Austria-Hungary

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY — CHAPTER I THE DUAL MONARCHY

No one can rightly enjoy a visit to a country unless he knows something of its history and its heroes; otherwise much that is seen remains meaningless. It is a common saying among oculists that we see with the brain and not with the eye, and the saying is fulfilled when we pass by, as without meaning, this or that magnificent statue embodying in concrete marble or bronze an epoch of vital action in the history of a nation.

But besides what we miss from want of that observation whose roots are embedded in knowledge, there are other things duly noted, and but half comprehended, with a vagueness that is irritating. Especially is this the case in a country of such an amalgamate nature as Austria-Hungary, where at every turn something unexpected challenges query. How comes it, for instance, that having left behind a Parliament House in Vienna we find another in Budapest though both own allegiance to the same sovereign? Why should Hungarians be so much exasperated if their country is spoken of as part of an empire when they acknowledge an Emperor as their ruler?

To gain some grip of these matters a short historical introduction is undoubtedly necessary. I do not think, however, that history should always begin at the beginning, though many people have a passion for delving into the past and groping after the roots of a subject, which often prove, when unearthed, to be exceedingly dry. The same tendency may be observed in writers of biography, who are rarely content to begin with the man or woman whose life they are undertaking, or even with their parents, but frequently go back through many centuries, dwelling at dreary length upon tedious details which occupy half the book before the pith and core of the matter is reached.

Hence in this very cursory sketch of the Dual Monarchy only so much as is essential to give colour and life to the whole book in all its aspects shall be dealt with.

At the present time Austria and Hungary are governed by Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. The two countries are united for the purposes of Defence, Foreign Affairs, and Finance, including the Post Office, but have separate Houses of Parliament, an Upper and a Lower, in each capital, namely Vienna and Budapest. The respective Houses of Parliament are for common purposes represented by two Delegations, each composed of sixty members, and convened by the Emperor once a year alternately at Vienna and Budapest. These members, of which twenty are chosen from each Upper House and forty from each Lower one, are only appointed for one year.

As a composite State, Austria-Hungary plays a forceful part in the concert of the great European nations and wields authority which neither half could achieve alone. The very first necessity of power among modern nations is preparedness for war, and in spite of the curiously differing races and nationalities represented in the Austro-Hungarian army with its two and a half millions of soldiers, the army owns solidarity and force enough to make itself respected.

Hungary is the inner part of this composite country, the core, so to speak, and she lies in the arms of Austria somewhat after the fashion that the “old” moon may be seen lying in the arms of the “new” one; for the provinces included in the Empire ring her round on the north and west in what is more or less a semicircle.

In some particulars we may draw a parallel between the Dual Monarchy and the United Kingdom of Great Britain, for in both cases the union was effected by the fact of the countries concerned having the same reigning house. The differences, however, are manifold. It was by inheritance that the Scottish Stuarts came to the English throne on the dying out of the elder branches; it was by election the Austrian Hapsburgs were chosen for the Hungarian monarchy. Again there has been between Austria and Hungary no Act of Union, though the Pragmatic Sanction of 1723 formed a more “personal” union than before. It is the tie of the Royal House alone which unites them, and it is expediency only which dictates the amalgamation of the military power and finance in the two countries. Even here there are sore jealousies. It is obviously necessary that the same words of command should be used for the whole army, or disaster would result on the field of battle. These words are given in German, a foreign language to the rawly-joined Hungarian recruit, and Hungarian national pride is sorely wounded thereby. The dilemma is a difficult one, and this question remains ever an open wound. The Hungarians have besought the King that their own language might supersede German, but though he has proved kindly to his Hungarian subjects in many other ways, he remains adamant on this.

The greatest difference, however, between the Dual Monarchy and the United Kingdom is the difference brought into high relief by the above point, namely the racial and linguistic diversity between Austria and Hungary. The inhabitants of the two countries are not men of one blood and one tongue as the English and Scots are, but are separated by lines of deep cleavage. And this main cleavage is repeated in numerous smaller fractures, so that the kingdom is split and cracked in many directions. Fiercely as the Hungarians demand full play for their own nationality, yet they would stamp it out in the lesser races within their borders, who just as eagerly demand their own rights. Never was any country so split up and divided, and the difficulty is increased by the fact that the political boundaries are not coterminous with the national ones, but in many cases the frontiers run through the middle of the same race, so that half of it lies within and half without the territory owning Francis Joseph as sovereign! Insurrections outside the borders naturally set aflame the sympathies of those of similar blood within, and disturbances are chronic. It is natural enough therefore that, even setting aside her own desire to snatch an outlet to the sea as the result of the resettling occasioned by the Balkan War, Austria-Hungary should be aroused and shaken to the core by the fighting between races to whom many of her own subjects are blood-brothers.

The Hungarian, Dr. Julius de Vargha, thus sums up the situation; he says:

He further says that the Magyar nation stands between the Germanic and Slav worlds “like an insulator between two opposing electric currents.” This is of course a bit of special pleading, and we fancy the Austrian would hotly disclaim any leaning toward Germany; but it is interesting as showing how the matter appears to the Hungarian mind.

The Dual Monarchy is split into numerous small territories, each with its own history and its own importance. There are no less than eleven languages in this polyglot country, and over all rules the one German-speaking monarch. Part of the Tyrol, one of the best known of the European playgrounds, lies in Austria, but part is in Italy. Bosnia and Herzegovina, the latest acquisitions, do not seem, geographically speaking, to belong to Austria at all, yet they are now included in her territory. Dalmatia, with its Italian population, is another outlying district, and it is vitally important because of its sea-coast. The smaller districts of Carinthia, Carniola, and Moravia lie northward, and above them again is Bohemia, once a kingdom by itself, with a stirring history. North of Hungary is the huge and little known Galicia, not to be confounded with Galicia in the north-west corner of Spain, though the name is spelt precisely in the same way. To the east of Hungary is Transylvania, and south of it Slavonia and Croatia. Still we have only named the best-known divisions.

The whole comprises an immense area; a line drawn round it runs to over 5000 miles and encloses a territory larger than that of any other European country except Russia.

One quarter of the population is German, another quarter Magyar (or Hungarian) and Roumanian, whilst the remaining half is made up of Italians together with Slavs, namely Poles, Croatians, Czechs, Slovaks.

The Magyars, a wild and interesting gipsy race, live in the centre of Hungary, more or less, while the Slavs, of the same blood as the Servians, are ringed round to the north and south, and outside them again on the German side come the Germans.

How did such diverse elements come to be included in one empire?

As might be supposed the centre of Europe took long to settle down. In the case of a country so happily situated as Great Britain the boundaries are natural ones. As for Spain (including Portugal) any child could rule off a line across the Pyrenees and say that the territory beyond would make a compact kingdom. France again is favoured by nature, though on one side she lies open. But when you come to the middle part of Europe there is nothing to indicate where one country should end and another begin, and the friction over boundaries never dies down; as a fact, it seems pure chance that the matter for the moment remains as it is. It might just as well have been the Austrian Empire which comprised the whole of the middle of Europe as the German one, had not the “luck” of the Austrian Emperor been adverse when the moment was ripe. Indeed, it is but a short time since the map gained its present outlines, and who can say it will remain stable?

The Holy Roman Empire included the present Austria-Hungary, with all that is now Germany. It was only about the beginning of our era that the name Austria arose, meaning the Ost-land or East-land; before that time the country was a dependency of Bavaria. About the same date Hungary emerged into a recognised kingdom under St. Stephen (997–1038), who was to that nation what King Alfred was to England. He endowed the church with great liberality, and was cultured far beyond the measure of his contemporaries. He advanced civilisation and trade, and was one of those enlightened souls which are now and then born out of due time to give light and leading to their fellows. The 20th of August is consecrated to him, and on that day a great procession is formed to carry through the capital his right hand embalmed and enclosed in a golden casket. To this day the Kings of Hungary are crowned with the crown presented by the Pope to the first King of Hungary. This forms the upper part of the present diadem, which stands on a new base. Once at least in its history this glorious and ancient crown was lost in the mud! When Otto the Bavarian came to be King of Hungary in 1301 he brought with him the sacred crown, which had before been taken away by the Germans, his allies. But the crown, in the confusion of the entry, was lost, and was only found at length in the deep mud of the hill tracks through which the party had passed.

In 1301 Stephen’s dynasty, the House of Arpad, became extinct, after giving to the nation many good kings, besides the two canonised, St. Stephen and St. Ladislas. Hungary had later as well good kings of other blood, including Louis the Great (1342–82), King of Poland also, when it was for a while the most powerful nation in central Europe.1

The Turks were always a thorn in the side of their northern neighbours, and their endless incursions and alarms were shared almost equally by Austria and Hungary, and in the end were the means of uniting the two countries. In his warfare with the Turks the great general, Janos Hunyadi, proved amazingly valiant and gained victories against desperate odds. Unluckily in one such combat the reigning King, Ladislas, was slain, and his head, raised aloft by his enemies, inspired panic among his own people and ensured their defeat. Nothing daunted, Hunyadi pursued his successes in the reign of the next King, and in 1456 scattered a Turkish host under the walls of Belgrade. It is said that 40,000 of his men were killed, and just in the hour of victory the great commander himself died. Besides being a notable general he was a wise statesman and a strong unselfish man.

His son, Matthias Corvinus Hunyadi (1458–1490), who was only fifteen, was afterwards elected King, and his name is one of the most remarkable in the whole roll of the Hungarians. From his youth up he had been accustomed to take care of himself in the midst of danger, and he developed into a resolute and strong soldier; what was perhaps more remarkable was that he was a patron of the arts and learning. His library was his chief pride, and in an age when reading was scorned he spent hours daily in this favourite resort. Here is a description of it taken from Hungary by Arminius Vambery (The Story of the Nations).

The palace of Matthias was enriched by the work of the best sculptors of the time, and his library was continually increased by the labour of copyists, whom he employed to transcribe manuscripts in Italy. It was the Golden Age in Hungary, and the chivalrous and strong monarch attracted to himself poets, painters, and literary men from all the civilised countries of Europe. Among other things he founded an academy of letters. These indications of a scholarly mind would have been of no avail in that rude age unless there had been strong physical prowess behind them; a weakling, whatever his intellectual calibre, would have been scorned. King Matthias, however, was one of those unusual men who combine mental and physical qualities of the highest order. He was as much a soldier as a scholar, and he asked no luxury in the camp or on the battlefield, content to share in all the hardships imposed upon his men. His courage was proverbial, and his heedlessness of danger so great that he was supposed to bear a charmed life, though not invulnerable, as numerous scars testified.

In person Matthias was tall and broad, with a massive head and keen eyes. He gave the most scrupulous and impartial justice to all his people alike, so that he was surnamed “The Just,” and when he died there was a current saying, “King Matthias is dead and justice is no more.” His death was due to apoplexy, and he left no legitimate son to succeed him.

By this time the House of Hapsburg had come to the fore. They had originally held possessions in Switzerland and later gained position and power as Dukes of Austria, Styria, Carniola, etc. When the German Emperor Conrad died in 1254 there was no successor until Rudolph of Hapsburg was elected to fill the vacant place. The German Emperor, or “King of the Romans,” as he was called, was always elected, and the honour was not hereditary, hence it did not pass of right to Rudolph’s descendants, though some of them were subsequently chosen for the position.

While Matthias was on the throne of Hungary Frederick III. of Hapsburg was ruling in Austria. Matthias attacked him and drove him out of Vienna; but Matthias was short-lived, dying at the age of forty-seven, and his successors were feeble and unable to hold what he had gained.

For generations back the Turks had been a thorn in the side of Hungary and had worried the kings by their constant incursions. They persecuted the land much as the Danes harried Britain, and thirty-six years after Matthias’ death the culmination came in a terrific battle fought at Mohács, where the Turks, in prodigious force and fury, almost wiped the Hungarian nation off the face of the map. The reigning King, Louis II., was but a boy, and his army of 25,000 men was practically annihilated by one twelve times as great, under Suleiman the Turk. Seven archbishops and bishops and thousands of nobles laid down their lives on the field that day, and the defeat was to the nation as poignant and humiliating as the battle of Flodden Field was to Scotland. The Turk has always stood out conspicuously as the only Mussulman power in Europe, and in our time we have seen slice after slice cut away from his territory and set up as independent kingdoms. The time is surely not far distant when the Ottoman power will be pushed across into Asia, to which it so much more fitly belongs; in fact, only the jealousies of the great nations adjacent have so long delayed this consummation.

The Hungarians, driven frantic by their disasters, appealed to the Kings of the House of Hapsburg for help, and accepted them as rulers, alien though they were in blood and race. The solution was accepted loyally by the majority of the people, but it led to little relief, for even the Hapsburgs could not hold back the savage Turks, who overran the great plain of Hungary, and were accepted as suzerains by the people of Transylvania. For a century and a half before the year 1686 the Hungarian capital was in the hands of the Turks. Such divisions and dissensions tore the nation in pieces, and there was nothing but misery for the people.

Successive rulers of the Austrian House of Hapsburg were chosen as German Emperors too, and the effect of this was to make Hungary seem to them insignificant, and they tried to incorporate it as a part of their dominions without recognising the Hungarian people as a strong nation which had freely invited them to rule.

However, when the Turks were driven out of Buda, and the nation had time to settle her internal affairs, things began to look better. The Hungarians voluntarily gave up their right of election in the case of their kings, and settled the succession in the House of Hapsburg; unfortunately, it was only a short time after this that the then reigning monarch, Leopold I., treated them with such disdain that they arose against him in fury, and made war on him, a struggle which continued for eight years and was ended by an honourable peace in 1711, when the constitutional independence of Hungary was fully confirmed.

In 1740 the Emperor, Charles VI., died, and left an only daughter, but before his death he had done his best to secure her inheritance to her by inducing the Pragmatic Sanction in 1723 to extend the right of succession to the female line. She was only twenty-three at the time of her accession, and had four years before married Francis Stephen of Lorraine, who became Grand Duke of Tuscany. Though the way had been cleared for her, yet on her father’s death a host of claimants for the inheritance sprang up. The Prussian, Bavarian, French, Saxon, Spanish, and Neapolitan rulers all wanted what she had got! The chivalry of the Hungarians was called to the surface by her position, and when she appeared at Pressburg (called by the Hungarians Pozsony), then the capital, with her infant son in her arms she was greeted by the loyal and splendid cry, “Moriamur pro reges, Maria Teresa,” which has rung down the ages. Her accession welded the nations together as nothing else could have done. She proved a popular monarch and conciliated the Hungarians with womanly tact; she had sixteen children, of whom her eldest son Joseph succeeded her as Joseph II. and became also Emperor. One of her daughters was the beautiful and unfortunate Marie Antoinette.

CHAPTER II THE MAKING OF MODERN AUSTRIA

Others of Maria Teresa’s descendants, besides Joseph, held the title of Emperor, but as the Germanic states grew more united among themselves this tended to become an empty dignity. It was dropped at last by Francis II., who ascended the throne in 1792. But before that, Francis had gone through the terrible wars of the Napoleonic era, and had been shorn of all his dominions beyond Austria and its immediate dependencies. The first of his outlying dominions to be taken by the French was the Netherlands, in the same year that he became sovereign.

