Near its source the Dnieper is a small, muddy streamlet, which seeks its way southward in a flat valley, three miles wide, between swamps and moors. But quickly its volume increases, and, as near the source as Dorogobuz, the river becomes navigable for smaller vessels. Here it suddenly turns to the west, both valley slopes, but especially the left one, become higher and steeper, the valley narrows down to Y2 km. But after a short stretch it becomes wide and swampy again at Smolensk. The depth of the river is very irregular, the pools (plessa) attaining a depth of 5 meters, the rapids often less than Y2 meter. From Smolensk to Orsha the Dnieper Valley again becomes hardly 1 kilometer wide, between high banks. On the left bank picturesque, rocky precipices appear. At Orsha the Dnieper turns to the south, retaining this direction as far as Kiev. Down to Shclov the Dnieper Valley remains narrow, with steep slopes, then it widens slowly but steadily. The depth of the river reaches 10 meters, but many shoals, great morain boulders and broken sandstone make navigation difficult. Below Mogilev the spurs of the White Russian and Central Russian plateaus withdraw from the Dnieper and show only on the left side. The river reaches the low plain of the Polissye and flows in majestic turns thru swamps and meadows which are dotted with old river beds. In this section of its course the Dnieper receives the Druch and the voluminous, navigable Beresina on the right, and the navigable Soz on the left. The Dnieper receives an especially great amount of water from the Beresina. River navigation is doubled below its entrance, mainly because of innumerable rafts which are traveling to the treeless South Ukraine and the Black Sea from the forests of White Russia.
From the mouth of the Soz numerous low islands appear in the bed of the Dnieper. The river divides into numerous branches. The entire trough lying between the Dnieper and the Pripet is a labyrinth of river branches, lakes, old river beds, swamps and fens. Thru the Pripet the volume of the Dnieper River increases twofold, and very seldom flows along in a single bed.
The tributaries on the right side, the Teterev and the
Irpen, bring the Dnieper the first remembrances of the Ukrainian plateau country, and soon its spurs appear on the right river bank. The Dnieper presses against this bank and forms the picturesque precipices above which glisten the gilded domes of the ancient churches of Kiev. Here the Dnieper receives the largest of its tributaries on the left, the navigable Desna. Thus the formation of the Dnieper River is completed, its source-rivers, the Pripet, Beresina, the upper Dnieper, the Desna and the Soz have united to build a majestic stream. Its normal average width is 600 — 850 meters near Kiev. During the spring floods, however, the width of the river exceeds 10 km.; from the high, right bank one can barely see the woods of the left. All the islands, sand-banks, swamps, meadows, river branches and old river beds disappear beneath an interminable mass of yellowish water, rolling slowly toward the south. Deep into the valleys of the tributary streams the high-water enters, and receding, leaves behind a layer of fertile river mud. Not without reason did Herodotus compare the Dnieper with the Nile.