The two exterior alleys are consecrated to pedestrians; but those of the Viennese who must walk, because not rich enough to hire a hackney-coach, are never fond of walking far, and, forsaking the alleys, scatter themselves over the verdant lawn which spreads itself out to where the wood becomes more dense and impenetrable. The lawn itself is plentifully strewed with coffee-houses, and the happy hundreds seat themselves under shady awnings or on the green herbage, beneath a clump of trees, enjoying their ices, coffee, and cigars, till twilight calls them to the theatre, with not a thought about to-morrow, and scarcely a reminiscence of yesterday.
But though the extremity of this main alley be the boundary of the excursions of the fashionable world, it is only the beginning of the more rural and tranquil portion of the Prater. The wood becomes thicker; there are no more straight lines of horse-chestnuts; the numerous alleys wind their way unconstrained through the forest maze, now leading you along in artificial twilight beneath an overarching canopy of foliage, and now terminating in some verdant and tranquil spot like those on which fairies delight to dance; now bringing you to the brink of some pure rivulet, which trickles along unsuspectingly to be lost in the mighty stream, and now stopping you on the shady banks of the magnificent river itself.
[ THE ESZTERHÁZY PALACES.]
JOHN PAGET.
[Paget’s “Hungary and Transylvania” is the source of our present selection, we having chosen, from his many pictures of Hungarian life and people, a description of the famous Eszterházys, a family renowned particularly for its jewels, which have been gathering for centuries in the castle of Forchtenstein.]
It was at six o’clock in the morning that the smart Presburg post-boy sounded his bugle, to express his impatience at the half-hour we had already kept him waiting ere we started for the Neusiedler Lake, in the neighborhood of which we intended to pass a few days. The journey to the end of the lake might be some sixty miles, and we reckoned to accomplish this by post within the day.
Of all the modes of travelling in Hungary, the post is the most expensive, and to me, at least, the most disagreeable. The supply of horses is too scanty, and if the traveller happens to arrive before or after the post-wagen, he must generally wait some time before he can obtain the number he requires. There is an awkward rule, too, which it is as well a stranger should know. If he arrives at any place with post, he can oblige the postmaster to send him on with the same number of horses he arrived with; but should he, as occurred to us on the present occasion, feel a wish to leave the post-road, and for that purpose hire private horses, at the next post-station they may refuse him a supply, or oblige him to take as many as they choose.
It was at Gschies we learned this rule, for the postmaster stoutly refused to send us on with a pair of horses, which was all we had previously required, and declared we should either take four or remain where we were. Entirely ignorant as I then was of any other means of getting forward, I at last consented, and desired him to give us the four horses. “But I have only three in the stable at present,” was his cool reply; “and you may either take those and pay for four, or you may remain where you are until to-morrow, when the others will come home.” Nor is this the only instance of gross imposition I could relate. The worst of it is, there is no redress. In one case I applied to the judge and notary of the village, and though they had the best will to protect me, all they could do was to give me peasants’ horses, and so enable me to avoid the like treatment for the rest of the journey.