THE FAMILY PEDIGREE.
The town of Temesvár contains a population of 33,000 souls, and
produces a medley that almost outdoes even Pest itself. Here are
Greeks, Wallachs, Hebrews, Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, a sprinkling
of Turks, and a large proportion of Magyars. It consists of an inner
town and an outer one, the former surrounded by strong fortifications.
Wherever one looks there are bastions and ditches, and great guns and
little guns menacing us in all directions, and seeming to dodge our
movements continually. Never by any chance do we get out of the way of
those guns. As we walk along the road by the side of the people’s park,
there is one facing us the whole way; as _we_ turn to the left it
seems to turn also. Never can I forget the expression of that one gun,
which, for nearly half the day, fixed its hideous muzzle upon us like
a great unblinking eye, and kept me in a state of nightmare throughout
the live-long hours of slumber.
There has been good reason in the past, however, for all these hostile
demonstrations; for Temesvár has twice played a very important
_rôle_ in Hungarian history. The town contains but few old
buildings, having been nearly destroyed during the bombardment of 1849,
when a thousand shells were sent into it, and nearly every house
reduced to a heap of ruins. The greatest victory gained by the Imperial
army over the Hungarians was fought here under General Haynau.
The Palace, built in 1443 by John Hunyad, one of Hungary’s last kings,
has been entirely restored, and is now used as a prison. At the present
time Temesvár is one of the prettiest, cleanest, and brightest little
towns in the whole of Hungary. The houses are new and lofty and have an
Italian look, except beyond the gates where they are nearly all of one
story.
The now smiling and beautiful plains surrounding Temesvár were once a
huge morass infested with fevers of the most pestilential description,
the whole district of the Banát at the close of the last century--up
to which time it was the frequent theatre of Moslem incursion--being
scarcely better than an uncultivated swamp. After the final expulsion
of the Turks, however, foreigners were summoned to people this
“luxuriant wilderness,” and Greeks, Bulgarians, Servians, Germans,
and even French and Italians availed themselves of the invitation,
till the rich alluvial prairie, hitherto unturned by the plough,
was soon converted into a fertile garden. The soil yielded the most
extraordinary crops, fortunes were speedily made, and some of the
wealthiest Hungarian families of the present day are said to be the
descendants of poor adventurers in the Banát.
The climate of this region during the summer is all but tropical, and
the rich, black, loamy soil capable of producing almost any crop.
Besides Indian corn, tobacco, flax, hemp, and sunflowers--from which
oil is made--rice also grows in the marshy districts. Nor is cotton
missing, for in one district in the Banát we recognised the pretty
serrated leaf, and white, fluffy balls of the useful plant.
At Temesvár we took the train to our next destination, our lumbering
old carriage coming with us on a truck.
Leaving the old town we travelled through dense forests, and passed
the castle where, as the Austrians say, Görgei capitulated, but where
the Hungarians, on the contrary, declare that he turned traitor to his
country.
In the plains the wheat and rye are being cut, and how many sweet
pictures we see! Whole families in brilliant costumes grouped round
their _szekér_, or _Leiterwagen_, resting from their toil in
the drowsy noontide, and some of them fast asleep. Presently we stop
at a station close to a large and thickly populated village, inhabited
exclusively by Bulgarian colonists. Their costume is not only distinct,
but they retain their own language, and make themselves intelligible
to the Hungarians by a smattering of Magyar. In a short time, arriving
at Szaderlak, we find ourselves in a district peopled by a race who
originally migrated from the Black Forest; almost every village we
pass being denizened by a separate and distinct nationality, none
of whom can understand the next. And now, leaving villages behind,
we are again out on the rolling plains, with their immense herds of
horses, cows, and swine. Although the various herds intermingle, they
know their owners and their owners know them, and at the sound of the
various horns at morn or eve, as at Fűred, they all “sort themselves”
and run off helter-skelter to their own villages, which are sometimes
many miles away. If the traveller make any sojourn on the Alfőld he
will observe that every Sunday morning each peasant takes to his own
particular quadrupeds a small quantity of salt and corn, and as soon as
his form is seen approaching, when yet a mere speck in the distance,
they race off to meet him, the pigs with loud and indignant squeak
bringing up the rear.
As we approach the river Marős the plains are almost under water, and
there are signs of inundation everywhere. How one pities the peaceful
dwellers in the vicinity of these ungovernable rivers! A little further
and we come to the Marős itself, winding over its shallow bed, a clear
stream reflecting the sunlit sky, with the curious old boats carrying
merchandise seen here and there floating calmly on its still and glassy
surface. But leaving the plains behind we soon enter a beautiful valley
hemmed in by lofty hills, one of which is crowned with an ancient
Burg, the first of those many “peasant-fortresses” which, during the
troublous times of Turkish invasion, formed a line of fortifications
extending throughout this eastern portion of Hungary.
