an inch, and nothing appearing to vary its straight, unbroken line, whichever way we turned. There was no road, but we followed the track of wheels, lightly marked in the dust, and generally without turning or deviating one iota from its course, which seemed to have been drawn on the globe with a gigantic ruler. Sometimes we would pass through a wood, and occasionally we crossed a river on a bridge formed of unhewn logs. Storks flew heavily from us, and herds of horses, cows, and buffaloes, lazily moved aside as we rushed past them in a cloud of dust, for the Wallachian drivers are unsparing of their team. We saw only two villages, Bungasko and Roman, at which latter place we crossed the river Ardjish, where the huts of the peasants seemed to be merely square holes dug in the ground with a roof of branches covered with mud, and a door in one end, accessible by a slope cut for the purpose, but also serving to lead rain water into it.... After ten hours’ drive we reached the gates of Bukarest.”[17]