All down the Inn River Valley, there is many a picturesque bit of intermingled pine-copse and grassy slopes; but admiring scenery is anything but a riskless undertaking along here, as I quickly discover. On the Inn River I find a primitive ferry-boat operated by a, fac-simile of the Ancient Mariner, who takes me and my wheel across for the consideration of five pfennigs-a trifle over one cent -and when I refuse the tiny change out of a ten-pfennig piece the old fellow touches his cap as deferentially, and favors me with a look of gratitude as profound, as though I were bestowing a pension upon him for life. My arrival at a broad, well-travelled high-way at once convinces me that I have again been unwittingly wandering among the comparatively untravelled by-ways as the result of following the kindly meant advice of people whose knowledge of bicycling requirements is of the slimmest nature. The Inn River a warm, rich vale; haymaking is already in full progress, and delightful perfume is wafted on the fresh morning air from aclows where scores of barefooted Maud Mullers are raking hay, and mowing it too, swinging scythes side by side with the men. Some of the out-door crucifixes and shrines (small, substantial buildings containing pictures, images, and all sorts of religious -emblems) along this valley are really quite elaborate affairs. All through Roman Catholic Germany these emblems of religion are very elaborate, or the reverse, according to the locality, the chosen spot in rich and fertile valleys generally being favored with better and more artistic affairs, and more of them, than the comparatively unproductive uplands. This is evidently because the inhabitants of the latter regions are either less wealthy, and consequently cannot afford it, or otherwise realize that they have really much less to be thankful for than their comparatively fortunate neighbors in the more productive valleys.
At the town of Simbach I cross the Inn River again on a substantial wooden bridge, and on the opposite side pass under an old stone archway bearing the Austrian coat-of-arms. Here I am conducted into the custom-house by an officer wearing the sombre uniform of Franz Josef, and required, for the first time in Europe, to produce my passport. After a critical and unnecessarily long examination of this document I am graciously permitted to depart. In an adjacent money-changer's office I exchange what German money I have remaining for the paper currency of Austria, and once more pursue my way toward the Orient, finding the roads rather better than the average German ones, the Austrians, hereabouts at least, having had the goodness to omit the loose flints so characteristic of Bavaria. Once out of the valley of the Inn River, however, I find the uplands intervening between it and the valley of the Danube aggravatingly hilly.
While eating my first luncheon in Austria, at the village of Altheim, the village pedagogue informs me in good English that I am the first Briton he has ever had the pleasure of conversing with. He learned the language entirely from books, without a tutor, he says, learning it for pleasure solely, never expecting to utilize the accomplishment in any practical way. One hill after another characterizes my route to-day; the weather, which has hitherto remained reasonably mild, is turning hot and sultry, and, arriving at Hoag about five o'clock, I feel that I have done sufficient hillclimbing for one day. I have been wheeling through Austrian territory since 10.30 this morning, and, with observant eyes the whole distance, I have yet to see the first native, male or female, possessing in the least degree either a graceful figure or a prepossessing face. There has been a great horse-fair at Hoag to-day; the business of the day is concluded, and the principal occupation of the men, apart from drinking beer and smoking, appears to be frightening the women out of their wits by leading prancing horses as near them as possible.
My road, on leaving Hoag, is hilly, and the snowy heights of the Nordliche Kalkalpen (North Chalk Mountains), a range of the Austrian Alps, loom up ahead at an uncertain distance. To-day is what Americans call a "scorcher," and climbing hills among pine-woods, that shut out every passing breeze, is anything but exhilarating exercise with the thermometer hovering in the vicinity of one hundred degrees. The peasants are abroad in their fields as usual, but a goodly proportion are reclining beneath the trees. Reclining is, I think, a favorite pastime with the Austrian. The teamster, who happens to be wide awake and sees me approaching, knows instinctively that his team is going to scare at the bicycle, yet he makes no precautionary movements whatever, neither does he arouse himself from his lolling position until the horses or oxen begin to swerve around. As a usual thing the teamster is filling his pipe, which has a large, ungainly-looking, porcelain bowl, a long, straight wooden stem, and a crooked mouth-piece. Almost every Austrian peasant from sixteen years old upward carries one of these uncomely pipes.