In four hours’ time we reach the plains again and come to the end of
our journey. Arriving at the station, we see beyond its enclosure a
white carriage and four white horses driven by a white man, waiting to
take us across the green and boundless wastes to the home of András’s
master, at which we are to stay some days. Casting our eyes round the
whole circle of the horizon, however, we see no road whatever. Have we
to cross these interminable plains hap-hazard, with nought but the sun
to guide our wanderings? Nothing is visible but a long line of white
cloud creeping along the ground. But leaving the station behind we soon
enter the white cloud, and find that it covers a sandy track which
itself forms the roadway, and before we have proceeded half a mile we
feel we have swallowed a sand-bank, and, like the horses, the carriage,
and the driver, become covered from head to foot with dust. There have
been no inundations here at all events, for the ground is as parched as
on the desert of Arabia, and instead of pitying the inhabitants of the
district of the fertilising Marős, we almost envy them.
The horses gallop the whole way, and our seven miles of road are
happily soon covered. In rather less than forty minutes we see through
our sand-bedimmed eyes a group of _robinias_ similarly powdered,
and in their midst a large one-storied building. Passing through the
open gates and a long sweeping carriage drive, we come to anchor at a
broad flight of steps, where, seen through the dust that has followed
us even here, stands a spectre in black, who, descending the steps in
question with measured stately gait, welcomes the ghosts within the
carriage and assists them to alight. And we soon hear the words, “My
sweet servant,” followed by “My sweet master,” as the white form of
András appears, who, stooping low, kisses with deepest reverence the
black spectre’s hand.
Other dark forms now appear, coming from the back premises, and there
are loud acclamations at the sight of András, and a shower of “_per
Kends_” (“your Graces”) falls broad-cast, as these polite people
greet each other according to the approved mode of salutation amongst
servants in Hungary.
As usual the mansion consists of one story only, and covers a large
area. There are no passages, and each room is approached through
another. The living rooms form a cluster in the centre of the
building, and are connected by lofty folding-doors, all of which being
open, give an appearance of space and grandeur to the whole. Although
of the very simplest order in architectural design, the mansion is
luxuriously furnished, and seems strangely out of keeping with its
surroundings. It is heated throughout by hot air, and none of the
stoves, which form such an ugly feature in German houses, are visible.
It is only above the roads that the cloud of dust I have alluded to
hovers, and, our rooms looking out upon the Alfőld, we see before us a
graceful landscape covered with vast stretches of Indian corn, the tall
stems of which, already drooping with their ripening ears, are golden
in the setting sun. Whilst dressing for dinner, which was at half-past
seven, I watched from my window the great scarlet ball sink beneath
the horizon, till the plains, drinking in the splendours of the sky,
were as a crucible blending all the rainbow’s tints into one delicious
harmony.
We found a large family party assembled at dinner: the dowager, our
host’s mother, a widowed sister and her son and daughter, besides the
young wife--a beautiful woman and a true specimen of Magyar, possessing
those graceful and winning manners which are such a charm in all
Hungarian society.
During dinner the conversation turned upon the Magyar language,
and the obstacles to its acquisition which beset foreigners, the
principal one arising from the fact that the prepositions and
possessive pronouns instead of preceding are made to follow the
noun, and become affixes to it. From this cause a whole sentence of
six or seven words is sometimes capable of being expressed in one
only; our hostess naïvely instancing two combinations illustrative
of the lengths to which this peculiarity of the language may be
carried, namely,--“_Hamegkőpenyegesittelennittehhetnélek_,”
a word signifying “If I could deprive you of your clothes!” and
another--“_Legellenallhatlanabbaknak-bizonyultak_”--meaning “They
have proved themselves the most irresistible;” and, as she did so,
she uttered these to us unpronounceable syllables with so sweet an
intonation that they made us in love with the language.
To render the above peculiarity, so aggravating to foreigners,
intelligible to the reader, I will give one or two examples explanatory
of the construction of the language in this respect. And first,
when András addresses, in the words “my sweet master” and “my sweet
mistress”--“_édes uram_” and “_édes asszonyom_”--the substantive
nouns are _úr_ and _asszony_, the final syllables, _am_, _om_, being
merely the possessive affixes. Again, _anyá_ (mother) becomes, with
the possessive pronoun _my_ affixed to it, _anyám_; whilst to instance
an example in which both pronoun and preposition are used, we will
take the word _haz_ (a house). _Haz-am_ (my house), followed by the
preposition _ba_ (_in_, which is affixed to the pronoun), becomes
_hazamba_ (in my house).
