WE ARE MET BY OUR GUIDE.
In a country where so many nationalities exist it is not easy to
travel without some one who can speak at least three or four languages
unfamiliar to civilised ears; and as we purposed travelling not only
through Central Hungary, but through Transylvania and the Northern
Carpathians also, a guide was absolutely necessary, who, in addition to
German and Magyar, should be able to speak Wallachian and Slovak.
Besides the letters of introduction given us by the merchant at Paris,
we received before leaving England another to a gentleman residing in
one of the midland _comitats_ (counties), which before starting
we forwarded with a letter from ourselves, asking the favour of his
recommending a trustworthy person to accompany us on our journey, and
if possible to send him to meet us here.
We were seated at breakfast the morning after our arrival at Fűred
when a little group of persons entered, a tall woman of forbidding
aspect, leading a child by each hand, followed by a very small man,
who, handing us a letter, proved to be one of our Hungarian friend’s
own servants, whom he had sent in the capacity of guide, the letter
assuring us he was thoroughly experienced in travelling, knowing how
to make arrangements at country inns, etc. etc., and, in short, well
versed on all subjects concerning what “to eat, drink, and avoid.”
[Illustration]
It was somewhat alarming, however, to witness this little man’s
belongings, and we began to wonder whether, amongst other strange
things of this strange country, it was the custom for the guide’s
family likewise to accompany the traveller. The bundles and small
luggage also, which not only the woman but both children carried in
their arms, and the travel-stained appearance of their garments,
showing they had come from a long distance, were likewise circumstances
tending to strengthen our very natural supposition. But our minds were
soon set at rest on this matter by András himself, who informed us that
his wife had relations in the neighbourhood of Fűred, with whom she
purposed remaining with her children until his return.
András was a good-looking man, with a bright and intelligent
countenance. He wore white _gatya_ (trousers) fringed at the
edge, a braided hussar-jacket thrown across one shoulder, and a small
round felt hat and feathers. On our asking him to what nationality
he belonged, he drew himself up proudly until he almost stood on
tip-toe, and with a look expressive of triumph replied, “_Én Magyar
vagyok_” (“I am a Magyar”), and went on to inform us that he was
the grandson of an unfortunate noble whose lands had been forfeited,
but whose descent could be traced to the _honfoglalás_, as the
conquest of the Hungarian fatherland by Árpád in the ninth century
is called,--an event regarded by the Magyars in the same light as we
ourselves view the Norman Conquest. At this juncture he was overcome by
his emotions, but whether awakened by the remembrance of his defunct
grandsire, or simply that of his own greatness, it was hard to say.
Our guide’s wife was a head and shoulders taller than her lord and
master, and could easily have carried him about like a baby had she
been so minded. She was a fierce-looking woman with beetling brows, an
appearance by no means lessened by her peculiar style of dress; for,
besides her Turkish-looking head-gear, short skirts and top-boots, her
sleeves were padded at the shoulders, which, by increasing the width of
her already broad chest, imparted to her a mien truly Amazonian.
Whilst András provided for the exigencies of the journey, we occupied
ourselves in making short excursions in the neighbourhood. The lake,
though fifty miles long, is at no point more than nine broad; whilst
at Fűred it is even narrower still, the peninsula of Tihany, which
stretches halfway across it, almost severing it in two. Besides the
_fogas_, already referred to, it contains several kinds of
fish--the fogas, which is found only here and in the Nile, being
esteemed by epicures as the very best fresh-water fish in Europe.
The people living round Fűred are principally farmers and graziers. The
houses of the former are clean; but those of the _földművelők_, or
cultivators of the soil, synonymous with our agricultural labourers,
are often little better than hovels, where the children, the goats,
the poultry, and the pigs dwell together in happy-family parties. In
one of these hovels we saw, suspended for safety to a beam under the
roof, a baby lying in a trough in which the pigs had just been feeding;
whilst in others we found the common sleeping-place to be a little nook
behind the hearth, where the whole family huddled together in contented
fellowship.
[Illustration]
One of the quaintest and most amusing things in the neighbourhood of
these villages is to watch the kine returning at sunset from the plains
whither they have been driven for pasture at break of day. At the sound
of a horn, no matter how numerous they may be, each makes for its
own village, some with slow and stately gait, others running, but one
and all finding their way home unaccompanied to the very bosom of the
family.
It is then that these villages, so silent and deserted all the livelong
day--during which the inhabitants have been working in distant fields
or been otherwise busily occupied--are full of life and animation. The
women, sitting at doorways, sew or knit, whilst the men, lounging on
the benches beneath the gables, smoke the pipe of peace; meanwhile, in
ragged and irregular procession, the kine come flocking in, together
with the pigs, each scenting with discriminating nostril its own
particular stall or stye, and making for it with glad, unhesitating
stride.