At that time Francis ruled also in Lombardy, and it was not to be supposed that Buonaparte would allow any country so near France to remain untouched; he spread his tentacles over it in 1796, and it became the Cisalpine Republic. The Austrians did not give up without a struggle; they made a strong resistance but were outplayed at every turn. This laid the way to Vienna open to the French, and they immediately took advantage of it, marching through the Tyrol. Austria thereupon concluded peace, giving up all idea of recovering her possessions in the Low Countries, and agreeing to recognise the Cisalpine Republic, in return for which she received the Venetian territory. But the greatest advantage Austria received for thus declaring herself on the side of the conqueror was the province of Dalmatia, which gave her access to the sea and had long been coveted by her.

HOHENSALZBURG

The people of Austria, however, had to be reckoned with, and this peace was altogether opposed to their wishes; after violent uprisings they broke through the neutrality, and joining Russia and Prussia declared war on France. This led to the disastrous defeats of Marengo and Hohenlinden in 1800, and on the latter occasion between four and five thousand Austrians were left dead on the field and seven thousand were taken prisoners. Austria once again cried out for peace and abandoned the Tyrol to the French without the consent of the Tyrolese themselves, who had very different views on the subject. It was in 1804 that Francis II. dropped the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which had become an empty form, and adopted instead that of Emperor of Austria, which he made hereditary; no one seems to have objected, and as Buonaparte had a few months before declared himself Emperor of the French, the two newly created emperors agreed to recognise each other’s titles. Very shortly after Austria was again drawn into opposition to her temporary ally by England and Russia, and took up arms once more against the French. This was followed by the disastrous field of Ulm, with a humiliating capitulation on the part of the Austrians. The Archduke Charles then succeeded General Mack, who had been deprived of his command and condemned to ten years’ imprisonment. Napoleon entered Vienna and established his headquarters in the Imperial palace. The Russians and Austrians together met him once more in full fight at Austerlitz, where they were again badly beaten, losing fifteen thousand killed, and ten thousand prisoners. This was called the battle of the Three Emperors, for they were all present in person.

Austria now lay under the heel of the French, and a peace was signed at Pressburg in December 1805. By this Austria agreed, among other things, to give up her recent possession of Dalmatia; she ceded the Tyrol to Bavaria, and received instead Salzburg, which lay on her frontier and had been ever coveted. We shall see in the chapters on the Tyrol how the Tyrolese regarded this generosity at their expense! It was not till 1809 that the struggle, as a national struggle, was again renewed and war once more declared against France. The result of this was that for a second time the French entered Vienna as conquerors and Napoleon established himself there. The terrible battle of Aspern, in which neither side could claim a victory, left the Colossus with more respect for the fighting powers of his enemies, for it is said that he remarked once, “He who has not seen the Austrians at Aspern has seen nothing.” The fate of the empire hung on the next move, which was accomplished at Wagram on July 5, 1809. The Archduke Charles had placed himself in a fine strategic position on the hills above Vienna, and waited for the French to cross the river, yet in spite of this the Austrians were smashed to pieces. Their bravery is evinced by the fact that forty thousand dead and wounded were left on the field, but nothing could withstand the genius of the Man of War who had let loose his hounds upon them. The peace of Schönbrunn, signed in October, gave up to the conqueror over forty-three thousand square miles of territory, including the Tyrol, which the Austrians had once again attempted to save. Austria lay prone, and it is greatly to her credit that after an interval she once again agreed with the allies, Prussia and Russia, to make another desperate struggle for liberty, even though Napoleon had married the daughter of Francis II.

This princess, Maria Louisa, was of a despicable character, and did not deserve a better fate. She was the mother of the boy afterwards known as the King of Rome and the Duke of Reichstadt. She died at Vienna in 1847.

Metternich, the celebrated Austrian minister, played a large part in affairs during this unhappy time; he was born in 1773 and was not in reality an Austrian, having first seen the light in the Rhenish provinces, at a small village from which he took his name. The European nations, by now banded together in resistance to their common foe, met in consultation; three great armies were formed, one in the Netherlands of English, Dutch, and Prussians, with Wellington and Blücher in command; another on the Rhine, of Austrians, Russians, and Germans; and a third in Italy, chiefly of Austrians. This was in 1815, and the result was made known in the world-famous battle of Waterloo, at which no Austrian happened to be present.

At the end of the war Austria had indeed been deprived of her Netherlands possessions, but she had instead Dalmatia, and also Venetia,—which was not finally reft from her until 1866,—and her hereditary dominions in the Tyrol and in Carinthia and Carniola were secured to her. She was compact and welded together, and instead of suffering from the long protracted trials which she had endured, she came out the stronger from them.

In 1835 Francis II. died and was succeeded by his son, Ferdinand IV., who in 1848 abdicated in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph, the present ruler of the Dual Monarchy. However, Francis Joseph did not come to an easy inheritance, for Hungary was racked with the strain of trying to burst the limits imposed on her, in order to give her nationality free play. It was in this struggle that the great leader Kossuth came to the front, and in 1848 laws were passed allowing to Hungary a responsible ministry, parliaments to be held annually in Budapest, popular representation and freedom of the press; but nevertheless Hungary was soon again in the throes of revolution. The Croats, Serbs, and the Wallachs of Transylvania rose against her. The turmoil ended in a war between Austria and Hungary, in which Kossuth was the moving spirit on the Hungarian side. But when Russia joined her might to that of Austria, Hungary was ground between two mills and had no chance. Kossuth fled to Turkey, and thence later journeyed to England and the United States, preaching his cause. He died in exile in Italy in 1894, at the age of ninety-two.

In 1867 Hungary was granted a separate constitution and recognised fully as a separate kingdom. It was then ratified by Act of Parliament “That Hungary in the spirit of the constitution is an independent country and does not belong to the countries included in the Austrian Empire.”

The titles of the present Austrian ruler are extraordinarily numerous; besides being Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary he is King of Bohemia, Galicia, Croatia, Slavonia, Illyria, and Dalmatia; Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Lorraine, of Salzburg, of Styria, Carinthia, Bukowina, and Carniola; Count of the Tyrol, Graditz, and Gradiska, and even this does not exhaust the list of titles. Among them is the purely fanciful one of King of Jerusalem and that of Count of Hohenhembs, under which, as Countess, the unfortunate Empress was travelling incognito when murdered.

The two chief powers in the Germanic states were the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, and it was recognised by all the smaller states that the Presidency of the Diet, as it was called, must fall to one of these two. In 1865 Prussia and Austria came to grips over the question of Schleswig-Holstein, and in “The Seven Weeks’ War” the Austrians were decisively beaten. So important was this war in the history of modern Europe that it must be described somewhat more at length, as it settled for our own time the question of the power of the German and Austrian monarchs.

In 1864 Austria and Prussia together wrenched from Denmark the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein and the Duchy of Lauenburg, and almost immediately thereafter difficulties ensued regarding the administration of them. After a while it was agreed that Austria should take over the administration of Holstein and Prussia that of Schleswig, but when mischief is brewing between two nations who have for years been rubbing up against each other’s sore points, any settlement can only be temporary, and this arrangement ended in a further quarrel. Almost before the other states had realised what was happening, Prussian troops had invaded Austrian territory by way of Saxony and Bohemia. This was in June 1866, and no amount of reasoning on the part of Austria could have averted it, the Prussians were ripe for a fight, and under the leadership of their great general, Von Moltke, were confident of victory. On paper indeed Austria seemed to have quite as good a show as her aggressive neighbour, for many of the smaller states, such as Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, and the two Hesses were on her side, but Prussia had secured the alliance of Italy, always in a state of irritation against Austria on account of her coterminous border. She now intervened, with the effect of causing a dispersal of Austrian troops through the necessity of being on guard in the south. The Prussians advanced almost without opposition through Saxony, and were careful to treat the inhabitants of the country fairly so as to secure their co-operation.

In Bohemia the Austrians made some resistance but the luck was against them. The action at Podoll, where the river Iser is 100 yards wide, was an instance of this. The Austrians held the village and were determined to make a stand. The Prussians were better armed, however, and particularly had an advantage in the rapid fire of their needle-guns or breech-loading rifles, then just coming into use, while the Austrians still carried muzzle-loaders.

The Prussians had arrived just as night was closing in, and though the Austrians had the shelter of the houses in which they were entrenched, they were pressed back, and mercilessly outplayed by the German Jägers.

The contest ended in a clear victory for the Prussians. Close on five hundred unwounded Austrian prisoners were next morning marched up to headquarters, and the Austrian loss in killed and wounded was very considerable. The medical officers officially reported the proportion of wounded Austrians to wounded Prussians as five to one.

Besides the great strategist, Von Moltke, the Prussians possessed an able leader in Prince Frederick Charles, the brother of the King, to say nothing of the Crown Prince.

The Austrian cavalry, consisting of the Hussars and Dragoons, especially the Windischgrätz Dragoons, were among the most famous in the world, but again and again in desperate hand-to-hand encounters, sometimes in narrow streets, hemmed in, they met their match in the Prussian Uhlans and the Dragoons of their enemies.

On June 29 the King left Berlin and on July 1, arriving at the army headquarters in Bohemia, he assumed supreme command of the three Prussian armies then engaged in the war.

Two days later was fought the supreme action of the war in the battle of Königgratz or, as it is better known, Sadowa, which settled for ever the leadership of the Germanic states. At first the Austrians were stationed in the village of Sadowa, but being driven out by a rush, they retired into the wood above, and held it strongly, and here a fierce struggle with the bayonet followed.

The Prussians advanced against the nearest trees, but did not at first make much impression, for the Austrians being here again concealed, the fire of the needle-gun did not tell, and a whole battery placed at the far end of the wood fired through the trees, and told on the Prussian ranks with awful effect. But the assailants fought on and at last broke down the obstacles at the entrance, and then dashed in.

Affairs did not apparently go more favourably for the Prussians in the centre. The whole of the First Army was severely engaged, with the exception of eight batteries of artillery and cavalry, which were still held in reserve.

When Chlum was taken the Crown Prince advanced to the help of his generals against Lissa wood, and encouraged by this reinforcement, which had so unexpectedly turned the tables on the foe, the Prussians of the First Army leapt to the charge and made for the Austrian batteries, which had previously done them so much damage. The Austrians, thus cornered, attempted to escape and made their way down to the hollow ground on the other side. But even then, though mowed down by the needle-guns, the Austrians were not beaten. Even when the Prussian artillery was brought up and sent its shells bursting over the heads of the retreating soldiers the retreat never became a rout. Terrible fighting followed, as the Austrians took up their position in the valley and played their batteries on the pursuers. The manner in which the Austrians worked their artillery on this occasion provoked the admiration of their enemies and passed into a proverb. The cavalry on both sides met in a tremendous collision, but for the Austrians the day was lost, and thenceforth they retreated, and the pursuit was continued to the Elbe.

One hundred and seventy-four guns, twenty thousand prisoners, and eleven standards, fell into the hands of the conquerors. The total loss of the Austrian army amounted to almost forty thousand men, while that of the Prussians was not ten thousand.

Worse equipped, worse generalled, but equally brave, to the point of foolhardiness, the Austrians lost none of their morale in such a battle.

This was not the end of the war, but it practically decided it. There were many other actions of less importance, but none to equal Sadowa. Thenceforth the Prussian army steadily advanced on Vienna.

An armistice was proclaimed when the Prussians were already in sight of Vienna, at Wagram, where Napoleon had won his victory. Here, on July 25, they were drawn close together, “like a crouching lion ready to spring upon the Danube should the negotiations for peace fail.”

This was what they saw: On the right lay the rounded hill of the Bisamberg studded with vineyards, cornfields, and woods, among which vain search with glasses was made to discover any signs of hostile batteries. Beyond the Bisamberg could be seen the narrow gorge from which the Danube issues, and further still the rough, rugged recess of the hills above Klosterneuberg, rising steeply up from the water’s edge, with their summits capped with heavy masses of dark green foliage, and their sides sprinkled over with fir trees. A little to the left and at the foot of the hills the city of Vienna lay sparkling in the sun; the tops of the steeples and the roofs of the houses glittered in the bright flood of light. Far away on the left front spread the Marchfeld, beyond which could be seen the dim blue line of hills which gird the valley south of the Danube, while directly to the left the dark Carpathians towered up to the sky.

Those who know Vienna will recognise the unchanged contours of the country, even fifty years after that summer day when the tired way-worn German soldiers lay panting in the heat, watching the great city as a cat watches a mouse, and waiting the word of command. Would it come in time? The armistice had but two days more to run! And they who had at one time thirsted to get at their enemy’s capital and so to seize the nation by its throat were now wearied of war, they were many leagues from home, and had had their fill of bloodshed. On the evening of the 26th the welcome news arrived, peace had been made, and there was but one feeling throughout the whole army,—the feeling contained in the word “home.”

The victory left Prussia supreme among the German states for, included in the terms of peace, among other things, was the condition that Austria should retire from the Germanic confederation, leaving her great rival undisputed master.

It was during this war that Hanover made so brave an attempt to play up to Austria, and not being backed properly by the other smaller states, found herself in a pitiable position at the mercy of Prussia. It was then that the kingdom of Hanover was absorbed by Prussia and never restored to the King, though he was allowed to live elsewhere in Germany. The feud thus begun is in the way of being healed at the present time by the marriage of the German Emperor’s only daughter with the ex-heir of the House of Hanover.

The relations between Austria and Italy were also changed by this war, though that must be further considered when we come to the Tyrol.

The Prussian King was undisputed lord of the German confederation, but he aimed at more than that, and by the brain and audacity of his counsellor Bismarck he attained his aim, for in 1871 he was hailed as German Emperor, reigning as an hereditary ruler over the Germanic states, and thus began the second German Empire.

In 1888 the Triple Alliance was formed, between Italy, Germany, and Austro-Hungary, each nation pledging itself to assist either of the others if attacked.

CHAPTER III THE EMPEROR

Few monarchs have waded through such deep waters of sorrow as the venerable Emperor of Austria, who was born on August 18, 1830, and succeeded to the throne on the abdication of his uncle, the Emperor Ferdinand, and the renunciation of all rights by his own father. To the good-looking high-spirited lad of eighteen the world probably did not seem difficult to conquer, even though his dual inheritance was torn by inward throes of dissension. It was when he was twenty-three that he met his beautiful cousin Elizabeth, the second of the five daughters of the Duke Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria, at Ischl, and immediately fell in love with her, though she was only sixteen. Though negotiations had already been entered into for his marriage with her elder sister, he declared he would marry her and no one else, and in spite of her surprised exclamation as to why he should choose one so insignificant, when told of this prospect by her mother, he carried through his project and they were betrothed in three days, though not married till eight months after. The young couple were first cousins, their mothers being sisters. On that large family of sons and daughters of the house of Bavaria many sorrows have fallen. The tragic end of the Empress is described below; one of her sisters, the Duchess of Alençon, was burnt to death in the terrible fire at the charity bazaar in Paris a few years earlier. Another, having married the Crown Prince of Naples, was driven from the throne with him.

The Imperial marriage did not turn out a success. Elizabeth shared to the full in the eccentric tendencies of her family, an eccentricity which developed in the elder and reigning branch of her house into madness. She was of a melancholy temperament, and entirely without the power of adapting herself. Young as she was, her tastes were formed, and the somewhat wild out-of-door life she had led as a girl had imbued her with a hatred of functions and ceremonies. She was suddenly elevated to a supreme position in one of the most conventional courts in Europe. Small wonder was it that, in spite of her unquestioned beauty, she alienated the hearts of her courtiers by her want of tact and obvious dislike of court life.

