Some of this regulating work we saw in the neighbourhood of the Greben. The completion of it--and in some ways the most remarkable portion--is here at the Iron Gate, where along the right bank a “canal” was blasted through the solid rock, to ensure a sufficient channel of water for boats at all times. Before this regularizing, the Iron Gate portion of the river was unusable for about three months of each year. The canal was devised to allow of a minimum depth of nearly ten feet below Orsova, as the upper regularizing work was done to make a minimum depth of six and a half above Orsova. This is not the place, nor am I the writer, to deal with the great engineering feats by which the work was accomplished. The navigation of the Iron Gate was opened for traffic on 27 September, 1896, in the presence of the rulers of the three kingdoms that meet in its neighbourhood, the Emperor Francis Joseph as king of Hungary, King Carol of Rumania, and King Alexander of Servia, and though the channel was made, as it was hoped, of sufficient width to allow vessels to pass in it, the strength of the current is such that such passing was found to be impracticable, and vessels, when there is sufficient water, come up-stream outside the canal. During my stay in the neighbourhood there was sufficient water, and nothing was seen of the rocks which, for a distance of nearly a mile and a half, form the Iron Gate. Nothing was seen of the rocks, but much was seen of their action. For the distance mentioned, the surface of the water from the left bank to the outer wall of the canal was one foaming and seething mass, formed by the current rushing against the submerged lines of jagged stone. The effect of passing through this in the little steam launch of the chief engineer in control of the navigation works, is very wonderful. It seems as though the tiny craft would inevitably be battered by the tumultuous waters against some of the invisible rocks; but the steersmen seem to know the waters with unfailing sureness, and it stems the broken current in safety. From the low deck of the launch those “boiling” waters seemed much more formidable than from that of the ordinary passenger steamer, though this, too, having gone on the downward journey through the canal, came back over the cataract portion. When the rocky ridges are exposed at low water, the scene has been described as “the gaping jaws as it were of some infernal monster.” Interesting, even fascinating, in the broad mass of its broken waters, the Iron Gate, despite its traditional importance, is far less grandly impressive than is the Kazán. [Illustration: THE IRON GATE]