Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II

by G. R. Gleig

Of the state of society in this great capital, again, I am not competent to form an opinion. I saw but the exterior of things,—the busy marts, the crowded streets, the shops more capacious and better stocked than any, except those of London, and perhaps of Paris. The music of the bands that played in the public gardens was familiar to me, as well as the countenances and bearing of the joyous throng that listened to them. But of the habits of the individuals who composed these throngs, as they showed themselves within the domestic circle, I can say nothing. I was told, indeed, that the ties of moral obligation are not very rigidly regarded in Vienna; that, with much polish, and all the charms of high-breeding about it, society is, in fact, exceedingly corrupt. This may or may not be true; but to me the single aspect which the Austrian capital wore, was of a vast assemblage of people, whose great business it seemed to be to render life agreeable, and its events, in whatever order they might occur, as free from annoyance as possible.

I am equally incompetent to pass sentence on the state of learning, and the fine arts, in Vienna. I found, indeed, that it was fashionable to pay court to men of acknowledged talent and genius, and that to music and dancing the Viennese are just as much addicted as any other members of the Germanic family. But except from an evening spent at the theatre, I had no opportunity of determining how far they were or were not gifted with a taste more pure than prevails elsewhere. Neither can I tell how the important matters of eating and drinking are conducted, except in hotels and restaurateurs; for the season was unfavourable to making Viennese acquaintances; and had the contrary been the case, the time at my disposal was insufficient. But of cuisine at the Schwan, at the Daums and Kaiserin von Oesterreich, I can give a very favourable report, as well as of the cleanliness and even elegance of their respective eating halls, and the civility of their waiters. What, then, shall I say of Vienna? This, and no more. That to me it presented greater attractions than any other continental capital that I have visited; that I would have willingly spent as many weeks within its walls as I spent days, and that though eager to pass on to a country, to examine into the condition of which, constituted one and the principal object of my journey, I did not make up my mind to quit the city without reluctance. I dare say there is enough in and around it, to call forth the regrets of the right-thinking; but these were matters into which I could not pause to inquire. As I have already said, the exterior of things was all that presented itself to me, and with that I was delighted.

There is a custom in Vienna of demanding your passport when you first make your appearance at the barrier, and requiring you to show yourself, within four-and-twenty hours afterwards, at the police-office. The object of these arrangements is, that you may satisfy the authorities of your solvency, and receive from them a letter of security for such length of time as you propose, or they be willing that you should remain in the city. We attended to the established regulation, of course, and now, having fixed the hour of our departure, endeavoured to obtain from the Hungarian chancery the license, without which it would have been impossible to pass the frontier. It was granted without hesitation, though in terms at once vague and rigid. I stated my business; that I went merely as a traveller, curious to become acquainted with the people and the country, and that not knowing the points which I might be induced to visit, or the length of time which might be required to visit them, I was anxious to receive a passport, as generally and loosely worded as might be. The gentleman to whom I addressed myself was exceedingly polite; but he did not exactly fall into my views. "There is no necessity," said he, "to deviate in your instance from the common order of such things. A passport is required from every traveller at the frontier; but after you are once in Hungary, you may go where you please, and stay as long as you feel disposed, without attracting the slightest notice. I will, therefore, write upon your passport, that you are permitted to visit Pesth and its vicinity for a month, and to return." I thought this odd, but could not, of course, object to it, because I concluded that a person in authority must be a much better judge of what was necessary than I; and I have now given the detail at length, because the sequel will show that what was esteemed perfectly regular in Vienna, had well-nigh told against me in one of the remote provinces.

There is constant communication, as everybody knows, between Vienna, and Pesth, and Constantinople, by steamboats which touch, as they proceed, at almost all the most important places that lie along the banks of the Danube. Our original intention was to have availed ourselves of one of these; but we found on inquiry, that the navigation was intricate, and the channel of the river so low, that hardly any view was to be obtained from the ship's deck. We determined, therefore, to proceed by land as far as Presburg, and to regulate our future movements according to the aspect of things there, and the information which by its inhabitants might be communicated to us. About seven o'clock, on a bright July morning, we accordingly took our seats in a hired carriage, and were swept along through what are called the Marxer lines, beyond the outermost suburbs of the capital. The country round was, for a while, uninteresting enough. A huge plain was before us, which the heat of the weather had scorched into the semblance of a desert; and there were few objects upon it, of which I can say that they much relieved its monotony. Several villages came, indeed, in our way, and near one of them, called Semmering, a large turreted building attracted our attention. It had once been a summer residence of the Emperor; it is now a powder-magazine, and stands, as our postilion informed us, on the same spot which, during the siege of Vienna in 1529, was covered by the tent of the Sultan Solyman. But we had passed this some time, ere the scenery began to improve. When such improvement did commence, however, it was very complete. The road wound inwards so as to bring us parallel with the river, and to open out a fine view of its waters, which being split up into numerous branches, poured themselves over the plain, and enclosed a countless number of islands within their eddies. Among these, our postilion pointed out that on which Napoleon, by the breaking down of his bridge, was, during the progress of the battle of Asperne, reduced to the utmost extremity,—an extremity out of which nothing but the misplaced confidence of his opponents enabled him to escape. It is an extensive flat, covered along its edges by groves of giant willows; while just beyond it, on the continent, the village spires of Asperne and Essling peer forth from amid screens of thick foliage.

