THE PUSZTA.
“Is there anything to be seen here?” we inquired of a pretty Slovene
girl, who, in short red skirt, velvet bodice, and top-boots, was
stumping about the platform as we alighted from the train the next
morning, and at last stood on Hungarian soil.
Knowing just sufficient German to comprehend the nature of our
question, she turned round, and pointing first in the direction of the
desolate little station itself, then at a group of sheds opposite,
and finally at a long straight road which apparently led nowhere, she
showed two rows of pearly teeth, and looking up at us archly, burst out
laughing at her own humour.
[Illustration]
Pragerhof, the place at which we have just arrived--the junction of
the Vienna and Trieste line--is in very truth a dreary spot to be set
down at; but wishing to reach Sió-Fok the next day, it was necessary
to break our journey here. Nothing could present a more utterly forlorn
aspect, and why the spot should have been favoured with a name at all
is an enigma, seeing that it consists solely--as our _naïve_
little Slovene had intimated--of the station itself, three or four
sheds, and the small _fogado_ (inn). Probably, however, the
signification may have reference to a town or village hard by; “hard
by,” that is to say, in a Hungarian sense, for in this part of the
country, where villages are few and far between, people often call men
“neighbours” who live twenty, thirty, and even forty miles distant, and
not unfrequently convey their farm produce to fairs and markets full as
many miles away.
We have now reached the threshold of the great plains, and, looking
north, south, east, and west, not a sign of habitation is visible;
nothing, in short, but the straight road already alluded to, and the
long line of railway which vanishes only with the horizon.
The lonely _fogado_ in which we have come to anchor till the
morrow forms a tolerable example of all wayside inns in Hungary, except
in the position of the stranger’s bedroom, which, instead of being on
the ground-floor, is in this instance approached by a movable ladder.
The _salle à manger_, as is invariably the case, not only adjoins,
but commands an extensive view of the kitchen; and the traveller
can--if he feel disposed--watch as he sits at table the interesting
process of the cutting up and frying of his cutlets, and stewing of his
_paprika hendl_; as well as the slaughter of the innocent itself.
For our present hosts form no exception to the generality of Hungarian
innkeepers in the very open manner in which they carry into effect
their culinary assassinations, and a scuffle, a sharp, piteous cry,
followed by a “thud,” and the sight of a quivering victim hanging head
downwards to a door-nail in full view, were our immediate welcome to
the shelter of this solitary little inn.
We are here plunged all at once into the very vortex of the Magyar
language, which no other south of the Volga aids the uninitiated
stranger to interpret, but which was, nevertheless, already spoken in
this country by a Turanian people of kindred race at the Roman conquest
of Pannonia.
The landlord of the inn, who is a Magyar, can only just manage to
render himself intelligible in German; whilst the young woman we
addressed on our arrival at the station, and whom we find to be the
waiting-maid, can only speak Hungarian and her mother-tongue, a Sláv
dialect spoken west of the Hungarian frontier.
The vast prairies we have now entered, so deeply interesting in their
historical associations, cover the prodigious area of 37,400 English
square miles, and the insular mind almost loses itself in contemplating
their extent.
Although Hungary contains within its embrace mountainous districts of
vast extent, and beauty unsurpassed by any country in Europe, yet its
principal characteristics may be said to be plains and rivers. In some
portions of the former, which are as level as the ocean, the soil is in
a high state of cultivation; others are mere sandy wastes; whilst in
others again, Nature having spread a green and flowery carpet of her
own weaving, thousands of wild horses and cattle are allowed to roam
over it unfettered, and these, wandering about in immense herds, form
one of the chief features of the _Puszta_ landscape.
Here the sportsman may find ample food for his gun; for the marshes
in the vicinity of the great rivers abound in wild fowl, particularly
in the spring, when they are the haunt of storks, which may be seen
pluming themselves all day long amongst the tall reeds and feathery
grasses, or else leading their little family of storklings out for
an airing on the confines of their watery domain. Flocks of noisy
plovers too are everywhere seen, and not unfrequently a pelican; whilst
throughout the length and breadth of the Alfőld, the harsh scream of
the falcon is heard, wheeling overhead as it scours the air in quest of
smaller birds, or swoops down upon a marmot.
