The
Hungarian Government, as a matter of course, would only construct this
great work within their own territory: the other side of the river is
Servian. The engineering difficulties in making this road were very
great, but they have been everywhere overcome, and the result is a
splendid piece of work.
Arriving at the Danube, we took a steamboat that would land us in
Milanovacz in Servia. The scenery here is magnificent; we were now in
the defile of Kasan. The waters of the mighty river are contracted
within a narrow gorge, which in fact cleaves asunder the Carpathian
range for a space of more than fifty miles. The limestone rock forms a
precipitous wall on either side, rising in some places to an altitude of
more than two thousand feet sheer from the water's edge. The scenery of
this wonderful pass is very varied; the bare rock with its vertical
precipice gives place to a disturbed broken mass of cliff and scaur,
flung about in every sort of fantastic form, or towering aloft like the
ruined ramparts of some Titan's castle. Over all this a luxuriant
vegetation has thrown a veil of exceeding beauty.
The fact of the Danube forcing its way through the Carpathian chain in
this remarkable manner is a very interesting problem to the geologists,
and deserves more careful investigation at their hands than perhaps it
has yet received. They seem pretty well agreed in saying that there
must have been a time when the waters were bayed back, and when the vast
Hungarian plain was an inland sea or great lake.
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