From this period till our arrival at the Hungarian frontier, we never, for any length of time, lost sight of the Danube. Here and there, indeed, the road struck inwards, so as to carry us away, perhaps, an English mile or more, from its banks; but the river, after it reunites, is so broad, and the country rises over it to such a height, that its noble expanse is seldom concealed from you, and that only for a moment. Moreover, the monuments of other days,—old castles, dilapidated towers, with here and there a rude pillar, or block of granite,—became, at each post which we gained in advance, more and more numerous. Near Schwächat, for example, about ten English miles out of Vienna, and itself a village of some two thousand inhabitants, stands a stone, which marks the spot where Leopold first greeted the chivalrous Sobiesky,—not with the ardour which might have been expected from one in his situation, but coldly and ceremoniously, as if the king, who came to save, were sufficiently honoured by the notice of the emperor whom he had delivered. Next came we to Fischamend, where the traveller will do well to halt, if it be only that he may delight himself, as we did, with the magnificent scene which wooes his gaze from the summit of the scaur that overhangs the Danube. I do not think that I ever beheld a panorama of the sort which enchanted me more. We were elevated, perhaps, three hundred feet above the bed of the river. Its broad, but not limpid waters, measuring, perhaps, half a mile across, laved the very base of the precipice, and swept along by their current a rude barge or two, the only productions of man's industry and skill that broke in upon their loneliness. Beyond was a wide plain, magnificently wooded, with here and there a village, looking forth from its covering of green boughs; while, up and down, the eye rested, either upon a continuance of the same bold scaur; or, more attractive still, on the advanced guard of those mountains amid which I and my fellow-traveller had resolved to make our way. Then there were tower and castle crowning the far-off rocks; there were rich vineyards, closing in to the very brink on which we stood; and, as if to complete the picture, a herd of dun-coloured cattle, oppressed with the excessive sultriness of the day, descended, through a sort of ravine, in a long line, and stood to cool themselves in the Danube. Altogether it was as fair a landscape as the eye of the painter would desire to behold; and we did not leave it, till a few fruitless efforts had been made to transfer some, at least, of its most attractive features to a blank leaf in my journal book.

After leaving Fischamend we passed in succession Regelsbrunn, Deutsch Altenburg, and Hainburg, near the former of which the attention is arrested by what may easily be mistaken for the ruins of a city. It proved, however, on examination, to be the commencement of an ancient wall, which runs from Regelsbrunn all the way to the Neusiedler See; of which the origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, but which is generally supposed to have been thrown up by the Romans. There are still the remains of towers here and there, which give to it, when first beheld, its civic character; and it was, I believe, made use of, so recently as 1683, as a line of defence against the Turks. Moreover Deutsch Altenburg has its objects of interest also;—a tumulus, or mound, sixty feet in altitude, but of a date to which tradition goes not back; while the church of St. John, which crowns an eminence near, is accounted one of the most perfect Gothic edifices in the Austrian dominions. And, last of all, there is Hainburg, with its old castle, and gateways equally old; both exhibiting manifest traces of war on their exterior defences, even to the cannon-balls, which, since the last invasion of the Turks, have been left sticking where they fell. These, meeting you, as it were, one after the other, and forming points of rest to the eye when it has grown weary of ranging over the plain, produce a powerful effect upon your imagination; which is certainly not lessened by the aspect of the living creatures, whether of the human or some inferior species, which begin to gather round you.

