THE DUKLA PASS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13603, 8 February 1915, Page 3

THE DUKLA PASS.

Hilaire Beiloo writes: — It ia worth tlie reader's while to interest himself m the details of this famous passage over tbe Carpathians. It lies exactly m the "waist" of the Carpathian system, between the high and very difficult ground of the Tatra m tho north-west and the high heavily- wooded and almost equally dimcult ground of Tianslyvania iv the south-east, it has been lor centuries a passage for armies, being to tho Carpathians what irvoncesvailes is to the Pyrenees or the Brenner Pass to the Alps, or the ivhyber to the north-west frontier. But the Dukia Pass is more remarkable . than any of these, m that the gap by wluch it traverses a formidable range oi mountains as at once low, broad, and short. There are no gorges. The height ox ' the summit over the neighboring inhabited cultivated land is a paltry 600 feet, its total height above the sea is only just over 1600, and from the northern to the southern towns, or rather large villages, that guard its either chiraucu is but an easy day's march along an excellent road. From Dukia upon tho north, itself four miles on m the lfat country, it is but 16 miles or so to Ledoniervagasa to the south, and there are three or four hamlets m between. The actual distance from the last northern flat to the first southern one is much less, it is barely more t/han 10 miles, and the slope is everywhere evert and gentle. The neighboring summits, well removed from the broad saddle., do not dominate it by more than another five or six hundred feet, and m general the whole system is an exception to almost ail thut we find of the same sort m the passages of other mountain ranges throughout Europe, bo extraordinarily low, facile, and wide is the gap. Way no railways has ever been traced through such an opportunity for a traverse 1 do not know, but at any rate whoo/er holds the Dukia Pass is the master of the Carpathians as a whole, and has as effectual!/ possessed himself of the four or five more diilicult passes oVer which the railways run as t/hough he had taken these with columns of troops. For a northern invader holding the southern issue of- the Dukia Pass, or a southerly invader holding the northern one, las turned all neighboring passes over tne chain.