Scattered about these vast steppes, at long distances apart, are
towns and villages. In the neighbourhood of the post roads they occur
every three or four hours; but in other districts farther in the
interior the traveller may often journey a whole day by carriage or
_leiterwagen_, in going from one village to the next.
No wonder is it then that this thinly populated region has ever been
considered the El-Dorado of brigands, who until recently, that is
to say until ten or twenty years ago, kept the otherwise peaceful
dwellers of the plains in a perpetual state of terror and alarm. Many
of the peasants and small landed gentry, however--paradoxical as it
may appear--were known to harbour these “heroes;” thus encouraging
brigandage whilst trembling for their own safety. In fact, so daring
and numerous at one time were these robbers, that they often demanded
board and lodging from the inhabitants as a right; whilst so lonely
were the majority of the farmsteads, that the occupants, completely
at their mercy, were compelled to yield without resistance to their
demands. It was even customary a few years ago--a custom which,
I believe, still exists in some remote parts of Hungary--for the
inhabitants to pay what is called _felelat_, or “black-mail,”
to these freebooters, to secure themselves from the plunder of their
cattle, just as formerly existed in Scotland. Brigandage in Hungary is,
in fact, of “noble” origin, for, intrenched within their strong castles
and encompassed by fortifications, many of the nobles in the fifteenth
century exercised the function of robber-knights, enlisting numbers of
the peasantry in their exploits.
Amongst these brigands of modern time were men of education and family;
not only this, it has even been darkly hinted that magnates, who at
one time held responsible positions under government, have been more
than suspected of joining these marauders for the purpose of recruiting
their enfeebled finances. The ruling powers have done their utmost
to suppress these bandit hordes by offering large sums in the shape
of “blood-money” for the capture of the leaders of the gangs, or the
betrayal of their hiding-places to the police, but this has never
been an easy task to accomplish in a country where so many of the
inhabitants sympathise with the delinquents.
The Hungarians are a manly, brave, and chivalrous race, but lately
emerged from barbarism, for the Turks held the greater part of their
country in possession until a comparatively recent date; and there
no doubt exists to some extent, even at the present time, an innate
disposition in the minds of some--a disposition not confined to one
class of society in particular, but existing in the highest as well
as in the lowest--to wink at, if not actually condone, all offences
of whatever kind, provided they have been committed with valour and
daring. These, of course, are very questionable ethics, but this state
of things has always existed in Hungary; and far greater than the fears
for their own safety has been the chivalrous feeling which has caused
so many of the Hungarians to shelter these robbers, and treat them
as heroes when pursued by the hands of justice. For this sentiment
they are probably indebted as much to their past history as to the
character of their surroundings. Men’s minds are much more influenced
by external nature than we are often aware, and these limitless plains
on which the Hungarians gaze from morn till eve have no doubt imbued
them, unconsciously to themselves, with a notion of freedom of action,
fettered by no boundaries and ruled by no human laws.
So daring at one period were these robber-bands that they were
occasionally known to attack caravans of merchandise even in broad
day; whilst the extent to which brigandage prevailed only a few years
ago may be inferred from the fact of there having been no fewer than
twelve hundred of these robber-criminals imprisoned at the same
time within the walls of the fortress of Szegedin--the capital of
the Alfőld--amongst whom was the most daring and celebrated bandit
modern Hungary has ever known; a man who rejoiced in the euphemistic
appellation of Alexander Rose (Rózsa Sándor), and whose particular form
of the profession was cattle-lifting, but who only eleven years ago
attacked with his robber-band a train on its way through the plains,
and is said to have murdered during his “brilliant career” upwards of
a hundred persons. This “dashing hero,” who was pelted with flowers by
the peasant girls when he was at length captured by the police, died,
scarcely more than a year ago, a natural death in the citadel where
he was confined, having escaped the punishment he so richly deserved
by the clemency of the Emperor of Austria, who is said to possess an
extreme dislike to signing death-warrants.
The term often applied to these Hungarian brigands is that of
_szégény légény_, or “poor lads,”--a term no doubt due, in the
first instance, to the fact that many were originally fugitives from
the Imperial conscription; whilst the romantic sentiment entertained
concerning them and their lives arises from the intense and very
natural repugnance to the Austrian army existing amongst all classes.
