The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-03 00:00:00

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been in its present condition. In the summer it admits
of the grazing of scattered herds ; and a group of 10, or
20, or 50 vultures may show where a horse or a bullock
has met its death. But how an army already incurn
bered and weakened with fever, ague, and cholera can
traverse that space in warlike trim is inconceivable.
Hence, probably, the reason why the crossing was so
nearly unresisted. The place is anything but silent—
for there is no silence where the waterfowl so abound ;
and the herdsmen's dogs, and in the best weather of the
year, the bleat of the sheep, and the din of a multitude
of singing birds in the scrub, relieve the silence which
broods in places too desolate for human habitation ; but
there are no paved roads, as in Roman times, to echo
to the tramp of horses and men. Which way can the
Russians mean to turn ?
If they turn to the left they may soon find dry ground,
for the coast rises in the direction of Varna. But they
have no support from the sea, which is, we hope, by this
time at all events, well guarded by our ships. There
seems to be no object for the Russians to gain on the
coast, but much for them to lose. If they turn to the
right, there is the Danube, with its thousand ditches,
and a clay-built village here and there, but nothing that
can be held as a fulcrum for further movements. Before
them is the old Roman wall, running right across from
Rassova to the coast. The rising ground on which the
wall was built seems to be the only reason for the exist-
ence of the district at all, for the Danube, sweeping
eastward at that point, would cut across to the sea but
for those hills. They are mere rising grounds, with
hollows between ; and along their slope, and now sink-
ing and now rising, runs that green fence—as the old
barrier may be called—at this day. Once twelve feet
high, and faced with stone, it was a real bulwark and
even now, with the stone gone, and the ridge broken, it
might afford some advantage for defence, if it had been
thought necessary. But there are better defences.
There is Silistria, first—a place pretty well known to
the Russians, seeinff that 50,000 of their troops were,
nine months in taking-if, when its garrison consisted of
only 12,000 Turks; in 1829. It is understood to be now
in the finest order ; and whether the Russians mean to
pass or to invest it, their prospects seem almost equally
desperate—seeing how their rear is open both from the
sea and the river. If they press forwards, they have
Silistria also behind them, with Varna and Schumla in
front, to say nothing of other fine fortifications on the
slope of the Balkan. In sober truth, we cannot make
out the movement to be consistent with any other idea
than that of withdrawal from the extreme right of the
position the Russians have hitherto held; in other words,
that it is a step rather of withdrawal than advance.
Where is the mistake ? Supposing the news to be
true, are the Russians as mad as their master ? Or have
the Turks been unaccountably remiss about this swampy
region, while setting a sufficient guard everywhere else ?
Or is the Danube really so effectually closed that we
cannot get into it? If it is done by filling up the channel,
the effect will tell in two ways ; the allies may be kept
out, but the inundations will follow the marching host.
At its best depth, the channels pf the Danube are insuf-
ficient for the carrying away of the waters of the 120
rivers that are its tributaries. Those rivers bring down
the melted snows of whole ranges of mountains in April
and May ; and if the natural outlets, never sufficient to
obv.iate floods, are now choked up to keep out our boats
—why, the Russians will hardly get back dry shod.
The Germans have a joke against the Viennese : they
tell how a wealthy cockney of the Austrian capital, on a
visit to the Black Forest, undertook to astonish the friends
he had left behind him. He put on his large boots, and
stood in the rill which is the source of the Danube—ef-
fectually damming it up. Recalled his companions to come
and see, exclaiming " How they will stare at Vienna,
when the Danube runs dry I" Unless the Czar has se-
cured some such coadjutor in the Black Forest, we cer-
tainly think that damming up the other end of the
Danube is the way to astonish the nations—by drown-
ing them ; and this Rtissian host in the first instance.
Whether the mouths are open or closed, we do not envy
the armies in the Dobrudja their position. Now they are
there, the thing to be done is to make it a trap. We
shall soon hear how quickly the allied forces can arrive.
It is inconceivable that the Russians can make much
progress meantime ; and, as to doing mischief, there is
none to do in the swamps but to stretch out a few
poor herdsmen's or villagers' corpses for the Black Sea
eagles to feed upon. Above Siiistria the Danube is
well guarded. If if has not been so hitherto below Sills-
tria, from over-confidence in its desolation, that is the
thing to be looked to now. That done, and the Rus-
sians halted anywhere within the triangle formed by the
fortresses of Silistria, Schumla, and Varna, their appa-
rent fate is to be pushed over the cliffs into the sea.
Time will show whether we are wrong, and where ; but
it certainly appears as if the Russians had chosen, out
of all possible traps, the one into which their enemies
would most wish to drive them. We hope we shall not
find that it is done in reliance on the unreadiness of our
naval force. If our naval force deserved such a practi-
cal sneer, we should expect to see our whole nation
volunteering to go and push the horse and his rider,
and ,all the host of the hard Pharaoh of our day, into
the Black Sea.—Daily News.