For the matter of speed, you get on by post at the rate of five miles an hour, with strong, large horses, and post-boys wearing huge cocked hats, each with a plume of feathers worthy a field-marshal, and a red coat with purple facings. But if ever the reader should have occasion to go from Vienna to Pesth, and is an amateur at driving, I recommend him to what is called the bauern post,—that is, if steamboats and railroads have not ere this entirely destroyed it.
The peasants between the frontiers of Hungary and Pesth, on the great high-road from Vienna, combined to supply relays of horses at a cheaper rate and better than the royal post; and though at first opposed by government, they eventually succeeded so well that at present the whole line is supplied by them almost exclusively. The pace at which these men, with their four small horses, take on a light Vienna carriage is something wonderful, especially when the length of some of their stages is considered. The last stage cannot be less than forty miles from Pesth, and, with a short pause of about a quarter of an hour to water, they do it for the most part at full gallop, and with the same horses, in four hours. It is glorious to see the wild-looking driver, his long black hair floating in the wind as he turns round to ask your admiration when his four little clean-boned nags are rattling over hill and hollow in a style which for the first time since he left home shakes an Englishman’s blood into quicker circulation. There is certainly a pleasure in rapid motion which has on some men almost an intoxicating effect.
BUDAPEST
But to return to our five miles an hour. We passed through a well-cultivated country, chiefly inhabited by Germans, who have crept in upon this side of Hungary from Presburg nearly to the borders of Croatia. The Neusiedler Lake, or the Fertö Tava Hungarian, which we soon came in sight of, is about twenty-four miles long by twelve broad, varying in depth from nine to thirteen feet. In parts, particularly at the north end, its shores are hilly and pretty, but on the eastern side they are flat, and terminate in a very extensive marsh, called the Hanság.
It is supposed to be this lake which the Emperor Galerius drained into the Danube, and which has been allowed to re-form by the destruction of the Roman works. There is little doubt, I believe, as to the practicability of draining the lake again, if it were desired; but, as a neighboring proprietor observed, it would spoil some glorious snipe-shooting....
At Eisenstadt, some short distance from the lake, is a palace of the first of the Hungarian magnates, Prince Eszterházy. This palace, though not remarkable for its beauty (it is in a heavy, though florid, Italian style), is well fitted up for a princely residence. We walked through suites of apartments innumerable; but by far the most striking of them was the great ball-room, an elegantly-proportioned hall of great size, and richly ornamented in white and gold. This room was last used when the present prince was installed lord-lieutenant of the county of Oedenburg, an office hereditary in his family; and great is still the fame of the almost regal pomp with which he fêted the crowds of nobles who flocked around him upon that occasion.
The gardens, laid out in the English style, are very fine, and the hot-houses larger than any I remember to have seen; even Alton must bow to Eisenstadt. They contain no less than seventy thousand exotics, and are particularly rich in New Holland specimens. One can hardly help lamenting that so much luxury and beauty should be wasted; for, except the inhabitants of Eisenstadt, to whom the gardens are always open, it is rarely that the palace or its grounds receive a visitor.