I had been prepared by all that fell from those, who, having themselves penetrated into Hungary, were obliging enough, both in Dresden and at Vienna, to give me hints as to my own proceedings, for a state of things, both animate and inanimate, very different from that which had met me in Germany. I knew that the people were much less civilized than the Germans; and that for one, who proposed to wander as I did, alone, and, wherever it might be possible to do so, on foot, arms might be found convenient, perhaps necessary. Yet I did not expect to see a change so complete, in every point of view, as that which became perceptible even before we passed the frontier. There began to meet us, a little way in advance of Deutsch Altenburg, troops of those Torpindas, whom, in the ignorance of our hearts, we had, in Bohemia, mistaken for gipseys. There they were, with their hosen and coarse cloaks, their broad sombrero hats, and matted locks, trudging along, in bands of twelve or fourteen, and looking up with a glance of half cunning, half curiosity, from beneath their shaggy eyebrows. By-and-by came herds of cattle, quite different, both in colour and form, from any which we had previously encountered; and then pigs,—monsters of the first class,—whom men, evidently but one degree removed from barbarism, were driving before them. My young companion and I looked first at one another, and then at the pistols and other weapons which hung about our persons; and, as if the thoughts of each had wandered into the same channel, we smiled and said nothing.

We had quitted Vienna early in the morning; it might be about three in the afternoon when we reached the Custom House,—a station in Wolfsthal, remarkable for nothing except the constant bustle that goes on in its street. In order to reach the village we had been again carried away from the river, through a beautiful valley, hemmed in on either side, by well-wooded hills; one of which bears upon its summit what must have been, in its day, a castle of prodigious strength. We were now clear of that pass, and the process of examination began. In our case it was both brief and simple. We were asked whether our knapsacks contained any prohibited article? We did not even know what was prohibited; but finding that of copper the authorities were chiefly jealous, we answered in the negative, and were permitted to pass. It was not so with a whole string of wagons which came from the opposite direction. One after another they were compelled to discharge their contents, very much, as it seemed, to the inconvenience of the drivers; and not till a rigid examination of each separate bale and package had taken place, was permission given to load again. I could not help thinking that the policy which drew so broad a line of distinction between one portion of a great empire and another, was, to say the least of it, very singular; and I was not slow in being taught that it is very short-sighted too, because exceedingly distasteful both to the Hungarians, whom it injures, and the Austrians, whom it is designed to favour.

Our passports were looked at, of course; stamped with the seal of the official, and returned to us;—after which we pushed on. We crossed the frontier, and became sensible, on the instant, that a new country was before us. To the right, as far as the eye could reach, was one enormous plain. Rich it was, and apparently well cultivated; for, except here and there, where a huge meadow intervened, the whole surface was covered with the most luxuriant corn. Of trees, on the contrary, scarce a sprinkling appeared; there were no groves at all, and even hedge-rows were infrequent. Towards the left, again, there was that sort of character which belongs to a region in which an extensive range of highlands has terminated. Frequent hills and dales were there; grassy knolls, with little valleys running through them; and such a profusion of wood as held out the assurance that, in that direction at least, the eye would not pine in vain for foliage. By-and-by, from behind these knolls, the Danube made his appearance; not broader, certainly, than he had seemed to be at Fischamend, or even above it, but evidently deeper, I think, more rapid;—and altogether, with a degree of majesty about him which attaches to the one object, that gives its peculiar character to a living landscape. The Danube is, indeed, a magnificent river; albeit the people who inhabit his banks are only just beginning to find out that he may be turned to more accounts than that of mere beauty.

The interval between Hainburg and Presburg is but a single post; from Wolfsthal it is less than half that distance; yet, owing to the delay which occurred at the Custom House, five o'clock had struck ere we obtained our first view of this secondary capital of Hungary. Its situation is fine, close to the Danube, at the base and along the ascent of low hills; the crest of which is surmounted by the remains of what was once a royal residence. This latter, the Alba Regali of the chroniclers, is of very ancient date in its foundation. It was enlarged in 1766 by the Empress Maria Theresa, and in 1809 burned to the ground. The Hungarians say, that an Italian regiment in the French service set fire to it wantonly, when evacuating the place. But, however this may be, it gives, even in its ruins, an air of aristocracy to the town; which, though neat and clean, and containing a population of thirty or forty thousand souls, would otherwise present no very striking feature to the eye of the stranger. Indeed, Presburg is a great deal too near the frontier, and maintains a communication too frequent and too regular with Vienna, to have retained almost any marks of its Hungarian origin. You might, both from the structure of the buildings, and the dress and manners of the inhabitants, easily fall into the error of supposing that it belonged to Austria.