kind of agricultural industry. The character of the gradients will be
best understood by a reference to the map, with the aid of the following
few figures. The towns of Galatz and Braila or Ibrail, situated on the
Danube, are fifteen mètres above the sea-level, a mètre being, as the
reader doubtless knows, equal to 1.095, or as nearly as possible 1-1/10
yard. At Bucarest, the capital, which is thirty or forty miles inland,
the land rises to a height of seventy-seven mètres;[6] still further
inland, where the elevation from the plain to the hill country becomes
perceptible, the town of Ploiesti is 141 mètres above the sea, whilst
Tirgovistea and Iasi (Jassy), each receding further into the hills,
stand respectively at altitudes of 262 and 318 mètres, the last-named
city (the former capital of Moldavia) reaching therefore a height of
over 1,000 feet above the sea-level. Or again, the plain which stretches
along the whole extent of the southern part of the country may be said
to occupy, roughly speaking, about a third; then comes a region of hills
rising to a height of about 1,500 feet; and beyond these the Carpathian
range, forming, as it were, a great rampart to the north and east,
reckons amongst its eight or nine hundred peaks many that rise to a
height of 6,000 to 9,000 feet above the sea-level. The highest of those
summits is either Pionul (in Moldavia) or Caraïman, near Sinaïa
(Wallachia), the summer residence of the Court, which are nearly 9,000
feet high; the latter is easily accessible, even to ladies if they are
fair climbers, and affords a magnificent view of the surrounding
scenery.[7] The aspect of the country, as the traveller moves inland
from the Danube to the heights of the Carpathians, is very striking; and
as the writer travelled at one time or another along the greater part
of the river, both by land and water, and from the bank at Giurgevo to
the frontier in the mountains, a brief account of his impressions and
observations may be found more interesting than a mere dry geographical
description of the different zones.[8]