The traveller can scarcely believe this when, as the boat stops at some little pier which is half buried under vines and blossoms, he sees the population indulging in an innocent festival with the aid of red and white wine, a few glasses of beer, and bread and cheese. Families mounted in huge yellow chariots drawn by horses ornamented with gayly-decorated harnesses, come rattling into town and get down before a weatherbeaten inn, the signboard above which testifies to respect and love for some emperor of long ago. Youths and maidens wander arm in arm by the foaming tide or sit in the little arbors crooning songs and clinking glasses. Officers strut about, calling each other loudly by their titles or responding to the sallies of those of their comrades who fill the after-deck of the steamer. The village mayor in a braided jacket, the wharfmaster in semi-military uniform, and the agent of the steamboat company, who appears to have a remarkable penchant for gold lace and buttons, render the throng still more motley. There is also, in nine cases out of ten, a band of tooting musicians, and as the boat moves away national Hungarian and Austrian airs are played. He would be indeed a surly fellow who should not lift his cap on these occasions, and he would be repaid for his obstinacy by the very blackest of looks.
Carlowitz and Slankamen are two historic spots which an Hungarian, if he feels kindly disposed toward a stranger, will point out to him. The former is known to Americans by name only, as a rule, and that because they have seen it upon bottle-labels announcing excellent wine; but the town, with its ancient cathedral, its convents, and its "chapel of peace" built on the site of the structure in which was signed the noted peace of 1699, deserves a visit. Rumor says that the head-quarters of the Omladina are very near this town, so that the foreign visitor must not be astonished if the local police seem uncommonly solicitous for his welfare while he remains. At Slankamen in 1691 the illustrious margrave of Baden administered such a thrashing to the Turks that they fled in the greatest consternation, and it was long before they rallied again.
Thus, threading in and out among the floating mills, pushing through reedy channels in the midst of which she narrowly escapes crushing the boats of fishers, and carefully avoiding the moving banks of sand which render navigation as difficult as on the Mississippi, the boat reaches Peterwardein, high on a mighty mass of rock, and Neusatz opposite, connected with its neighbor fortress-town by a bridge of boats. Although within the limits of the Austria-Hungarian empire, Neusatz is almost entirely Servian in aspect and population, and Peterwardein, which marks the military confines of Slavonia, has a large number of Servian inhabitants. It was the proximity and the earnestness in their cause of these people which induced the Hungarians to agree to the military occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. At one time the obstinate Magyars would have liked to refuse their adhesion to the decisions of the Berlin Congress, but they soon thought better of that. Peterwardein is the last really imposing object on the Danube before reaching Pesth. It is majestic and solemn, with its gloomy castle, its garrison which contains several thousand soldiers, and its prison of state. The remembrance that Peter the Hermit there put himself at the head of the army with which the Crusades were begun adds to the mysterious and powerful fascination of the place. I fancied that I could see the lean and fanatical priest preaching before the assembled thousands, hurling his words down upon them from some lofty pinnacle. No one can blame the worthy Peter for undertaking his mission if the infidels treated Christians in the Orient as badly then as they do to-day. Centuries after Peter slept in consecrated dust the Turks sat down before Peterwardein to besiege it, but they had only their labor for their pains, for Prince Eugene drove them away. This was in 1716. It seems hard to believe that a hostile force of Turks was powerful enough to wander about Christendom a little more than a century and a half ago.
After passing Peterwardein and Neusatz the boat's course lies through the vast Hungarian plain, which reminds the American of some of the rich lands in the Mississippi bottom. Here is life, lusty, crude, seemingly not of Europe, but rather of the extreme West or East. As far as the eye can reach on either hand stretch the level acres, dotted with herds of inquisitive swine, with horses wild and beautiful snorting and gambolling as they hear the boat's whistle, and peasants in white linen jackets and trousers and immense black woollen hats. Fishers by hundreds balance in their little skiffs on the small whirlpool of waves made by the steamer, and sing gayly. For a stretch of twenty miles the course may lie near an immense forest, where millions of stout trees stand in regular rows, where thousands of oaks drop acorns every year to fatten thousands upon thousands of pigs. Cattle stray in these woods, and sometimes the peasant-farmer has a veritable hunt before he can find his own. Afar in the wooded recesses of Slavonia many convents of the Greek religion are hidden. Their inmates lead lives which have little or no relation to anything in the nineteenth century. For them wars and rumors of wars, Russian aggression, Austrian annexation, conspiracies by Kara Georgewitch, Hungarian domination in the Cabinet at Vienna, and all such trivial matters, do not exist. The members of these religious communities are not like the more active members of the clergy of their Church, who unquestionably have much to do with promoting war and supporting it when it is in aid of their nationality and their religion.
