A CAUTION TO SNAILS.
The day had dawned with a glorious awakening. How bright and fair all
was under its glistening veil of sparkling dewdrops, as we sat by the
open door of the _fogado_ and partook of our simple breakfast!
Beyond were the green plains and the distant sea-like horizon; near
us broad vine-trellises, through which the sunshine flickered like a
shower of gold. From afar came the distant lowing of cattle and the
muffled bark of a sheep-dog; whilst all around us was so still, so
very still, that we might have been in the vast prairies of the New
World. The birds, playing at hide-and-seek amongst the reddening,
dust-covered vine-leaves, or perched high up in the sooty eaves of the
little station, chirped and bubbled over with song, as if their smoky
and sandy domain had been the umbrageous aisles of some lonely forest.
How grateful they were for their meagre mercies as they carolled forth
their hymn of praise this dewy golden morning whilst we waited for the
train, how glad they seemed to live, and what joy was there in their
little lives as the Slovene waiting-maid scattered towards them the
crumbs from the table-cloth of the restaurant!
[Illustration]
Our train was announced to leave at ten minutes to ten; but overdue,
it did not arrive from Trieste until half-past eight o’clock, and how
could any one be so unreasonable as to expect it to be got ready to
start again in the short space of one hour and twenty minutes? At the
time specified the engine-driver, seated on a heap of sand outside the
platform, was dozing over his pipe, and the guard leisurely finishing
his breakfast in the inn kitchen. And why not? No one thinks of
hurrying himself in Hungary, where everybody has plenty of time for
everything.
The trains, punctual enough in their departure from large stations,
are wholly indifferent as to the time they either arrive at or start
from the smaller ones, which are generally situated in districts where
persons take life easily, and with whom the railway authorities appear
to think an hour or so out of the twenty-four can make no possible
difference.
Taking our places at last, and dragging slowly on, we pass here and
there, at long intervals, true specimens of Hungarian villages, with
their low-roofed one-storied houses, and cemeteries filled with small
red, blue, and white crosses, which, just showing above the rank
grass, look from a distance like wild flowers growing in a meadow. The
traveller seems here to have been suddenly carried back to some remote
period of the world’s history, everything is so heavy and so slow. At
the stations at which we stop, curious-shaped vehicles are waiting to
take the arrivals to towns and villages--who shall say how many miles
away? Long waggons made simply of planks of wood nailed together, and
others with open ladder-like sides, drawn by three horses abreast,
or small light carts, called _szekérs_, to which, by a most
uncomfortable arrangement, one poor, lean, miserable horse is harnessed
to a pole. All are driven by strange-looking men in sheepskin cloaks
or hussar-jackets called _mentes_, embroidered in divers colours
of needlework, and wearing such full white trousers that they look
like petticoats. Stranger people still get into these vehicles--women
wearing sheepskin cloaks like the men, strange head-gear and
top-boots--and, leaving the enclosure which surrounds the station, jog
away over quagmires that seem to lead to nowhere, or to some distant
world far beyond our ken.
[Illustration]
Turf is burnt in the engine, so that the speed, as may be imagined,
is not very alarming--its “linked sweetness long drawn out” scarcely
exceeding ten miles an hour; besides which we linger at the various
stations, time, as we have seen, being no object in this primitive
country.
Railway travelling in Hungary has in fact frequently been known to
produce in the passenger--especially if he happen to have come from
Western Europe--a species of temporary insanity; the particular form
which the malady assumes causing the unfortunate sufferer to lose for
the nonce all sense of his own individuality, and to imagine himself
the “Wandering Jew,” destined to go on to all time.
_À-propos_ of the slowness of the Hungarian locomotives, it is
related that a certain peasant, when asked one day by a friend why he
did not take the train to the market town, replied, “I have no time
to-day; I must walk, or I shall arrive there too late.”
As we wait, the villagers, leaning over the wooden palisades, gaze
at us wonderingly, or gossip with the guard; the women clothed
in the shortest of short petticoats, worn over a number of white
under-garments frilled at the edges, and which, hanging a few inches
below each other and starched almost to the stiffness of a board, are
intended to serve as a hoop to keep the top skirt out.
