As a pendant to that, it was during the Viennese Exhibition when supplies at the hotels were charged enormous prices, and all portions were most homœopathic. A waiter brought Richard a cup of coffee, not Turkish coffee, but a doll's cup with the chestnut water which Europeans presume to call coffee. "What is that?" asked Richard, looking at it curiously, with his head on one side. "Coffee for one, sir." "Oh! is it indeed?" inspecting it still more curiously. "H'm! bring me coffee for ten!" "Yes, sir," said the waiter, looking as if he thought it a capital joke, and presently returned with a common-sized cup of coffee.
People waited until the end, hoping things would get cheaper, and by that time the great "Krach," or money failures, had come, followed by the cholera, so that Vienna was huge sums to the bad, instead of gaining. We had a very gay time. Whilst we were there we went to the Viennese Court. There was a great difficulty about Richard, because Consuls are not admissible at the Vienna Court; but upon the Emperor being told this, he said, "Fancy being obliged to exclude such a man as Burton because he is a Consul! Has he no other profession?" And they said, "Yes, your Majesty; he has been in the Army." So he said, "Oh, tell him to come as a military man, and not as a Consul."
It was three weeks of incessant Society and gaiety. I do not know when I have met so many delightful people. I was very much dazzled by the Court; I thought everything so beautifully done, so arranged to give every one pleasure, and somehow it was a graciousness that was in itself a welcome. I shall never forget the first night that I saw the Empress, a vision of beauty clothed in silver, crowned with water-lilies, with large roses of diamonds and emeralds round her small head, in her beautiful hair, and descending all down her dress in festoons. The throne-room is immense, with marble columns down each side. All the men are ranged on one side, all the women on the other, and the new presentations, with their Ambassadors and Ambassadresses, nearest the throne. When the Empress and Emperor come in they walk up the middle, the Emperor bowing, and the Empress curtsying most gracefully and smiling a general gracious greeting. They then ascended the throne, and presently she turned to our side. The presentations first took place, and she spoke to each one in their own language and on their own particular subject. I was quite entranced with her beauty, her cleverness, and her conversation. She passed down the ladies' side, and then came up that of the men, the Emperor doing exactly the same as she had done. He also spoke to us. Then some few of us, whose families the Empress knew about, were asked to sit down, and refreshments were handed round, the present Dowager Lady Dudley sitting by her. It is a thing never to be forgotten to have seen these two beautiful women sitting side by side. The Empress Frederick of Germany was also there, and sent for some of us on another day, which was, in many ways, another memorable event, and the Crown Prince, as he was then, also came in.
It is not to be wondered at that the Austrians are so loyal and wrapped up in their Imperial family. Everything they do is so gracious, and the Emperor enters so keenly into all the events that occur to his people. He is such a thoroughly good man. If they called him their "father," as the Russians do their Czar, it would not be wondered at. At the time that I write of, and for many, many years later, poor Prince Rudolph was literally adored by the people; he had such a charming way of speaking to them. I remember when he came to Trieste from Vienna in early days, an old woman of the people knew he would arrive cold and uncomfortable after fifteen hours' express, and she prepared a nice cup of coffee and hot milk, and rolls and butter, and the moment the train came in she ran up to the carriage with her tray and offered it him, and he received it with such hearty good will and thanks that she was quite overcome, and he put forty florins on her tray. He did many unknown acts of good to the people during his short life, and one could so well understand the enthusiasm felt by the people—not much danger of a republic there. It does not matter where you go in Austria; you might be looking at the oldest church, or the most antique ruin, and your guide will say to you, "On that particular spot stood our Emperor ten years ago;" "Last August the Empress admired that view;" "Prince Rudolph went up those stairs when he was a child;" "He sat on that chair, and we never allow anybody to touch it;" and so on.
To return to the dearness of the hotels which choked strangers off: our humble bill—and we had had nothing but absolute necessaries—was £163 for three weeks. The landlord having assured us that it would be very small, and as the Embassy had taken the rooms for us at fifteen florins a day, we did not think it was good taste to make a fuss about it, so we paid it; and on examining it we found the rooms were charged twenty-five florins a day; single cups of tea in one's bedroom, ten and sixpence apiece; a carriage to convey and set one down at the Exhibition, and to pick one up in the evening back to the hotel, £5 a day for the first few days, and so on. I heard one of the Rothschilds making an awful to-do about £100 for a month, but I thought we, far smaller fry, were much worse off. These things were bruited about, and very few people dared to come. I was taken to one of the great dressmakers' establishments, and what they showed me for £30 I am sure my maid would not have worn, and it was only when they began to show me things from £70 to £90 that they were good enough for me. In England one would have paid £15 or £20 for these last-named dresses.
