under an apparently unfounded impression that somebody they knew might arrive by the train.

The "restaurations," where at every Austrian station the best and most wholesome refreshments might be procured, had vanished, and their places were supplied by a few ragged urchins running about, who offered mouldy grapes, and muddy water from earthen pitchers. With each station we stopped at, the sound of the German tongue became less and less frequent; and the placards on the walls were inscribed in that mysterious Magyar language, whose only guiding principle, so far as an uninitiated observer can judge, is to throw x's and y's and z's higgledy-piggledy into every word, which without their presence might have been pronounceable by ordinary lips. Let it be remembered that I am describing this scene only as I saw it.

All travellers whom I met, natives or foreigners, assured me that the material progress of Hungary had been immense during the last three years. I can quite believe it. The side-rails at all the stations were crowded with long trains of heavily-laden trucks, working their way slowly Vienna-wards along the over-blocked line. At all the few roadside crossings there were teams of carts and carriages waiting for our train to pass, and in the distance I saw several tall chimneys belching forth black pillars of smoke through the still sultry air—a sight which told of manufacturing industry. And I fancied-it may have been only fancy-that the people looked brighter and less forlorn than when I saw them last, in the days when between Hungary and Austria there existed bitter hatred, oppression, and a sense of cruel wrong.

It was night before our train reached Pesth; and in the morning, when the sun rose over the dead distance bringing the daybreak with it, we were within sight of the hills which bound the Danube valley. Through long tracts of marsh land, where the reeds grow high

and rank, we passed slowly on to the riverside; and at a wharf there, the railroad and our land journey came to an end together. The boat was in waiting, with her steam up, to take us to the entrance of the Iron Gates.*

At our table d'hôte† there was a very Babel of languages-English, French, German, Turkish, Hungarian, Serbian, and Greek; the latter four I took upon credit. One unknown tongue sounds very like another, and the only language I could catch at all was the Rouman, in which Italian words recur so constantly, that I was always under the delusion I was about to understand the next sentence that would be spoken.

All day long till the evening closed in, we sailed down in a small tug about the size of a Thames penny steamboat, through the gorge of the Iron Gates. "The Danube from Drenkova to Orsova-that is, for about six hours' journey down a rapid stream-is still only to be traversed by boats of very shallow draught, and not always even by them. Only to-day, at the narrowest and steepest of the three defiles, a long string of carriages or rather carts, was in waiting on the banks at the commencement of the gorge, in the hope that the 'Busy Bee' or 'Active Ant' (or whatever the names of our little tugs may have been) would not be able to cross the rapids, and would consequently have to disembark us; and as I was told by the steward that these carriages came down every day on the chance, I felt indisposed to believe his further assertion, that their services were hardly ever required.

Apart from the injury which the difficult navigation

*The name given to the district near Orsova where the Danube enters Turkey, in which the Carpathians on the left bank, and a range of slate mountains branching out from the Balkan on the right bank, come almost down to the water's edge. This near approach of the two mountain-chains greatly narrows the channel of the river.

† The dinner-table at an hotel, at which the visitors dine all together. The name table d'hôte arose from the fact that, originally, the host himself sat at the head of his table.

of the river inflicts upon the merchant trade, it also throws obstacles in the way of the sail down the Danube as a route for tourists. Had it been cold or rainy, our journey to-day would have been miserable; as it was, we were only broiled with the heat. So much has been said about the Iron Gates, that I had expected a good deal more than I found. In no part of the route is there anything so grand or so precipitous as the entrance to the Rhine at Bingen; and at their best, the gorges of the Iron Gateways bear a close resemblance to the Avon at Clifton. As to shooting the rapids, there is nothing of the kind. By the ripple in the waters at certain points you can tell that there must be rocks underneath, and the zigzag winding course you have to follow, marked out as it is by piles and buoys in midstream, shows clearly enough that the channel must be obstructed underneath the surface; but there is no apparent fall in the current, and the passenger can hardly tell that the boat is going more quietly at one moment than at another. Nor is there much of variety in the scenery. The boat glides from one lake-like reach of the river hemmed in by low wood-covered hills, to another; every few miles the hills grow somewhat steeper, and the stone cliffs are no longer hidden from view by the forest trees, and the traveller is told that he is passing through an Iron Gate.

