Читать книгу The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" or, Life and Adventures in the Orient - Thomas Wallace Knox - Страница 72

Table of Contents

A City of renown—Overwhelmed by the Floods—Lying in Clover—What I Saw in the Hungarian Capital—“The Poor Folk’s Bath”—Rather Warm Quarters—Life Among the Magyars—The “Miffs,” of an Imperial Couple—Her Majesty’s Choice—A Model Captain—Charles Matthews and the Bowery Boy—Facts and Fancies of a Snoring Match—The “Judge” and the “Doubter”—The Man Who Wouldn’t Believe—Who were the “Hamals,” and What They Did—People in Strange Garments—Baggy Breeches versus Slop—The Fortress of Belgrade—Servia, and What I Saw of Its People—The Assassination of Prince Miloch—Rather Bad for Poetry.

PESTH was founded by the Romans, who were attracted by the mineral springs in the vicinity. They built a fort and established a sort of water-cure, though not on a large scale.

The city has had a rough time, and a hard struggle for existence. It has been captured and pillaged more than a dozen—some say eighteen—times, and for nearly a century and a half it was in the hands of the Turks, who were not particularly gentle in their treatment of the inhabitants. It has been burned, and it has been overflowed; the last great inundation was in 1838, when two thousand houses were destroyed in Pesth, and six hundred in Buda, on the opposite bank.

Query.—Isn’t there a chance that the “Beautiful Blue Danube” will get high again some time, and sweep away all the fine warehouses along the quay, together with a few million dollars’ worth of the merchandise stored there?

I couldn’t help thinking of that as I contemplated this busy, energetic Chicago of Austro-Hungary, and resolved that I would not leave my trunk over night at the steamboat landing. I entrusted it to a Hungarian trager, who strapped it on his back and motioned me to follow, like a downcast and silent mourner, as he led the way to the hotel I named. I know of but one hotel in all Europe—the Grand Hotel at Paris—which can surpass in extent, completeness, and magnificence, the Grand Hotel Hun-garia at Pesth.

I passed four days very pleasantly at Pesth, visiting its Museum of Antiquities, its Gallery of Paintings, and going to the races, where I saw some fine horses of Hungarian stock, and also some fine ones of Hungarian stock crossed with English. I went to one of the famous baths of Buda, where I bathed and then breakfasted at the restaurant attached to the establishment. Buda, by the way, is directly opposite to Pesth; the two cities were long distinct, but they are now united into a single municipality under the name of Buda-Pesth, and the union is strengthened by a beautiful bridge on the suspension principle. This bridge was completed in 1848, and, though a work of peace, its early uses were singularly warlike. It was inaugurated on the 5th of January, 1849, by the passage of the Hungarian army under Kossuth, pursued by the Austrians. Four months later, the Austrian army retreated over the same bridge, pursued by the Hungarians. Turn about is fair play.

Buda has a more picturesque site than Pesth, as it stands partly on a hill, and is dominated by the Blocksberg, a mountain that overlooks the river, and is crowned by a fortress. There are several baths in Buda, some of them of great extent, and all having hot water from natural springs. You can bathe in a public room, or you can have a bath to yourself; and you have the advantages of a restaurant in the building, so that you may command your breakfast or dinner, and have it brought to your room if you choose, along with anything liquid you wish to select from a wine-card. Then there are gardens attached to the baths, where bands of music entertain the ear, and groups of the youths and maidens and adults of Buda-Pesth sit in the shade and regale themselves after the manner of the German in his sommer-garten.

In one of your promenades you may visit the bain des pauvres, where both sexes bathe together with only the scantiest apparel.

The place is hot and steamy, and the odors anything but charming. A single glance satisfied me, and I was glad to seek the open air and sit at one of the tables in the beer garden, until the perspiration had dried from my forehead and the steam from my clothing. This bath-house is a dome-like structure, lighted by a single window in the top. It was built by the Turks, and was used by them as a convent of dervishes.