The men here seem to be dull, uninteresting mortals, dressed in tight- fitting, and yet, somehow, ill-fitting, pantaloons, usually about three sizes too short, a small apron of blue ducking-an unbecoming garment that can only be described as a cross between a short jacket and a waistcoat - and a narrow-rimmed, prosy-looking billycock hat. The peasant women are the poetry of Austria, as of any other European country, and in their short red dresses and broad-brimmed, gypsy hats, they look picturesque and interesting in spite of homely faces and ungraceful figures. Riding into Lambach this morning, I am about wheeling past a horse and drag that, careless and Austrian-like, has been left untied and unwatched in the middle of the street, when the horse suddenly scares, swerves around just in front of me, and dashes, helter-skelter, down the street. The horse circles around the market square and finally stops of his own accord without doing any damage. Runaways, other misfortunes, it seems, never come singly, and ere I have left Lambach an hour I am the innocent cause of yet another one; this time it is a large, powerful work-dog, who becomes excited upon meeting me along the road, and upsets things in the most lively manner. Small carts pulled by dogs are common vehicles here and this one is met coming up an incline, the man considerately giving the animal a lift. A life of drudgery breaks the spirit of these work-dogs and makes them cowardly and cringing. At my approach this one howls, and swerves suddenly around with a rush that upsets both man and cart, topsy-turvy, into the ditch, and the last glimpse of the rumpus obtained, as I sweep past and down the hill beyond, is the man pawing the air with his naked feet and the dog struggling to free himself from the entangling harness.
Up among the hills, at the village of Strenburg, night arrives at a very opportune moment to-day, for Strenburg proves a nice, sociable sort of village, where the doctor can speak good English and plays the role of interpreter for me at the gasthaus. The school-ma'am, a vivacious Italian lady, in addition to French and German, can also speak a few words of English, though she persistently refers to herself as the " school -master." She boards at the same gasthaus, and all the evening long I am favored by the liveliest prattle and most charming gesticulations imaginable, while the room is half filled with her class of young lady aspirants to linguistic accomplishments, listening to our amusing, if not instructive, efforts to carry on a conversation. ' It is altogether a most enjoyable evening, and on parting I am requested to write when I get around the world and tell the Strenburgers all that I have seen and experienced. On top of the gasthaus is a rude observatory, and before starting I take a view of the country. The outlook is magnificent; the Austrian Alps are towering skyward to the southeast, rearing snow-crowned heads out from among a billowy sea of pine-covered hills, and to the northward is the lovely valley of the Danube, the river glistening softly through the morning haze.
On yonder height, overlooking the Danube on the one hand and the town of Molk on the other, is the largest and most imposing edifice I have yet seen in Austria; it is a convent of the Benedictine monks; and though Molk is a solid, substantially built town, of perhaps a thousand inhabitants, I should think there is more material in the immense convent building than in the whole town besides, and one naturally wonders whatever use the monks can possibly have for a building of such enormous dimensions. Entering a barber's shop here for a shave, I find the barber of Molk following the example of so many of his countrymen by snoozing the mid-day hours happily and unconsciously away. One could easily pocket and walk off with his stock-in-trade, for small is the danger of his awakening. Waking him up, he shuffles mechanically over to hia razor and lathering apparatus, this latter being a soup-plate with a semicircular piece chipped out to fit, after a fashion, the contour of the customers' throats. Pressing this jagged edge of queen's-ware against your windpipe, the artist alternately rubs the water and a cake of soap therein contained about your face with his hands, the water meanwhile passing freely between the ill-fitting' soup-plate and your throat, and running down your breast; but don't complain; be reasonable: no reasonable-minded person could expect one soup-plate, however carefully chipped out, to fit the throats of the entire male population of Molk, besides such travellers as happen along.
Spending the night at Neu Lengbach, I climb hills and wabble along, over rough, lumpy roads, toward Vienna, reaching the Austrian capital Sunday morning, and putting up at the Englischer Eof about noon. At Vienna I determine to make a halt of two days, and on Tuesday pay a visit to the headquarters of the Vienna Wanderers' Bicycle Club, away out on a suburban street called Schwimmschulenstrasse; and the club promises that if I will delay my departure another day they will get up a small party of wheelmen to escort me seventy kilometres, to Presburg. The bicycle clubs of Vienna have, at the Wanderers' headquarters, constructed an excellent race-track, three and one-third laps to the English mile, at an expense of 2,000 gulden, and this evening several of Austria's fliers are training upon it for the approaching races. English and American wheelmen little understand the difficulties these Vienna cyclers have to contend with: all the city inside the Ringstrasse, and no less than fifty streets outside, are forbidden to the mounted cyclers, and they are required to ticket themselves with big, glaring letters, as also their lamps at night, so that, in case of violating any of these regulations, they can by their number be readily recognized by the police. Self-preservation compels the clubs to exercise every precaution against violating the police regulations, in order not to excite popular prejudice overwhelmingly against bicycles, and ere a new rider is permitted to venture outside their own grounds he is hauled up before a regularly organized committee, consisting of officers from each club in Vienna, and required to go through a regular examination in mounting, dismounting, and otherwise proving to their entire satisfaction his proficiency in managing and manoeuvring his wheel; besides which every cycler is provided with a pamphlet containing a list of the streets he may and may not frequent. In spite of all these harassing regulations, the Austrian capital has already two hundred riders. The Viennese impress themselves upon me as being possessed of more than ordinary individuality. Yonder comes a man, walking languidly along, and carrying his hat in his hand, because it is warm, and just behind him comes a fellow-citizen muffled up in an overcoat because - because of Viennese individuality. The people seem to walk the streets with a swaying, happy-go-anyhow sort of gait, colliding with one another and jostling together on the sidewalk in the happiest manner imaginable.