The construction of verbs too in Magyar differs so widely from that of
any other European language that a perfect knowledge of it is extremely
difficult to the foreigner, who seldom acquires it perfectly. The
structure of the language in some measure resembles Turkish, Magyar,
and Finnish, being connected with those of Mongolia and Turkestan just
as English is with Persian and Sanscrit. The Magyar language is said
to have undergone no changes whatever; that spoken by the Hungarians
of to-day being identical with that of the Magyars on their conquest
of the country. A great many Turkish, Slavonian, as well as Greek,
Italian, and German words have crept in; but all those essential to
express common wants are the same as in the language of the Fins at the
present time.
* * * * *
The drawing-room was full of English books, some of which were
translated into the Magyar language. Hungarian literature is not as
yet in a very advanced stage, neither, as a rule, are the Hungarians a
very reading people. They have their own novelists, but greatly prefer
English authors. They do not, however, care for the “sensational,”
preferring the sentimental and romantic.
In their cheap journalistic literature the kind of pabulum known as
“penny dreadful” does not exist. The Hungarians of the lower class do
not care to take their “horrors hot;” and such things as delight an
Englishman of the same calibre fall flat upon the mental palate of a
Hungarian.
There is nothing half so charming as a visit to a Magyar family. There
is a well-bred ease and cordiality of manner about the Hungarians, that
make the guest feel perfectly at home immediately he enters the house.
There is no _géne_, and the visitor becomes instantly as one of
the family circle.
The following morning, whilst the lord of the domain was closeted with
his _Ispán_ (steward), we walked to some of the tenants’ cottages,
accompanied by his wife. Although we went into six, I do not think we
saw as many children. The Magyars seldom have large families; and so
often are they childless that it is a common thing for them to adopt
the child of a wandering Slovak, and bring him up as their own. There
is also a great mortality amongst children on the Alfőld, the chief
reason assigned being the earthen floors; their aged also being said to
suffer intensely from rheumatism, from the same cause.
Surrounding these dwellings was a small garden fenced in with the dried
stalks of Indian corn, and nothing could have looked more comfortable
than the interior of each one, which bespoke the existence of rude
plenty. Yet the inhabitants were but the cultivators of the soil,
synonymous with our English labourers. On our return we passed through
the farm-buildings, and were shown the stud, consisting of about twenty
horses. In the adjoining coach-house were carriages of all descriptions
and of the most primitive design; whilst in the centre stood one the
precise nature of which it was not easy to define.
“That,” remarked our host, who had now joined us (pointing in the
direction of the nondescript vehicle in question), “is the family
pedigree.” And its history, narrated by himself, showed how appropriate
was its title. It had in fact begun its career by being a modest
species of _britzska_, but ended in becoming a house on wheels, a
veritable genealogical tree.
Our host, unlike his Magyar tenantry, was blessed with a “quiverful,”
having eight children, the eldest of whom numbered little more than
as many years, all having arrived with the greatest punctuality like
daisies and buttercups in May. When the third “hardy annual” was old
enough to take his daily exercise with his parents, the _britzska_
was converted into a _barouche_. On the death of our host’s
father, at which epoch the dowager took up her abode in the country
château of her son, an excrescence was added to the back in the form
of a “rumble,” to which the “hardy annuals” were transferred in her
favour; and when the sixth arrived, our pater-familias resorted to the
ingenious expedient of having the carriage closed in after the manner
of a _landau_, and the hood elevated to the top after the fashion
of a _banquette_ on the summit of a _diligence_. At last
twins came; upon which happy occurrence two small seats were attached
to the inside of the doors, which were ingeniously contrived to let up
and down like a bracket.
“In this carriage,” he remarked triumphantly, when he had finished its
history, his whole countenance beaming with benevolence and paternal
pride, “we all travel together to Pest, where we have our winter
residence.”
One can picture to one’s self the start. The host and hostess, the
dowager--our host’s mother--his sister, the eight small blessings, the
governess, the lady’s maid, the footman, the postilion, the six horses
and the dowager’s lap-dog; in all a Noah’s Ark of twenty-three bipeds
and quadrupeds!
In the early evening our host took us for a long drive across his
estate, and as our way was fortunately not confined to the sandy wastes
we traversed yesterday, we were not smothered with dust as on our
way from the station. Never can I forget that drive, or the railway
speed at which we skimmed over the level surface of the _puszta_.
Railway speed! It is nothing to it--not that of Hungarian railways,
at any rate. We absolutely flew on the wings of the wind. The pace at
which a good team of Hungarian horses go is the most madly exciting
thing possible to conceive.
The domain of our host covered a large area of _puszta_; but it
was small, he assured us, compared with many, which often cover from
thirty to forty square miles; whilst formerly there were instances in
which some were even seven and eight hundred miles in extent. It is
difficult for us, who live in our “tight little island,” to comprehend
the existence of such vast estates belonging to one individual. Yet
they were managed with great exactness under stewards, the labourers
and their families sometimes consisting of an army of from a thousand
to fifteen hundred souls. The word _puszta_, now so commonly and
incorrectly applied to the great plains, originated in these estates;
a nobleman’s property, which was farmed by his own labourers--that
is to say, where there were no peasants, and consequently no forced
labour--having been called a _puszta_. The revenues are often as
enormous as the domains themselves; and the flocks that graze the land
not under cultivation numbering hundreds of thousands, remind one of
patriarchal times; whilst the ingatherings of wheat, rye, rape, and
other cereals grown on the estate each amount to hundreds of thousands
of bushels annually.