The Magyars are radicals in all political and national affairs, hence
their tolerance of, if not actual desire to shield, those who seek to
evade the Imperial conscription, no less irksome to the inhabitants of
this country than it was to the Italians when under the same yoke.
Previous to 1848, a period that marks what the people of this country
call the “War of Independence,” various forms of conscription were in
force, some of which were especially obnoxious to the Hungarians. Many,
therefore, fled from the hard fate it imposed, preferring freedom, with
self-inflicted exile, to serving a foreign power. Some sought refuge
in the wooded districts of the mountains, others in the vast fields of
Indian corn found on the plains, in whose green labyrinths they could
not easily be tracked. Concealed here until exhausted nature could hold
out no longer, they at length crept from their hiding-places to begin
a vagabond existence, begging of the peasantry as they wandered from
place to place, with the shed of some lonely tavern, the favourite
haunt of brigands, as their only shelter by night.
No wonder then that these “poor lads,” after pursuing for a time a life
of vagrancy, should end in becoming robbers likewise, the more so as
they knew full well they would be protected from the vigilance of the
_pandúrok_ by the peasantry, who, as I have said, were frequently
known to conceal them in their houses when pursued by those officers of
justice.
The “poor lads,” however, differ somewhat from the orthodox brigand.
The former plunder in order to live, and rarely commit murder, their
weapons seldom consisting of anything more formidable than a bludgeon.
But the brigand “proper,” besides being armed to the teeth, wears a
cuirass, and carries in addition to his lance, loaded hatchet and brace
of pistols, a lasso, in the use of which he is as dexterous as the
Spaniards of South America, and forms in appearance, with his slouching
“sombrero,” bronzed chest and flowing black hair, as noble a type of
his order as any to be found in the mountain fastnesses of Calabria.
But no matter whether he be an orthodox brigand or “poor lad,” when
one of special notoriety happens to be captured he is, as in the case
of Rózsa Sándor, pelted with flowers by the “_kisleány_,” or dark
little maidens of the Alfőld, who always sympathise with these daring
freebooters, of whatever type.
During our present visit to Hungary some alarm was created by the
announcement that three hundred banditti under the leadership of Milan,
the notorious chief, had crossed the Danube from Servia, and were on
their way to the Hungarian plains. A battalion of troops, however, sent
to welcome them on the shores of the river, opposite Gradista, drove
them back upon Belgrade by a more hasty retreat than they apparently
expected, accompanied by an intimation in explosive terms that Hungary
had quite as many brigands as she wanted without drawing upon the
resources of Servia.
The “_Alfőld_”--which literally interpreted signifies lowlands,
in contradistinction to “_Felfőld_”--by which the Hungarians
designate the mountainous districts of their land, is, strictly
speaking, confined to that portion of the country which lies to the
north of the river Marős and east of the Danube. It may however be
appropriately applied to the whole of the plains, not excepting the
“_Pettaurfeld_,” or “little Hungarian plains,” as the lowlands
lying between Pragerhof and Lake Balaton are called, and upon which we
have just entered. In the winter they are like a frozen sea--one great
and boundless wilderness of white. The flocks that roam these rich
prairies free and unfettered in summer-time are gone, and the tinkling
of their bells is heard no longer; all are housed in huge clusters of
sheds, where they low plaintively as they dream of the sunny herbage of
the past. No sound is audible save the hoarse croak of the raven, which
seems but to awaken the dreariness of the scene and make the silence
live; whilst the very sun himself looks frozen as he peers forth from
the pale blue sky.
It is at this season that the stranger, unused to such scenes, is
impressed with the awful loneliness and stillness of his surroundings,
together with the profound majesty and immensity of nature, as his eye,
wandering over the vast expanse of white, traces no boundary, and his
ear detects no sound of living thing.
In the spring, when the lingering winter snow has at length melted,
and the warm sun showers his blessed life-giving rays upon the dormant
earth, the shepherd with grateful and rejoicing heart once more wanders
forth with his flock to the green pastures; and in the cultivated
districts the husbandman, shouldering his simple and primitive
implements of agriculture, just scratches the surface of the rich
alluvial soil, which--as some one says--only needs to be “tickled” and
sown with seed, to laugh all over at harvest-time with smiling grain.
