The walls of the room are very thin; and there is a farewell supper of ladies and gentlemen going on in the next room. I saw the guests mustering as we came in. They were so ringed and chained that they would have excited envy and admiration even at a Jewish wedding. They are all talking together at the top of their voices against the Austrian occupation. The odour of their hot meats and the fine smoke of their cigarettes, come creeping through the many chinks and crannies of the slender partition which divides us. Twice I have heard a scuffling behind my door, and I have felt that an inquisitive eye was applied to a key-hole, from which the lock has long since been wrenched in some midnight freak. Derisive whispering, followed by loud laughter, has also given me the agreeable assurance that my movements are watched with a lively and speculative interest. They appear to add considerably to the entertainment of the company. I am abashed by feeling myself the cause of so much hilarity, and stealthily put out the light. Then I wrap myself up resolutely in a roquelaure, take the bed by assault, and shut my eyes desperately to the consequences; doing drowsy battle with the foe, as I feel them crawling from time to time beneath a moustache or under an eyelid. I am ignominiously routed, however, at last, and rise from that loathsome bed blistered and fevered. The screaming and shouting in the next room has by this time grown demoniacal. My friends are evidently making a night of it: so I begin to wonder whether the talisman of a ducat will not induce a waiter and a lantern to go with me to the steam-boat. I may pace the deck till morning, if I cannot sleep; for the Galatz hotel-keepers have I know protested against passengers being allowed berths on board the vessels when in port. The silver spell succeeds. A sooty little fellow, like a chimney-sweep, agrees to accompany me, and we go scuffling among rat-holes, open sewers, sleeping vagabonds, and scampering cats down to the quagmire by the water-side; and scrambling over bales of goods, and a confused labyrinth of chains and cordage, gain the deck of the good ship Ferdinand. A cigar, a joke, and a dollar, overcomes the steward’s scruples about a berth, and I wake next morning to the rattling sound of the paddle-wheels. The boat is very full. It is as difficult to get at the washhand-basins as to fight one’s way to the belle of a ball-room. I pounce on one at last, however, by an adroit flank movement, and prepare for a thoroughly British souse, when a young Wallachian--in full dress, and diamond ear-rings; who has just been putting an amazing quantity of unguents on his hair--comes up and coolly commences cleaning his teeth beside me. He looks round with a bright good-natured smile when he has finished, and is plainly at a loss to understand the melancholy astonishment depicted in my countenance.