A Steam Voyage down the Danube, Volume 1 by Michael J. Quin

♦ APPEARANCE OF WALLACHIA ♦

Count Szechenyi had already apprized me of his intention to go down the Danube as far as Rutschuk. As we were preparing, on the following morning (October 3), to set out from Orsova, he added, that his object was to land at Giurgeva, a Wallachian town, nearly opposite Rutschuk, and thence to proceed to Bucharest, in order to obtain the sanction of the hospodar, for the improvements which were meditated in the bed and on the banks of the river within his principality. I took my seat with the Count in his phaeton, and we were followed by another carriage, occupied by his secretary, Mr. Tasner. Our road by the side of the river was scarcely practicable for such vehicles, as frequently we had to be drawn over narrow abrupt rocks, which, sloping towards the Danube, afforded the agreeable prospect of a cold bath, as well as of fractured limbs, in case of a break down. In an hour after quitting Orsova we passed the frontier of Wallachia, where, if we were to Judge from first appearances, misery seemed to have taken up her favourite abode. The cabins of the poor people were constructed of hurdles, not defended, even by the addition of mud on the inside, from wind and rain. Crowds of children appeared at the doors, literally naked, in company with pigs and goats, dogs, cocks and hens, and ducks, as if all were of the same order of existence. Some of these wretched habitations were altogether underground.