The environs of Buda are agreeable, and its territory fertile in all sorts of provision, especially in white wines; but they are somewhat fiery, which is attributed to the adjacent hot springs, and to the sulphur they emit. One league from the town is the body of St. Paul the hermit, which is in a perfect state of preservation.
I returned to Pest, where I also found six or eight French families, whom the emperor had sent thither to construct on the Danube, and opposite to his palace, a large tower. His intentions were to shut up the river with a chain, extending from it; and I should suppose he wanted to imitate what had been done from the town of Burgundy, that fronts the fort of L'Ecluse; but I do not believe it is practicable here, for the river is too broad. I had the curiosity to visit the tower, which is about the length of three lances high, and round about were quantities of hewn stone; but it had remained some time in this state, because the masons who had begun the work were dead, and those that had survived them were said not to have knowledge enough to continue it. Pest is inhabited by many horse-dealers; and, whoever may want two thousand good horses, they can furnish the quantity. They sell them by stables full, containing ten horses; and their price for each stable is two hundred florins. I looked into several, where two or three horses alone were worth that price. They come for the most part from the mountains of Transylvania, which bound Hungary to the eastward. I purchased one that galloped well, as indeed they almost all do. The country is excellent for breeding them, from the quantity of grass it produces; but they have the fault of being a little headstrong, and particularly difficult to shoe; so that I have sometimes seen them obliged to be cast on the ground to be shod.
The mountains just spoken of contain mines of gold and salt, each of which pay annually to the king one hundred Hungarian florins. He had given up that of gold to the lord of Prussia and to count Mathico, on condition that the first would guard the frontier against the Turk, and the second Belgrade. The queen had reserved to her own use the revenue from salt. The salt is beautiful. It is cut out of a rock like freestone, into pieces of about a foot long, squared, but a little convex on the upper side. Whoever should see them in a cart would take them for stone. It is afterwards pounded in a mortar, and turns out tolerably white, but finer and better than any I have elsewhere tasted.
In my road through Hungary I have frequently met wagons with six, seven, or eight persons in them, and drawn by only a single horse; for it is customary with them, when they make long journeys, to use only one. They universally have the hind wheels higher than the fore wheels. There are some covered in their country manner, which are very handsome, and so light that, including wheels, it seemed that a man could carry one of them suspended to his neck. As the country is perfectly smooth and level, there is nothing to prevent the horse from being always on the trot. It is from this great evenness of the ground that, when they plough, they draw furrows of an extraordinary length. Until I came to Pest I had no servant; but there I treated myself with one, and took one of those French masons into my service whom I found at Pest. He was from Brai-sur-Somme.
On my return to Buda I accompanied the Milanese ambassador to pay our compliments to the grand count of Hungary, a title which answers to that of lieutenant of the emperor. The grand count received me with much distinction, because, from my dress, he took me for a Turk; but, when he learnt I was a Christian, he was somewhat colder. I was told that he was a man whose conversation was little to be depended on, and that no great trust must be placed in his promises. This is somewhat generally the reproach made of the Hungarians; and, for my own part, I own that, after the idea given me of them by my acquaintance, I should have less confidence in an Hungarian than in a Turk. The grand count is an old man. It was he, as I heard, who formerly arrested Sigismond, king of Bohemia and Hungary, and afterwards emperor, and threw him into prison, whence he afterwards released him by an amicable agreement. His son was just married to a beautiful Hungarian lady. I saw him at a tournament after their manner, when the combatants were mounted on small horses and low saddles. They were gallantly dressed, and had strong and short lances. It was a pleasing spectacle. Whenever the two champions hit, both perhaps, but certainly one of them, must be unhorsed; and it is then seen who has the firmest seat[515].
When they tilt for golden wands, all the horses are of the same size, all the saddles of the same form; and they are drawn for by lot, and the jousters are taken by pairs. Should one of two adversaries fall, the victor is obliged to retire, and is not permitted to tilt again.
I had never quitted the company of the Milanese ambassador until we came to Buda; but he had told me on the road that we must there separate, that he might continue his route to Milan. Soon after my return to Buda I called, in consequence, on Clays Davion, who gave me a letter of recommendation to a merchant of his acquaintance at Vienna. As I had fully opened myself to him, not thinking it right to make a secret of my rank, my name, or the country I had come from, or the honour I had of belonging to my lord duke of Burgundy, he had inserted all this in his letter, and I profited from it.
From Buda I came to Thiat, a country town, where the king is said to be fond of residing; then to Janiz, in German, "Jane,"[516] a town on the Danube. I afterwards passed by another town, built on an island in that river, which had been given by the emperor to one of the dependants of the duke of Burgundy, whom I believe to be Sir Renier Pot. I also passed through Brut[517], situated on a river that divides the kingdom of Hungary from the duchy of Austria. The river runs through a marsh, where a long and narrow causeway has been constructed. This is an important place; and I am convinced that a small body of men could effectually defend it on the Austrian side.