beautiful. The numerous angles of its walls and towers, built in
the Moorish style, impart to this place a peculiar charm. As a
rule, the Turkish fortresses are remarkable for picturesque effect.

But the villages, particularly those on the Servian shore, had the
same poverty-stricken look I had frequently noticed in Galicia.
Wretched clay huts, thatched with straw, lay scattered around; and
far and wide not a tree or a shrub appeared to rejoice the eye of
the traveller or of the sojourner in these parts, under the shade of
which the poor peasant might recruit his weary frame, while it would
conceal from the eye of the traveller, in some degree, the poverty
and nakedness of habitations on which no feeling mind can gaze
without emotions of pity.

The left bank of the river belongs to Hungary, and is called the
"Banat;" it presents an appearance somewhat less desolate. Much,
however, remains to be desired; and the poverty that reigns around
is here more to be wondered at, from the fact that this strip of
land is so rich in the productions of nature as to have obtained the
name of the "Garner of Hungary."

On the Austrian side of the Danube sentries are posted at every two
or three hundred paces--an arrangement which has been imitated by
the governments on the left bank, and is carried out to the point
where the river empties itself into the Black Sea.

It would, however, be erroneous to suppose that these soldiers mount
guard in their uniforms. They take up their positions, for a week
at a time, in their wretched tattered garments; frequently they are
barefoot, and their huts look like stables. I entered some of these