At five o'clock on Thursday morning I am dressing, when I am notified that two cyclers are awaiting me below. Church-bells are clanging joyously all over Vienna as we meander toward suburbs, and people are already streaming in the direction of the St. Stephen's Church, near the centre of the city, for to-day is Frohnleichnam (Corpus Christi), and the Emperor and many of the great ecclesiastical, civil, and military personages of the empire will pass in procession with all pomp and circumstance; and the average Viennese is not the person to miss so important an occasion. Three other wheelmen are awaiting us in the suburbs, and together we ride through the waving barley-fields of the Danube bottom to Schwechat, for the light breakfast customary in Austria, and thence onward to Petronelle, thirty kilometres distant, where we halt a few minutes for a Corpus Christi procession, and drink a glass of white Hungarian wine. Near Petronelle are the remains of an old Roman wall, extending from the Danube to a lake called the Neusiedler See. My companions say it was built 2,000 years ago, when the sway of the Romans extended over such parts of Europe as were worth the trouble and expense of swaying. The roads are found rather rough and inferior, on account of loose stones and uneven surface, as we push forward toward Presburg, passing through a dozen villages whose streets are carpeted with fresh-cut grass, and converted into temporary avenues, with branches stuck in the ground, in honor of the day they are celebrating. At Hamburg we pass beneath an archway nine hundred years old, and wheel on through the grass-carpeted streets between rows of Hungarian soldiers drawn up in line, with green oak-sprigs in their hats; the villagers are swarming from the church, whose bells are filling the air with their clangor, and on the summit of an over-shadowing cliff are the massive ruins of an ancient castle. Near about noon we roll into Presburg, warm and dusty, and after dinner take a stroll through the Jewish quarter of the town up to the height upon which Presburg castle is situated, and from which a most extensive and beautiful view of the Danube, its wooded bluffs and broad, rich bottom-lands, is obtainable. At dinner the waiter hands me a card, which reads: "Pardon me, but I believe you are an Englishman, in which case I beg the privilege of drinking a glass of wine with you." The sender is an English gentleman residing at Budapest, Hungary, who, after the requested glass of wine, tells me that he guessed who I was when he first saw me enter the garden with the five Austrian wheelmen.
My Austrian escort rides out with me to a certain cross-road, to make sure of heading me direct toward Budapest, and as we part they bid me good speed, with a hearty "Eljen." - the Hungarian "Hip, hip, hurrah." After leaving Presburg and crossing over into Hungary the road-bed is of a loose gravel that, during the dry weather this country is now experiencing, is churned up and loosened by every passing vehicle, until one might as well think of riding over a ploughed field. But there is a fair proportion of ridable side-paths, so that I make reasonably good time. Altenburg, my objective point for the night, is the centre of a sixty-thousand-acre estate belonging to the Archduke Albrecht, uncle of the present Emperor of Austro-Hungary, and one of the wealthiest land-owners in the empire. Ere I have been at the gasthaus an hour I am honored by a visit from Professor Thallmeyer, of the Altenburg Royal Agricultural School, who invites me over to his house to spend an hour in conversation, and in the discussion of a bottle of Hungary's best vintage, for the learned professor can talk very good English, and his wife is of English birth and parentage. Although Frau Thallmeyer left England at the tender age of two years, she calls herself an Englishwoman, speaks of England as "home," and welcomes to her house as a countryman any wandering Briton happening along. I am no longer in a land of small peasant proprietors, and there is a noticeably large proportion of the land devoted to grazing purposes, that in France or Germany would be found divided into small farms, and every foot cultivated. Villages are farther apart, and are invariably adjacent to large commons, on which roam flocks of noisy geese, herds of ponies, and cattle with horns that would make a Texan blush - the long horned roadsters of Hungary. The costumes of the Hungarian peasants are both picturesque and novel, the women and girls wearing top-boots and short dresses on holiday occasions and Sundays, and at other times short dresses without any boots at all; the men wear loose-flowing pantaloons of white, coarse linen that reach just below the knees, and which a casual observer would unhesitatingly pronounce a short skirt, the material being so ample. Hungary is still practically a land of serfs and nobles, and nearly every peasant encountered along the road touches his cap respectfully, in instinctive acknowledgment, as it were, of his inferiority. Long rows of women are seen hoeing in the fields with watchful overseers standing over them - a scene not unsuggestive of plantation life in the Southern States in the days of slavery. If these gangs of women are not more than about two hundred yards from the road their inquisitiveness overcomes every other consideration, and dropping everything, the whole crowd comes helter-skelter across the field to obtain a closer view of the strange vehicle; for it is only in the neighborhood of one or two of the principal cities of Hungary that one ever sees a bicycle.