LIFE AND LETTERS.

CHAPTER I.

THE DANUBE-HOMEWARD BOUND.

DR. OLIN sailed from Smyrna on the 5th of June for Constantinople, where he arrived on the 11th. After making some short excursions in this beautiful city, and enjoying delightful intercourse with the American missionaries, he went to bed with a fever, which confined him to his room for eight days. The discomfort of this illness was greatly alleviated by the kind attentions and Christian hospitality of the Rev. Mr. Hamlin and his wife, in whom he was truly happy to recognize the sister of his dear friend, the Rev. Samuel C. Jackson. After his recovery, he spent a week in exploring, with his usual indefatigable energy, the city and its environs; and from the ample notes made of these excursions, of his ten days in Athens, his fifteen days on horseback among the mountains and valleys of the Morea and Continental Greece, and of his voyage up the Danube, it occurred to him, after the publication of his "Travels in the East," to prepare two volumes, uniform with these in size. In pursuance of this design, he had already written out for the press his observations on Greece and Constantinople,

when he was induced to abandon the idea of publication; and the notes on the Danube, intended to form the basis of a second volume, were left in the rough.

On the 29th of June, he bade farewell to the kind friends who had so greatly contributed to his comfort, and furthered his objects in visiting Constantinople. With Mrs. Hamlin-first seen as a young girl in her father's house amid the green hills of Vermont, then a Christian matron, performing gently and gracefully the varied duties of her oriental life-he was next to meet in the better land. In the same year, God called these, his servants, from the East and from the West, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in His kingdom.

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The month of July he spent on the Danube. "A few pencil lines," as Gray somewhere remarks, "are worth a cart-load of recollection afterward;" so Dr. Olin's penciled notes, written mostly on the steamer, may be considered of no inferior value, especially as recent events have invested that country with peculiar interest.

Journal.

July 6th, 1840. This has been a day of excessive heat. The small islands yesterday and to-day are some of them beautiful, being covered with an impervious low copse, perfectly green. In the evening we passed a large village on the left, with a respectable mosque. Behind is a vast plain, bounded by the lofty Balkan—a fine view. To the right of the village is a three-arched stone bridge.

7th. We reached Widdin, on the left bank, early in the morning, and stopped to take in merchandise. A large mosque, three stories high, is close to the shore, whence a

company, singing, and with a green flag, entered the town. I followed them to the opposite side of the city, where a crowd was gathered to witness the departure of pilgrims for Mecca. The bazars which I traversed are ample, but meanly built of wood, and badly supplied. I saw massive salt in cubes two feet square, iron roughly hammered, long piles of bales of cotton, a cargo of which we take for Vienna-it is in bales of one hundred and fifty pounds; bags of coarse black and gray striped wool. It was brought, two bales on a horse, from Macedonia; it is of a bad quality, short staples, like the shearings of broad-cloth. Many houses are of wattled branches of trees, plastered with mud mixed with short straw. There is a good deal of lumber in the town. I saw seventeen of the twenty-three minarets said to be visible. The country is gently undulating, and just above are swells on the right bank. The population is composed of Turks, Jews, Greeks, Armenians, and Bulgarians. The Bulgarians have light hair and blue eyes; their dress is a frock and trowsers, red sash, and skull-cap. Widdin is an extensive fortress, with fosse and abatis; the walls are of stone-the embrasures upon them of earth, kept in place by wicker-work. A little above, and nearly opposite, is the large village of Calofat, to which the number of flocks in its vicinity, and the white tents of the shepherds give a pleasing effect. At 1 P.M., the mercury under the awning on deck was 99o.

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July 8th. At seven this morning we are opposite a village on the right, built of wicker-work-small round huts, &c. This bank of the Danube, so long a dead flat, is at first an undulating plain, and, two miles from the shore, is a ridge of the Oriental Carpathian Mountains, beautifully wooded up the side, and the top spotted with yellow fields of wheat. The left bank is high, and conical hills form the background. The Danube bends to the north. The Wallachian side is beautiful. Gently swelling hills and vales, cultivated fields plentifully intermingled with rich wood, and now and then

a white cottage. It is a new sight. The Wallachian Lazaretto is on the bank, and consists of several respectable white houses. 9 A.M., at Trajan's Bridge. A pile of masonry stands on both shores, close to the water. It is from ten to fifteen feet high, and composed of rough stones in cement. The bridge seems to have been narrow in proportion to its length, which was about one mile. Just above, on the right, is a fragment of a wall, fifteen feet high, said to have been a part of the Roman camp. Other ruins, less visible, are scattered around in the vegetation. The whole region is beautiful.

The boat stopped at 113 A.M. Higher by one or two miles is Scala Gladova, where the Austrian flag flies, and where the boat of the other side of the river stops. Here is a wattled village, the chimneys the same, the roof thatched. Just opposite, on the left, is a Turkish fort, with several good buildings within, and a mosque. It is called Feth Islam, or Gladova. A mile higher is the Servian village of Gladonitza, where we anchored at 11 A.M., too late to get to Orsova to-night. We stay on board till to-morrow morning in an ill humor. This is a vile village of twigs, thatch, and mud. The opposite bank is a mountain of slate, which dips from the Danube at a great angle. The passage from here to Orsova is made in boats towed by oxen, or carriages, which are immense baskets, something like a coach in form, and suspended on wheels. The soldiers who guard the banks of the Danube in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Servia belong to the principalities, and are not Russians. The dress of the Servian and Bulgarian female peasants is a white handkerchief tied upon the head, a long gown of white cotton, a colored petticoat, open at the sides, reaching half way from the knees to the ankles, and confined at the top by a girdle They come for water with two buckets, pendent from the ends of a lever, which they balance on the shoulder, and they wade in the river to fill these vessels. The men, who are as