ROUMANIA A PARADISE FOR CYCLISTS--DELIGHTFUL RIDING INTO
AUSTRO-HUNGARY--VIENNA ACCORDS A SPLENDID RECEPTION TO THE TOURISTS
A curious and confusing method of road measurement exists in Roumania,
by which many cyclists are led to believe distances are far less than
is really the case. If the official distance from village A to E is
given as 100 kilometers, that sum does not include the distance inside
the boundaries of villages B, C and D. Thus a day's run through a
dozen straggling settlements involves riding a total of 80 kilometers
more than maps and road posts indicate. We found this difficulty to
exist on our first day's run from Bucharest. When we reached Siniai
the total mileage indicated was 82, yet we had six kilometers to
travel ere we halted at the hotel in the center of the town. Siniai
is not a city of trade and industry. It is a mountain summer resort,
made popular twelve years ago by an eccentric Roumanian prince, and
perpetuated by Carol I., King of Roumania, who selected the enchanting
hills as the royal summer palace. The palace is called Pelesu Castle,
and, as the English-speaking proprietor of our hotel told us that
visitors were freely admitted, we pressed him into service as guide,
and made a visit to the abode of royalty. We discovered His Majesty on
a terrace in front of the castle, playing with two chubby children. I
was fearful lest he see us and regard our presence as an intrusion, but
assured by our guide that the monarch was not in the least sensitive
about strangers, we passed toward the distinguished group. As we
neared the king he stood erect, and looked at us intently, and as he
raised one finger to salute by touching the side of his military cap,
he spoke clearly, "Guten morgen." The little prince straightened up,
brought his boot heels together so that the bare calves of his fat legs
touched, and, imitating the sovereign, he piped, "Guten morgen." The
king had mistaken us for Germans, his own nationality.
When we departed from Siniai we left behind us one of the most
romantic and beautiful of cities. Our route was slightly up-hill for
the first twenty-five kilometers, but with excellent roads, cool air
and frequent shade we did not feel any discomfort and rode rapidly. It
is tantalizing to other cyclists and tourists for one to write of
elegant roadways, delightful scenery and charming little roadside inns,
when the location is so unavailable as Eastern Europe is to American
cyclists, but it would be an act of injustice to Roumania were we not
to admit it the most beautiful of countries, and the northern section
the most perfect of cycling routes. Where the valleys narrow into a
pass, the road, cut into the side of rocks, is shaded by overhanging
cliffs, and at short intervals are situated moss-covered wooden
troughs, through which trickle ice water, clear as only snow water
can be when percolated through porous rock. We were rudely disturbed
in our survey of entrancing scenery one bright morning by a soldier
standing guard at a small house by the roadside. We were at Predeal,
the border line between Roumania and Austria-Hungary. Mr. Boxshall,
the American vice-consul at Bucharest, had given us letters from the
Austro-Hungarian consul at Bucharest, and this, with my muchly-indorsed
passport, made an important looking package document which I had
handed two officers in the examining room of the outpost. After a
careful perusal of the papers, they respectfully declined to inspect
our luggage and permitted us to pass into Hungary territory. Tomasu,
an Austro-Hungarian customs house, was five miles north, and as we
did not expect further formality until reaching that point, we set
out at a lively pace as soon as our papers had been returned. We had
proceeded scarcely a hundred yards ere a trooper in uniform stepped
from a sentry-box and commanded us to halt. As he possessed a rifle
and a business-like expression, we checked up immediately. An officer
now appeared and demanded receipts for sixty florins, which should
have been paid on our bicycles as revenue bond. The sixty florins,
he explained, would be returned to us on our departure from Austrian
territory, but as our entire finances did not greatly exceed that sum,
we endeavored to appease the demands of the revenue department by a
display of papers. The official after questioning us regarding our
trip, became gracious, and returning our papers, motioned us to go
ahead without further annoyance. Having successfully run the gauntlet
on two occasions, the task at Tomasu was comparatively easy--in
fact a pleasure--the officials endorsing our papers, inviting us to
luncheon and providing us with maps. Leaving Tomasu, the grade was
in our favor, and late in the afternoon we halted at the village
inn at Persani. Stepping inside to quench our thirst, two men who
had taken an unusual interest in our bicycles and selves drew near
to listen to our conversation. One chap had an enormous revolver,
and as the other stood with feet far apart, he thrust his hands under
the tails of his smock. There was something familiar in the attitude,
and I could not but exclaim to my wife, "I will bet a hundred dollars
that chap has hip pockets in his trousers, and if he has, he has been
in America." The word America settled all doubt. The pair advanced
and declared themselves. In typical "contract labor" dialect. I was
addressed as "Boss," informed that America was "bully," and that
they had "built" a railroad at Salem, Ohio, and had brought home hip
pockets filled with big guns and American money. They insisted upon
buying us beer in true American style, and as they departed with a
low bow, they looked at the common herd of untraveled with haughty air.
