The river system of Roumania constitutes one of the most remarkable
features in its geography, has played an important part in its past
history, and promises to exercise a powerful influence on its industrial
and political future. This system comprises the great main artery, the
Danube, with numerous confluents which take their rise in the
Carpathians, and, rushing at first in torrents, then How as sluggish,
often as half-dry streams, across the country before they empty
themselves into the parent river.

The 'beautiful blue Danube' has been so bepraised that to a traveller
who visits it for its scenic attractions it is likely to prove a bitter
disappointment. It is not blue, although during certain seasons it is
said to have a blue tinge, but a great part of the way from Vienna to
the defile of Kazan, and the whole distance from Orsova to the Black
Sea, it resembles in colour and appearance our river Humber, and we have
heard American travellers compare it to the Mississippi. For hours and
hours at a time it flows between perfectly flat banks, on which nothing
is visible but reeds and willow bushes. The surface of the river is
enlivened by innumerable floating water-mills, which lie at anchor
either in midstream or close to the banks, and obtain their motive power
from the rapidly flowing current. These are used for grinding the maize
and other cereals of the country. Here and there a small town or
fortification presents itself on either bank. On the Bulgarian side are
the towns of Vidin, Nicopolis, Sistova, and Rustchuk, with their domes
and minarets, and idle laughing crowds of gazers, either men
picturesquely clad, or women sitting perched, on the rocks, and looking
like so many sacks of floor all in a row. These certainly break the
monotony of the great stream, but the general appearance of the river
from Verciorova, where it begins to bathe the Roumanian shore, to its
mouth at Sulina is one long flat reach, higher, as we have already said,