One of the most remarkable sights in this region is a herd of the noble "cattle of the steppes," the beasts in which every Hungarian takes so much pride. These cattle are superb creatures, and as they stand eying the passers-by one regrets that he has not more time in which to admire their exquisite white skins, their long symmetrical horns and their shapely limbs. They appear to be good-tempered, but it would not be wise to risk one's self on foot in their immediate neighborhood.
As for the fishermen, some of them seem to prefer living on the water rather than on dry land. Indeed, the marshy borders of the Danube are not very healthy, and it is not astonishing that men do not care to make their homes on these low lands. There are several aquatic towns between Pesth and the point at which the Drava (or Drau), a noble river, empties its waters into the Danube. Apatin is an assemblage of huts which appear to spring from the bosom of the current, but as the steamer approaches one sees that these huts are built upon piles driven firmly into the river-bed, and between these singular habitations are other piles upon which nets are stretched. So the fisherman, without going a hundred yards from his own door, traps the wily denizens of the Danube, prepares them for market, and at night goes peacefully to sleep in his rough bed, lulled by the rushing of the strong current beneath him. I am bound to confess that the fishermen of Apatin impressed me as being rather rheumatic, but perhaps this was only a fancy.
Besdan, with its low hills garnished with windmills and its shores lined with silvery willows, is the only other point of interest, save Mohacz, before reaching Pesth. Hour after hour the traveller sees the same panorama of steppes covered with swine, cattle and horses, with occasional farms—their outbuildings protected against brigands and future wars by stout walls—and with pools made by inundations of the impetuous Danube. Mohacz is celebrated for two tremendous battles in the past, and for a fine cathedral, a railway and a coaling-station at present. Louis II., king of Hungary, was there undone by Suleiman in 1526; and there, a hundred and fifty years later, did the Turks come to sorrow by the efforts of the forces under Charles IV. of Lorraine.
Just as I was beginning to believe that the slow-going steamer on which I had embarked my fortunes was held back by enchantment—for we were half a day ascending the stream from Mohacz—we came in sight of a huge cliff almost inaccessible from one side, and a few minutes later could discern the towers of Buda and the mansions of Pesth. While nearing the landing-place and hastening hither and yon to look after various small bundles and boxes, I had occasion to address an Hungarian gentleman. In the course of some conversation which followed I remarked that Pesth seemed a thriving place, and that one would hardly have expected to find two such flourishing towns as Vienna and Pesth so near each other.
"Oh," said he with a little sneer which his slight foreign accent (he was speaking French) rendered almost ludicrous, "Vienna is a smart town, but it is nothing to this!" And he pointed with pride to his native city.
Although I could not exactly agree with this extravagant estimate of the extent of Pesth, I could not deny that it was vastly superior to my idea of it. When one arrives there from the south-east, after many wanderings among semi-barbaric villages and little cities on the outskirts of civilization, he finds Pesth very impressive. The Hungarian shepherds and the boatmen who ply between the capital and tiny forts below fancy that it is the end of the world. They have vaguely heard of Vienna, but their patriotism is so intense and their round of life so circumscribed that they never succeed in forming a definite idea of its proportions or its location. Communication between the two chief towns of the Austria-Hungarian empire is also much less frequent than one would imagine. The Hungarians go but little to Vienna, even the members of the nobility preferring to consecrate their resources to the support of the splendors of their own city rather than to contribute them to the Austrian metropolis. Seven hours' ride in what the Austrians are bold enough to term an express-train covers the distance between Vienna and Pesth, yet there seems to be an abyss somewhere on the route which the inhabitants are afraid of. Pride, a haughty determination not to submit to centralization, and content with their surroundings make the Hungarians sparing of intercourse with their Austrian neighbors. "We send them prime ministers, and now and then we allow them a glimpse of some of our beauties in one of their palaces, but the latter does not happen very often," once said an Hungarian friend to me.