Two daughters were born to her before the longed-for son, and one of them died. This increased her unhappiness, but when at length a prince appeared it was hoped things would go better. Unfortunately the Empress’s eccentricity increased rather than diminished. She took umbrage at the Emperor’s love affairs, which might have been condoned in one in such a position of temptation, and at last she left her home and children and wandered over Europe for many years.

Reconciliation was at length effected over the new Hungarian constitution, when the Emperor and Empress travelled in state to Budapest, there to be crowned King and Queen of Hungary. The ceremonies were magnificent. All the various races of the dominions were represented, as the writer of The Martyrdom of an Empress, says:

The Emperor has always been personally greatly beloved by his subjects, and Prince Bismarck once said, “Whatever dissensions the different nationalities of Austria may have among themselves, as soon as the Emperor Francis Joseph gets on horseback they all follow him with enthusiasm.”

The Empress always got on better with the Magyars than with her Austrian subjects, and was more loved by them. Her wonderful skill as a horsewoman endeared her to the Magyars, every one of whom is born with the love of horses in his veins. After the coronation the Empress set herself to master the Hungarian language, and though it is notably difficult, she became so proficient in it that the patriot Deak told her she was the noblest Hungarian of them all. Her openly expressed sorrow at the death of Deak was another link between her and the Hungarians, who grew to love her as they had loved no queen since Maria Teresa. The Empress Elizabeth’s knowledge of foreign languages was something exceptional; she spoke and wrote German, Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Roumanian, Italian, Modern Greek, English, and French. She was very fond of Byron, who, after Heine, was her favourite poet.

The youngest child of the Imperial couple, the Archduchess Valerie, was born the following year.

In 1879 the Empress visited Great Britain, where her firm and graceful seat as a horsewoman attracted as much admiration as in Hungary; she returned many times in later years, and rode to hounds with the Pytchley, Royal Meath, and in Cheshire, and no mount was too spirited for her to manage. She stayed also at the Isle of Wight, which she greatly appreciated, and her clever feats of swimming were only second to her horsemanship.

The Emperor, meantime, having borne first the burden of internal dissensions, and then the trial and humiliation of the war with Germany, grew old before his time and became grave and quiet.

Prince Rudolph married the Princess Stephanie of Belgium in 1881, and in 1883 their only child, a daughter, was born to them. She was about six years old when the terrible death of Rudolph fell as a heavy blow on his parents. The hot-headed young man was mixed up in intrigues unsuitable to his responsible position, with the result that he took his own life by shooting himself, and was found dead in a shooting-box at the end of January 1889. It is said that the Empress was never known to laugh again.

In the following year her youngest daughter, the Archduchess Valerie, married, and from that time the unhappy Empress travelled about a great deal incognito on the Continent, and staying at her palace Achilleion on Corfu. On this she spent thousands of pounds. Since her death it has been purchased by the German Emperor.

The end came on Sunday September 11, 1898, at Geneva, whither she had gone over for a few days from Territet where she had been staying. Accompanied only by a lady-in-waiting the Empress was walking along the quay between one and two in the afternoon to rejoin the boat which was to take her back to Territet, when a man rushed forward and struck her violently over the heart. It was thought at first he had only stumbled against her and caused her to fall, and though he was secured no great apprehension was raised by his strange conduct. The Empress recovered herself and went on board, where she fainted. It was then discovered that he had pierced her heart with a triangular file resembling a stiletto, which had inflicted only a small wound but bled internally. Brought back to Geneva she died in half an hour. The assassin, who had been arrested, turned out to be an Italian anarchist named Luccheni, who seemed to have no special motive for his dastardly crime beyond a general vendetta against crowned heads. Thus died the Empress Elizabeth in her sixty-first year, adding one more heart-rending sorrow to her husband’s darkened life. There is hardly any grief in the range of human relationships that the Emperor has not known. It was in the very year of his wife’s death, in the month of December, that he was preparing to celebrate his jubilee. Up to the present time he has reigned longer than any other European sovereign of whom we have record, having even out-distanced Queen Victoria.

There is loyalty of a very deep and true kind amongst all classes of his subjects; it is not the Austrians alone, but the Slavs and Tyrolese and Hungarians, who look with tender reverence on the aged man, now in his eightieth decade, who has lived far beyond the allotted span of man’s life. Loyalty it is none the less because it does not seek avidly the tittle-tattle as to royal doings so eagerly sought in Great Britain, nor does it lead to mobbing the Emperor in his capital when he goes among his subjects.

In character the Emperor is free from vanity and simple in his tastes. He has suffered so much that even had he not had dignity and courage as inborn qualities he must have gained them, otherwise he could never have survived the repeated blows of fate. He is sparing of words, but his thought penetrates below the surface. “His calm placidity enables him to see through the transparent motive of the self-seeker, the charity-mongering toady—a rare gift of kingship. An indulgent smile perhaps, but few stars and crosses are to be had for incense-burning to this Habsburg.” In spite of being a constitutional ruler, it is the personality of the Emperor that counts in a way that is felt in no other country. Perhaps it is because he forms the only link among so many nationalities, so many jarring, turbulent, and opposed aspirations, that his person is so strongly revered. Whatever else divides the Magyar from the Austrian and the Slav from the Magyar, here they are all at one. Quiet, reserved, shrewd, and kindly, he has learnt by many bitter experiences to play his hard part to perfection.

The Austrian National Anthem evokes as much feeling as in more homogeneous countries.

AUSTRIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

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Since the Salic law runs in Austria the Emperor’s grand-daughter cannot succeed him, any more than his own two married daughters.

The latest, and in some ways the most terrible, tragedy of all that have fallen on the royal house is yet fresh in the minds of every one, for the assassination of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and his wife, in the streets of Serajevo took place on June 28, 1914. The Archduke was born in 1863, and was the son of the Emperor’s next brother. He was thus past middle life, and was a man of strong personality. His wife was of noble, but not of royal, blood, and had been lady-in-waiting to the Archduchess Isabella. At the time of the marriage the Archduke had to agree to give up all rights of succession for any children of this union, and therefore his two sons are now set aside in favour of their cousin, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, son of their father’s brother, the late Archduke Otto, who becomes Heir-Apparent. He was born in 1887, married in 1911 the Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, and has already a little son. All the Emperor’s brothers have passed away before him. The Archduke Maximilian, his favourite, suffered an unhappy fate. He was offered the crown of Mexico by Napoleon III. He accepted, and in 1864 sailed for the “Kingdom” thus bestowed on him, but his army abandoned him and the republicans captured and shot him, thus adding another sorrow to the heart of the aged Emperor.

CHAPTER IV THE COUNTRY OF HUNGARY

Running round fully two-thirds of Hungary are the Carpathian ranges of mountains. Hungary has been called the land of “three mountains and four rivers,” and the emblem of these form the chief feature in the coat-of-arms of the country. The mountains are supposed to be the Tátra, Fátra, and Mátra, and the rivers the Danube, Theiss or Tisza, Drave, and Save. But this, in regard to the mountains at all events, is misleading, for the country is surrounded by mountains on three sides, a great chain of 900 miles long reaching round north, east, and south to the Iron Gates of the Danube, and to mention only three peaks out of so many but little inferior does not give a true notion of the country.

The north-western Carpathians are divided into several ranges; one separates Hungary from Moravia, Silesia, and Galicia. There are passes of great grandeur leading through the Carpathians at many points, and the way in which the heights rise sheer on the Hungarian side greatly adds to the impressiveness. A good deal of the mountains is thinly populated, and the villagers are often very primitive in their habits.

A PINE FOREST IN THE TÁTRA

The Carpathians are of great bulk and breadth, and are covered with trees. The highest peaks are above the perpetual snow-line, and rise grandly from the evergreen forests. In the higher parts pine and fir predominate, but in the lower ranges oak, beech, and ash are common. Vast armies of pigs, led by little swineherds, seek their chief food under the trees, where they find abundance of beech-mast and acorns. The sight of a swineherd leading forth his flock in the morning from a village is a quaint one. He stands and calls or whistles, and from almost every cottage one or more pigs joyfully run grunting to join him; many of them are horrible creatures to our notions, with matted long hair and covered with fleas; nevertheless he lets them rub up against him, he fondles them, and allows them to rest their heads on his lap!

The chief features of the health resorts in the Carpathians are the wonderful mineral waters which gush out abundantly almost everywhere, and the glorious air and grand scenery. The springs and baths alone are enough to make the fortune of any place, but when added to these are endless diversity of walks through forest scenery, wonderful panoramas of wind and rock-scarred precipices, stretching on one behind the other and backed up perhaps by a mantle of glittering snow, it is remarkable the world at large has not yet “discovered” this playground fully.

There are also little lakes lying in hollows. These are the work of glaciers, and are of a deep blue or green colour. On a still day the scenery is reflected as in a mirror. They are called by the poetic name of “sea-eyes.” The terrific falls of water streak the precipitous heights with white ribbons.

For those who can afford it there is chamois-hunting, though it gets yearly more difficult as the animals are driven further and further by the intrusion of men; and even bison-hunting, though this has to be arranged with a private owner who only grants the privilege to his guests. The resorts are greatly sought by invalids in the winter, and also by a totally different class of pleasure-seekers, those who delight in ice-sports and pastimes. The two seasons are from the middle of June to the end of September, and from the middle of December to the end of February.

All through the Tátra runs a fine road, made by the Hungarian Carpathian club to link up the principal places; this is 21 miles in length and reaches from Csorba to Barlangliget.

The railway line to the Tátra passes by the river Vág for the most part, and as every height is crowned more or less by a ruined castle, it is inevitable that the route has been compared with the Rhine valley. But there is no steamer on the Vág on account of its rapids, and those who wish to come down it will have to do so on a native-made raft, which is piloted with great skill by the peasants through seemingly impassable turmoils of water. The rail goes past Poprad, and it is near here that the first real view of the Carpathians is had, the central range, stretching grim and grey about thirty miles due east and west, and rising apparently straight from the plain.

From Poprad can be visited the extraordinary Ice Cave at Dobsina, one of the wonders of the world, where skating is possible in the summer even when the air outside is at a high temperature. The perpetual chill in the cavern is accounted for by the fact that it lies at a lower level than the outer ground, and that the cold air, having once entered, hangs heavily, so when the warmer air of summer seeks to displace it, it cannot find entrance. The cave is to-day planed and smoothed and rendered easy of access in the way universally considered necessary with any work of Nature’s, until it resembles a piece of man’s architecture; nevertheless the beauty is still great, even though the gleam from the crystals is that reflected by electricity, which gives an artificial aspect to everything. The ice-columns and pendants are constantly changing in bulk and form, and the floor of the lower cave, a mass of ice, the cubic content of which can hardly be estimated, is so smooth that skating is possible at any time of the year.

From Poprad again one can go to Csorba, where a small cog-wheel railway runs to a lake thus described by one who is an artist in words: “Magnificently situated among mountains and forest. Lines and patches of snow flecked the heights, and were mirrored in the still waters. Against the sunset the mountains became a warm plum colour, and, with the dark forests, plane behind plane of purply green, were all perfectly reflected in the glowing water, save where the evening breeze cut level silver lines.” Strange tales are told of some of these lakes, the depths of which are unmeasured, and the notion that they are connected with the sea by some subterranean caverns is still believed by the peasants. The hotel here belongs to the Sleeping-Car Company.

The massive granite range of the High Tátra is about 18 miles long by 9 or 10 broad, its highest summits are Francis Joseph, Lomnitz, and Ice-Valley Peaks, rising to about 9000 feet.

The best known of all the Tátra watering-places is Tátra Füred, called the mother of them all. This holds its season in July and August, and consists of three settlements, New Smecks, Old Smecks, and Lower Smecks, with numerous hotels, concert halls, restaurants, and every sort of convenience for the visitor. Only 4½ miles away is Tátra Lomnitz, where there is a large hotel and golf-links, but no village. This is the terminus of a loop-line from Poprad. At another of the watering-places in the neighbourhood, Barlangliget, there are wonderful caves with stalactite formations. This stands higher than Tátra Lomnitz on the road leading to Poland.

One of the most wonderful and best developed of all these places is Pöstyén situated at the foot of the Lower Carpathians near the Vág. The hot springs of Pöstyén have been known for generations, and are even referred to in the twelfth century. As is often the case they have occasionally shown some vagaries, the mud-source shifting about erratically from time to time on either shore of the river, and after a tremendous inundation in 1730 they disappeared, but not for long, for a few years after the bathing was going on in full swing, and since then the springs have been stationary. They are sulphurous and exceptionally hot, the natural temperature being 140° F. Their upspringing causes an overflow which runs down into the river and shows itself in mighty rolling clouds of steam rising from the surface. The constant flow causes a deposit of silky sulphurous mud, and it is this that makes the fame of Pöstyén. It is a wonderful cure for rheumatism in all its many manifestations, which is borne witness to by a museum filled with the crutches discarded by patients who have recovered the full use of their limbs. The springs are also rich in radium, and radiograph photos have been taken in a dark room by the agency of the mud alone! Besides rheumatism, gout, neuralgia, fractures, sprains, and bone diseases are treated here, and the thermal water is taken internally as well as in the form of baths. The air is dry and the situation sheltered from the north. Many of the hotels are open all the year round, and though the summer season is the principal one the treatment can be carried on at any time. One of the largest and newest of the many hotels is the “Thermia,” which is near the huge Irma bath, itself a revelation of what can be done in this direction. The bath is built right over the springs, and its vast floor, 126 feet in diameter, is of mud. There are corridors and lifts and dressing-rooms enough for an army, and private baths can be had here too. It is one of the latest and most complete buildings of its kind in the world. There is another bath-house too bearing the name of the monarch. The Kur Salon, adjoining the Kur Hotel, contains reading-rooms, music and dining-rooms, besides a beautiful ballroom. There are recreation grounds, a theatre, a fine park with magnificent trees and promenades by the river. Here special home-industry articles of needle-work peculiar to the district are on sale. Boating can be indulged in safely, and there are endless beautiful walks into the hills around. The proprietor of Pöstyén is Count Emmerich Erdody, and he lets the Spa on lease.

At a little known place on the Mátra mountains called Párad, the waters are a combination of iron and alkaline, and also there is a spring of arsenic water which achieves astonishing results in certain cases. So numerous are the springs in these parts that in spite of the up-to-date development of such places as Pöstyén and Tátra Füred, there are many places where the peasants still indulge in primitive baths as the pigs used the pools before Bath was built. Owing to their open-air life and the constant dampness of their clothes the poor people suffer greatly from rheumatism, and while bathing they preserve their bodies from the extreme heat of the pits where the water lies, by lining the sides with branches of trees as was done in the old days at Pöstyén itself.

Far the most intimate picture of homely life among the various peoples of the Carpathians which has yet been written in English, is Mrs. Phillimore’s In the Carpathians, giving an account of a leisurely tour made by herself and her husband with a cart all around the great encircling heights. Poles, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Czechs, Saxons, all passed before them in review, and they even came across the dreaded Wallachs, held up by the Slavs as bogey men. The Wallach is akin to the Roumanian, and proved himself on acquaintance much less formidable than painted.

