624.]
CHAPTER XX.
The Tomoescher Pass--Projected railway from Kronstadt to
Bucharest--Visit to the cavalry barracks at Rosenau--Terzburg
Pass--Dr Daubeny on the extinct volcanoes of Hungary--Professor
Judd on mineral deposits.
Kronstadt is a capital place as headquarters for any one who desires to
explore the neighbouring country. One of my first expeditions was to
Sinia, a small bath-place in the Tomoescher Pass, just over the
borders--in fact in Roumania. Here Prince Charles has a charming
chateau, and there are besides several ambitious Swiss cottages
belonging to the wealthy grandees of Roumania. My object was not so much
to see the little place, as it was to explore this pass of the
Carpathians, now so familiar to newspaper correspondents and others
since the Russo-Turkish war began.
As I mentioned before, a railway is projected from Kronstadt through
this pass, which will meet the Lemberg and Bucharest line at Ployesti,
that station being less than two hours from the Roumanian capital. Up to
the present hour not a sod of this railway has been turned; but
curiously enough, with only two or three exceptions, all the "war maps"
have made the capital mistake of marking it down as a _completed_ line.
In the autumn of 1875, when I was there, the levels had been taken and
the course marked down; if it is ever really carried out, it will be one
of the most beautiful railway drives in Europe.
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