Nobody interfered with him, and after he had finished his change he was the best dressed man on the boat, as he could boast a clean shirt while the rest of us were dusty with our ride from Drenkova.
From time to time the Danube in this part of its course expands into large basins like mountain lakes. One of these is particularly beautiful as it seems to be completely enclosed and reveals no passage for the river. By and by, as the steamer moves along, an opening is discovered and we enter a deep gorge with steep mountain walls two thousand feet high on either; hand and with a width to the river from wall to wall in one place of only two hundred yards. The noise of the wheels is echoed and re-echoed from side to side, and the scene forcibly recalled to me the prettiest and wildest portion of the Saguenay in Canada, the Rhine near the Seven Mountains, and the Amoor in the Hingan defile. We are in the defile of the Cazan (Turkish for Caldron) the grandest part of the whole Danube from Ratisbon to Galatz. Everybody is moved to expressions of admiration, all save the “Doubter,” who declares that the Danube disappoints him and is a wearisome and uninteresting stream.
We land at Orsova (pronounced Orehova) to pass once more into carriages and go beyond the Lower Iron Gate. Picturesque Wallachians surround us, with their immense hats of wool and their boots of red leather. We halt a moment at a little brook which has the Austrian custom-house on one side and the Roumanian on the other; a Roumanian official examines our tickets, and allows us to pass without examination.
Speaking of the custom house reminds me of a funny incident.
When I entered Servia at Belgrade I had in my trunk a box of Austrian cigars which I bought in Pesth. Coming out of Belgrade and going on board the steamer I had the same cigars; the Austrian customs-official insisted that all cigars brought into Austria must pay duty, and he demanded a tax on mine in spite of the fact that the cigars came originally from Austria and were only going again into the country of their manufacture. Luckily their weight was less than the quantity allowed to each traveler, otherwise he would have compelled me to pay the tariff. He would listen to nothing except the letter of the law.
The Lower Iron Gate is less picturesque than the Upper. The mountains fall away from the river, and the stream spreads out over a rocky bed about fourteen hundred yards wide and a mile in length. The river falls about twelve feet in a mile and a half, and is filled with whirlpools and rapids, with everywhere a swift current broken into waves that dash over the deck of the steamer in the season when the high waters prevent the passage of boats. Below the rapids the river becomes practicable, and there is no other natural obstacle to navigation below this point and the sea.
At a little distance below the Iron Gate we found the steamer that was to carry us down the Danube, and we were speedily installed in her comfortable cabin, once more and much to our delight we found ourselves on an “accelerated” boat, though it proved less agreeable than the Franz Josef.
Before we leave the Iron Gate let us have a little gossip on the question of the Danube.