We endured slight showers during the afternoon of June 29, which
proved our undoing for a century run. After a hard fall on one of
the slippery hills, I limped into Peterfalva, 85 miles away from our
starting point at midnight, the front fork of my wheel badly bent,
and the grips broken from the handle-bars. A half-drunken blacksmith,
whom I found in the village the next morning, made an aggravating botch
of the repair, but it lasted to Muhlenbach, eighteen miles distant,
where a cyclist kindly escorted me to a repair shop. The foreman of the
shop had read of the Inter Ocean tourists, and promised us a permanent
repair. He kept his word, and we again started on our journey at 6
in the evening. Twenty miles out of Muhlenbach a storm broke upon
us and for two hours no cyclists ever had such hard riding, unless,
of course, it be up the snow-clad mountains of Persia. We eventually
found a wine house on the roadside, to which we were admitted, but
informed that we could not be permitted to pass the night there. We
flatly refused to go, and when the fat wife of the proprietor realized
that we meant just what we said, she brought in straw and arranged
a bed for us, where we slept until daylight. At Broos, where we
stopped for breakfast, a jolly young fellow introduced himself to
us as Erlich Janos, captain of the local wheel club, a pilot of
Thomas Stevens, American World's cyclist of '85, and an admirer of
the Inter Ocean tourists. Erlich Janos, or, as we should call him,
John Erlich, had maps of a territory through which we would travel,
and he asked permission to accompany us on part of the run. We were
delighted to have him, and our admiration for him was doubled when he
appeared in modern wheeling costume in the seat of one of the latest
made machines. We covered thirty miles before halting for luncheon,
and the good-natured cyclist continued with us as far as a fork in
the road ten miles from Dobra. July 4 was spent on a lovely stretch
of road, whirling toward Buda-Pesth. Heavy rains made the road almost
impassable on July 5, but we foolishly attempted to press on and
reach Kecskemet by 10 o'clock that night. When about eighteen miles
from our destination, I was blinded by a flash of lightning, and the
next moment pitched over a steep embankment. My damaged front fork
was once more broken, and my leg seriously wrenched. The situation
was anything but pleasant, and how we ever reached Kecskemet carrying
the broken wheel and feeling our way in the darkness, remains this day
a source of wonder to ourselves. We arrived in the city just in time
to catch the mail train into Buda-Pesth, fifty-one miles north, where
our wheels were repaired and our broken journey once more picked up.
Though our arrival in the city was unannounced and detracted
from by entrance on the conventional railway, the Buda-Pesth
cyclists immediately accepted us as wandering members of a vast
fraternity. Mr. Emil Philopivich, Mr. Otto Blathy and Mr. Joseph
Erlich were active in our behalf, and if we do not know the principal
sights of the Hungarian capital, the error is not with them. When we
left Buda-Pesth on July 17, with Messrs. Erlich and Philopivich as
pace-makers, we had in trail many cyclists journeying from Buda-Pesth
to Vienna. Assisted by smooth roads, we were in a fair way of reaching
Vienna by night, but a cold rain sent us scurrying into a hotel on
the roadside, delaying us until the next morning. We reached the
outskirts of Vienna at 10 o'clock in the morning, wheeling into
the city through scores of parks, avenues of beautiful buildings,
and squares reserved for the erection of some government structure
designed to match some magnificent building already rearing its proud
dome on the square opposite. Vienna would be a paradise to cyclists if
the street pavements and condition of thoroughfares were not a menace
to life and limb. There is not a street but that has suffered severe
attacks of gas, water and sewage contraction. The result is a maze of
holes, ditches, depressions and bumps. There are many places to visit
in Vienna and near by, but one of the first runs we made was far out
in the suburbs to a cottage occupied by a Mr. Clemens. Few people in
the book-reading world know Mr. Clemens, but millions know Mark Twain,
and the pair are as closely united as Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde (yet in
justice to Mr. Clemens, not so dissimilar in character). Mr. Clemens
was situated in a delightful, quiet spot, hard at work, while his
daughters were adding to their musical education the desired Viennese
polish. I did not ascertain what fountain-pen he used, get a diagram
of the house with a cross representing where he sat at work, or even
his signature asserting that I had a genuine interview with him,
but I know that he was enjoying good health, was vigorous as ever,
smoked good cigars, and said we were welcome.
We liked Vienna and its people, and we stayed in the city just
long enough to enjoy its pleasures and learn only a few of its
inconveniences. The Inter Ocean cyclists had decided to depart westward
July 27, and the "Neue Wiener Tagblatt," which had announced every
movement we had made, did not lose advantage of a final write-up. Early
in the morning of the date agreed upon we were aroused by a visitor. He
was a cyclist and came to announce that hundreds of people were
awaiting us in the Kohlmarkt, and though the hour was 7 o'clock and we
were to start at 9, the people would be pleased if we would remain on
exhibition during the interval. The idea did not suit us exactly, and
communicating the fact to the delegate through closed doors, we again
slept the sleep of people who must do two days' work in one. We reached
the Kohlmarkt at 9 o'clock, and, as our early informant had stated;
a crowd awaited us. It was a Vienna crowd, good-natured and patient,
who cheered us as we wheeled into sight, made way for us to pass to the
rendezvous, but almost pulled us to pieces in efforts to shake hands
with us and attract attention to their hearty "Gleich lich ze reisen."
We pulled out into the street at 9:30 o'clock. Our escort and the
police held back the crowd long enough to allow a photographer to
add two negatives to his collection, and then with a sigh of relief
we slipped into our saddles and wheeled slowly through the lane of
shouting people. Our escort was a unique one, the riders clad in
white flannel, black hose, and lavender silk sweaters. Mr. Charles
Carpenter, Miss Marion Carpenter and Mr. Fritz of Pottstown, Pa.,
also lined up, and with a constantly accumulating line of cyclists
we started toward the western limits. Near St. Poiten we had lunch,
our companions returned to Vienna, and the Inter Ocean cyclists wheeled
on alone. We halted that night sixty-four miles from where we had left
our Vienna party at midday. We were again in the realm of gast-houses,
plain but substantial meals, odd little chambers, equipped with two
bedsteads, one chair, a washstand, and several feather beds. It is
pleasant, though, clean, and our only regret at the resumption of
our trip was that we had left behind Vienna, a city which cannot
be excelled in gayety, life and beauty. Paris may be more wicked,
vicious and historical in strife, but there is only one Vienna,
and that a peerless city of beauty and wholesome pleasure.