Wandering along the lake in the direction of Tihany, we find numerous
shells of no known existing species, resembling goat’s hoofs, and
by which name they are called by the peasantry. There is a singular
tradition concerning the origin of these fossils, to which the
imaginative Hungarians cling with characteristic tenacity.
In the remote days of King Béla (1061), when the Tartar hordes pressing
from the East menaced the country, the King, followed by his courtiers
and the royal flocks and herds, fleeing for safety across the Danube,
took refuge in the fastnesses of Tihany. The Tartars, however--so runs
tradition--having overtaken him even here, compelled him to retreat
still farther. Unable to save his flocks and herds, yet unwilling they
should become spoil for the enemy, he caused them to be drowned in the
lake, and the fossils found in it to-day are said to be the petrified
remains of the hoofs of these animals!
The rocks of Tihany also contain numerous other fossils, imbedded in
the limestone; whilst in some portions of the plains, transported from
the trachyte or volcanic hills, are deposits containing scoriaceous
and earthy matters, in which not only pumice, but fossil and organic
remains are found, consisting of opaline wood with impressions of
shells and plants of various kinds.
On the last day of our sojourn at Fűred, whilst F. went off to visit
the monastery, accompanied by András, I sallied forth with my sketching
apparatus for a climb over the hills.
At our feet slumbering calmly, like an infant surrounded by diaphanous
curtains in a downy cradle, lay the azure lake enveloped in a
transparent veil of mist. Near the shore, the little fishing-boats
floating on its surface in the direction of Sió-Fok appeared poised
in mid-air, and, looming pale through the mist, looked like birds of
morning or phantoms of themselves. To our right the abbey-crowned
promontory of Tihany with its hermits’ cells was half hidden by a long
stratum of vapour, which seemed to sever it in two; whilst Fűred, with
its colonnades and white porticoes, looked like some fairy palace that
must soon dissolve into thin air.
Just as I had seated myself comfortably, and was about to make a
sketch of the broad landscape beneath, the lake with its fringe of
pampas-grass and flights of wild fowl, which frequently rose from
the dense cover--for, the mists by this time having fainted away in
the sun’s beams, the lake now reflected the deep sapphire of the arc
above--I suddenly remembered that I had left my binoculars behind on
one of the tables in the hotel restaurant. To go back for them and
return in time to finish my picture would be impossible, and I did not
like the idea of remaining alone in these wilds by sending András.
Informing him of my dilemma, the good little man declared his
willingness to descend the hill at once, but added that if we could
only light upon a _czigány_, pilfering _Herrschaft_ as they
were in ordinary, he could be safely entrusted with the delicate
mission.
“_Spricht man vom Teufel, so sieht man ihn gleich!_” exclaimed
he, in the sentiment of our own familiar aphorism concerning angels
and their wings, as looking behind him he descried a band of gipsies
advancing in the distance.
What a picturesque group they form, wending their way slowly
along--three men, two women and half-a-dozen mop-headed children, the
smallest of whom, seated on a heap of tent paraphernalia, is carried on
the back of a shaggy brown pony, the very type of its owners!
The moment they catch sight of us there is a general run, the women and
children with hands outstretched--supplicating in whining, plaintive
but importunate tones for kreuzers. A few choice expletives, however,
administered by András in their own tongue in a commanding treble, soon
send them to the right-about; and the whole party having passed in
picturesque file, they begin to pitch their tent on a piece of level
ground not far below us.
András soon picks out his particular _czigány_ for the errand, a
tall thin man of about forty years of age, with a roguish countenance
and legs like spindles, who certainly fails to inspire me with the
slightest confidence in the safety of the commission entrusted to him,
as nimble of gait he flies down the hillside like a spider descending
by his web, and is out of sight in no time.
Meanwhile it is intensely amusing and interesting to watch the pitching
of the tent, and its smoky, rich brown canvas forms a picturesque bit
of foreground to the beautiful lake in the distance. In the fervour
of their occupation they have evidently forgotten our presence, for,
hark to the ringing laughter of these free, unwashed, bare-breasted,
bronze-faced gipsies, as they utter their half-barbaric language, which
defies the wisdom of philologists to interpret and the precise origin
of which is unknown!