[Illustration]
It is glorious summer now, and as we sit under an arbour of vines in
the little sun-baked, sandy garden of our _fogado_, there come to us
across the plains the plaintive sounds of a shepherd’s flute, and the
pensive cadence of tinkling bells. Strolling off in the direction of
the sound, we come to a large flock of sheep browsing on the short and
tender herbage, whilst the shepherd, in his shaggy sheepskin cloak,
wanders about amongst them, playing a small instrument here called a
_telinka_, and looking, wrapped in his _bunda_ with its long wool
outside, strangely in keeping with the flocks he is tending. About half
a mile distant is another shaggy, fur-clothed man watching a herd of
long-haired goats, whilst farther still three dark spots on the silent
landscape indicate the existence of a gipsy encampment, the shepherd
and the gipsy forming two of the most marked characteristics of the
Alfőld, the one giving to it a pastoral, the other, with his little
colony of tents, an almost Eastern aspect.
The shepherd’s life is a lonely and monotonous one. During the summer
he remains night and day with his flock, and for whole months together
holds communication with no one, except with some other of his class
with whom he comes in contact, as he wanders from pasture to pasture
with his woolly family. His life however, though lonely, is not so
dreary as might be imagined; the Alfőld to him is a Garden of Eden, a
smiling land of a bounteous heaven: his isolated and pastoral existence
frequently leads him to be a poet, and to the idyllic music of the
_telinka_, a little instrument he manufactures himself, and as
primitive as that by which Pan of old awoke the stillness of the dawn,
he composes rhymes full of simple poetry and pathos.
We had wandered fully two miles across the vast and trackless plains,
yet lingered till the sun began to sink below the horizon and the chill
of evening warned us to return. It is in regions like these that the
wonderful phenomenon of the _afterglow_ is best seen. As the sun
leaves the earth which it has gladdened with its smiles, and the last
crimson streak fades slowly in the west, twilight’s shadows gather over
the warm bosom of the plains, and a cold white vapour begins to rise
from the marshes; the shadow lingers for a while, till suddenly, as if
by the agency of a magician’s wand, there comes a wondrous flush of
glory--_whence_ none can tell--that once more bathes both earth
and heaven in a flood of gold and amber. But soon, fainter grow the
colours in the west, colder and more tangible the snake-like vapours
ascending from the hollows, deeper the transparent arc above, till
evening at length sinks into the embrace of night. As we turn our faces
homewards all sound is hushed; the wild fowl have sought their nests in
the thick sedges which border the marshes, the marmots their holes in
the warm sand; and the shepherd, weary with his day’s watch, wrapped in
his _bunda_, lies stretched on the darkling ground fast asleep,
beside him his faithful dog, whose paws twitch spasmodically in an
imaginary race after some erratic sheep that has doubtless disturbed
his equanimity during the hours of day, and which he now chases in his
dreams. From the distant camp the smoke curls idly upwards in graceful
wreaths above the ruddy fire; in the foreground a group of oxen chew
the cud, and everything is suggestive of repose.
Beautiful, however, as are our surroundings in their wondrous breadth
of calm, we are after all but gregarious animals, and two hours later,
whilst sitting in the crazy wooden balcony of the _fogado_, I
find myself sighing for the rosy fruit of the Lotus, that I may eat
and again mingle with the gay and festive throng in the Piazza di San
Marco, and catch an echo of the music that so delighted me when there.
F., on the contrary, like Odysseus, casts his mind forwards to the
Ithaka of his love, the region of the snowy Carpathians, whither our
steps are tending. But we both retire for the night with the conviction
that Pragerhof in its absence of human life and maddening isolation is
just one of those places in which more than one day’s sojourn must end
in suicide.
That melancholy catastrophe was at any rate averted for the present,
for we found ourselves still alive on the following morning, when
the little waiting-maid came stumbling and stumping up the ladder,
bringing coffee as a preliminary to toilet and breakfast; which
ceremonies completed, we welcome as a rescuing angel the train that at
a quarter-past nine draws leisurely up to the station.
[Illustration]