Hungary is now as thoroughly Austrian as any part of the Monarchy. The Hungarians have all they ever asked for, and some of them say they have more. They have their own parliament; their finances are kept separate from those of Austria, and they run their own affairs pretty much as they please. The Emperor was crowned King of Hungary, and his prime minister, Count Andrassy, is a Hungarian; the Emperor is well disposed towards the country of the Magyars—one of my friends persists in calling them the Maguires—and as for the Empress, it is well known that she likes the Hungarians much better than the Austrians, and prefers Pesth to Vienna. The gossips whisper that the august couple have their “miffs” occasionally, and one cause of these matrimonial jars is the decided preference which Her Majesty shows for the Hungarians. All things considered, Hungary has reason to be content. She can let alone wars and insurrections, and attend to the development of her resources, which are by no means small, and that is what she is doing, and evidently intends to do.

From Pesth to Belgrade the Danube has a general southerly course, and flows for the most part through a broad plain, extremely fertile but rather sparsely inhabited. There is little animation on the river; the principal objects to catch the eye are the numerous water-mills, but they are an old story to one who has descended the Danube from Lintz to Vienna, and from Vienna to Pesth.

These mills are very simple, inexpensive, and effective, and they utilize a power which would otherwise run to waste. Two barges, or flat boats, one larger than the other, are anchored in the river, and held about twenty feet apart by means of a couple of wooden beams. A rude wheel with the floats at right angles to the current, is built between the two boats; an end of the shaft is supported by each, and in the larger of the boats the shaft turns the machinery of a flour mill. A house is built over the mill, and sometimes the miller lives there with his family. Communication with the shore is maintained by means of a plank or a small boat. The mill costs but little at the outset, and the power that turns it is always ready as long as water runs in the river.

I wonder why these mills are not introduced in America. On our western rivers where the current is strong, they could be used to great advantage, and many thousands of them could be run without interfering with navigation.

The navigation of the great river of Austria is managed by two companies—one Austrian and the other Hungarian. The latter is confined to Hungarian waters, but the other—The Danube Steam Navigation Company—extends its operations along the whole line of the river from Lintz to its mouth, and it even runs a line of sea-going boats between Galatz and Odessa. On the lower Danube below Pesth it has two kinds of boats, the one local and the other express, or, as they call them, “accelerated.” The local boats stop at all the landings, and do not travel much at night. The “accelerated boats” only touch at a few points; and travel day and night, weather permitting. On the local boats your ticket includes nothing but your passage; meals and berths are extras. On the “accelerated boats” you pay for everything in a lump, and have no trouble about settling at each meal or piecemeal.

I took passage on the “accelerated” steamer Franz Josef and found her very comfortable; her cabins were clean, her table was good and well supplied, and her captain was designed by nature to charm the heart of traveling man or woman—especially the latter—and the design of nature had been further developed by art and education. He spoke French like a Parisian, was as handsome as his own picture (it is not always thus); wore such a lovely mustache, and was as polite as a courtier of the days of Louis Quatorze. He had a mixed party to entertain, but he was fully equal to the task.

There were four Russians, two men and two women; all were polite and well bred, and the women were sociable and dignified, without being pert or bashful. There were Servians and Roumanians of both sexes; there were Austrians and Hungarians likewise; there were two Frenchmen—engineers connected with the location of the Roumanian railways; there were two English women of the independent class that travels about the world unprotected by man, and perfectly capable of protecting itself under all circumstances; and there were three Americans.

At dinner I made a comparison of the manners of the table with those of steamboat tables in America, and the comparison was not favorable to my own country. There you generally see men eating in silence and rapidity, and with very little regard for the comfort of their neighbors. Here the meal was eaten leisurely; everybody was civil to everybody else; conversation was general, and instead of fifteen minutes for refreshments, we had an hour and a half, and seasoned the meal with pleasant exchanges of information upon a variety of topics. There was no distinction of age or sex in the conversation, but every one seemed determined to faire son mieux to enable the rest to pass the time agreeably.

The incident described by Charles Matthews on one of the Sound steamers, would have created a first-class sensation here: “Will you have the goodness to pass the salt?” said the English comedian to a Bowery boy, who was shovelling meat and potatoes down his throat with the speed of the most effective kind of dredging machine. “Salt by yer,” said the patriot, without deigning to do more than raise his eyes, and continuing his feeding without so much as an instant’s interruption. “O, I beg your pardon,” said Matthews, looking down and espying the saltcellar close to his plate, “I did’nt see it.”

“Who the ——— said you did?” was the gruff reply. “I said ‘salt by yer.’”