No sooner is the tent pitched than the conventional tripod is erected,
from which an iron pot is suspended. How the wood crackles and the
sparks fly upwards as the little naked children, dancing like demons
round the fire, throw on sticks to increase the flame! what shouts of
laughter resound through the air from these sad melancholy-looking
people who have no equivalent for the verb “to dwell,” and in whose
vocabulary there are no words to express joy, happiness, or prosperity,
although they have many indicative of sorrow, pain, poverty, and woe!
Their mid-day meal of porridge flavoured with garlic is soon cooked
and disposed of, but ere this our gipsy messenger has returned with my
lost possession in perfect safety, and been cheaply rewarded and made
radiantly happy by the bestowal of a florin for his pains. From the
look of astonishment that rose to his large, sad, glistening eyes as
I put the coin into his hand, he seemed to think himself the richest
man in all the country; and as he descended to his people tossing it
high in air and catching it again, there was general acclamation and
rejoicing.
Presently, waxing bold by degrees, one of the gipsies I had sketched
came and stood behind me. He was a delicious specimen of pictorial
tatters mellowed by every vicissitude of wear and weather. His brawny
chest lay bare to the elements, whilst his broad and slouching felt
_sombrero_, dragged into every possible degree of limpness,
shading but not concealing his beetling brows, rendered him a fitting
study for a Rembrandt. What a rich mingling _he_ too forms
of black, brown and amber, and how beautifully he “composes” with
the background of azure lake! Holding it towards him, I called his
attention to the representation of himself and his surroundings, which
appeared to interest him greatly, and with wondering admiration he at
once recognised the faithful rendering of a long tear in the sleeve of
his outer garment.
Of all the gipsies in Hungary the _Sátoros czigányok_, or those
who wander about with tents, are supposed to be the very worst
specimens of the race, and are compelled by government to change their
place of bivouac every twenty-four hours. After the musicians, the
most respectable members of the community are those who take up their
permanent abode on the outskirts of villages, and are the recognised
blacksmiths and farriers of the country.
Whatever be the origin of this singular people, many of their customs
are completely Hindoo, and the similarity of their language to Sanscrit
is a well-known fact, their very name “_Czigány_” being taken,
it is said, from a Sanscrit word. The Sanscrit name for snake is
“_nága_,” “nag” being the one used by our English gipsies. The
mouth they call “mui,” which in Sanscrit is “_mukha_.” “Shaster”
(Hindoo Bible) is the only term they make use of to denote any kind
of book, and “Shulam!” their form of greeting, is evidently taken
from the familiar Oriental one “Salaam!” Whilst a horse, which in
Hindustani is “_ghoṛā_,” is called by the gipsy “grea,” and so on
_ad infinitum_.
At various periods philanthropists have endeavoured to civilise these
wandering children of the desert, but without success. Towards the end
of the last century, Joseph II., hoping to induce them to relinquish
their vagabond lives, dignified them with the name of “New Peasants,”
and caused houses to be built for them; but instead of living in them,
they used them as stabling for their wretched horses, and either
pitched tents or erected hovels for themselves outside. Since then many
benevolent and sanguine individuals have done their best to win over
the offspring of these Bedouins to a decent mode of life, by taking
them from their parents when very young; but so strongly implanted
in the gipsy is the love of vagrancy, that no sooner are the little
urchins old enough to break through restraint than some fine morning
they are certain to be missing--gone back to their own or some other
band of wanderers.
No matter whether young or old, the orthodox thorough-going
_czigány_ is a creature not to be civilised, and he clings with
the greatest tenacity, not only to his nomad, vagabond existence, but
to all the ancient superstitions of his race.
He believes the woods and forests are inhabited by gnomes, elves
and evil spirits, but he has no God. For him death is annihilation,
absolute and complete. He regards death with horror, and after the
_pandúr_ (policeman) it is the thing he most dreads. Like his
English brother, the Hungarian gipsy pretends to be ignorant of
all laws, and, though seldom or never guilty of great offences, he
entertains an innate horror of this functionary, regarding him as the
obnoxious embodiment of some superior power, the precise nature and
essence of which he professes not to understand. But whilst maintaining
his universal character for pilfering, the _czigány_ has many
redeeming qualities. He is strongly attached to the aged as well as to
little children: and during the troublous wars which devastated Hungary
in the last century, many instances of self-abnegation are recorded
of these poor outcasts, and many romantic legends are possessed by
the Magyars concerning them. But however much he may differ in his
surroundings, in his consistent habit of humbugging and love of
necromancy he is the same as elsewhere; and whether wandering over
the great Alfőld or Felfőld of Hungary, or bivouacking as of yore in
the green lanes of pastoral England, he is the same mysterious and
mischievous waif, getting a living somehow, anyhow, by fair means or
foul, as it suits his purpose at the moment.
[Illustration]