Having dined before starting, the usual dinner hour in Hungary being
two o’clock, we were enabled to prolong our drive, and did not return
until a late hour in the evening.
“They are dancing the _csárdás_,” exclaimed our host, as we
approached a number of labourers’ dwellings and saw the red petticoats
spinning round and round. “Would you like to see it? They dance it
every evening; but this is evidently one got up for a particular
occasion, for the girls are in full fig, and I hear the clash of spurs
as the Magyar dandies knock their heels together to keep time to the
scraping of the gipsies’ fiddles.”
It was a pretty scene: the rapid movements of the dancers in their
gay costumes, the picturesque background of low sheds covered with
the large round leaves of the melon, its tendrils hanging in graceful
festoons, and its golden fruit resting on the thatch. We might have
been witnessing a Spanish saraband.
The Hungarians dance for their very lives. To them the practice of the
Terpsichorean art is no mere languid and graceful undulation of the
figure, but a perfect wild _abandon_ of mirth; and they whirl, and
spin, and gyrate with the velocity of dervishes, until their long black
locks stand out straight, and their faces are ablaze with heat and
excitement.
Watch them as they perform the _csárdás_--their national dance--to
the strange wild harmony of the _Czigánok_! Watch them as they
balance themselves backwards and forwards whilst adapting their subtle
movements to the measure of its animating strains!
The _csárdás_ is essentially pantomimic, and describes by mute
action the unquiet “course of true love.” The music is at first slow,
and the couples walk up and down the room together in a stately manner;
then, affecting to have made each other’s acquaintance, and fallen
victims to the tender passion, the music grows more lively, and the
“courtship” begins in earnest.
The lover advances towards his _innamorata_, she coyly responds
and they spin round together for a few seconds, when, as if thinking
she has given him too much encouragement, the maiden retires pouting,
whereupon he again approaches, but this time she turns her back upon
him and dances off in a contrary direction. Following her, however,
he overtakes and seizes her round the waist, and away they go again
whirling deliriously, until she manages to extricate herself from his
grasp. Shy and friendly by turns, now encouraging her partner, and now
retreating with offended dignity, the lover at length becomes chagrined
at her caprices turns his back upon her, and they dance _dos à
dos_ for a while with indignant gestures, till the maid with signs
of repentance seeks reconciliation. The music grows faster and faster,
the lovers, in the ecstasy of reunion, whirl and twirl madly, nor do
they stop until both are quite giddy and out of breath, when, retiring
from the scene, another couple takes their place, and the performance
begins again.
The _csárdás_, of course, varies slightly in each instance,
according to the locality and the spirit of the dancers, but the
subject remains the same--love, courtship, jealousy, disappointment,
reunion, and happiness “ever after.” Sometimes, in the closing scene,
it winds up by the lover throwing himself on his knees before his
mistress, whilst she dances round him in token of her complete triumph.
Several couples are always occupied at the same time in this dance, in
one phase or other of the would-be courtship; whilst the men’s hats,
decorated with fresh flowers, the women got up in the most coquettish
and picturesque costumes imaginable, the stamping of feet, clashing of
spurs, and wildly exciting strains of the gipsies, as they saw away
madly at their violins, all combine in rendering the _csárdás_
a most interesting and animating spectacle. Nor is it danced only by
the peasants: it is seen in the ball-rooms of the nobles even at the
capital, where a gipsy-band is always summoned to accompany it.
The most interesting place in which to witness it is the harvest-field,
where, laying down their sickles, half-a-dozen of them will often stand
up, as if seized by some irresistible impulse, and begin dancing all
amongst the sheaves of corn.
Besides the national _csárdás_, however, there is one called
the _Loshau csárdás_, a very slow dance, but it is by no means
a favourite with the Magyars, who, so calm and phlegmatic in their
ordinary moments, are wont during recreation to give themselves up to
the wildest excitement. A third is often seen in the east of Hungary,
where a number of men, linking arms, form a ring and dance together,
accompanying their gyrations with clapping of hands, shouts, and
stamping of feet, whilst the fair ones remain outside the magic circle,
till an intrepid Adonis, breaking from his companions, seizes one of
them round the waist and waltzes with her for awhile, after which he
returns to the ring, and another repeats the ceremony.
But whatever be the form which the Hungarian dance assumes, its
constant theme is love, just as patriotism and the joys of home are the
chief subjects of their song.
[Illustration]