the lazaretto at Orsova welcomed the wearied strangers from the East, and mitigated, and almost made them forget, their prison confinement.

Having completed our quarantine of ten days, we took leave of our excellent friend the doctor, who cordially shook us by the hand and wished us a most happy voyage, expressing a hope that we should meet again.

Having one day now to spare before we were to set out for Vienna, we took wagons from our hotel, and proceeded through a most charming ride of picturesque mountain scenery, and, at the distance of ten miles, reached the town of Mahadia, one of the most fashionable watering-places in Hungary. Here we met a great deal of the best society of Hungary and other parts of Europe. The waters are thermal and chalybeate, and the arrangements for the baths delightful. I never visited a more beautiful place of the kind than this. The accommodations of hotels and private houses were of the very best description; the fare, to us particularly, after our perils and sufferings, most luxurious; and the lovely and romantic drives, and shady promenades, and gravelled walks, all that the most fastidious taste could possibly desire. It was, in truth, coming off our severe journey, a Paradise to us, and we passed the day most deliciously, forgetting all our past troubles, and revelling in the midst of music, beauty, and enchantment of every sort.

In the evening we returned reluctantly to Orsova, and prepared for our departure early the next morning.

We started accordingly, in an open wagon, and passed over the mountainous region of upward of 20 miles in extent, and through which the Danube penetrates by a gorge not dissimilar to our Highlands of the Hudson,

being the only mountain spur through the whole extent of this father of European rivers. Through this passage, called the Iron Gate, the entire river is compressed into whirling rapids, making it impracticable and unsafe for steamboats either up or down.

Occasionally the inhabitants venture down in flat-bottomed boats, much to their peril, as frequent fatal accidents have happened; and it was here recently, and since our visit, that some of my countrymen, attempting to pass in this manner, on their return from a tour to the East, met with a premature and watery grave; a mournful termination to overtake them, just as they were completing, no doubt, their long journey, and about to embrace their kindred and their friends.

After a most delightful ride over a very costly and beautiful road through the mountains, a part of which is close to the margin of the river, we reached the Danube again above the rapids, and there took steamboat, and, after visiting Pest, the capital of Hungary, and also Presburg, we arrived at Vienna in a voyage of about ten days.

Recruiting here a few days, and revisiting all the more interesting objects of the Austrian capital, we returned, in a rapid journey of ten days, to Paris.

Thus, at length, was our long and somewhat perilous tour of six months in the East brought to a close, and I was again once more restored to the society of my family at their residence in the French capital, and which, as my head-quarters during six years' absence in Europe, had become to me, in every sense, a second home.

The feeling of joy and thankfulness that this happy issue produced cannot well be conceived. Contented and grateful I am, that Providence has permitted me to traverse so wide a range of countries, and brought me

unharmed through so many perils; that, exposed as I have been to the baneful influence of various climates, and even also to the dreaded pestilence of the East, I have been, through His mercy, preserved from them all. For this favour, and for all the blessings I have constantly had spread before me, at home and through life, may I never cease to feel grateful.

THE END.