lin, a few small cannons were fired off on board
our boat. Unfortunately the steward did not receive notice of this
event early enough to allow of his opening the windows, consequently
one was shattered: this was a serious misfortune for us, as the
temperature had sunk to zero, and all the landscape around was
covered with snow. Before leaving Vienna, the cabin stove had been
banished from its place, as the sun had sent forth its mild beams
for a few days, and a continuance of the warm weather was rashly
relied on. On the whole, I would not advise any traveller to take a
second-class berth on board a steamer belonging to the Viennese
company. A greater want of order than we find in these vessels
could scarcely be met with. The traveller whose funds will not
permit of his paying first-class fare will do better to content
himself with a third-class, i.e. a deck-passage, particularly if he
purposes journeying no farther than Mohacs. If the weather is fine,
it is more agreeable to remain on deck, watching the panorama of the
Danube as it glides past. Should the day be unfavourable, the
traveller can go, without ceremony, into the second-class cabin, for
no one makes a distinction between the second and third-class
places. During the daytime, at any rate, it is quite as agreeable
to remain on deck as to venture below. Travelling down the river
from Pesth, the women are compelled to pass the night in the same
cabin with the men; an arrangement as uncomfortable as it is
indecorous. I afterwards had some experience of steamers belonging
to the Austrian Lloyds, on whose vessels I always found a proper
separation of the two sexes, and a due regard for the comfort of
second-class passengers.

The cold was so severe, that we would gladly have closed every
window, but for the close atmosphere engendered by the number of
poor people, mostly Jews, who form the larger portion of passengers
on board a Hungarian steamer. When the weather is unfavourable,
these men are accustomed to hasten from their third-class places to
those of the second class, where their presence renders it
immediately desirable to open every outlet for purposes of
ventilation. What the traveller has to endure on board these
vessels would scarcely be believed. Uncushioned benches serve for
seats by day and for beds by night. A separation of the two sexes
is nowhere attempted, not even on board the Ferdinand, in which you
enter the Black Sea, and are