Turks had a railway to Varna, an important military and naval station. Where the Danube would be crossed was a mystery which the Russians concealed with the skill for which they are famous. If a Russian does not wish to tell you any thing he will be exasperatingly courteous under all your interrogatories, but the extraction of the information is far more difficult than the historical process of drawing sunbeams from cucumbers. Batteries were erected opposite Rustchuk, and for days and days the Russians kept up a steady fire upon that town and its fortifications. Meantime, the preparations for the crossing went on; the Russian divisions were massed at several points on the river's bank, and hundreds of pontoons were made ready.
The first crossing was made at Galatz, on the 22d June, by General Zimmermann, who went over with two regiments in pontoons and drove out the Turks who were posted on the heights on the opposite shore. Having obtained a footing in the Dobrudja, as the peninsula between the Danube and Black Sea is called, the Russians were able to throw bridges over the great stream, by which the whole left wing of the army moved across. Meantime the right wing, on the 26th June, sent a pontoon force over the Danube from Simnitza, under command of General Skobeleff, who drove out the small force of Turks posted there, though not without hard fighting. More pontoons followed, and then a bridge was thrown across on which the army could march. It is related of Skobeleff that he urged his father, a lieutenant-general of Cossacks, to swim his whole division over the Danube. The elder Skobeleff refused, whereupon the younger swam the river accompanied by a Kirghese servant and three Russian orderlies. The three orderlies and their horses were drowned, but Skobeleff and the Kirghese got over safely.
By the first week of July the whole Russian army was
