Here sabres clashed and banners flashed,
And high the crescent flew,
As through the gap the Moslem dashed
With shouts of ‘Allah hu!’”
Visegrád did not survive this visitation of “the terrible Turk,” but having been dismantled was left for time to beautify, and now it remains one of the most impressive of Danubian ruins—impressive from its grand situation and as offering to the sturdy climber a magnificent view.
A gruesome tragedy is said to have taken place in this old castle in 1336, when King Charles was on the throne. That monarch had married a Polish princess, whose brother Casimir, visiting Visegrád, fell in love with a beautiful girl named Clara Zacs. His affection was not returned, and his passion was such that the outraged girl had to flee with her story to the Count, her father. Count Zacs sought Casimir, only to find that he had fled, and rushing into the chamber at which the royal family were at dinner attacked the queen—whom he believed to have aided her brother—with a sabre cutting the fingers off her right hand. The king, who sought to defend the queen, was wounded, when three nobles, rushing in, fell upon the maddened Count Zacs and cut him to pieces. The royal vengeance was by no means satisfied, but seemed to increase by what it fed on; the unhappy girl was compelled to walk through the town having her nose, lips, and fingers cut off, to the cry of: “This is the punishment of traitors!” while her brother was dragged through the town at the tail of a horse until he died. Other members of the Zacs family only saved themselves by fleeing the country.
One traveller declared that he could have filled a volume with half of the legends told him of Visegrád, on the spot! In these more matter-of-fact days, my inquiries gathered accounts only of the former grandeur of the place as a royal residence, and the story of King Solomon’s imprisonment in the tower still known by his name. The massive hill with its rocks showing through the trees, its summit ruins, and its town grouped at the foot, is probably more picturesque than in the distant days when the castle was occupied by kings, and the mountain-side was largely given over to gardens.
Shortly after we leave Visegrád, the Danube forks at the end of the long serpentine island of St. Andreas, only to be reunited about eighteen miles farther on as we near the capital. The steamer follows the left branch and calls at Vácz (Waitzen) where the river takes a definite southern turn, and continues in that direction for about three hundred miles. The hills have fallen away from the river again, though they show as a background to Vácz (Waitzen) which stretches along the left bank, its eighteenth century cathedral and prison being prominent buildings. This is an old town which was so entirely destroyed by the Tartars in 1141-42 that it had to be refounded and recolonized, partly by the king Bela IV., inviting German settlers.
Below Vácz (Waitzen) the river flows between St. Andreas island on the right and the low land on the left, with no special features to take the eye or hold the interest until Budapest itself comes in sight.
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