River navigation is, to my mind, most captivating; but space forbids that I should enlarge on it, and on many other points of interest in this eventful voyage. I shall therefore pass over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, leaving the great and classic Stamboul itself behind untouched, and transport the reader at once to one of those “touches of nature” which “make the whole world kin.”

 

It is a little village on the Danube river—the mighty Danube, which bears the fleets of the world on its ample breast.

 

We had been a considerable time in the river, for we took things very leisurely, before reaching the village to which I refer. It was named Yenilik. While I had been rejoicing in the varied scenery—the lagoons and marshes of the several mouths of the great river, and the bolder prospects of hill and dale higher up—I had not been idling my time or making entire holiday of it, for I had devoted myself to the study of the Turkish language.

 

My powers as a linguist may not perhaps be above the average, nevertheless I confess to a considerable facility in the acquisition of languages. Russian I already knew very well, having, as before intimated, spent a considerable time in St. Petersburg.

 

Desiring to perfect myself in Turkish, I undertook to teach my man Lancey. Not that I had much opinion of his ability—far from it; but I entertain a strong belief in the Scriptural idea that two are better than one. Of course I do not hold that two fools are better than one wise man; but two men of average ability are, in nearly all circumstances, better than one, especially if one of them is decidedly and admittedly superior to the other. Lancey’s powers were limited, but his ambition was not so, and I am bound to add that his application was beyond all praise. Of course his attainments, like his powers, were not great. His chief difficulty lay in his tendency to drop the letter h from its rightful position in words, and to insert it, along with r and k, in wrong places. But my efforts to impress Lancey’s mind had the satisfactory effect of imbedding minute points of the language deeply in my own memory.

 

The village to which I have referred was in Bulgaria—on the right or southern shore of the Danube. It was a pretty spot, and the bright sunny weather lent additional charms to water, rock, and tree, while the twittering of birds, to say nothing of the laughter and song of men, women, and children working in the fields, or engaged in boisterous play, added life to it.

 

Towards the afternoon I landed, and, accompanied by Lancey, went up to the chief store or shop of the village. It was a primitive store, in which the most varied and incongruous articles were associated.

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