It is a festival of some sort, and, as we approach the villages,
the cracked bells from the church towers are chiming away joyously,
and all the people are dressed in their red-letter day attire, the
women with black, red, or green bodices, full white sleeves and white
chemisettes embroidered at the throat. Quaint children stand beside
them, who, dressed in every respect precisely like their elders, even
to top-boots, look like small men and women seen through the wrong end
of a telescope.
Entering the district of the river Drave, we are all at once surrounded
by low, undulating hills which rise out of the plains, and wherever we
turn our eyes, we see persons on their way to distant churches; the
men walking together in front, and the women following at a respectful
distance. The roads are muddy, and the women gather up their voluminous
petticoats over their top-boots in a most exemplary manner; whilst the
children, emulating the example of their mothers and holding up their
little petticoats likewise, form one of the most amusing spectacles
possible.
[Illustration]
Presently we reach a large town, situated in the midst of what
appears to be a ploughed field, the houses so wretched that they
seem not to have been built, but to have grown there like cabbages
or mangel-wurzel, or to have been heaved up from beneath by
ill-conditioned and untidy gnomes.
Whilst staying at this place, persons arrive from distant and unseen
towns far away beyond the limits of the visible horizon, in vehicles
more strange even than any we have yet seen, and such as might have
existed in the camp of Attila. A score of tired but patient men and
women are lying on their bundles, waiting the arrival of the down train
from Buda-Pest to take them to their destination, whilst others are
standing or walking about the platform; women, whose heads and faces
enveloped in dark-blue kerchiefs, and sleeves padded at the shoulders,
give them a strange incongruous look, half-Turkish, half-European;
men--what splendid fellows! with manly faces bronzed by the fierce
summer sun of the Alfőld, and with limbs as muscular as those of
athletes.
The times of the arrival and departure of the trains are indicated in
a somewhat primitive manner on a slate; and whilst we are wondering
what on earth can be keeping us here so long, we see a carriage drawn
by six horses and surrounded by a cloud of dust, coming along the road
at a terrific pace, the horses galloping furiously under the lash of
the driver’s long whip. Possibly it is for this we have been tarrying.
A tall, graceful, and very pretty woman descends from the carriage--a
kind of _calèche_. Two men, one of whom wears a feather in his
hat, the other a bunch of wild-flowers--servants apparently, who had
previously arrived with the luggage--stoop and kiss her hand as they
see her into the train; and as soon as the engine-driver and guard have
charged their pipes afresh, the heavy, lumbering machine slides out of
the station, and we drag on again as though it were a matter of the
most sublime indifference as to what time we arrive at the end of our
journey--if we ever do.
In process of time, however, we do reach Gross Kanizsa, where our
line of railway joins that from Agram and Vienna. At this place,
which contains twelve thousand inhabitants, the sandy enclosure of
the station is so full of girls in holiday attire that it looks like
a flower-garden, and we feel we are in Hungary indeed, the land of
beautiful women. Was anything half so ravishing as those little
scarlet leather top-boots embroidered at the side, and which, adorned
with rosettes, look like scarlet clappers as they peep forth from the
bell-like skirts? What little darlings are the wearers, with their
demure but coquettish faces, some blonde, some brunette, the plaits
of their hair--which hang loosely down the back--ornamented with
many-coloured ribbons reaching almost to the heels! Near some of these
Kanizsa belles stand their brothers or sweethearts, wearing embroidered
cloaks or little jaunty hussar-jackets, thickly covered with bright
silver buttons, and white plumes in their small caps.
Whilst waiting at this station, we are reminded of a very different
scene that occurred the last time we were here. We had just arrived
by train from Croatia, and on going into the buffet, which we found
already crowded with passengers, many of whom were not only Croatians,
but Servians, Slavonians and people from Lower Hungary, we could not
help observing that our entrance seemed to be regarded as an intrusion.
Seeing vacant seats at a table near the centre of the room, round which
our fellow-travellers were already partaking of a table-d’hôte repast,
we also took our places, wondering greatly at the disturbance which
our presence evidently created.
In a few moments several persons who had been sitting near us, with
a surly glance and muttered exclamation, withdrew from the table,
and walked to the farther end of the room. It was impossible to help
perceiving that an insult was intended, although, as may be imagined,
we were perfectly ignorant of the cause.
