energy. For a little while their shrill screams
rose even over the cry of the elements,
—then all was still. Six only of the crew
were saved. These, springing into a boat,
dropped over before she struck, and had been
carried as witnesses of Almighty mercy,
miraculously to land.

Late in the afternoon of the fifth day, the
sun peeped coyly and ashamed at us, once or
twice. Then came the windgusts again, like
the tumultuous sobs of a grief not yet
subsided, and the sun was veiled again, and
the storm howled on as before.

Something deserving of notice was that, all
the time the hurricane lasted, a broad,
streak of sky was distinctly visible towards
the east, it never grew larger or smaller, and
its promise of fine weather was altogether
illusory.

We lay fifteen days at the Port of
Sulina. At length our wine was exhausted,
and even our provisions ran short; for the;
bakers lazily refused to bake us any bread,
though the captain himself went to parley
with them.We got a little stringy fresh
meat now and then, with sometimes a fresh
fish; but we lived chiefly on raw ham and
ship's biscuits. The steward—a plump, tight,
rich-complexioned Sancho Panza, with sleek
black hair and small roguish eyes—having
he distribution of these delicacies, became
a man of importance, and found it a very
good business. Our fore-cabin passengers
suffered severely. They watched us of the
after cabin with famished and hateful looks as
we went down to dinner; for their own
meals were infinitely more scanty than ours
The small supply of orthodox food which
the Jews also had brought with them being
nearly exhausted, the Greeks, who have a
traditional hatred of the chosen people,
taunted them with offers of pork. It was at
once ludicrous and pathetic to see the feverish
trembling indignation, and hear the odd
anathemas with which the children of Israel
garrulously replied.

Upon the whole, our position was not so
cheerful and exhilarating as might have been
desired by persons fond of comfort and gaiety.
To make it the less inviting, cholera gadded
about the neighbourhood with great activity,
and did not contribute materially to raise our
spirits, nor increase our current fund of pleasing
anecdote. A guest of our captain, in
sound health and with a noticeable appetite,
came and sat with us at dinner one day. On the
next day we asked whether he was coming to
dinner again, and we were told he was buried.
One of our passengers died at breakfast in the
midst of us. Moreover, it was an awful;
sort of thing to wake in the small hours of;
the night and hear a man in the next
cabin bemoaning his crimes in a strange
tongue; calling on the saints for mercy,
under an impression (likely enough to be
true) that he was attacked by the swift
destroyer, and was hastening, with panic-
stricken steps on his journey to another
world.

Therefore I was truly thankful when
the wind at last abated. It was sometime,
however, even then, before our troubles
were over; for there was such a heavy swell
that no boat, with sail or oar, dared venture
to convey us from one steamer to the other.
A steam-tug would have done our business
in half au hour; but there was no steam-
tug.

It was not until the seventeenth day after
our arrival that we were at length delivered
from durance. The sea having then grown
calmer (though still running very high) we
fired a gun and hoisted signals for the packet
that was to convey us to Constantinople,
and which had returned to her anchorage
So she stood nearer in towards us
about mid-day; then one half of the passengers
who had left Galatz with us, nearly three weeks
before, on urgent business, returned whence
they came, having missed their opportunities.
The others—I among the number—went
over the bar.

It was a hazardous trip. Our boatmen
charged us eighteen ducats, or about nine
pounds; every man in it fairly staking his
life against our money. It was a large boat
and well manned; but it shook and trembled
on the waters at the mouth of the river,
as if it had been a cockleshell. Once we
were carried quite round, and I made up my
mind to swim for it, if I should lose my
grasp on the boat when she turned over.
She righted again, however, and went rearing
and pitching forward for some hundred
yards till the danger was over. Not a week
before, a boat with fifteen souls in it had gone
down in the very spot where we met and
escaped that peril.

No one knows how long the present
infamous condition of the Sulina mouth of the
Danube may last; for few, I am sorry to say,
seem seriously to interest themselves in such
questions. I have written this paper,
therefore; not to amuse an idle hour, but
with a solemn and earnest hope that it may
be the means of calling general attention to
a matter of European importance. I have
rather understated the case than overstated
it; having omitted many things which might
have added to the interest of the description,
lest any word should creep in that might
appear fanciful or exaggerated; for I know
that a public writer, who would render any
real service to mankind, must simply abide
by indisputable facts.

Let me add, then, that, although it is but a
very few weeks ago I was on the scene I
have endeavoured to describe, I learn by the
French papers that no less than sixty vessels
have been wrecked since then, and that three
hundred human lives have been lost off the
Sulina Mouth. I have not dared to trifle with the
sympathies of the public in this matter. I
have honestly made a plain statement, and