FREE PORT OF SULINA 297

The Danube commission, to remedy this obstruction, have been
and are making further extensions of the piers seaward, and it is
expected that a permanent bar depth of 24 or 25 feet will be obtained,
when the present works are completed, in three years’ time.
Ten cuttings have also been made in the river between Tulcea and
Sulina, which have shortened the distance by about 12 nautical
miles and removed 27 bends dangerous to navigation, and while,
in 1856, the size of vessels navigating the Danube were sailing brigs
and barks of 150 to 300 tons, to-day steamers of a tonnage of even
9,000 tons can proceed up the river as far as Braila with comparative
ease.
The commission has, therefore, fully carried out the mandate
given it to guarantee the freedom of navigation. It terminated
piracy, which was practiced at the mouths of the river when it originally
 took office.
Description.—Sulina is a small seaport town at the Sulina mouth
of the Danube, being situated on the edge of a swampy flat, of about
1,000 square miles in extent, forming the delta of the Danube. The
port comprises the Sulina branch for a distance of 3 nautical miles
upstream, commencing from the point zero on the milestone scale
and that part of the Sulina branch forming the outer port between
the said point and the pierheads at the mouth. The Sulina roadstead
 comprises the waters of the sea with a radius of 2 nautical
miles round the head of the north pier.
Sulina hes no industrial or commercial importance apart from
shipping, upon which its entire existence depends, being the port of
transshipment for the large bulk of grain finding its way down the
Danube.
Quays have been built on both sides of the river the whole length
of the port, which provide berthing spaces for about 40 steamers,
the depth of water alongside being 24 feet.
The population is about 2,500 souls, to which must be added one
or two thousand men of various nationalities, who form a floating
population and who come and go according to the demand for hand
labor in grain-loading operations.
It is a free port, this privilege having been granted by the Sultan
of Turkey on account of its peculiar position as regards the Danube
commission, and not abolished by Rumania when the latter was
accorded a seat on the Danube commission after the war of 1877.
The free zone extends for a distance of 3 miles round Sulina;
sea-borne goods entering the port not being subject to customs duties
except in the case of the Government monopolies, which are tobacco,
spirits, beer, salt, gunpowder, matches, and playing cards. Goods
arriving by the overland route are subject to the full duties imposable
at other Rumanian ports.