They started from Zakopane in High Tátra Mountain, and here they picked up the Polish boy, Milak, who went the greater part of the way with them to drive the cart. They slept out for the most part, had a total absence of adventures of any kind, and the chief difficulty was the lack of food. They were on the border line between Hungary and Galicia, crossing into one or the other as the road wended. Bread, bacon, and sausages, honey and fruit, and sometimes cheese and milk, were the staple diet, and oft-times they were thankful to get anything. Many of the villages were extremely poor. They passed through a watering-place at Bardfield, where baths, cafés, restaurants, and large hotels make it exceedingly popular with the German element who take up all the rooms weeks ahead for the season. But for the most part they shunned the frequented resorts and passed only through little-known districts where the people were very poor.

The writer sums up the races she met in this sentence:

A ROAD IN THE CARPATHIANS

It is a record of beech woods, and many streams, of quiet bad roads, and wide maize fields, of poor and dusty villages with kindly villagers, who, though curious, were usually innately well-mannered.

After completing the semicircle they returned again to the plain, and here is a striking little description:

A book to read, though it does not encourage one to “go and do likewise.”

The north-eastern Carpathians include the Wooded Carpathians and a range of low hills where the much admired wine of Tokay is produced. The town of Tokay nestles at the base of these hills, called Hegyalia, and is itself disillusioning, its population consisting almost entirely of wine-growers and wine-buyers or middlemen, so that a constant chaffering spirit spoils the romance. The essence of Tokay is made of the juice which runs out of the ripe grapes pressed down by their own weight. This is produced by putting the grapes in a cask with holes bored in the bottom through which the juice runs. This essence is so scarce that it is hardly ever offered for sale to outsiders, who, indeed, get very little chance of pure Tokay at any time. The other two kinds are made by mixing juice, pressed artificially out of fresh grapes, with some of the pulp, and these two are known as “ausbruch” and “maslas.” Tokay varies from pale yellow to rich gold in colour, but red wines are produced in Transylvania and elsewhere.

Many are the drinking songs of Hungary, but very difficult to translate in the spirit of the original. Here is a characteristic one:

WINE SONG

Hungary ranks high among wine-producing countries, at least a million acres being under cultivation of the vine, while the Tokay wine is limited to that grown within an area of about twenty square miles.

A YOUNG MAGYAR CSIKÓS

In contrast to the stern heights of the mountains the Great Plain of Hungary, the Alföld, which has been called the “heart and brain and soul” of Hungary, is a startling contrast. It is 35,000 square miles in area, and the soil is rich, so that it lies like an oasis amid the encircling heights. It is the greatest plain in Europe and is at an average height of 350 feet above the sea. Quantities of corn are grown here, but in some places the ground is still too swampy for such cultivation, and the people live by gathering the reeds and rushes with which to make mats, and osiers for baskets.

But this was written many years ago, and much of the area has been drained since then.

Any one familiar with the prairie can well picture the Alföld with its undying fascination, and will be able to see it in the mind’s eye as it lies with miles and miles of yet unripened corn like a vast ocean brushed into small waves by the wind. There is hardly a tree, and the sky-line, unbroken in its tremendous semicircle, sweeps on ever infinitely. It is difficult to give any idea of the Alföld, unless the characteristics of the people who dwell in it are taken into account as throwing light upon it. This great plain, once an inland sea, contained at one time a gigantic marsh of 100,000 acres, and the rivers Theiss (or Tisza) and Danube overflowed their banks occasionally, making it impossible for any one to live near them in safety. Now a great part of the marsh has been drained, the rivers are confined to their channels, and their backwaters and islets form a breeding-place for thousands of geese, which at times may be seen in such numbers that it seems as though the land was covered with large snowflakes.

Here is a translation of an old national song:

THE ALFÖLDER

The Hungarians were ever a wild and warlike people, and as the country became more settled they found their chief delight in tending horses, being born horsemen. The name csikos, which really means horseman, now includes shepherd or herdsman. Horse-breeding goes on largely to this day. The csikos live a primitive wild life still, and round up their horses with the skill of an American cowboy. The horses in the herd are half-wild, and are rounded up by the use of the karikas, a short-handled long-lashed whip, with which the herdsman, going at full speed, can single out any animal and touch it up in any part of its anatomy he desires with the unerring aim of a brilliant marksman with a bullet. His own special mount is generally as dear to him as the Arab’s horse is to its master. It shares his shelter and will come at his call, and eat out of his hand. The name Hussars applied to troops of soldiers comes from Hungary, and the Hungarian Huszar is still the best rider on the continent, a veritable part of his beast.

The Hungarian horses are as a rule hardy spirited little creatures, descendants of the race which came with their masters from the east. The government has improved horse-breeding, introducing English and Arab blood, and there are two large government studs for the purpose.

MAGYAR SHEPHERDS

The Hungarian loves the boundless spaces of the plain; it has been said that he shares in its qualities, “the same absolute straightness, the same taciturnity characterise both.” Here in the sweltering summer heat he works all day uncomplainingly, to gather in the fruits of cultivation; here, when the white mantle of winter lies over the silent icy spaces he wanders in his sheepskin. The horseherd or csikos, once the aristocrat of the plain, now is hardly distinguishable from the shepherd or cow-herd whose avocations he shares. The far-famed white horned cattle of Hungary are tended and reared on the Alföld. It is a sight to see them yoked as a four-in-hand with their spreading horns and splendid hides gleaming in the sun. Beneath an acacia, the Hungarian tree, or a willow, both of which are plentifully found, the shepherd pitches his rude wattled tent. Possibly he has with him one of the native dogs, great snow-white shaggy fellows, who are, alas, growing fewer every year. Storms and clouds, heat and rain, affect not the man who meets them all calmly. The great black cloud of hail which bursts in masses of ice is met with stoical patience. At evening, maybe, he sees far off across the plain what appears like a sheet of blue water, and yet there is none; it is a mirage raised by the refractive power of the air. The wild duck and water-hens and even the herons have now migrated elsewhere, but there is still fishing to be had, and the herdsman is often a keen angler.

There are many flourishing towns to be found in the Alföld, of which Debreczen, Szeged, Kecskemét, and Temesvar are perhaps the best known. In these towns there are electric lighting, asphalt paths, a good water supply, and other comforts of civilisation.

A recent writer has said:

The largest lake in Hungary is Lake Balaton, which may well be described as an inland sea, for it is 47 miles in length. It is difficult to describe what Lake Balaton means to a country like Hungary deprived of a seashore. Though the lake has no tides the levels are so constantly changing that monotony is impossible; this is no dead sheet of water. Its very size makes room for the breakers the storm-wind sweeps before it, and storms are by no means lacking. For many years there has been a railway line along the southern shore, but only recently another, completed in 1909, carries people also along the northern shore, which is the more popular, and the health resorts and bathing places which have sprung up are innumerable. All Hungarians who can afford it carry their families to this charming resort, there to bathe and dabble and fish, or to voyage by steamer or yacht. The lake is divided into two by a long peninsula which stretches out from the north side almost to the opposite shore. On the north side, there are hills rising in vine-clad slopes, with white houses nestling in them, and at the foot many a town, of which Balaton-Füred is the principal one. The lake is rather shallow, though varying enormously with the feeding it receives from springs and streams, but it is deepest on the north side, where bathing is easier than on the sandy shore of the too shallow south. Long wooden piers with huts at the end of them are constantly available, and every one bathes. Many a pretty picture can be seen of a peasant woman, her face alight with fun, her wet hair thrown back, dipping a pink innocent babe in the fresh water.

Balaton-Füred is not only a seaside place but has wonderful alkali springs and baths which are excellent as cures. There are many excursions to be made. Steamers run the whole length of the lake. The walks and drives are innumerable. For other interests there are yacht races and fishing. In winter the lake freezes easily because of its general shallowness, and then the whole of the 600 square kilometres are available for skating and winter sport. When the ice breaks up, which it does with cracks like pistol-shots, and piles itself in masses, glittering with every colour of the rainbow like gigantic prisms, happy are they who are there to see it!

THE ÖRTLER SPITZE

At the western end there are curious basaltic effects, great cones rising from the vine-covered slopes like sugar-loaves, or hills which appear to be built up of columns of basalt, as in the far-famed Fingall’s Cave of Scotland. There are ruined castles artistically arranged on hills, piled up by the gradual forces of nature, not by art; and there is the magnificent seat of Count Tassilo Festetics at Keszthely near the western end. Balaton well deserves the place it holds in popular estimation in Hungary.

If time is limited, and it is desired to see something of the two great attractions of Hungary, the rich lowland and the mighty hills, in a short time, no one could do better than take a ticket from Budapest to Orsova. Railway travelling in Hungary is cheap compared with other countries; it is run according to zone system, and the farther you go the less you pay proportionately. The management is extremely enterprising, and deserves much credit for it in a country where the national spirit is inclined to dwell on the past rather than to work for the future.

The very large towns passed through will astonish those who think that the peasants still live in little rough villages. At a place like Kecskemét, for instance, there is a magnificent town hall, and as the town is truly Hungarian the quaint costumes of the people seen in the imposing streets have all the piquancy of contrast with their modern surroundings. Kecskemét lives to a large extent by agriculture. The suburbs are one mass of fruit orchards, and at the time of the “peach market” the smell of the exquisite fruit is radiated far and wide. Cucumbers—which are eaten by the children like bananas—grapes, and apricots, are grown in quantities, and there are a number of vineyards. Willows and acacias are frequently seen, both being planted along the roads in avenues.

A very large town on the banks of the Tisza is Szeged, with over 100,000 inhabitants. Szeged has suffered much in times past from the Tisza’s unruly manners, and in 1879 was subject to a very terrible inundation, when hundreds of people were drowned. The river is now properly embanked. The wide squares, the well laid out gardens, the artistic architecture, will be a revelation to many people. The town has a busy industrial life with steam-mills, timber-works, flax industries, also paprika-mills. This is a special industry. The hot red pepper called paprika is used in quantities by every Hungarian, and dished up on all occasions. Formerly it used to be ground by hand, but now steam-driven mills have taken up the task. There are distilleries too, and Szeged soap is renowned, while its silk slippers are famous. The river is responsible for shipbuilding and fishing industries. Another large town is Temesvar, also industrial, with clean straight streets, electric tramways, and an extraordinary amount of open space. Its chief interest is that here stood the original castle of the great patriot, John Hunyadi, now marked by a later castle in a square of that name. Tobacco and mosaic, bricks and textile goods are turned out from Temesvar, and not far off is a fine watering-place called Buzias. Northward lies another large town called Arpad, the centre of a rich vine-growing district.

It is only after leaving Lugos we begin to see the hills, which we are soon to enter.

To the east lies a country of mining and factories, smelting furnaces, and other disagreeable evidences of industrial prosperity. The smelting is carried on by charcoal made from the splendid fir and beech forests. Iron and coal are found in quantities, and it will be news to most people that Hungarian steel goes to England as well as to other European countries.

Road, rail, and river run together through a narrow mountain defile, and finally the railway goes through a tunnel which is at the summit level of the line. Then the line is wonderfully engineered in and out along the hillsides, across valleys, and over bridges. In one of these valleys is the oldest health resort in the country, the famous Baths of Hercules, not far from the Iron Gates of the Danube. Herculesfürdo, to give it its native name, was established by the Romans two thousand years ago. The springs are sulphur and salt, and the cures of rheumatism, skin disease, and other ailments still wrought by them are almost miraculous. The river Cserna runs through the valley. The place is under State management, and there are now many good hotels, and the walks through the steeply-rising wooded cliffs are well planned and laid out. It is visited in the season by hundreds of people, a large number being foreigners. From the top of the hills, which rise to over 3000 feet, there are charming views. In these hills there are caves, one of which is full of hot vapours and used by many people as a vapour bath.

Beyond this we reach Orsova, which is on the Danube and is mentioned elsewhere.

This little glimpse of the Alföld with its wheatfields and vineyards, its flourishing towns and large rivers, will give an excellent impression in miniature of the whole of its extent, while the grim scenery of the Southern Carpathians forms a striking contrast.

So much for the northern and eastern parts of the Dual Monarchy, but the south-western part has a character quite its own, and in the Empire of Austria the Alps play a larger part than the Carpathians. The Rhaetian or Tyrolese Alps form the highest range, many topping 12,000 feet, the highest point, the Orteler Spitze, attaining 12,814. These Alps are subdivided into three chains, of which the above-mentioned peak is to be found in the most southerly; the middle chain extends to the borders of Salzburg and Carinthia, and the northern one lies above it again. The Noric Alps are those in Salzburg, Styria, and Carinthia, and they are also broken into chains. The Carnic or Carinthian Alps are another range in the north of Carniola, and the Julian Alps lie in a south-easterly direction, running through Carniola to Dalmatia.

All the beautiful mountainous scenery in this part of the Empire, including the Tyrol, is known to those who love natural scenery, and the Tyrol itself, with the Dolomites, rivals Switzerland in the number of holiday-makers attracted by it. The country about Salzburg is less known outside the inhabitants of Austria themselves, but the enterprise of the Austrian State railways is opening it up. All this is dealt with in another part of the book.

CHAPTER V THE PEOPLE

A very interesting race is that of the Magyars who people Hungary. The word Hungary is of course derived from the Huns, who are described in their earliest descent into Europe from Central Asia as a “fierce Tartar people of dwarfish figure, great strength and ugly beardless faces.” They penetrated far, under their great leader Attila, but his defeat and death in 453 broke their dominion, and they retreated again, leaving only traces of their influence on the nations of modern Europe. The Magyars came over from the direction of the Ural Mountains in the ninth century; their chief, Arpad, founded a dynasty, of which St. Stephen was the first king. Arpad bears a name comparable with Attila and other great chiefs of bygone days. Mr. Whitman, in his book The Realm of the Habsburgs, says:

The Magyars are one of the few peoples in Europe who do not belong to the Aryan race. Among the others are the Finns and Lapps, the Basques and the Turks. To the Finns the Magyars are closely related by speech as well as blood.

The old song says:—

A PAPRIKA-SELLER, KALOCSA

Warlike the Magyar still is, and proud as Lucifer, yet with a strange mingling of Oriental calm. None others are so philosophic as the dwellers in the great plain of Hungary, the Alföld, where they follow their occupations as shepherds or wheat-growers. They take the good with the bad and are resigned to evils they cannot cure. We have already noted the special characteristics of the Alfölder in connection with his boundless home. But others of the nation share some of his qualities. Those who have been most among the Hungarians speak of their simplicity; they are in all things natural. If when at table with them you want more food, you must ask for it; they will not force it on you. It is there; they take for granted that you know they are only too glad for you to have it. If therefore you want it you have only to say so; anything else is affectation. Their hospitality is proverbial and resembles that of the East. Never is any one allowed to pass without being fed or lodged if need be, and however lowly the accommodation there are no pretended apologies; this is the best they have and they give it you, and they don’t consider that it needs any apology. In the words of another traveller, “You are made to feel that your presence among them is a genuine piece of good luck.”

Though much alive and of an artistic and musical temperament, and ready to go half-mad when worked up in the national dance, the csardas, the Magyar is generally quiet and philosophic. Dancing is the favourite pastime all over the land, and every man, woman, and child can dance to admiration.

Men and women both marry young, and the unmarried of either sex are almost unknown; marriage is as natural and universal an act as birth or death.

Like all proud high-spirited races, who allow for other people’s dignity as well as their own, the Magyars have excellent natural manners; it has been said of them that they are a nation of gentlemen.

