We left Pesth in the afternoon, two hours later than we had intended, owing to the difficulties started with regard to our luggage, but these were ultimately overcome by the potent argument with which English travellers generally contrive to carry a point. When we issued from the gate of the Jägerhorn in our heavy and lumbering carriage, we were infinitely amused by the appearance of the postillion; a youth of about eighteen, who wore a sort of hussar jacket, with a small bugle hung about his neck; jack boots, and a formidable cocked-hat and feather. We travelled, however, at a tolerable pace; and, as we bade adieu to the Hungarian Capital, and saw the laughing vineyards spreading away into the distance, we congratulated ourselves on our emancipation from the damps and delays of the river-voyage; even purchased as it was by the fatigue of six-and-thirty hours of German posting.
A few words may now close the Volume. I had believed that I should rejoice when my task was ended; but it is not so. I cannot part from the reader who has lingered with me in strange lands without a feeling of regret; and, as I look back upon the pages that I have written, and the scenes that I have sketched; a heaviness of heart comes over me, as though I were looking upon the face of a dead friend. As I traced the one and the other, the images of the past rose up before me; and, even although the vividity of each was lost, enough yet remained to me; for there was still a tie, though every hour weakened it. May I be permitted to pursue the melancholy fancy that I have conjured up? I have been as one who watched a death-couch; clinging to the fast-failing remnant of that which once was bright, and was soon to pass away.
My vigils now are ended. The pleasant spell is broken; I turn my face towards Mecca, and remember my pilgrimage; but the distant landscape is veiled in mist.
The Propontis is but a memory; the glorious Bosphorus is seen only in a dream; the “Sea of Storms” no longer bears the roar of its breakers to my ear; and the Danube rolls along in sullen majesty, bathing rock and mountain, islet, and city, in its proud waters; but I ride not upon its tide.
It is midnight. The tall houses of a dense city rise before me; the hum of many voices comes upon the wind; a bright firelock flashes in the guard-fire; a stern voice challenges the strangers as they pass; the jaded horses, conscious of approaching rest, put forth their failing power; and ere many moments pass, the heavy carriage rattles under the arched gateway of the Stadt-London in Vienna.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Professional Story-tellers.
[2] Street-porter.
[3] It is an extraordinary coincidence that at the moment in which this work is passing through the press, intelligence has arrived in Europe of the disgrace of this hitherto-favoured individual: the prostration of a life-long ambition.