To my mind, the most striking feature of the voyage was the solitude of the country, as seen from the deck of the steamer. The title of the "Silent Highway might fairly be claimed by the Danube. Along the Austrian shore there runs a good post-road: but, with the exception of a few peasant-carts, I saw no trace of traffic over it. In none of the valleys which run down to the river were there, so far as I could see, cross-roads leading to the main route. During our journey we stopped twice alongside barges moored in the stream as wharves, with a fort alongside, where half-a-dozen.

Austrian soldiers lounged listlessly; but we neither dropped passengers nor took in any, and all day long we scarcely came in sight of half-a-dozen villages.

Indeed, after a time the monotony of the voyage became wearisome. Flocks of wild ducks skimming rapidly over our heads; herds of goats and cattle standing kneedeep in the stream, or basking upon the banks under the shelter of the trees; a raft or two worked by wild-looking men, floating slowly down the current; a tug panting painfully up-stream, with a number of barges fastened to its stern; a group of armed peasants straggling along the highroad; a crowd of sunburnt beggar-lads with nothing on them save a sheepskin jacket, waving to and fro, as they shouted and tossed their arms without apparent cause; a half-ruined fort, over which the Turkish flag drooped languidly in the still air; and a company of Ottoman soldiers with baggy red trousers, who "presented arms" to the steamer as we sailed by these are about all the breaks I can recall to the monotonous uniformity of our long river-sail.

Then at last, just as the sun set and the darkness came on, we shot through a labyrinth of rocks which really do show their heads above the water. Our little boat tossed about manfully in the swell created by the breakers; and at last we were again on the broad placid Danube stream, alongside the steamer which was to carry us to Varna.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

NIGHT JOURNEY ACROSS THE PRAIRIES.

[THE Great Pacific Railway, right across the continent of North America, from New York to San Francisco, was opened in 1869. The following vivid description of a journey across the prairies by night is from the pen of a lady.]

ALL through that bright September afternoon we rushed at express speed over the prairies, which may be

called a wide ocean of high grass. For many miles the ground was low and marshy, and covered for several acres with small white water-lilies, each having three or four heads growing on a stem a foot high. The edge of the railway-track was bordered by a little thicket of sunflowers or wild chrysanthemums-the prairie-flower, surely, that Shawondasee fell in love with:

"Brightest green were all her garments,

And her hair was like the sunshine."

Can you see the picture ?-the bright border of flaunting yellowheads, the large patches of dazzling white blossoms, the glimpses of blue water, and the great green plain which would have stretched away for ever, had not the sky come down and stopped it in a cloud of grey-blue haze? We watched the sun set behind. low lines of crimson clouds, and while the air was full of golden light, stopped at a prairie village for supper. The meal was spread in the refreshment-room of the station; we were very hungry, and rushed with one accord towards the table; but, though our movements were swift, we found it filled, and the meal half over. Such is Western expedition! We were soon in our carriages again, whirling over the wide green earth in the grey twilight, which soon grew to darkness, made visible by two miserable lamps.

I retired into a dark corner to muse and meditate, or to slumber; it was only seven o'clock, rather too early to go to bed. So I got out my book and tried every position in our compartment, held my book at every angle to try to catch some ray of light-but in vain! Never was a helpless damsel more miserable; but aid came to Andromeda,* and my Perseus appeared before I was in utter despair. He bore in his hand the guard's lamp,

* Andromeda, according to the ancient Greek legend, was a maiden who was chained to a rock to be devoured by a savage beast, but was delivered by Perseus.