A very strange being indeed is the Magyar peasant, mysterious as his country’s history; he has sympathy with gloom and melancholy reveries, and is fond of brooding in a seeming lethargy when his heart is ready to kindle with all the fire of a crusader. When free from his daily labour, in his happiest moments, he is marked by sudden transitions. Apparently happy, he quickly becomes sad, soon to burst forth into exultation, only to plunge again into grief, which always marks the end of his frolicsome episodes. He is not easy to cheer by incitements which put heart into other people, for he does not readily respond to this sort of thing. There is a saying that the “Hungarian enjoys life with weeping eyes,” just as the Britishers are supposed to take their pleasures sadly, and it is true that a vein of melancholy runs through the folk-songs and ballads of Hungary. The gipsy who wants to rouse the Hungarian peasant has to begin plaintively and rise into gaiety if he wishes to catch his attention.

As is perhaps natural considering that his life was passed fighting for his country’s nationality, Petöfi’s poems strike mostly a wailing note such as:

Or:

TO THE STORK

It is of course difficult to give any idea of originals when they are translated into a tongue alien from that in which they were written, and especially is it impossible to judge of the pathos of these national songs without the wild melancholy tunes to which they are sung.

In spite of his tendency to melancholy the Magyar can be cheerful enough and is a good fellow; he makes a particularly good husband and father.

The women are treated well and take their full share in all that goes on. Hungary has from time immemorial given women equal rights with men in regard to property. If a woman marries she is entitled to half her husband’s property in addition to her own, and in case of divorce takes it with her. A man must, by law, leave half his property to his wife.

Ten years ago it was unusual to find any girl of good class working for her living, but now the universal receipt for happiness is allowed freely to women as well as men. In the universities all courses are open to them except theology and law, the last with a reason maybe, as law is one of the requirements expected from a man entering the public service. Medicine, however, is thrown open, and there are even women doctors employed by the State.

Almost all Hungarian women are excellent cooks, and make an abundance of the highly seasoned tasty dishes in which their nation delights. The little strips of bacon, rolled in the national paprika or red pepper, are universally enjoyed. Strangers find the Hungarian cooking a little too rich for their taste, as a rule.

Black coffee and tea made with tepid water are to be met everywhere; buffalo milk is preferred by the peasants, when they use any, to cow’s milk, which is considered thin. Sheep’s milk cheese is to be met with in almost every cottage, and bread sprinkled with carraway seeds is as ubiquitous as in Germany. Otherwise mutton and pork are generally procurable, beef less frequently, and skinny chickens if demanded. Rich cream sauces, smoked sausages and red pepper form ingredients of a large number of dishes. Eggs and butter are cheap, and boiled butter is used largely as hair oil.

The Slavs, who form a full half of the peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, are of another race altogether. Whether or no their ancestors were the original inhabitants of Eastern Europe is a disputed point, but certainly they have peopled vast tracts of it; the whole of Russia for instance, Bulgaria, Illyria, Poland, Silesia, Pomerania, Bohemia, and Croatia are all occupied by Slav peoples to-day. They are held to be a branch of the Aryan race, and are peaceful and agricultural in their habits, not warlike as the Magyars are. In the north part of the Empire they are usually fair, with blue eyes, and the children have a bleached appearance. Those who live up in the mountains exist chiefly on potatoes and cabbage or maize bread, and are often desperately poor. They are generally Catholics, Roman Catholicism being the dynastic religion of the Emperor. Numbers of the Slavs emigrate to America, in the hope of making enough money to return to their wild fastnesses in comfort.

Among the Slavonic races the Czechs are the most advanced, in spite of their difficult and unpronounceable language. They have behind them a national history, coherent and full of stirring incident. This tends to give them racial self-respect, and though they have succumbed to pressure and become an integral part of the Austrian Empire the spirit of nationality is gaining rather than losing in vitality.

The Roumanians are numerically the next in order in the Empire, and they are different again, having a touch of Latin blood, and being tall and dark-eyed and generally possessing very black hair. They tend sheep and work in the forests as their principal avocations. The Roumanians of the Empire live chiefly in Transylvania adjoining their own country, though separated from it by the Southern Carpathians.

Mr. Drage in Austria-Hungary says:

While speaking of the races of the Dual Monarchy we must not forget two important, though scattered, divisions of the people to be found all over Austria and Hungary. These are the gipsies and the Jews.

The gipsies, in Hungarian “csigany” or “tsigane,” are an integral part of the nation, and the Hungarians would be hard put to it to know how to do without them, as they appear at all festivities of a social kind and play to the dancing or singing of the merry-makers. There is a gipsy quarter in every village, and its inhabitants are generally very poor, the children often running about without a strip of clothing on their little bodies. Both men and women are very dark, with gleaming white teeth and wild black hair. They are crafty, wheedling, and dishonest, and not averse from horse-stealing, but passionately fond of music. They are as a rule a fine upstanding race, and pride themselves on their small hands and feet; they can endure great fatigue and are practically weather-proof. Childishly light-hearted and vain, quick-tempered and with their hand against every man, to them the races who are not gipsies are dull and heavy-witted, stupid and slow, made to be taken advantage of. The gipsies develop quickly, and grow old, especially the women, before middle life, but the old gipsy crones seem even more able to wile the money from the pockets of the Gentiles than the younger members of the race, and their skill in fortune-telling is certainly remarkable. Their origin is disputed, but the common idea that they are somehow connected with Egypt is erroneous, though gipsies are found in Egypt as well as in almost every other country in the world, and they are there celebrated for their skill in snake-charming.

Like the Jews they are a race apart, and they preserve their own characteristics in a most extraordinary way considering that they live amidst alien peoples.

The women have a knack of wearing even rags in such a queenly style that they appear more like draperies than made-up clothes, and they have an almost royal carriage which seems to be natural to them. Living in the midst of dirt and squalor, sometimes by preference, yet when they come to the towns and villages to play the young men get themselves up in dandyish fashion, and their command of their instruments is marvellous. In most cases they play by ear and can pick up anything.

The Jews are found all over Hungary also and are looked upon with almost as much scorn as the gipsies, with the difference that they are feared. The great distinction between Jew and gipsy lies in the money-making and money-saving aptitude of the former, his reticence, and the fact that he rarely lets himself go.

Taking Hungary by itself we find the races at the present day number:—Magyars, 9,000,000; Wallachians, 3,000,000; Slovaks, 2,000,000; Germans, (including Saxons), 2,000,000; Serbo-Croatians, 1,700,000; Servians, 1,000,000; Ruthenians, 400,000. Besides these there are Wends, Poles, Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews and gipsies, and some Italians in and around Fiume.

The diversity of tongues in a comparatively small area is appalling, and that they are tongues carrying their speakers nowhere out of their own country is a hardship. Many men are met who speak German, Polish, Hungarian, and Roumanian, and others with other varieties of speech. Yet the Hungarians do not like you to address them in German; they prefer French, which many of them understand imperfectly, or even English. To begin in German is to imply that you classify them as Austrian subjects and that is resented as a subtle insult. Latin used to be the language for official and religious uses all over the country until well into the nineteenth century. It took the place as the general medium of communication for well-bred people that French played in England in the Middle Ages.

Everywhere, as means of travel increase, the men and women of different races tend to become more alike in their dress, and in so doing lose much of their charm for other nations. When one travels one does not want to see familiar clothing, dull and uniform as Western civilisation can make it, but glowing pictures that stimulate the imagination and carry one back to the Middle Ages. Peasants, however, quite naturally, as they go into the towns from their quiet sheepfolds and hillsides and valleys, consider it more “fashionable” to dress as the townsfolk do, and the townsfolk who visit other countries soon drop anything peculiar in their garb which marks them out for unpleasant notice, and so the chain goes on. Only in far-away places, as a rule, with few railway facilities and no civilised comforts, is the national dress preserved in proud integrity. Of all the countries in Europe, Hungary probably preserves the most singular and picturesque peasant costumes, and as her railway system is excellent and her comforts for travellers reasonable (in places first-rate), more and more do those who want a complete change from their usual surroundings gravitate there. The purity of the air in most parts still permits white to be worn for daily use and in some districts the women, and even the men, dress still almost completely in white. But this is not, and cannot be, universal, though almost everywhere may be seen the “bishop’s sleeves” of snowy muslin or linen coming out from a sleeveless jacket richly embroidered. This jacket varies much in shape and size, most often being like a zouave, and the embroidery work upon it is a joy to behold, for every peasant woman, be she Magyar or Slav, can embroider to perfection. It is not only her jacket of velvet or cloth or silk that receives this tender attention but the waistcoats of her men-folk, and more curious still, the top-boots of soft leather, often crimson, without which at one time no Hungarian costume was considered complete. They even appear in the peasant’s songs, such as:

WOMAN’S WORK-DAY COSTUME IN KALOCSA

Pieces of metal are put upon the heels of the boots in order to make them clank and attract attention. These top-boots, so valued and well-cared for, are still seen far and wide. It has been said of them by a Hungarian writer, “that they may be taken as the most distinctive feature of Hungarian dress, the ornamentation of which, a veritable flower-garden, embroidered with leather, braid and silk, is a treasure of the Magyars unique of its kind.”

If this treasure was handed on from one generation to another difficulties might occur, as, even in the same family, striking discrepancies in the sizes of feet appear. The Hungarian girl, with her smart top-boots, necessarily wears short skirts to show them off, and if there is one feature which is observable in the peasants’ costumes, in widely-separated districts, it is the sensible short skirt usually reaching just below the knees. Now when some of the girls in the towns are finding it easier and more economical to wear slippers and brilliantly-coloured stockings, leaving the top-boots for special occasions, the shortness of the skirt has been slightly modified, and it sometimes reaches even to the heels. The next point is its voluminousness. It is made immensely full and pleated into the waistband with as many pleats as it can be made to take. The more skirts a girl can put on, one over another, the more is she to be envied and admired of her companions. She sometimes bears a burden of ten or twelve, which, all being trained to stand out as far as possible, give her the appearance of a rather substantial ballet-girl.

It is in some of the towns of the Alföld such as Szeged that the everyday peasant costumes can be seen best. Here slippers are to be observed at every turn, for slipper-making is one of the most popular industries of the busy town.

Imagine the peasant woman then with white sleeves, short sleeveless coat, full skirts and soft top-boots, and you have the outlines. But upon them what a variety of detail! The head may be tied up in a handkerchief, or with a shawl sometimes of sombre colour, but in certain districts certain hues seem to predominate; there is one where a real vivid orange-yellow, the colour of a mandarin’s robe, appears at every turn, here in a simple handkerchief, there in a shawl folded crosswise over the bosom, and even in a pair of long stockings rising in serene contrast from green or purple shoes.

The quaintest costumes of all are to be seen on high days in the little town of Zsdjar, up in the Carpathians, not far from Barlangliglet. The chief feature is a flat plaque of tomato-coloured satin, fastened to the knot of hair at the back, and falling down like a back-board set horizontally. It is fixed into the waist, and below the waist comes out as three streamers hanging down the skirt. It must be very uncomfortable, as, if loose enough to allow the head to bend, it must push it forward when upright, and if tight when the owner is erect, to bend must produce a strain on the already tightly drawn hair, plastered with boiled butter to make it lie flat. The plaque is often fastened by a brooch, and completely conceals all the hair except that enveloping the head like a hood. When a number of girls so clad are seen from the back on an open road, the effect is like a flock of odd flamingoes, especially if the skirts are white. Gold and silver braid and much ornamentation are displayed on the bodices.

At Toroczko in Transylvania some of the most elaborate and expensive costumes are worn. The girls wear white many-pleated skirts bordered with decorations of red and black silk or coloured thread, sometimes embroidered with beads, and they have red top-boots. The men wear white cloth trousers with stripes of red tape, Hungarian top-boots, overcoats of foxskin and black felt hats.

The handkerchief or shawl is however only the simplest form of headgear, and for more important occasions, jewelled embroidered caps, which receive almost as much attention as the boots, are worn, while every bit of finery a girl can pick up, incongruous or not, she puts into her cap with the assiduity of a bower-bird adorning its nest. Every girl makes her own bridal veil and the little cap she is to wear with it on that great day, which, in a country where the sexes are pretty equal in numbers, is sure to arrive if she is not too particular. Some of the caps are only a groundwork for the curious and elaborate head-dresses which rise from them—head-dresses with wings of stiffened velvet or silk and carrying veils recalling the wimples of the days of the English Edwards in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The appearance of these is sometimes so grotesque when seen in some far-away little church in a village among the mountains as to suggest a fancy ball; and the trimming, which looks picturesque at a distance and outside, seems tawdry when seen near at hand in a mass within four walls.

Even the babies wear caps, and the quaintest little objects they sometimes are, with these glittering and fantastically worked adornments constituting their sole clothing, their naked little bodies looking almost too small for their millinery.

For smaller matters, every peasant woman loves jewellery, and no girl is seen without a string of beads around her neck, and she often wears several of different colours.

SUNDAY COSTUME, ZSDJAR

The apron is a very important adjunct, and is not worn merely to preserve the clothing but as an ornament in itself. There is generally a plain one for the house and a decorated one for festivals and public functions. It is seen of all sizes, materials and colours, from tiny scraps of lace or silk to huge coloured ones, maybe purple with orange stripes, or scarlet and black such as the Roumanians wear. The Roumanians are peculiarly rich and choice in their dress, and some of the most beautiful costumes of all are found in this part of the country. The sleeve all made in one with the bodice, now so popular in England under the name of “Magyar,” has been adopted from the Hungarians.

The Wallach women living in Transylvania wear voluminous white chemise-like garments, and their immense puffed sleeves are embroidered in designs of red and blue. Their skirts may be a long piece of cloth clasped by silver ornaments made in curious massive patterns, which are repeated in their large earrings and in chains slung across their chests, while often the scarlet corals at their necks carry out the note of colour started in the crewel-work. The married women among them wear a kind of turban, generally of white, wound around their heads, while the younger ones as often as not go bareheaded, though they sometimes wear a handkerchief. They age very quickly, and the peachlike complexions and velvety dark eyes, which are most alluring, soon wither and dim.

The men of Hungary are not far behind their gay mates. In certain parts of the highlands they dress entirely in white, wearing short jackets and trousers of white felt and huge brass-studded leather belts. The felt and wool and linen in all the costumes was formerly home-made, and warranted to stand any amount of wear. Alas! now cheap imported cotton goods are quickly being substituted with disastrous results.

The sleeveless waistcoat, with its fancy embroidery, and the top-boots run parallel to these articles of the women’s attire, but one thing peculiar to the Hungarian men is the curious habit of wearing a top-coat without putting the arms into the sleeves. This is frequently seen in widely different parts of the country. The coat is a coat and not a cloak, and why sleeves should be fashioned at all if never for use is a problem that the Hungarian himself would find it hard to solve. The adoption of this singular mode is to be seen in the uniform of some of the British Hussar regiments. Possibly the custom has arisen from the beloved and indispensable sheep-skin of the dweller in the plains, which no Magyar shepherd would dream of going without. It is just a great loose cover-all of sheep’s-wool, and it is worn skin side out in fine weather and wool side out in the wet. It is the home, the companion, the comforter of the Alfölder: when the sun scorches down he makes a tent of it to shield him from the rays; when the icy winds of winter roam like wolves howling over the plateau he snuggles into it warm and safe. The skin side of this even does not escape the attentions of the Magyar girl’s nimble fingers, and it is often embroidered in elaborate and quaintly gay patterns.

