Like all frontier towns, Orsova has a heterogeneous population, which gives interest to an otherwise dull and unattractive place. Besides its commercial importance on the river, and also on the through railway line from Budapest to Bucharest, it is, in summer-time at least, the halting-place for the great multitudes of Roumanians and Hungarians who resort to the baths of Méhadia, or the Herkulesbad, as it is usually called, from the old Roman name, Thermae Herculis, a most picturesque and luxurious establishment of sulphur baths a few miles inland, in a wonderful gorge of the Carpathians. Among the motley collection of peasants seen in the streets, the Turk in all his squalor is met here for the first time on the Danube. By the Treaty of Berlin, the small fortified island of Ada Kaleh, three miles below Orsova, was ceded to Austria, and the citadel was ordered to be razed. But as the whole population consisted of Turks, and there seemed to be no humane method of getting rid of them, they were allowed to linger on, not acquiring rights of citizenship in Austria, nor yet responsible to the Sultan in any way, paying no taxes to either Austro-Hungary or Turkey. The wily Turk makes the most of his position, and drives a thriving trade in all sorts of knick-knacks, picks up a good income out of the crowd of tourists who visit the island for a sight of a real Turk in his own home, and sells the best tobacco that can be bought north of the Balkans, and at prices which argue against his assurance that he has paid duty for it at the Austrian customs. Just beyond this island the Danube bends sharply to the south-east, and three or four miles below the Roumanian frontier tumbles its full, broad current over a great ledge of rocks, which for a mile and a half in width extend across the river, and leaving only a narrow and intricate channel for steamers near the Roumanian shore, always dangerous to navigation, and at low-water impassable except by boats of shallow draught. In this mile and a half of rapids the river falls sixteen feet, and the broad defile at this point is known as the Iron Gates. [Illustration: FROM BELGRADE TO RUSTCHUK]