Leave Widdin.--The Timok.--Enter Servia.--Brza Palanka.--The Iron
Gates.--Old and New Orsova.--Wallachian Matron.--Semlin.--A
Conversation on Language.


I left Widdin for the Servian frontier, in a car of the country, with
a couple of horses, the ground being gently undulated, but the
mountains to the south were at a considerable distance. On our right,
agreeable glimpses of the Danube presented themselves from time to
time. In six hours we arrived at the Timok, the river that separates
Servia from Bulgaria. The only habitation in the place was a log-house
for the Turkish custom-house officer. We were more than an hour in
getting our equipage across the ferry, for the long drought had so
reduced the water, that the boat was unable to meet the usual
landing-place by at least four feet of steep embankment; in vain did
the horses attempt to mount the acclivity; every spring was followed
by a relapse, and at last one horse sunk jammed in between the ferry
boat and the bank; so that we were obliged to loose the harness, send
the horses on shore, and drag the dirty car as we best could up the
half dried muddy slope. At last we succeeded, and a smart trot along
the Danube brought us to the Servian lazaretto, which was a new
symmetrical building, the promenade of which, on the Danube, showed an
attempt at a sort of pleasure-ground.

I entered at sunset, and next morning on showing my tongue to the
doctor, and paying a fee of one piastre (twopence) was free, and again
put myself in motion. Lofty mountains seemed to rise to the west, and
the cultivated plain now became broken into small ridges, partly
covered with forest trees. The ploughing oxen now became rarer; but