The frequent villas that dot the shores below Visegrád we now looked upon through glasses of different color. Only twenty-four hours before we would have named them landscape-spoilers, and would have turned our faces from them as we passed. But we had caught the infection of the happy land; the microbe which, once in possession, never leaves the willing victim, had begun to attack us, one and all, and we saw possible friends in every pretty garden and in every luxurious pleasure-boat. At this moment less than ever did a great city have any attraction for us, and we wildly planned to cut Budapest altogether, and continue our joyful cruise down into the great wild region beyond, where the river life is active and varied, and where our days should be a succession of pleasant experiences and surprises—where, indeed, we might learn to know, with an intimacy that only such a free life makes possible, the people in their unaffected, simple existence.
VISEGRÁD
Just above Waitzen, a good-sized town with prison and manufactories and busy quay, with barges and peasant market-boats, the river bends gracefully around to the south, divides past a long flat island covered with fertile farms, and then loses itself in the distance where the grand old fortress on the summit of Blocksberg overhangs the suburb of Ofen (Buda in Hungarian) on the right bank, and looks down upon the imposing façades of Pest on the opposite shore. An accident, happy in its result, but threatening for a moment a painful disaster, made a pause at Budapest a necessity. Sudden summer thunder-storms swept
SWINEHERD