daybreak into the territory of the Czar. A banker friend in Galatz had strongly advised us not to attempt the voyage to the Black Sea by way of the Kilia arm, insisting that the Russian Custom-house regulations were extremely rigorous, and that we would probably be prohibited from landing anywhere along that shore, while the Roumanian bank was marshy and deserted, and did not offer any possible camping places. We had no desire to make the acquaintance of any more autocratic system than that with which we had become unwillingly intimate, but the advice of our friend did not deter us from carrying out our plan, and we profited by his warnings so far as to lay in three or four days’ store of provisions in case we should be obliged to defy both Russia and Roumania, and paddle down mid-channel to the Black Sea without touching land on either side. We were rather late in getting afloat the next morning, for the wind had risen to a gale in the night, and had drifted the fine sand over everything, half burying the boats, and penetrating every crevice and cranny in them. This added a great deal to the labor of packing up, and the only way we succeeded in getting rid of this nuisance was by carrying everything down close to the water’s edge where the sand was wet and hard. The Pruth is a narrow, deep stream winding under the western slopes of a range of low hills which divert the course of the Danube sharply from [Illustration: CHATAL SAINT GEORGE] [Illustration: TOULTCHA] the north-east to the south-east at this point. The first Russian town, Reni, with its turnip-shaped church-spires and ugly warehouses, stands on a high bluff overlooking this bend of the river, and offers nothing of interest, not even at the water-front, where there is little or no activity, and few craft of any kind. The hills abruptly recede again just below the town limits, and the river sweeps majestically round towards the east, and takes an almost straight course to the first branching in the delta. Both shores are now quite flat and well cultivated, and on either side frequent picket stations are the only houses in sight. To the south and east, across a narrow strip of meadow land, the great hills of the Dobrudscha, dotted with ancient tumuli, extend far into the distance, where a range of mountains cuts sharply against the sky with bold, jagged outlines; to the north, the irregular base spurs of the line of low hills which touch the river at Reni are seen jutting out over the great marsh at intervals until they vanish in the perspective. The wind veered round in the middle of the forenoon and almost died away, and as we alternately sailed and paddled down the long straight reach towards the delta, past the red-roofed town of Isaktcha on the Roumanian shore, half hidden behind a wooded island, and the great Russian monastery of Saint Theraspont across the river, we heard not so much as a single hail from the soldiers on either bank, although