An American who should arrive in Pesth fancying that he was about to see a specimen of the dilapidated towns of "effete and decaying Europe" would find himself vastly mistaken. The beautiful and costly modern buildings on every principal street, the noble bridges across the vast river, the fine railway-stations, the handsome theatres, the palatial hotels, would explain to him why it is that the citizens of Pesth speak of their town as the "Chicago of the East." There was a time when it really seemed as if Pesth would rival, if not exceed, Chicago in the extent of her commerce, the vivacity and boldness of her enterprises and the rapid increase of her population. Austria and Hungary were alike the prey of a feverish agitation which pervaded all classes. In a single day at Vienna as many as thirty gigantic stock companies were formed; hundreds of superb structures sprang up monthly; people who had been beggars but a few months before rode in carriages and bestowed gold by handfuls on whoever came first. The wind or some mysterious agency which no one could explain brought this financial pestilence to Pesth, where it raged until the Krach—the Crash, as the Germans very properly call it—came. After the extraordinary activity which had prevailed there came gloom and stagnation; but at last, as in America, business in Pesth and in Hungary generally is gradually assuming solidity and contains itself within proper bounds. The exciting period had one beneficial feature: it made Pesth a handsome city. There are no quays in Europe more substantial and elegant than those along the Danube in the Hungarian capital, and no hotels, churches and mansions more splendid than those fronting on these same quays. At eventide, when the whole population comes out for an airing and loiters by the parapets which overlook the broad rushing river, when innumerable lights gleam from the boats anchored on either bank, and when the sound of music and song is heard from half a hundred windows, no city can boast a spectacle more animated. At ten o'clock the streets are deserted. Pesth is exceedingly proper and decorous as soon as the darkness has fallen, although I do remember to have seen a torchlight procession there during the Russo-Turkish war. The inhabitants were so enthusiastic over the arrival of a delegation of Mussulman students from Constantinople that they put ten thousand torches in line and marched until a late hour, thinking, perhaps, that the lurid light on the horizon might be seen as far as Vienna, and might serve as a warning to the Austrian government not to go too far in its sympathy with Russia.
Buda-Pesth is the name by which the Hungarians know their capital, and Buda is by no means the least important portion of the city. It occupies the majestic and rugged hill directly opposite Pesth—a hill so steep that a tunnel containing cars propelled upward and downward by machinery has been arranged to render Buda easy of access. Where the hill slopes away southward there are various large villages crowded with Servians, Croatians and Low Hungarians, who huddle together in a rather uncivilized manner. A fortress where there were many famous fights and sieges in the times of the Turks occupies a summit a little higher than Buda, so that in case of insurrection a few hot shot could be dropped among the inhabitants. Curiously enough, however, there are thousands of loyal Austrians, German by birth, living in Buda—or Ofen, as the Teutons call it—whereas in Pesth, out of the two hundred thousand inhabitants, scarcely three thousand are of Austrian birth. As long as troops devoted to Francis Joseph hold Buda there is little chance for the citizens of Pesth to succeed in revolt. Standing on the terrace of the rare old palace on Buda's height, I looked down on Pesth with the same range of vision that I should have had in a balloon. Every quarter of the city would be fully exposed to an artillery fire from these gigantic hills.
Buda is not rich in the modern improvements which render Pesth so noticeable. I found no difficulty in some of the nooks and corners of this quaint town in imagining myself back in the Middle Ages. Tottering churches, immensely tall houses overhanging yawning and precipitous alleys, markets set on little shelves in the mountain, hovels protesting against sliding down into the valley, whither they seemed inevitably doomed to go, succeeded one another in rapid panorama. Here were costume, theatrical effect, artistic grouping: it was like Ragusa, Spalatro and Sebenico. Old and young women sat on the ground in the markets, as our negroes do in Lynchburg in Virginia: they held up fruit and vegetables and shrieked out the prices in a dialect which seemed a compound of Hungarian and German. Austrian soldiers and Hungarian recruits, the former clad in brown jackets and blue hose, the latter in buff doublets and red trousers, and wearing feathers in their caps, marched and countermarched, apparently going nowhere in particular, but merely keeping up discipline by means of exercise.