Shortly after this, as we were doing our best to swallow the affront
together with our soup--a doubtful compound called _ungarischer
sauerkraut_, consisting of cabbage cut into thin strips and
immersed in a colourless liquid in which small slices of sausage
were floating--and washing down the whole with draughts of consoling
_badacsony_, made of grapes grown on a mountain near Lake Balaton,
a gentleman came across from the opposite side of the table and took
his seat beside us. Addressing us in Latin, the frequent medium of
communication between educated Englishmen and Magyars of Central
Hungary, he explained the cause of his countrymen’s behaviour, and
apologised profoundly for the rudeness to which we had been subjected.
They had, he informed us, taken us for Russians, the political
feeling against whom was very strong during that particular crisis of
the Russo-Turkish war, then just at its height, especially amongst
Hungarians of the lower provinces; but having been in England himself,
though not for a sufficiently long period to acquire the language, he
had at once recognised to what nation we belonged.
“_Pileus ejus_,” said he, looking towards me, and alluding to my
hat, which was of the species familiarly known as “pork-pie,” turned
up with a broad band of fur--“the Russian ladies wear precisely such
hats as the one you have on, and take my word for it, wherever you go
in Hungary, you will be mistaken for a Russian, unless you change it
for another.”
Our train lingered here an hour, and whilst walking about the platform,
we were more than ever struck with the variety of nationalities
met with in this singular country. Standing round the door of the
restaurant was a group of men, whose soft and effeminate tongue,
delicate features, and supple figures, contrasting strongly with the
manly energy and powerful physique of the Magyars, proclaimed them to
be Yougo-Slávs from Croatia and Slavonia; there were others again,
whose sandalled legs and feet, and lambswool caps the shape of mops,
declared them to be Wallachs from Transylvania or the Lower Danube;
besides Servians from their little colony in the capital, and men on
their way to their homes in the Northern Carpathians, all of whom our
previous acquaintance with Hungary enabled us at once to recognise.
Amongst the many peculiarities which exist in this interesting country,
there is not one that perhaps strikes the stranger so forcibly as
the variety of races. By far the largest portion of it is inhabited
by the Magyars, or ruling people; next to them in importance come
the Wallachs, occupying the most eastern portion of the territory;
whilst sprinkled here and there over the vast area which constitutes
the Alfőld are little colonies of Germans, exclusive of the so-called
Saxons and Szeklérs in the south-east, each of whom forms a distinct
nationality. All the above-named races, however, inhabit the central
and south-eastern portion of the kingdom; but, in the entire realm of
the Magyar, no fewer than eight languages are spoken, not including
the various Sláv dialects.
In the south, divided from Bosnia and Servia by the river Save, lie the
Hungarian provinces of Croatia and Slavonia, peopled by Croat-Serbs,
whilst that portion of territory which extends south-west of the
Northern Carpathians is inhabited by Slovaks, who border immediately
on the Poles of Gallicia and the Tcheks of Moravia; the province
south-east of the Northern Carpathians being inhabited by Rusniaks, or
Ruthenians, there being no fewer than seventeen thousand Slavs in the
dual-Monarchy. Besides these nationalities, there are also colonies
of Greeks, Arnauts, and Armenians, spread over various parts of the
kingdom.
The chief cause of the existence of these various races is the frequent
invasions, and final occupation of the greater portion of it by the
Turks, who in the fifteenth century, penetrating into the very heart
of Aryan Christendom, desolated the whole face of Hungary by fire and
sword. Not only did these invaders and subsequent conquerors of the
country lay waste the entire surface of the fertile plains, but by
burning the towns and villages, rendered them wholly uninhabitable.
To such an extent did the incursions of the Moslem hordes affect the
region of the Alfőld, that it is only within the present century that
the Magyars may be truly said to have begun to recover their lost
ground.
It is a common saying amongst Hungarians that “where the Turk treads
no grass grows,” and so effectually was the country rendered desolate
by the ravages of this foe, that after their final expulsion in 1777,
by a series of battles nobly fought by the Hungarians, immigrants were
called in, and encouraged by grants of land to re-occupy the ruined
villages, and cultivate the soil rendered barren and unfruitful by the
hated Moslem.
Thus Hungary became what we find her to-day,--a country peopled by many
nations, all subject to the parent State; each retaining, besides,
its language, its own costume, and distinct characteristics; and
continuing--and this is perhaps the strangest fact of all--as isolated
in point of individuality of existence and territorial position as if
each race constituted a separate nation in itself. Hungary is, in fact,
unlike any other country in the world, and there is a novelty and a
charm about it that fills the traveller with delight.
