The Express.
London, England, 1856-05-14 00:00:00

THE IRON GATE.

BY SIIRLBY BROOKS.

Jot as might have been expected. The cheating
begins at once. Bet Ragland bee obtained so mush by
this treaty of Paris, that she can milord to be defrauded on
the one point to which she had looked for en ultimate re-
isompense for her pm:salary sacrifices. The Dumb throws
open to Brads. Very likely, and the Danubian Steam Na-
vigation Compaq at Vienne. That Company owns the
Danube for a hundred years, it alleges, and wonders what
Beal meld have been thinking about when he allowed the
free navigation article to pass. However, the engineers
despatched to bleat the Iron Oats have been sent back, and
the Vered Right of the company stops the way.
Ragland may—most likely will—reconcile herself to the
nullification of this article. It would ►e highly inemssietent
in a nation that worsh'pa vested right, up' dally in a nal-
wee., to objret to similar veneratliee betas shown by the
Might one chugs two words Is Thomas
Moore's celebrated fable, in whisk a traveller saw a brisk
blue-bottle fly on the altar
"Ma& moah of, and worshipped, ea something
While a large Itsedwebe balloak, led teeming' halter.
Belpre it lay stabbed at the Net of the s►rine.
.No weeder," tried Vella, "yea Mare at the sight,
Bat we as a swots' of 'Property ' view U—
nit fly oe the sitar we tell 'Vaud Bight,'
And the bullock 's the People, that's sacrificed to it."

But England s►all not submit without a remonstrance
from one of the humblest of her sons, who took on the Da-
nube a yew of eternal hatred against that Danube Co:elegy,
sad who hat lost no opportunity of maniferiag his
That vow was made, and renewed at every solemnest sod
lanavanient opportusity, during the interval from the 29th
of September to the nth of Oetober, and while that humble
eon was a prisoner is the hands of that Company, perform-
lag a verse whisk, with proper means, would have bees
ass* is kelt t►e time, and which, with ordinary manna—
On dale sot speak of each luxuries as thulium and civi-
lity—might, even in Ito protracted form, have bon rendered
lees detestable. And now, when I read that the abominable
Company will not have the Iron Gate blasted, and will not
allow other vessels than its own re navigate the river, all
that deadly bitterness revives which swelled in my heart
from Pesth to Galata, and which so boiled over, whin
sitting an the wet bank, near Oman, with the
Company's servant. in matiay, and nothing fee as to sit
and drink, that when as indignant Americo suddenly
whispered no that be had got a revolver, and had a darned
goof mind to use it, I did not offer one word of objection.
That:Conpaay is an impediment to civilisation—worse than
the Iron Oats Itself, which is not, as was supposed by some
of oar bawling sympathisers," who shouted for
Kossuth but will not subscribe a shilling for him, a real
give, which Austria locks every night to keep Hangery in
snt ectioo, but a imam of rock, lying all over the bed of the
river, and making the water too shallow for navigation. I
should be glad if the Company and the rack weld be blows
away together.

"-Dirty , slow, sat for service," is the way that tra-
'ellen habitually characterise thine boats which the Danube
Company design to realer one hundred years, to the awls-
sioa of decent 'mesh. I hart a little entry is my Journal
which shall set forth one put of the moommodatios.
" At nine in the evening several waiters rushed into the
cable, and, wit►out say explanation, dived slows before SIN
and behold, oar beds were nude i That is to say, the
waiters palled out from under the soots that ran round the
room metals' .stretehers,' about five fat longs sigma *soh
or whials tits, now( a hareshatr •--•• the bed was
t There were about fifty people fa the sable, sad
there were twenty-mom of these stretchers, se that it was a
point of wisdom to take poesessies and keep it. Most of t►e
ladies got beds, bet set all, end there was no idea of ere-
'ion in their favour oft the part of But dimes Jews, or
fluagarians, w►o imposed the chief part of the passengers.
People who bad no beds laid down on the dirty floor.
Thin was, of souse, no undressing; but is.. removed
their coats, madames, and boots, and, fa some eases,
their socks ; the ladles, I believe, merely slipped
off their shoes, and tied handkerchiefs round their
head,. The waiters next proceeded to shut the cabin
dcors, and the heat became awful. They were ordered to
open the doorr, bet refused point blank, for they had
brought a table of their own on the other side, and were
there supping, with meth noise and fen, for au hour, so
that their pumas inside had no abases of sleep. Finally,
however, 113018 of us got the doors op., but • tender and
dirty pedlar, with a huge red beard, was afraid of the night
air, and as soon as be thought we were asleep, he craftily
arms and shut op the place. But he having done:this twice,
a very tall officer next to me, and to whom I communicated

the fact, menaced him with some awful punishment, and he
abstained. Bat still the he►t was intolerable, and the night
was wet, so there was no sleeping on deck. A vile headache
in the morning—what would one have given for a shower
bath P Alas, there was not even the means
of a detest waelt—a dark hale with a basin of
such water (yet there rolled the Danube below),
and each a towel I Felt myself one of the un-
washed, and quite revolutionary. Two ladies who had
secured a private cabin at great cost, were charged three
amine fur a basin and water tot three days."
- -

