Twice each day we were visited by the medical officer, who just popped his head in at the door, and smiled forth: “Ah! quite well, quite well, I see—impossible to be better—good morning,” and away he went, without affording us time to complain had we been so inclined. M. le Directeur also paid us several visits, always carefully pointing his cane before him, as a warning to us not to approach him too closely: and never failing to commence the conversation by the ejaculation of, “Madame, je vous salue—ha! les beaux arbres que vous avez!” It was really worse than ludicrous.
As a signal mark of favour, we were occasionally permitted to walk, under the charge of the keeper, from the gate of our own colleve-court to that of our friends, and to receive their visits in return, when we had always a very laughable interview; the incarcerated individuals amusing themselves by rocking to and fro behind the bars of their prison-gates, and roaring like wild beasts in a menagerie.
There are two descriptions of persons to whom I would particularly recommend an avoidance of the Quarantaine at Orsova—The ennuyé and the bon vivant. For the first there is no refuge save sleep, and the few doggrel attempts at poetry which may be partially traced through the whitewash; the outpourings of an impatient spirit weary of its thrall; with the occasional society of the “keeper,” who is as cold and as impracticable as his own keys. The very books of which the wanderer has made his travelling companions; and some of which would bear a second perusal, at all events in a quarantaine cell, are carried off and sealed up, as though every volume were redolent of high treason; and he is left to his own resources as ruthlessly as if he were indeed “the last man;” and that he had done with the world, and the world with him.
To the second I need only hint that the restaurant is a Government monopoly, where you are provided for at a fixed sum per day; and fed upon whatever it may please the Comptroller of the Kitchen to serve up. Nor can you procure any wine save the sour and unpalatable vin du pays, however liberally you may be disposed to pay for it.
Those travellers are fortunate who, like ourselves, can meet the captivity of quarantaine with pleasant companions, light hearts, and unfailing spirits; finding food for mirth in their very miseries; and forgetting the annoyance of present detention in the anticipation of future freedom.
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Last Day of Captivity—Quarantaine Enclosure—Baths of Mahadia—Landscape Scenery—Peasantry of Hungary—Their Costume—Trajan’s Road—Hungarian Village—The Mountain Pass—The Baths—A Disappointment—The Health-Inventory—Inland Journey—New Road.
The last day of our captivity was the most tedious portion of the whole, for the prospect of speedy emancipation kept us in a constant state of irritation. Our luggage was collected and arranged with a haste which by no means added to its comfort or convenience, and which only left us an additional hour of unoccupied restlessness; while the servants were urged to a continual commotion that robbed us even of the tranquillity which might have made our prison-house somewhat more endurable.