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The fortifications of Varna, we are informed, were thoroughly repaired in 1843; "and from Varna to Roustchouk is three days' journey the latter half of the road being agreeably diversified with wood, corn, and pasture, and many of the fields enclosed."
The town of Widdin found even less favour in our traveller's eyes than Roustchouk. Nothing of the sort;" and thus, sorely disappointed in his reasonable expectations, he proceeded on his way in a car drawn by two horses, which in six hours brought him to the banks of the Timok, the river which separates Servia from Bulgaria.
I embarked on board a steamer, skirted the western coast of the Black Sea, and landed on the following morning in Varna. Varna. Contrast of Northern And Southern Provinces of Turkey. Roustchouk. Conversation with Deftendar. The Danube. A Bulgarian interior. A dandy of the Lower Danube. Depart for Widdin. All hail, Bulgaria!
No mere tourist would now-a-days think of undertaking the fatiguing ride across European Turkey, when he can whizz past Widdin and Roustchouk, and even cut off the grand tongue at the mouth of the Danube, by going in an omnibus from Czernovoda to Kustendgi; consequently the arrival of an English traveller from the interior, is a somewhat rare occurrence.
After smoking a chibouque, I took my leave; for I had promised to spend the afternoon in the house of a Swiss, who, along with the agent of the steam-boat company and a third individual, made up the sum total of the resident Franko-Levantines in Roustchouk. A gun fired in the evening warned me that the steamer had arrived; and, anxious to push on for Servia, I embarked forthwith. River Steaming.
From Varna to Roustchouk is three days' journey, the latter half of the road being agreeably diversified with wood, corn, and pasture; and many of the fields inclosed. Just at sunset, I found myself on the ridge of the last undulation of the slope of Bulgaria, and again greeted the ever-noble valley of the Danube.
A reference to the map will show that this "agreeably diversified" road passes under the famous lines of Shumla, and through many fields of fierce and stubborn fight between Turk and Russ, in the days before the Sultan was delivered over by his allies to his enemy, on the faith of a military report from a man who had never seen a regiment of regular troops under arms! but Mr Paton appears to consider such matters as exclusively the province of militaires, and passes on at once to Roustchouk, which he found "a fortress of vast extent; but, as it is commanded by the heights from which I was descending, it appeared to want strength if approached from the south.
I was supplied with a most miserable dinner; and, to my horror, the stewed meat was sprinkled with cinnamon. The wine was bad, and the water still worse, for there are no springs at Roustchouk, and they use Danube water, filtered through a jar of a porous sandstone found in the neighbourhood. A jar of this kind stands in every house, but even when filtered in this way it is far from good.
Several days were devoted to a general reconnoissance of the place; but the result was not satisfactory "I must say that Roustchouk pleased me less than any town of its size I had seen in the East. The streets are dirty and badly paved, without a single good bazar or café to kill time in, or a single respectable edifice of any description to look at."
There I was somewhat better off, for I got into a new room leading out of a cafe where the charcoal burned freely and warmed the apartment. When the room was washed out I thought myself fortunate, so dreary and deserted had the other khan appeared to me. I now took a walk through the bazaars, but found the place altogether miserable, being somewhat less village-like than Roustchouk.
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