Another curious feature of the costume of the men is found in the extraordinarily wide and many-folded linen trousers, so full and ample and short that they resemble a kilt and are the next step to the well-known Albanian skirt of pleated linen. These end in top-boots and make a very strange and noticeable item in the dress, especially when many of the men are seen at work together in the cornfields.

The head-gear is various, but often takes the form of a felt hat with saucer brim and ribbons not unlike that of the Breton peasant. This is for summer; in winter a kind of cap of lamb-skin replaces it.

It must not, of course, be supposed that in such a town as Budapest these gay costumes will be seen everywhere. It is necessary to get out into the towns of the Alföld, to Temesvar or Debreczen, or into Transylvania to see them, elsewhere up in the Carpathians far beyond the well-known pleasure resorts of the High Tátra, and even then, though the dress may be in essentials as described, it is only on high days and holy days all the best materials, ribbons, laces, and gay colours are to be seen in their glory.

CHAPTER VI THE AUSTRIAN DANUBE

The Danube is the second largest river in Europe, its only superior being the Volga. Out of its whole course of some 1750 miles about half may be claimed by Austria-Hungary. Not only are the capitals of both kingdoms situated on it, but the largest rivers in the Dual Monarchy are its tributaries.

The general trend of the Danube in its course is fairly well known. It enters Austria near Passau, and flows irregularly eastward to Vienna, then, in something the same direction, on to Budapest, above which it turns exceedingly sharply, almost at a right angle, and continues due south.

On receiving the waters of the Drave on its right bank it reverts once more to its original direction, continuing south-eastward. The Drave is the northern boundary of Croatia-Slavonia, dividing it from Hungary proper, of which at present it forms an unwilling part. The Theiss or Tisza, which has crossed Hungary from the north in a roughly parallel course to the Danube after Budapest, but with a much more irregular course, now comes in on the left bank.

The Save shortly after runs in on the same side as the Drave, having for the greater part of its course performed the useful function of marking the boundary between the south of Croatia-Slavonia—which thus lies between two rivers—and Bosnia, and then the reinforced Danube, itself now the boundary between Hungary and Servia, flows to Orsova and the world-famous Iron Gates, before passing on between Roumania and Bulgaria to the Black Sea.

The Danube Steam Navigation Company, to say nothing of others, runs an excellent series of steamboats, with reasonable fares, for all who care to see something of the fine scenery through which the Danube passes in part of its course. In winter the higher reaches are often frozen and traffic is interrupted, but in summer the whole trip, from Passau to the Iron Gates, is a delightful one, giving an insight into the heart of the country. The danger from floods has been commented on, but this is caused by melting snow and is not to be feared in summer. At one time rapids made parts of the passage so dangerous that the sensation surpassed mere excitement and became something worse, but by a steady policy of clearing away difficulties and blowing up rocks much has been done to render the passage safe without spoiling its fine effects.

Not the least interesting point of the trip is the strange medley of nationalities one is sure to meet on the boat; Austrians, Germans, Turks, Dalmatians, Jews, Slavs, and Hungarians are mingled in odd disorder, and the clamour of tongues produces a veritable Babel. This indeed gives a variety of life and colour often absent from other trips which may have as much to offer in the way of scenery.

Passau itself, a quaint, old-fashioned, irregular place, is in Bavaria, but as it is only a short distance from the Austrian border, it is usually made the starting-place by those who wish particularly to traverse Austria-Hungary. The river Inn, which flows into the Danube at Passau, greatly increases its volume and gives another reason for starting here. Not far below Passau, in mid-stream, standing out more or less according to the state of the water, is the great rock which breaks the current in twain and marks the meeting-place of the two countries. This is called the Jochenstein, or Joachim’s stone. The respective Governments have been careful to impress their insignia on their own sides of it. There is something more impressive about an unusual barrier like this, with the fugitive water speeding past it from Bavaria into Austria at the rate of tons every second, than about the more prosaic landmarks usually found.

The scenery, taken generally, is varied and beautiful; there are sometimes stern cliffs standing out at an angle, so that the current winds round to pass them, and sometimes they form a grand defile. Many are bare and rocky, others fir-clad, and constantly the grey ruins of an ancient castle may be seen perched on some boss, worn by age and weather to a likeness of the rock on which it stands, an unconscious manifestation that “protective” colouring is found elsewhere than in living species and an argument against the theory associated with it!

Every castle has its own tradition, readily repeated and religiously believed, like that of Schneiderschlossel, where a bishop and a goat and a tailor are mixed in equal proportions, making up a capital story.

Englehardzell is the Austrian frontier house, for the real boundary of the countries, otherwise than in the Danube, is marked by a small stream a little below the Jochenstein.

At one point the river is contracted to half its usual width and accordingly rushes onward with greater velocity than before; the hills rise in varying heights from 600 to 1000 feet, and the turnings and windings of the river are so complicated that one moment the steamer heads north and some time later south, boxing the compass in her ordinary course.

After the castle of Neuhaus, the original home of the Counts of Schaumberg, the channel opens out and shows an entirely different character, with numerous wooded islets and a more peaceful style of beauty. We soon run past Mt. Calvary, the favourite pleasure-ground of the people of the clean, prosperous, modern-looking town of Linz, connected with an iron lattice bridge with the sister city of Urfahr. Linz, however, is not by any means really modern, whatever its looks, as its annals include the fact of its destruction by the Huns! It is the chief town of Upper Austria, and was made a centre of occupation by Napoleon in his octopus-like attempt to draw all Europe beneath his sway. The great features of the neighbourhood are the hill of Pöstlingberg, which can be reached by tram, and the massive castle overlooking the Danube. It is interesting now in connection with the observation cars put on to the Innsbruck-Salzburg-Linz-Vienna line as an experiment in 1912.

The scenery below Linz, though attractive, lacks grandeur, and is chiefly of the willow and lowland order, numerous osier-covered islands appearing in every reach. The river Enns gives its name to the town situated on it, and flows into the Danube nearly opposite to the ancient castle of Spielberg. Before this we have passed the castle of Tillysberg and the monastery of St. Florian—the former called after Marechal Tilly, the terrible soldier who, before he was defeated at Leipsic, used to boast he had never been in love, never been drunk, and never lost a battle!

St. Florian, who lived in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, was put to death by being flung into a river with a stone tied round his neck, hence his peculiar fame for assistance in putting out fires. The invocation to him ran, “O Florian, martyr and saint! Keep us, we beseech thee, by night and by day from all harm by fire or other casualties of this life!” The monastery dedicated to him is very large; the greater part of it was rebuilt in the eighteenth century, but some of it dates from the thirteenth.

Before reaching Grein, the scenery once more grows grand, and the town itself lies above the Strudel and Wirbel, once places of great dread owing to the rocks and rapids. But much of the danger has been done away by blasting the rocks; though necessarily some picturesque effects have vanished at the same time, still the increased safety has not been too dearly bought. The real variety and beauty of the scenery cannot be properly understood by those who merely rush through.

The island of Worth splits the channel into two. It has a ridge of rock on the north side and this rises in contrast to the base of soft white sand which forms a “silver strand” when the current is not swollen unduly. The chief pinnacle is of course adorned by the inevitable ruin, and this is further signalised by a large crucifix, at sight of which the peasants cross themselves.

The tremendous task of cutting or blowing away masses of rock from the river channel took about eight years, and during the winter the workmen occupied Worth Island. The Horse-Shoe water-course, built of freestone, skirting the north side of the island, was planned by the engineer Liske, and the great undertaking was completed by blowing off tons of the Kellerrock, a length measuring over 160 feet. The second terror, the Wirbel, has now altogether disappeared. It was a whirlpool occasioned by the meeting of the two streams which flowed fast around a long tongue of rock 18 feet or so above water normally and 150 yards long by a third as broad. This was less than three-quarters of a mile below the Strudel, and boats and rafts just recovered from the one had to plunge into the eddies and whirlpools of the other at very great risk of being swamped altogether. The cause was in reality simple enough and easily to be understood, being that one stream came up against the impetuous force of the other almost at right angles, but the peasant mind, revelling in the supernatural, invested it with all the mystery of the unknown, and strange tales of weird wraiths rising from unfathomable depths added to the terrors of the passage, and the great circles of the eddying water, reaching sometimes to 50 feet in circumference, were looked upon as a kind of trap peopled by sirens. This was hardly wonderful, as at times the inside vortex was 5 feet deep like a funnel or cup.

RUMANIAN CHILDREN BRINGING WATER TO BE BLESSED IN THE GREEK CHURCH, DESZE

The railway which we met at Linz took a curve to the south, and it is not until after the junction with the river Ybbs we meet it again. The white castle of Persenbeug stands up conspicuously near, with the town of the same name close at hand. The castle of Weiteneck, the monastery of Mölk, are both wonderful, but the latter compels the greatest attention. It is huge and completely eclipses the little town attached to it. The grandeur of its lines, the splendour of its interior finish, mark it out as a palace among monasteries. Its cupolas and long ranges of windows give it an individual note. Inside, the library is a truly princely room, no less in its adornment than the valuable books and manuscripts it contains.

Enough has been said to show that the stretch of the Danube between Passau and Vienna fairly bristles with scenic and historic interest, but two more castles at least must be mentioned, that of Aggstein, standing aloof and remote on its towering pinnacle of rock, and that of Dürrenstein, where Richard Cœur de Lion was imprisoned.

In the good old days, when might was right and opportunity justification, these robber barons, perched on their mountain tops, commanded the reaches of the river and levied toll to their liking on the luckless men whose business compelled them to pass by water.

As to Dürrenstein, it has special claims to attention. Richard had managed to offend Leopold of Bavaria in the crusades in the Holy Land, and on his way home, being shipwrecked near Trieste, wandered through his enemy’s country until he was seized, imprisoned, and held to ransom. None of his unfortunate subjects knew where he was, and the story goes that his minstrel Blondin, wandering for many months in disguise, at length found him out by singing the first verse of a song Richard had himself composed, to which the monarch responded by the second verse. Whether this happened at Dürrenstein or at Trifels, where he was afterwards removed, remains in doubt.

If Aggstein is fine, Dürrenstein is more so, because the crumbling ruins, mounted on a peak and surrounded by torn and precipitous fragments, appeal more peculiarly to English-speaking people owing to the halo of romance. The walls are fast falling to pieces, the stones and pinnacles that stand are hardly distinguishable from the curiously vertical and narrow lumps of rock which rear themselves at all heights around; the railway has driven a wedge through the very rock in which the building was founded, yet a granite mass is pointed out still as the chamber in which Richard was confined for fifteen weary months!

With the considerable market-town of Krems we end the bit of the Danube known as the Wachau, which began at Mölk, and is the favourite “short trip” of the citizens of Vienna, who are carried thence by rail and river in hundreds during the fine-weather season. Happy they to have such delightful scenery within such easy reach.

After Krems the scenery is again tame to Vienna and calls for no special comment, except for the castle of Greifenstein with its romantic story. From this castle there is a fine panorama of forest and plain and of the island-bestudded Danube itself. Before reaching Vienna, pass Klosterneuberg, and finally see the branch of the river, known as the Danube canal, going off, only to rejoin the main stream below the city.

CHAPTER VII VIENNA AND THE VIENNESE

The exclusiveness of the Court of Vienna has become a byword; so strictly is the right of entry criticised that few indeed of those who pass through the country ever gain a glimpse of the highest circles of all. The nobles of Austria-Hungary rigidly keep within their class limits; they do not meet and mingle with the upper middle class as is the custom in so many countries; there is no overlapping, no exchange of social courtesies; marriages are confined to their own class, and a girl who marries outside it is considered an outcast. The aristocracy suffer therefore from a lack of fresh blood in their veins; they are not constantly recruited either by marriages or by the ennobling of commoners as in England, where—though it may be a source of merriment to see the tide of peerages setting in this or that way according to the political party in power—at all events there is always a constant stream of new life flowing toward the upper classes. And the aristocrats do not suffer. There is a marvellously refining influence in place and state and dignity, and the third generation of the soap-earl or the brewer-baron takes his place as naturally and easily in gentle society as the son of a hundred earls.

The Austrian nobles, however, would never receive recently ennobled peers. The sixteen quarterings are to them a necessary passport to friendliness. It is said that on one occasion when an Austrian noble had been setting forth the impossibility of associating with those he did not consider his equals, the Emperor rebuked him by saying, “If I, like you, wished to confine myself to the society of my equals, I should have to go down into the Capuchin vault [where the Hapsburgs are buried] to find them.”

Not only by the want of new blood do the nobles of the Dual Monarchy suffer, but also from an exclusiveness in regard to the occupations that they consider it dignified for their sons to follow. In England not so very long ago there were only three openings for the sons of gentlemen—Law, the Church, or the Services—and the Austrian nobleman has not arrived even so far as that. To him politics and the army are the only openings, and by this narrowing and stultification of interests originality and initiative are deadened. All the healthy energetic life that might be his is monopolised by the upper middle classes, who prosper accordingly, and have an upper class or aristocracy of their own. Though the government of the country is in reality an oligarchy, very different from the autocracy of its great neighbour Germany, yet at the same time it is the class below that of the nobility which gets the most fun out of life and is most in evidence.

The Austrians are naturally bright and pleasure-loving, for on the basis of their German ancestry, which gives them a certain simplicity, are implanted the livelier qualities of the French and Italians, with which races their own has mingled. It is to this mingling with other nations that the noble classes have survived at all and not died out enfeebled by marriages with too near kin. Mr. Whitman sums up some of the foreign alliances thus:

The sorrows which have fallen on the royal house, and the great age of the Emperor have thrown a shadow over the nobility. But the middle-class people are not affected by it. A gayer, brighter, and withal more orderly crowd is rarely to be found in the capital of any kingdom. The Austrian takes his pleasure lightly, sipping his national wines beneath the avenues of trees in the wide boulevards. He revels in good music and fine acting. He is not extravagant and keeps wonderfully early hours. As is natural in such a cosmopolitan country, every race may be found represented on the boulevards and in the cafés. Greeks, Turks, Jews, Czechs, Germans, Slavs, and Magyars are to be met everywhere.

Oddly enough it is the Hungarian noblemen who are chiefly responsible for the exclusiveness of the Court at Vienna. It is they who, in acknowledging the Hapsburgs as their rulers, have imbued their fellow-subjects, the Austrians, with their own haughty temper. It is impossible to help mentioning here, rather than under the heading of their own capital, Budapest, the names of some of the princely Hungarian families such as the Esterhazys, whose castles stud the country in the neighbourhood of Buda. The estates of this one family alone cover an area equal to Ireland in extent, and include sixty towns and between 400 and 500 villages. Stories are told of the hauteur of the earlier Esterhazys, as when one of them remarked, “Below the rank of Baron no one exists,” and another who happened to be present at one of the famous Holkham sheep-shearings said casually to his host, the Earl of Leicester, that he possessed as many shepherds as the earl had sheep! Travel and mingling with the aristocracy of other countries has widened the views of later Esterhazys as to their own importance, and more than one of them is a welcome visitor to the English Court. It would be impossible indeed for any visitor not peculiarly favoured by introductions to get a glimpse of the interior of any of their feudal castles which still exist, such as that of Fraknó in the county of Sopron, the property of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, which stands high on an outcrop of rock and has fortified walls all round. There are twenty-one country seats belonging to the Esterhazys, ranging from a specimen such as this, through fine palaces, to huge modern buildings. There are acres of gardens, miles of forest, a famous racecourse and parks without end attached to these mansions. There are other names also rivalling that of Esterhazy, such as that of the Prince Festetics, and many another. But we have wandered far from Vienna.

