Austria / containing a Description of the Manners, Customs, Character and Costumes of the People of that Empire

by Frederic Shoberl

The door opens in the side of the house into the middle room or kitchen, in which is an oven constructed of clay, and various implements for household purposes which generally occupy this apartment fully. On each side of the room is a door, communicating on one hand with the family dormitory, in which are the two windows that look into the road. This chamber is usually small but well arranged: the beds in good order, piled upon each other, to be spread on the floor at night, and the walls covered with a variety of pictures and images of our Saviour, together with dishes, plates, and vessels of coarse earthenware. The other door from the kitchen leads to the store-room, the repository of the greater part of the peasant’s riches, consisting of bags of grain of various kinds, both for consumption and for seed, bladders of tallow, sausages and other articles of provision, in quantities which it would astonish us to find in an English cottage. We must, however, bear in mind, that the harvest of the Hungarian peasant anticipates the income of the whole year, and that, from the circumstances in which he is placed, he should be compared with our farmer rather than with our labourer. The yards or folds between the houses are generally much neglected, and dirty receptacles of a thousand uncleanly objects. Light carts and ploughs with which the owner performs his stated labour; his meagre cattle; a loose rudely-formed heap of hay, and half a dozen ragged children, stand there in mixed confusion, over which three or four noble dogs, of a breed somewhat resembling the Newfoundland, keep faithful watch.

The habitations of the peasantry in the villages in the vicinity of Keszthely, in the county of Szalad, are built of clay, not regularly thatched, but covered with straw held down by poles laid upon it. The inclosures round the houses and yards are formed of reeds, and the village bell is raised upon a pole in a case like a pigeon-house.

In the district between the Drave and the Muhr, called the Murakös, the houses are larger and higher, having a complete upper floor. The roof generally projects four or five feet beyond the wall in the front, where it is supported by wooden pillars which rest upon large beams of timber, and thus a gallery is formed the whole length of the house. This passage, slightly raised above the ground, is usually much wider about the centre of the front, where the building recedes: and here the females of the family often sit at a table working. The walls of this part of the cottage are covered on the outside with shelves, upon which the dishes and household utensils are arranged. Such is the habitual honesty of the people of this district, that these articles remain there in perfect security, without the protection of the numerous watch-dogs which guard the most insignificant cottage in other parts of Hungary. In some cases the passage is much larger, and the house being built in the form of an L, it is continued along the end and the two internal fronts. Between the pillars of this rude piazza a shelf is constructed and a cupboard fixed containing a vessel of water for domestic use.

All the fences toward the road and those of the yards are of strong wicker-work thatched on the top with straw and reeds. In the yards stand several small buildings of the same materials, intended as houses for poultry, or as drying places for maize, together with large wooden hutches for pigs and an oven of clay and stone covered by a penthouse. The cottage kitchen is unusually convenient, and most of the cookery is carried on by means of the ordinary hearth-fire of Germany, to which is added an oven as part of the kitchen furniture.

Many of the roads in this part of the country are bordered on each side with mulberry trees, which have been planted as common property, with a view to the breeding of silk-worms. Considerable pains have here been taken to encourage that branch of industry, which nevertheless is not very flourishing.

The native Hungarian breed of horned cattle bears much resemblance to the wild white species which was formerly found in Britain. They are large, vigorous, and active, of a dirty white colour, with horns of prodigious length, exceeding in this respect even the long-horned breed of Lancashire. The oxen are admirably adapted for the plough, uniting to all the qualities of the ordinary ox, a very superior degree of activity.

Buffaloes are bred in Hungary for the same purposes as other horned cattle. The milk which they give is richer than other milk and the quantity considerable. As beasts of labour they are excessively strong, but slow and unmanageable. The number kept in Hungary and Transylvania is estimated at 70,000.

Bredetzky, a Hungarian writer, observes that Buffaloes are extremely valuable for their skins, which are employed at Rhonasech in forming the bags in which salt is raised from the mines. He also speaks of their ferocity and the difficulty of killing them in terms which would almost lead us to suppose them to be in a state of nature in that part of the country. The operation of shooting the Buffalo, says he, is curious but extremely dangerous, for in no other way can they be secured on account of their wildness. It is not possible to kill them with an axe like other cattle. They are first driven with great care from the inclosure in which they have been kept, and a shot is levelled by a person concealed exactly at the forehead. If he misses his aim, the animal with the most tremendous fury darts away so swiftly that dogs can scarcely overtake him, and any one who stands in his way is inevitably killed.

The original breed of Hungarian sheep is the real Ovis Strepsiceros of naturalists, covered with very coarse wool and bearing upright spiral horns. Improvement on this stock by crosses with other varieties, and the Spanish in particular, is become so general, that a flock of the native race is seldom to be met with, excepting on the estates of the clergy. The wool is now an important object of commerce. It was calculated that in 1802, above twelve million and a half pounds (each pound being equal to one pound and a quarter of our weight) was exported from Hungary. A large portion goes to Austria, and is manufactured there or sent to more distant markets; and much of the wool sold in England as Saxon wool, is actually the produce of Hungary, exported in spite of the heavy duty which it pays on leaving the Austrian dominions.