“When I hear its name mentioned,” exclaimed a popular German author,
“my waistcoat seems too tight for me; an ocean stirs within me; in my
heart awaken the traditionary exploits of long ago, the poetry and song
of the Middle Ages. Its history is that of yore; the same heroism lives
within its borders, the names of its heroes alone have changed.” And
he is right. There is an inborn chivalry and heroism in the character
of the Magyars--traits evinced not only in their past, but recent
history; the same noble and dauntless spirit that dwelt in their heroes
of the Middle Ages lives in them now, and there is a bold and fearless
independence, a straightforwardness, and high principle that cannot
fail to win the love and admiration of all who really know them.
Returning to our places in the train, we observe standing near the
steps of our compartment a lady engaged in earnest conversation with
a poor woman clad in the costume of the Alfőld peasantry, and holding
in her arms a little golden-haired child of about four years old. The
woman was weeping bitterly, and the fragile body of the child was
convulsed with suppressed sobs.
[Illustration]
Our interest in both mother and child was kindled in a moment, and we
subsequently learnt from a German-speaking Magyar who travelled with us
that the lady was taking the little creature--the child of one of her
husband’s _földmevelök_ (farm-labourers)--to the hospital at Pest,
to undergo a surgical operation that might detain her there for several
months.
The parting of mother and child was one of the most touching things I
ever witnessed. We could not understand their lip-language, but the
heaven-born utterance of human love needs no mortal speech to express
its meaning, and we _felt_ all that their feeble, broken words
conveyed.
No sooner had the train left the platform than--the necessity of
restraining her feelings past--burying her face in the cushions,
“Little Nell” (for so we called her) gave way to a wild burst of grief.
“_Anyám! Anyám!_” (Mother! mother!) was her agonising cry.
Poor child! like many another, she had entered all too soon within the
portals of the “sanctuary of sorrow.” Did anything, I wonder, whisper
to her heart that which on inquiry at the hospital we subsequently
ascertained, viz. that she was not to see her mother again till they
were folded in each other’s arms in Paradise?
The Hungarian gentleman sitting opposite wiped his spectacles, whilst
F., turning abruptly to the window, began taking a most unwonted
interest in the features of the country, and I doubt whether there was
a dry eye between us, so truly does
“One touch of nature make the whole world kin.”
But we are approaching our destination; and having passed through an
immense forest of oaks, once notorious as the hiding-place of robber
bands, and forming even yet a refuge for those _szegény legény_,
or “poor lads,” over whom the popular sentiment of the country has
thrown such a mistaken charm, we emerge again into the open plains, and
see beyond us an azure lake lying calmly in the bosom of undulating
hills. To the right stretches a vast tract of uncultivated land, roamed
by wild horses, which with manes flying madly gallop away as we draw
near, until they are almost out of sight and form mere dark specks
in the distance, and we soon enter the swampy ground which marks the
vicinity of the lake.
The Platten-See, or Lake Balaton as it is often designated--both names
being derived from the Sláv word “_blats_,” signifying swamp or
marsh--is the second largest lake in Europe. Although bounded on the
northern side by lofty hills, to the south it is almost shoreless,
except here and there where fishermen, availing themselves of the
gentle undulations of sandy soil, have erected rude huts of plaited
reeds. In many places tall grasses eight or ten feet high cover the
marshes in dense jungly masses, and the surrounding country is so
inundated that the whole, save on the northern shore, presents an
appearance of a series of lakes.
Opposite Böglar, in the midst of vine-clad hills, rises the
conspicuous mountain Badacson, from the grapes of which the celebrated
wine is made; whilst jutting far into the lake a rocky promontory,
crowned by an ancient abbey, stands boldly out against the fainter
outline of the more distant hills.
And then we reach Sió-Fok, and our railway journey is at an end at
last.
“Little Nell,” the golden-haired child, had long ago sobbed herself
to sleep. That blessed nepenthe which mercifully follows childhood’s
sorrow had folded her in the peace of heaven, and there was no sign of
pain on her placid upturned face, as with an unspoken “God bless her!”
we left the train for the steamer which was waiting to take us across
the lake to Fűred.
[Illustration]