Will you hays this sort of thing for a linadred years, my
countrymen 1 One henbane big boat starting at long In-
tervals, and eonieguently crowding into one expedition the
traffic which ought to be distributed over a dozen. But if
we wont rapidly, ens this might be endured, and oleo if
we were fed as my dear kind the captain of the Nile
steamer from Alexandria to Cairo used to feed ens—four
mesh a day, and as many more as you like, sad bottled
beer always. "A very bad and dear dinner," is my entry.
"at half past twelve. Cookery greasy and careless, and the
wine, a poor sort of Vainly, very bad." Neeerthelem, I
may incidentally remark, it excited a Hatagerisa officer to
knock his tumbler agaiast nine, to say " ad sandem," and
to sing,
Mandamus Miter
Bengal dam mom,
Nam dant Maur coalmen.
Jam la acts gloriosa&
alma eel et hums,
with another bard's, also, to the 'Mot that miens nag
AMY, which declaration he acted up to by smoklag sass
cesu. Bat touching our speed, my entries are ae
Bma hone (this was the third day, sad we had passed
Belgrade) that we wen getting on. Bat the captain, a
huh-need Italian fellow, whose chief occupation was Mr;
lag with tome milliners going to Bucharest, declared there
was not water enough, so we were tied to a stamp, is •
lonely gorge, la 'boniest humiliating m " There we
stack all sight. In the morning I had to wash in a Usable*,
mid the wetter adroitly stole the handkerchief I
had been snag in the light of a towel. We were pot as
board a bane, aewly painted, so we stack to her like fl in.
Bowing all day, very slowly, and nothing to eat, but dually
got some muddy coffee and black bread at Drinken. Then
the boatmen struck for wages, and the company having no
deficits arrangements, the captaia and officers quaml!ed
for an hour, sac then went 'any, they said, to a village to
hire other boatmen, but it was surmised that they entered
a neighbouring house and sr) )yed themselves. After
another hour I went to • guardhouse with an
interpreter, and made • vehement protect, on
which a clacinialioner (with the largest wart over

. „.
his eye I ever sew) was best to do something. He turned
all our luggage into au ogee barge, throwieg it is higgledy-
piggledy, and crashieg pcor little bizes of polvistorie under
vast trunks, sad than the mutineers submitted, and both
barges were manned, sad we pulled on to another village,
where we stack again for the night, with no serossioda-
tios at all. Luckily it did sot rain. Slept on • bon. Shall
I ever wines say more t Next day the captain declared
that the Iliad mat tro high to start, sad it raised is Or-
nate, eo we had to stew la the paisted othia--sonte of
the ladies Buffered grievously, especially ono pretty young
Italian, who frightened her husbuld7who frightesed as,

, .
with apprebtasloas that there alight be a era or daughter
of the Danube added to oar party, bat base Lashes—
there was no harm i• preying to her smog thaw Nina
' of Rouen interest—wee considerate. Ia the 'Rerun* we
got on, naming aground cosamionelly, the rowers Wafts
all °bedlam to the tope's ; bat at last we rushed Orson,

where we actually got a wash, a dingier, and a bed. Neat
monist; wasted in overhauling luggage, end then they put
as into the moat hideous earls, with no sprier, but
many beetles, and we were jolted away for miles,
until we reached Skein Oladova. . This rids was
fan for some of as, after the wretched COnflaielest,
but it kneeked up ell the poor ladies, and as for the little
Italian wile, I dad not dare to auk about her, but was
greatly relieved by seeing her enter the steamboat awaiting
us at the w►arf. And do you know, my countrymen, why
we bad to take this abominable ride out of Austria. Be-
gun of the Iron Oste, which we bad to circumvent—not

being able to go through it—this Iron Oats, which the
Austrians will not permit the engineers to blast, and whisk
the Company want' to keep for a hundred 'eery.
I could say a g god deal about the rest of the journey, sad
bow we despaired of reaching Galata; and also hew
we were soured that we had lingered so long
that the boat for Constantinople would be pee
(whisks I did not can about), and also the boat for
Odessa (which I cared vtry much about), but these state•
meats only showed the want of system, and, luckily, were
both false, as we caught both hosts opposite the filthiest
of all towns, the one Moldavian port. But I have,
perhaps, asEeleptly illustrated the character of the
Company that defies t►e European powers, will
not be board by treaty or protocol, and wants the
Danube foe a hundred years. If you like to leave that
glorious river—he has his fault., but even the Thames is not
perfect—to such eonsertaton, do. It is no business of
mine ; I shall go to the south of Russia spin, and whea
the FrenchFrenchhaveavili ed Constantinople I shall go thither by
on. of their boats; but it seems to me that the commercial
men of England would do well to snake a dreadful clamour
in behalf of the free navigation article. The Danube trade,
developed, would soon make us forget the money userilloes
of the war. You see what kind of people bang the boa
Gate in Britannia's few.

(Stamped Id. Additional.) [TWOPF,N OE.