The town itself consists of a rather small kernel enclosed by the celebrated Ringstrasse, a tree-lined boulevard, built over the old fortifications removed in 1858; beyond this an immense outer ring of suburbs is cut by a second promenade. The old saying that “Vienna is the least part of itself” is true more than ever now when it overflows farther and farther on to the broken vine-clad slopes which surround it.

VIENNA: CASTLE SCHOENBRUNN

It has little left of ancient interest, if we except the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, and the situation lacks any sort of charm. The town lies in the flat plain beside a canal. This canal is as a bow to the string of the river Danube, and was made in order to bring water facilities to the capital. The difficulty is to imagine why this particular place was chosen as a site rather than any other. On one side at a distance of a mile or so are the heights of Kablenburg and Leopoldsburg, which can be reached by rail, and from which the whole place can be seen lying unfolded like a map. The canal with its many bridges curves round at one’s feet, and at the outermost rim of its bow is the town with many fine buildings, including the Cathedral, standing up conspicuously out of the mass of lower ones. Away to the south is the lumpy hill of Wagram where Napoleon won a hard-fought battle. The city has tasted not once but many times in its history the bitterness of capture and was twice occupied by the all-conquering Napoleon.

But if the site shows little to attract attention, the town itself is full of charm, which is felt at once by any foreigner visiting it. Though the architecture shows Italian influence, yet it is characteristic and different from anything seen elsewhere; it carries its own stamp and is Viennese. Then there is a peculiar lightness and brightness in the streets for which it is difficult to account; it is somewhat the same atmosphere as that of Paris, but again has its own distinctive flavour. Everywhere in the boulevards, the shops, the cafés, one meets the same willingness to help, the same cheerful courtesy, the same attractive simplicity of manner; there is nothing over-elaborated or forced. There is plenty of light and air, and if Vienna cannot boast the attractions of ancient buildings, she can boast all the advantages of a modern city.

The chief features of the town are the Cathedral of St. Stephen, the Royal Palace of Schönbrunn, and the Prater.

The Cathedral, founded in 1144, is in an ornate style of Gothic, and its soaring spire, seen far and wide over the country, is balanced and finished by the pointed lesser towers, the gables and the windows, so that the principal note is one of uplifting. At one time the building, like most old churches, was encumbered by a mass of houses, hovels, etc., which clung to its sides like barnacles, but these were all swept away, and the glorious architecture is now seen to advantage. The celebrated tomb of Frederick IV. in the choir is of red marble ornamented by more than 300 figures and subjects. The whole building is one of the finest existing monuments of old German architecture in existence. The lofty vaulting of the nave is supported by eighteen pillars. Anton Pilgram’s chancel is particularly deserving of study, and the visitor should not miss the thirty-eight altars of sculptured marble. Most notable is the High Altar with the sculpture of the Stoning of St. Stephen.

Not far from the Cathedral is the Church of the Capuchins with its royal vault wherein are buried many of the Hapsburg line, including Maria Teresa and her husband. Noteworthy also are the Italian National Church, containing the monument of Metastasio, the Church of St. Ruprecht, founded in the eighth century, the remains of the Burgkapelle, or Court Chapel, and the Salvator Chapel in the former town hall.

The Schönbrunn Palace, which lies outside Vienna, has been added to and altered by many succeeding sovereigns and is especially celebrated for its beautiful gardens. It is rather formal in architecture, and is best seen from the “Gloriette,” standing on rising ground, and affording splendid views all round, either from the terrace or the roof. The Imperial residence in Vienna itself is called the Hofburg, a conglomeration of buildings of various ages.

Even those who have never been to Vienna have heard of the Prater, the public park, comparable with the Row or the Champs Elysées, which covers many miles in extent and stretches to the Danube. Here the fashionable Viennese ride and drive. The entrance to the Prater is usually rather surprising, as the first part is a veritable fair dedicated to shops and book-stalls. At festival times with the flaring illuminations, the noise and fun and jollity, it resembles nothing else, but has an atmosphere peculiarly its own. The open-air cafés and seats and bands are much patronised by the lower middle classes in the evening on ordinary occasions.

In his most interesting book, The Realm of the Habsburgs, Mr. Whitman says:

The fine Imperial Opera House is noted all over Europe. As a musical nation the Dual Monarchy ranks second only to Germany, and the Blue Hungarian band or the Austrian band are now essential parts of every gay gathering in lands far beyond the bounds of Europe. How many a young couple has floated in realms of an ideal delight to the strains of an Austrian waltz! Music is part of the life of the Austrian, and the opera house is a national concern, as are also the chief theatres. The names of Austrian composers are legion, for the national genius seems to take this direction more easily than that of literature. Among them is that of Johann Strauss, composer of waltzes, blessed in many countries, many climes; from torrid to Arctic zones his lilting music moves the feet and no less the hearts of those in youth’s spring-time. He was born at Vienna in 1804, and is not the only one of his name to win fame with his music. His playing was only second to his gifts of composition, and when he visited England at the time of Queen Victoria’s coronation he won the favour of all music-lovers. He died of scarlet fever at Vienna in 1849. His three sons all inherited his musical talent, though in less degree.

The University at Vienna takes high rank and there are good schools in abundance. Altogether Vienna is a gay, self-respecting, pleasant town, which attracts those who have visited it to repeat their visits year after year.

No account of Vienna, however curtailed, could be complete without reference to Baden, which, though some distance away, is linked up by a good railway service with the capital, and is so much patronised by the citizens as to constitute a suburb. The very name carries its own explanation, for it is the natural mineral baths that have made the fame of Baden, though it must not be confused with the greater Baden-Baden in Germany. The only drawback to the place is its excessive popularity, which causes it to be submerged beneath waves of trippers at holiday times. The hot sulphur baths are equal to any in existence, and the music and dancing and entertainments of all kinds draw many who have no desire to improve their health to the gay watering place.

CHAPTER VIII A MIGHTY QUARTETTE

In music Austria has ever taken a foremost place, and numbers among her sons some of the names that have become part of the world’s history. Perhaps the greatest of all is that of Mozart, the little Wolfgang, born in 1756, first of “musical prodigies,” who, as an innocent curly-haired child, sat up in his little night-shirt, lost in the melody which overflowed every corner of his being. His father was a violinist of some repute, and so his case followed the well-known law that geniuses are often the sons of those who have talent in the same direction. At three years of age the baby Mozart played on the harpsichord. He was born at Salzburg, a beautiful city, situated amid glorious scenery, and often compared with Edinburgh or Stirling. Neither Edinburgh nor Stirling, however, have the snow-mountains immediately behind, providing a backing for the castle on its boss of tree-grown hill, which rises abruptly from the plain. The snow-capped Alps rise around, in tier after tier, deep pellucid lakes lie in the shadows of the hills, and thick forests clothe the slopes. As the sunlight wanders from peak to peak living beauties are revealed, and the contrast of the glittering snow shining through the blue-black sharp-pointed firs is one to stir the artist soul to life. Small wonder that the spirit of music found her son in this ideal spot!

Salzburg has not always been the possession of Austria; indeed at the time of Mozart’s birth it was not so, but being incorporated in the Empire during the Napoleonic wars, it has since remained an integral part of it. The town is at the present time a peculiarly desirable centre for any visitor, as it stands on the line between Innsbruck and Vienna over which the Observation Cars run, and is also the terminus of that other line, similarly favoured, passing from here to Trieste.

At five Mozart performed in public, with his little sister of ten. All the crowned heads of Europe took note of him, but he remained unspoilt, being of a gentle and sensitive disposition. At Paris in 1763 he published his first compositions. In the following year the family, still very poor in spite of his genius, visited England, where they remained for some time. They eventually returned home, and at fourteen Mozart was not only a finished musician but a noted composer. He travelled widely, making a tour throughout Italy, and being everywhere received with recognition and applause. The Empress Maria Teresa, at that time reigning in Austria, gave him a watch set with diamonds and enamelled with her own portrait.

The boy was appointed by the Archbishop of Salzburg, concert-meister, a merely honorary appointment. Indeed, nothing is more astonishing than the fact that during his whole life Mozart never was comfortable in regard to money matters, and in spite of the astonishing number and excellence of his compositions, in spite of his world-wide fame and the great favour in which he was held by crowned heads, he was always poor. In 1772 a new archbishop was appointed in place of the first one, who had died, and this man was of a temperament not, unfortunately, uncommon among those who are in positions of supreme authority in the church, the precepts of whose Founder they set utterly at variance with their lives. He was a bully, and did his best to make the life of the simple-natured musician a torment to him. Mozart, who had poured out concertos, masses, symphonies, cantatas, and even operas, had apparently received very little payment as the result of all this work, which indeed came as naturally to him as warbling to the birds. He asked leave of his nominal employer to go on another tour with his mother. The tyrannical archbishop refused, with insult, and apparently kept the young musician by him for the sole purpose of insulting and annoying him. His irony went so far as to forbid the young man leave to resign his honorary appointment, to which under pressure a little later he attached a small salary, but only apparently for the purpose of binding the young musician more firmly in the toils. He was treated like a servant by the archbishop, was not allowed to play anywhere but in the palace, and was left to pay his own expenses. Mozart did after a struggle get away temporarily, but the tour was not a success; he fell in love unhappily, and when he returned his mother died. In 1782 he married the sister of his first love, and this step proved disastrous; his wife was in no way his equal, and became a confirmed invalid. He produced some of his greatest pieces in Vienna, but without winning the applause they deserved, and when he was at length appointed Kammermeister to the Emperor it was with what seems a ludicrously inadequate salary. King Frederick William of Prussia offered him five or six times as much, and when Mozart unwillingly informed his own sovereign of the prospect thus opened to him he was accused of ingratitude and, with his usual sensitiveness, abandoned the idea.

VIENNA: MOZART’S HOUSE

He died in 1791 at the early age of thirty-five, and his last work was the magnificent Requiem, which had a strange origin, for it had been commissioned by a man who appeared incognito, offering to pay for the work in advance. Mozart firmly believed that this stranger was a messenger from the other world sent to warn him of his own death. He accepted the commission and began to carry it out, but in the meantime undertook other work which occupied his time. The stranger called again and urged him on, and he made further headway, but when the stranger came a third time the great composer was dead. The Requiem was completed by Süssmayer, and the stranger who had commissioned it turned out to be Count Walsegg.

It is almost incredible to relate that this genius, whose work has given his country an imperishable name, was buried in a pauper’s grave, and that even the three “friends” who had set out to follow the coffin turned back because it rained, and so the body was taken to its resting-place unhonoured and alone.

During the lifetime of Mozart there was living also in Austria another of the first-class stars whose appearance in the firmament of music is so rare. Joseph Haydn was born in 1732 and was thus already a man of twenty-four when little Wolfgang came into the world. Haydn was born at Rohrau in Lower Austria, and was the second of the twelve children of a wheelwright. The boy had a beautiful voice and evidently much musical talent, so that a relation rescued him from a life of drudgery and sent him to school, and he afterwards obtained an appointment among the choir boys of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna—a very different beginning from that of Mozart, who was accustomed to be familiarly petted by crowned heads almost from his infancy. When his voice broke Haydn kept himself by giving music lessons, and after following this profession for some time, he brought out his first compositions. He was fortunate enough to find several patrons who recognised his talent, and chief among them the head of the great family of Esterhazy, who made him chapel-master with an independent salary. He never broke his connection with the Esterhazys, even to the day of his death.

Haydn, like Mozart, married the sister of his first love, and like him also had an unhappy disillusionment. However, while he lived with the Esterhazys, and particularly when he was at their princely country seat, he was free from his wife’s unwelcome society. His compositions were very various, and he lived always in the sunshine of his patron’s encouragement. After the death of this prince his successor did away with the orchestra, but treated Haydn handsomely as to money, and the composer resolved to visit England. This he did in 1790, and he was well received. It was on his return to Vienna that the great Beethoven came to be his pupil. Haydn was never so successful in opera as in his symphonies and oratorios, and the name of “father of instrumental music” is sometimes given to him on account of his special works for the orchestra. He died in 1809 at the age of seventy-seven. His life was much less troubled and disturbed than Mozart’s, and his work is of a different genre altogether—a difference fully appreciated by those who understand music.

But greatest of the mighty trio is Ludwig van Beethoven, who was not a native of Austria, being born in Bonn in Germany in 1770. When he was only seventeen he went over to Vienna to receive a few lessons from Mozart, returning there again in 1792. Beethoven was not a prodigy as a child, though he early displayed a great aptitude for music. His master does not seem to have inspired him with any particular reverence; in fact, in after years he is said to have refused him the title of master, as he said he never learned anything from him. So greatly, however, did the Austrian capital appeal to him, and so warm was the reception accorded to him there, that he made it his headquarters, and afterwards never left it for long. His first compositions, rendered to an Austrian audience in 1795, placed him in a secure position, and among his greatest admirers was his pupil the Archduke Rudolf. Beethoven’s genius was of a different kind from that of Mozart, being far less spontaneous and owing much more to hard and painful labour. His originality was greater than that of Haydn, and in spite of abstruseness and that incomprehensibility which must ever remain to all but the few in some of the works of a master-spirit, he was always appreciated and understood. However, in 1797, when only twenty-seven years of age, a terrible calamity fell upon him for he began to be deaf, an infirmity which rapidly increased; this did not prevent his still carrying on the noble compositions, which by a terrible irony of fate he himself could never hear, but it darkened his life and took from him much of the joy of living. He never married, and died in 1827.

Six years after the death of Mozart, but while Haydn and Beethoven were still living, the former a man of sixty-five and the latter twenty-seven (the year when first the shadow that was to eclipse his life fell over him), there was born in Vienna a little lad called Franz Peter Schubert, son of a master at Leopoldstadt. His beautiful voice and perfect ear soon procured him a place among the choristers in the Imperial chapel. No one seems to have taught him composition, but his genius was of the kind that will out, and as other lads with the fervour of the writer in their blood spoil ink and paper from an absurdly early age, so young Franz spent all his spare time composing. When he was eighteen he composed in one year two symphonies, five operas, and one hundred and thirty-seven songs, besides many other things of less importance! He was at this time helping to teach in the same school as his father and all this was done in his unoccupied moments. Wishing to devote himself still more to the art which absorbed him, he applied for a position as teacher in a Government music school, but was told he was “imperfectly qualified!”

The Esterhazy family, who had done so much for music already, accepted him as teacher for one of the daughters of the house. The post was poorly paid and, like Mozart, Schubert suffered from poverty all his life. His industry was amazing; he literally poured out compositions, one of his best-known songs, “Hark! Hark! the Lark,” being written on the back of a bill of fare in a beer-garden! His symphonies never received recognition in his lifetime, and he never enjoyed that applause which fell to the lot of Beethoven. His lack of early training in the technique of music told heavily on him, for the prodigality of his genius had no adequate base to rest on. He died very young, being barely thirty-two, and he is buried close to Beethoven.

