After three hours of this sort of travel we were transferred to a small steamer where we managed to get an apology for din{ 082}ner, and where, when the little cabin was full of men and women, a Hungarian passenger with an enormous mustache and a loud voice opened his valise, removed his coat and vest, and coolly proceeded to change his shirt.
He was not at all abashed to display his back and shoulders to the party, but went on with his toilet very much as if in a room by himself.
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 { 083}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.