Charley Drake now arrived on a visit to us, and we went up to see the great Government fête at the Adelsberg Caves. On that one day the Government lights this ninth wonder of the world with a million candles. The remarkable stalactite caverns and grottoes are of the most curious and fantastic shapes, and about seven miles of them are open; then the torrent that rushes into them plunges underground, and comes up again in another part of the Karso, that wild and desolate stony tract of land above Trieste, which is about seventy-five miles each way, and contains some seventy-two Slav villages. It is a mysterious, unnatural, weird land, full of pot-holes, varying from two hundred to two thousand feet deep, abounding in castellieri—prehistoric ruins—waters that disappear and reappear, that bound into the earth at one spot and rush out again some miles distant; and this is supposed to be the safeguard of Trieste against disastrous earthquakes.
Books might be written about it; but the passing stranger in a train would only say, that when God Almighty had finished making the earth, He had thrown all the superfluous rocks there. Then in these mysterious and wonderful caverns there is a large hall like a domed ball-room, formed by nature, and here Austrian bands play at one of the Whitsun fêtes, and the peasants flock down from all parts in their costumes. It is a thing to be seen once in one's life. Richard nearly lost his life here (not on this occasion) by insisting on swimming down the stream, which is ice cold, and wanting to let himself be carried under the mountains to see where he would come out. It was a foolhardy thing, and fortunately he was so cramped before he neared the hole where the water disappears, that he had to be pulled out. I need not say that I was not there, or he would never have been allowed to go in. However, he discovered fish without eyes, which he sent to the Zoological Gardens. From here we drove on to Fiume, about an eight-hour drive—ten with a rest—where we were kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, née Lever. From their house we visited all the neighbourhood, little thinking that fifteen years later we should come back to Abbazia for Richard's health, and we had the pleasure of making acquaintance with Mr. Whitehead and family of torpedo fame. We then went to Pola, the great naval station, the Spithead of the Austrians. The general world may not know that it has a Colosseum almost, if not quite, as good as that at Rome, with temples, ancient gates, and any amount of ruins.
"Captain Burton's Discoveries in Istria.
"(Anthropological Report.)
"Tizu, February 18, 1874.
"The meeting of the London Anthropological Society held last night was devoted to the account by Captain Burton of his recent extraordinary discoveries in Istria, and was certainly the most interesting and crowded meeting which has taken place since the palmy days of Dr. Hunt and the great Negro question.
"Captain Burton, as most of our readers know, was sent last year by the late Liberal Government to a Consulate at Trieste, and there were many who thought that the lack of interest which the public generally feels in this extremely dull town would induce the gallant Captain to lead a quieter scientific life than he had hitherto followed at Brazil or Damascus. But he has devoted the first holiday he had to the excavation of a new series of prehistoric antiquities. The very existence of the Istrian castellieri was a secret to England. The well-known authority on rude stone monuments, James Fergusson, wrote to Captain Burton that nothing was known of the castellieri, and that a description was interesting and important, as showing they are or are not connected with the prehistoric monuments of Sardinia, or the Giants' Towers of Malta, or the Balearic Isles. The Mediterranean Islands contain many stray antiquities of whose origin we know nothing, and we must wait till congeners are found for us on the continent of Europe. As all schoolboys know, at the northern extremity of the Adriatic Gulf there lies a little triangle of land. This is Istria. Its position must have rendered it in early times a fit habitation, for uncivilized man would naturally prefer it to the cold and sterile Austrian provinces north-east and east of it. The neighbourhood of the sea supplies it with abundant winter rains. The peninsula was doubtless inhabited in early ages, and local students still trace in the modern Veneto-Italian speech remnants of the old Illyrian Istri, or Histri, whose dialect has been vaguely connected with Etruscan, Nubian, Illyrian, Keltic, Greek, and Phœnician. Various barbarous tribes occupied it, and successive revolutions and incursions of many ancient populations have left their traces on the manners, customs, and language of the people. Overrun by the barbarians, subject to a succession of conquerors, annexed by Venice, colonized by Slavs, Istria has been copiously written about. Captain Burton gave an enormous series of references to the past history of the bibliography of Istria, which reflected the greatest possible glory on the natives of a small province of Austria, who have worked up their own country's history to an extent which English antiquaries can scarcely rival. But the pith of Captain Burton's paper was, of course, the minute description of the castellieri themselves. These were hill forts of which a perfect military disposition was effected, so that on all occasions two points were always in sight for convenience of signalling. The experienced eye can always detect at a distance the traces of an earthen ring or ellipse formed by levelling the summit and the gradual rises of the roads, or rather camps, which are, as a rule, comparatively free from trees and thickets. A nearer inspection shows a scatter of pottery, whose rude sandy paste contrasts sharply with the finished produce of the Roman kilns, and the more homogeneous materials of modern times. The contours of these castellieri are distinguished by a definite deposit of black ash from the surface soil of 'red' Istria around them. As a rule, the castellieri occupied the summits of the detached conical hills and mounds which appear to have been shaped and turned by glacial action. Some Istrian towns have been built upon these prehistoric sites. Viewed from below, they appear to be perched upon the summits of inaccessible stone walls. A crow's nest, with a stick driven through it, is the only object they suggest from afar, and they wear a