CHAPTER X
HERE is the same indefinable charm about Budapest that there is in the gypsy music. This charm is a spiritual one. The situation of the city is delightful, the streets are clean, the architecture agreeable, and all the comforts of life are at the traveller’s command. In these respects the city is not unlike many others, but in its people it is unique and always will be as long as the Magyar tongue exists, or a drop of the rich Eastern blood remains in a descendant of the race. Our experience in Vienna was but the prologue to the hospitalities at Budapest. Under the guidance of a host of friends, chief of whom was Mr. Louis Gerster, the resident Vice-consul of the United States, we saw the town in the most agreeable manner possible. Visits to the museums of art and of antiquity, with their stores of treasures; inspection of the famous wine-cellars, with the miles of wine-butts and millions of bottles; drives in the parks; an excursion up the river in a special steamer with ladies and gentlemen, when we danced the csárdás for a day and a night almost without intermission; a trip down-stream to eat the delicious sterlet, fresh from the Danube and cooked with paprika, after the fisherman’s taste—our stay was one round of jollity. But for the frequent sight of the great river with its hurrying current which urged us to depart, we might have prolonged our stay until snowfall, such were the fascinations that encompassed us.
COUNTRY MARKET-BOAT, BUDAPEST
The water-front of Budapest, with its masses of extensive buildings and its populous quays, is the noblest spectacle of similar order in the whole course of the Danube. Within the last few years the city has made marvellous strides in the direction of enlargement and improvement. Three bridges now cross the river between Pest on the left bank and Buda on the right, the two principal sections of the town. The upper one is of iron, on huge stone buttresses, the middle one a graceful suspension-bridge, built about forty years ago, and the lower of iron, and built to carry a railway and to serve for foot-passengers as well. Large hotels have been built, a fine new park laid out, new parliament-houses on the river-front almost completed, the squares and public places adorned with fountains and statues, and entire new quarters covered with fine buildings, all within the past fifteen years. These improvements have worked the modernization of the people as well as the town, and the native costumes once so common in the streets are almost a rarity now. The sulphur springs at Buda and on Margarethen-Insel, famous since Roman times, form one of the chief attractions to visitors, and afford an uncommon luxury to the residents. The bathing establishments are of unparalleled extent and great splendor, particularly on the island, where the delights of the beautiful park enhance the popularity of the baths. Up to within a few years there was a large cheap public bath where people of both sexes and all ages, after having been cupped by an attendant as many times as they could afford to pay for, according to the old faith in the efficacy of blood-letting, huddled together, often nearly if not quite naked, in a large common plunge-basin of steaming sulphur-water, where they remained for hours, looking like the lost souls in Dante’s “Inferno.” This promiscuous bathing is now no longer permitted, for this with many other old customs among the common people has disappeared before the advance of civilization.
The sun was well down behind the hills before we launched the canoes on the day we left Budapest. The strains of the csárdás still echoed in our ears; our minds were confused by the succession of novel experiences we had enjoyed during the past four days; the river seemed to rush on with a giddier swirl than ever before, and a strong head-wind did its best to discourage our progress. It was not until we had lost sight of the hills near the city, late on the following day, that we realized we were now at length fairly afloat in the heart of the vast open plain which extends to the Carpathians. The corner of this plain which we had crossed below Pressburg had given us a hint of what we might expect in the way of monotonous scenery, but it had disclosed to us little of the charm of the great river which now enchanted us. High bluffs of firm, hard earth alternated with stretches of densely-wooded low banks. Tree-embowered villages nestled long distances apart, under vineyard-clad slopes, or among fields rich with maize and ripening wheat. The river began to be the focus of rural activity. Wherever mills were anchored in the strongest currents, the peasants camped on the adjoining banks, with ox-carts full of freshly-winnowed corn, awaiting their turn for the grinding. Women vigorously beating clothes with wooden mallets enlivened the scene with their laughter and gossip, and formed fascinating groups, with every combination of rich color. Everywhere were sunshine and laughter and song. Cries of “Eljen!” (hurrah!) and “Hova megy?” (where are you going?) greeted us constantly as we passed, shouting in reply, “Fekete Tengerig” (to the Black Sea). The cheery vivacity of the people, their unfailing courtesy and agreeable manners, had won our affectionate admiration from the first, and the more we came to know them, the more we found reason to honor our earliest impressions of them.
The tyranny of limited space forbids lengthy description of more than one of the many interesting villages we explored in the first day or two below Budapest, and Duna Földvár of cheerful memory may be taken as a type of all. The village itself is, like most Hungarian places, a collection of low houses along broad streets, laid out in rectangular plan, gullied and dusty, and shaded by rows of small acacia-trees. A great barren market square forms the usual