had wandered
all day.

[Illustration: THE IRON GATES]

But I speedily forgot this next morning, when the landlord informed
me that, instead of toiling over the road along the crags to Orsova,
whither I was returning, I could embark on a tug-boat bound for that
cheerful spot, and could thus inspect the grand scenery of the Iron
Gates from the river. The swift express-boats which in time of peace
run from Vienna to Rustchuk whisk the traveller so rapidly through
these famous defiles that he sees little else than a panorama of high
rocky walls. But the slow-moving and clumsy tug, with its train of
barges attached, offers better facilities to the lover of natural
beauty. We had dropped down only a short distance below Drenkova
before we found the river-path filled with eddies, miniature
whirlpools, denoting the vicinity of the gorges into which the great
current is compressed. These whirlpools all have names: one is called
the "Buffalo;" a second, Kerdaps; a third is known as the "Devourer."
The Turks have a healthy awe of this passage, which in old times was a
terrible trial to these stupid and always inefficient navigators. For
three or four hours we ran in the shade of mighty walls of porphyry
and granite, on whose tops were forests of oaks and elms. High up on
cliffs around which the eagles circle, and low in glens where one
sometimes sees a bear swimming, the sun threw a flood of mellow glory.
I could fancy that the veins of red porphyry running along the face
of the granite were blood-stains, the tragic memorials of ancient
battles. For, wild and inaccessible as this region seems, it has been
fought over and through in sternest fashion. Perched on a little
promontory on the Servian side is the tiny town of Poretch, where
the brave shepherds and swineherds fought the Turk, against whose
oppression they had risen, until they were overwhelmed by numbers, and
their leader, Hadji Nikolos, lost his head. The Austrians point out
with pride the cave on the tremendous flank of Mount Choukourou where,
two centuries ago, an Austrian general at the head of seven hundred
men, all that was left to him of a goodly army, sustained a three
months' siege against large Turkish forces. This cave is perched high
above the road at a point where it absolutely commands it, and the
government of to-day, realizing its importance, has had it fortified
and furnished with walls pierced by loopholes. Trajan fought his way
through these defiles