peculiarly ghastly look, like the phantom of settlements when seen through the mists of a dark evening. They can scarcely be called villages, but rather towns in miniature. The whole peninsula was at one time studded over with these villages, and Fate has treated them with her usual caprice. Some have been carried off bodily, especially those lying near the lines of modern road. Others are in process of disappearance, being found useful for villages, and on the heights for the rude huts of the shepherd and the goatherd. But where situation, which determines such 'eternal cities of the world' as Damascus, was favourable, the castellieri, as at Pisino, became successively castles, hamlets, and towns, with the fairest prospects of being promoted to the honour of cityhood. On the other hand, Muggia-Vecchia, on the Bay of Trieste, has in turn been a castle and a church tower, and now it is a ruin. Captain Burton gave a minute description of fifteen castellieri in the territory of Albona. The Cunzi hillock was the chief of these. It is a dwarf, 'lumpy chine,' about a mile long, disposed north-north-east to south-south-west, with lowlands on all sides. The crest of the cone has evidently been cut away in one or more places, leaving part of the original earth-slope to form the parapet base. Upon this foundation were planted large blocks of limestone, sometimes of two cubic yards, in tolerably regular order, invariably without mortar, and never of cut or worked blocks, the tout forming a rough architecture of the style commonly called Cyclopean. The inner thickness of the parapet was apparently fitted with smaller stones, and the thickness varied from eighteen to thirty-one feet. The inner scarp was steep and clear of rubbish. The enceinte, where probably were kept the cattle and goats belonging to the villagers, was mostly grass-grown. In another of the castellieri were found some interesting specimens of stone weapons. All were of the polished category popularly called 'neolithic.' Captain Burton has not found, through any of his researches in Istria, any of the ruder and older type. Most were composed of stone usual in the country. These tools and weapons seem to have travelled as far as Couries. Captain Burton gave a minute description of Trieste, in which the opera-house is old and unclean, fit only for a pauper country town, and the water supply is a disgrace to a civilized community. Here a sterile politic occupies the talent and energy which should be devoted to progress, and an inveterate party feeling prevails. Upon every conceivable proposal there are, and there must be, Vandals of opposite opinions, and the unfortunate city does not know which way to turn. It is a relief to revert to the castellieri. It is not difficult, with the aid of old experience and a little imagination, to restore the ancient savage condition of the settlement. The traveller, and especially the African traveller, has the advantage of having lived in prehistoric times. The villages were probably of wood and thatch, and the huts were of the conical or beehived shape of the lower races, rather than of the squares and parallelograms which mark a step in civilization. The walls were from six to seven feet high, allowing the war-men to use their stones and arrows, and a clear space, where the youths kept guard with axe, spear, and club, separated the huts from the enceinte. The gateways were closed by fascines. As the territory of Albona contains at least twenty castellieri, the population of the district of Eastern Istria would not number less than ten thousand souls. The inhabitants supported themselves by some form of agriculture. Deer, bears, and wolves were rare. Hares, foxes, badgers, and martens were as common as they continue to be. The live stock was penned between the outer and the inner walls. A total want of water supply shows that the days of sieges had not dawned, and that the simple act of taking refuge within the enceinte determined the retreat of the attacking party. The inhabitants were probably cannibals, and their morality was like that of all savage races. The women were not wholly ignorant of spinning. There was no attempt at partitions to the huts, but the polygamist savages turned their progeny out of doors as soon as possible. The fish were shot with arrows, and the hook and line were unknown.
"So ended Captain Burton's interesting paper, which, read in extenso by Dr. Carter Blake, produced an animated discussion. Specimens of the tiles from the castellieri were exhibited on the table, and produced much examination. The President of the Anthropological Society (Dr. R. S. Charnock, F.S.A.) said with regard to the name Istria, it was stated that Colchians having sailed up the Ister, or Danube, passed from that river to the Adriatic, and that they named Istria from the Ister. But, as Spon observes, if the Colchians proceeded from the Ister to the Adriatic, they must have carried their vessels on their shoulders, inasmuch as there is no water communication between the Ister and the Adriatic. Something of this sort is mentioned by Pliny, who seems to have led Spon to make this ludicrous observation. Great gratification appeared to be felt by the members of the Society, that Captain Burton, while he assigned the castellieri to a pre-Roman age, did not identify them with any special race or period. In fact, the caution with which he described all his facts led observers to regard the present as one of the most important contributions to prehistoric literature which has been ever published.
"The meeting passed a hearty vote of thanks to Captain Burton, who is now continuing his researches on the castellieri. The discussion verged on analogous relics. Some remains have been found in Sussex which gullible antiquaries might suppose to be analogous to the Istrian castellieri. But the importance of the 'hill forts,' as some ignorant speculators have called them, is about as much as that of the mound which Scott's Antiquary identified as a Roman prætorium. No educated savant in England believes in the hoax which was played off on the Society of Antiquaries (vol. xlii. pt. i. p. 27) with regard to the hill forts of Sussex, and the genuineness of the relics from Cissbury is not now asserted. We cannot, therefore, in the present state of science, say that the remains discovered by Captain Burton are analogous with any other remains in any other part of Europe, and we must rather look for their representatives in Asia and Africa."