CHAPTER III.

River Steaming.--Arrival at Widdin--Jew.--Comfortless Khan.--Wretched
appearance of Widdin.--Hussein Pasha.--M. Petronievitch.--Steam
Balloon.


River steaming is, according to my notions, the best of all sorts of
locomotion. Steam at sea makes you sick, and the voyage is generally
over before you have gained your sea legs and your land appetite. In
mail or stage you have no sickness and see the country, but you are
squeezed sideways by helpless corpulence, and in front cooped into
uneasiness by two pairs of egotistical knees and toes. As for
locomotives, tunnels, cuts, and viaducts--this is not travelling to
see the country, but arrival without seeing it. This eighth wonder of
the world, so admirably adapted for business, is the despair of
picturesque tourists, as well as post-horse, chaise, and gig letters.
Our cathedral towns, instead of being distinguished from afar by their
cloud-capt towers, are only recognizable at their respective stations
by the pyramids of gooseberry tarts and ham sandwiches being at one
place at the lower, and at another at the upper, end of an apartment
marked "refreshment room." Now in river steaming you walk the deck, if
the weather and the scenery be good; if the reverse, you lounge below;
read, write, or play; and then the meals are arranged with Germanic
ingenuity for killing time and the digestive organs.

On the second day the boat arrived at Widdin, and the agent of the
steam packet company, an old Jew, came on board. I stepped across the
plank and accompanied him to a large white house opposite the
landing-place. On entering, I saw a group of Israel's children in the