That Austria should have produced three such marvellous geniuses, all practically at the same time, and been a foster-mother to a fourth, greater than any, is a surprising record, which will probably never be eclipsed in the annals of history. Many other musical children she has had, but all stand below these great masters. Among them, Johann Strauss, born in 1804, and so a member of the same galaxy, has already been noted. It is impossible to describe exhaustively all of Austria’s musicians who have enriched the world of men with their melodies and their marvellous execution. She stands in the forefront of musical countries, and none will grudge her the position.

CHAPTER IX VIENNA TO BUDAPEST

Following the course of the river onward, there is not much to remark on after leaving Vienna until we reach the boundary of Hungary. The first Hungarian town is Dévény, otherwise known as Theben, and at the mouth of the river March the spurs of the North-West Carpathians can be seen.

THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT AND MARGIT BRIDGE, BUDAPEST

It is tiring to repeat the same things about castle after castle, but the situations chosen for these ancient relics are, in almost all cases, so remarkably fine that it is impossible to pass them by without comment. Even among such a profusion of rocky heights crowned with keeps that at Dévény stands out as something exceptional. The marvel is how the workmen, with no steam to help them, contrived to get the mighty stones planted so enduringly on the great boss of rock, which falls precipitously to the water below. Even in its extreme ruin Dévény is strong, and strong it had need to be as a border fortress always in the thick of a continuous struggle between two nations. It withstood the Turks, but was ruined by the French in 1809. The most conspicuous object about it now is the Millenary column, planted there to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of the Hungarian Kingdom. These columns have been scattered broadcast over Hungary and are met with at every turn.

Next is reached Pressburg, the Pozsony of the Hungarians and at one time their capital.

The first impression of Pressburg is dominated by the square fortress on the top of the hill and the spire of the cathedral. The fortress is in ruins, but the cathedral has been restored. Part of its tower, however, is said to date from the time of the Romans, and some of the building of the thirteenth century survives. There are one or two splendid private dwellings, such as those of the Archduke Frederick and Count Esterhazy, while the fine tower of the town-hall stands so high that it dwarfs the houses near. In the cathedral the kings of the House of Hapsburg from Ferdinand I. to V. were crowned. It is a fine town with exceptionally fine environs, and those who have time would do well to visit it. One of the new universities founded in Hungary in 1912 is at Pressburg and the other at Debreczen.

It was at Pressburg the touching scene took place when the young Queen Maria Teresa appeared with her baby boy in her arms to appeal to the various orders of the State for their support against those neighbouring sovereigns who wished to tear it from her.

In the new constitution of 1848 the coronation place of the kings was removed to Budapest with the Houses of Parliament, and henceforth this city became the capital.

The splendid equestrian statue of Maria Teresa at Pressburg is most fittingly placed near the old Coronation Hill.

Not far below Pressburg the Danube is split by a long island called Schütt or Csallókoz, sixty miles long by thirty broad, with about a hundred villages on it. It is very fertile, and has a great future in agriculture. At the village of Csúny another arm of the Danube branches off.

When we come to Komárom (Komorn), the first stream rejoins the main river, and the current is difficult and unruly, continually changing its bed. It will be remembered that Maurus Jókai, the great Hungarian novelist, was born at Komorn. The town is partly hidden from view by Elizabeth Island, but its neighbour, Ujszöny, on the right bank, now united to it by a long iron bridge, is well seen. Here the other branch of the Danube, reinforced by the Vág, comes in again.

Before reaching Esztergom or Gran the scenery is rather flat, but thence it becomes fine, as the river once more winds round among hills, past several interesting places, one of which is Viségrad crowned by the ruins of the ancient castle, and on by another of the numerous islands to Vácz (Waitzen). Before Vácz it makes a curious right-angled turn, flowing due south to Budapest. Old Buda is the part of the town first reached, and we see the shipbuilding yards of the Steam Navigation Company, and also Margaret Island, with its beautiful grounds, before landing at the wharf.

Budapest is one of the most wonderful cities in Europe, and the third in point of size, ranking after London and Vienna. It is formed from the combination of three towns, O-Buda, Buda, and Pest, which were united under the present name in 1873. The first of these is the oldest.

Its magnificent situation on the Danube gives it a majesty which could be attained in no other way. The best approach is by steamer, when outlined against the sky the Castle Hill, Mt. Gellért, and the Royal Palace on the heights can be seen on one side and the domes and pinnacles of the Houses of Parliament, the gables and roofs of all the remaining fine buildings on the other. If the first view of it is in the evening, then the whole city seems alive with points of fire, and jewels and diadems of lights are flung along the Esplanade and the outlines of the principal streets.

The river varies greatly in breadth, being 700 yards wide a little above the town and less than half that distance opposite Mt. Gellért. It is now spanned by five bridges. The oldest of these is the chain bridge, built in 1849 by Count Stephen Széchenyi, one of the national heroes, to replace an ancient bridge of boats. The others include the Francis Joseph and the Elizabeth Bridges, named out of compliment to the present ruler and his late consort. The highest point on the Buda side is St. John’s Mount, about 1300 feet, but most noticeable are the bare and craggy outlines of Mt. Gellért, rather more than half as high. There are innumerable ferry-boats, steamers, and barges of all kinds on the water, which presents a lively scene. On the Buda side are the oldest remains and the quaintest street vistas. Here is the Church of St. Matthias, which, though so much restored as to be practically rebuilt, dates from the thirteenth century. It is here the kings of Hungary are crowned.

In Buda also is the Royal Palace, used far too seldom by the king, according to Hungarian ideas, for the people would rejoice to have their sovereign among them more frequently. There is nothing old about it, for it was ruthlessly razed to the ground during the Turkish occupation. The Throne Room, St. Stephen’s Room, the Hapsburg Room, and the Chapel Royal are all worth seeing. In the last is the embalmed hand of St. Stephen, one of the nation’s greatest treasures. It must be remembered that the State religion is Roman Catholic; the reigning monarch must adhere to that faith, and the people in the capital of Hungary are almost overwhelmingly of the same creed. The coronation insignia, strongly guarded, are also in the Royal Palace. There are several very fine groups of sculpture in the vicinity of the building. What will interest visitors most, however, are the splendid hanging gardens overlooking the river.

Buda stands on the site of the Roman settlement which was the capital of the province of Lower Pannonia. At O-Buda, on the same side, which, by the way, is the right bank of the river, are found Roman remains, including a Roman amphitheatre, aqueduct, baths, and dwelling-houses, and excavation is still going on. In O-Buda there are numbers of one-story houses, built irregularly, and at certain places it is possible to get quaint peeps. One might linger long here before passing over to the more modern side.

In great contrast is the town of Pest, which, though in its origin almost as old as Buda, has nothing left to carry back its date. It is in all ways a large and splendid town, with wide streets enlivened by beautiful sculpture, fountains, and trees; it has magnificent buildings, and the streets show splendid vistas, especially where they lead down to the bridges. Everywhere run electric trams, and there are electric railways underground. The principal street is that of Andrassy, a name honoured in Hungary’s political life. Here is the National Opera House, subsidised, as are also the theatres. The public buildings will bear comparison with the most up-to-date of modern cities. Among them is the National Academy of Science, founded by the same Count Stephen Széchenyi who is mentioned above. His statue stands in front. The building is designed to encourage science and literature. There is in it a room devoted to Goethe. Another most interesting building is the Museum of Fine Arts at the entrance to the Town Park. Here specimens of architecture and sculpture are found, as well as paintings. One of the best known of present-day artists outside his own country is Philip Laszlo, lately ennobled as De Lombos, a rare honour for the exclusive Austrian ruler to give to one who has made his name by work!

A museum, quite peculiar to Hungary, and very appropriate, as many of her sons live by agriculture, is the Agricultural Museum. This stands by a lake in the Town Park and is built in imitation of a Transylvanian fortress of the Middle Ages.

We have not yet mentioned the Academy of Music, a very important place to such a music-loving people. It was opened in 1875, and the first director was Franz Liszt.

Liszt was born in 1811 at Raiding in Hungary. His father was a steward of the Esterhazy estates and had himself considerable musical talent. Young Liszt played in public at the age of nine, and attracted so much attention that his musical education in Vienna was paid for by patrons. He soon visited France and England and Switzerland, and everywhere his playing was well received. When he was only sixteen his father died. It was the young man’s great admiration for the violinist Paganini which fired him with the ambition to do for the piano what Paganini had done for the violin. At the age of twenty-four he formed a connection with Mme la Comtesse d’Agoult, friend of George Sand, and herself a literary woman, who wrote under the pseudonym of Daniel Stern. Of the three children resulting from this association, one became the wife of Von Bülow and afterwards married Richard Wagner.

Liszt is equally well known as a performer, conductor, and composer, but in the latter rôle he takes a lower place than the Austrian musicians of the Mighty Quartette. As will be seen by comparison of dates, he was contemporary with Beethoven and Schubert. Liszt died in 1886, leaving behind him an immense mass of work, songs, cantatas, oratorios, pianoforte pieces, etc., which are of unequal merit.

The Opera House at Budapest has been mentioned. There are also the concerts of the Philharmonic Society every second week from November to March.

There are numbers of theatres, besides the National one, and the collective life of the people is gay and bright.

The town is particularly rich in libraries, chief among them is that in the Hungarian National Museum, already mentioned. This contains over a million and a quarter volumes, and among them many Corvin codexes from the library of King Matthias Corvinus, which was rifled by the Turks and the contents carried away to Constantinople. It is to the credit of Turkey that a good many have been restored as a graceful act of courtesy to the nation from time to time. The University library, a splendid building in Franciscan Square, owns 300,000 volumes, and the library of the Academy of Sciences, 200,000.

The University has departments for theology, law, political science, medicine, and philosophy.

On the Embankment, which forms a favourite promenade, is a statue of Petöfi, the Hungarian poet best known to the world at large.

Everywhere in Hungary excellent groups and figures of statuary are to be met with, many of them full of spirit and life, and none so bad as many constantly found in England.

The Houses of Parliament include the two chambers and each is in horseshoe shape.

Budapest is very much up to date in every way. There are the three large termini of the main railways, the eastern, western, and southern, besides smaller stations. There is also a “Strangers’ Enquiry Office and Travel Bureau,” which is an invaluable help to any one entering the country for the first time, comparing with the offices of the celebrated Messrs. Cook elsewhere. The most original feature of the town is a talking newspaper, which distributes news by means of the telephone verbally!

Among pleasure-grounds, the Town Park, which is well kept and beautiful with flower-beds, smooth green lawns, and plenty of trees, is a favourite resort, but in spite of its “zoo” it is rivalled by Margaret Island, already mentioned, lying about two miles up the river. The island is now connected by an outstretched arm with Margaret Bridge, itself crossed by electric trams, so that it is very accessible. It is traversed by a horse-tram, and has on it hotels, restaurants, baths, and every kind of attraction. Birches and willows grow freely, and in summer the flowers are really beautiful. It was formerly Crown property and belonged for a long time to the late Archduke Joseph, but since 1908 it has been taken over by the city. The baths on the island are extensive and well built, and are naturally warm. Indeed, Budapest is pre-eminent among cities in the number and variety of her healing springs; those on the Buda side were known to the Romans and much appreciated by the Turks, by whom the two finest, the Imperial and the Rudas, were built. Besides sulphur and hot baths, there are bitter salt baths and, on the Pest side, artesian baths. The water in some of these is of too high a temperature to be used in a natural state and must be cooled. In summer temporary sheds and rafts appear all along the river-side, and the water-loving population resorts to wholesale swimming and bathing. Besides the baths, the healing waters of Budapest are renowned all over the world, chief among them the Hunyadi Janos, so named after one of the greatest Hungarians—a rather doubtful compliment!

The river, which is such an asset to the city in its milder moods, shows sometimes another side. The ice, which accumulates in the winter, is often the cause of much damage, for when it breaks up it comes down in huge blocks, which grind and crash against the piers of the bridges and do an infinity of mischief. Not less terrible are the floods, which in the past have caused inundations, the most fearful of which spelt ruin to the city of Pest. In March of 1838 the river, which was frozen solid to three feet in thickness, began to groan and crack and heave, so that a dyke was thrown up to guard against it. Count Stephen Széchenyi, who was alive at that time, built a barge or sort of little ark, for which he suffered much ridicule. However, during the thirteenth day every citizen was at work strengthening and piling up the dyke, until, at eight in the evening, the river broke forth and, carrying masses of ice on its surface, beat down the dyke and overwhelmed the crowd. The crashing of the ice, the screams of the women and children, the rush of the waters, made up an appalling orchestra, more especially as the whole scene was plunged in darkness. It was a time of horror as awful as the judgment day to those concerned in it! The whole of the next day the river continued to rise, carrying away on its broad flood hundreds of drowned human beings. Those who survived had fled to the highest ground, and as the water reached the foundations of the streets and sapped them, they saw whole rows of buildings totter and reel and fall. The heavy barges and other things carried along by the water dashed into the streets and smashed up what remained standing. There was nothing to eat and many of the miserable wretches were thinly clad and in extreme cold; the fifteenth day was the worst of all, for many died of hunger and exposure, and corpses lay about on what remained of the land as well as floating on the water. The city had literally crumbled to pieces! Those who were in Buda were better off, for they had the hills to climb up, and the flood did not reach them to the same extent; but to convey help across that raging torrent was not a task to be lightly attempted. Count Széchenyi was among the foremost to help others with his ark, and another hero was Baron Nicholas Wesselenyi, who performed prodigies of valour. Those who visit Pest must go to see the bas-relief on the wall of the Franciscan Church commemorating this disastrous epoch. The city rose again on the ruins of its former self, and to-day numbers four or five times as large as it was then.

COTTAGES IN THE ALFÖLD

CHAPTER X THE DANUBE BELOW BUDAPEST

Almost directly after leaving the city to continue the voyage southward, we find ourselves close to the island of Csepel, very like others passed above, only more so! The Danube seems to have a peculiar facility in dividing itself into two branches, which run almost parallel and rejoin after a longer or shorter course. The islands thus formed are celebrated for the fertility of their alluvial soil and are eagerly taken up by peasant agriculturists.

Csepel is a strip of 38 miles or so with an average breadth of 3 miles, on each side of which the arms of the divided river run almost straight. There are at least a dozen villages planted along the island and some 20,000 inhabitants live there.

Apart from this curious feature of the landscape, any one who has come down from the higher reaches of the Danube may feel disappointed at the scenery; he has had his fill of variety and grandeur, of precipitous rocks and sudden turns, and he finds himself instead in the midst of flat land bounded only on the far horizon by hills. The great stillness, the monotony, the evidences of the simple agricultural life of the dwellers in the plain, all contrast with the rush of rapids, the endless change of scene and the suggestions of war and brigandage presented by the stern ruins of the keeps perched defiantly on their high bosses. Nevertheless, in the plain is to be found the true Hungarian life and glimpses of the peasantry. The Hungarian is not a mountain-man like the Transylvanian or Tyrolese. In the long-gone ages it was the boundless plain which tempted his forefathers to settle here, and at the present time it is the boundless plain which holds his heart in captivity.

The great soda lakes lying flat like mirages are deserted by birds in the winter but become the resting-place of numerous flights of geese in spring and autumn. The little villages are half-buried in vineyards and show only the steeple of a church or the white walls of the tiny houses. Great water-mills float placidly everywhere, even though their numbers have been reduced by the adoption of steam. The vast reaches of cultivated land looking rich in the sunlight are varied by the flocks of sheep being watered at a primitive trough and well; just so did Jacob water the flocks when he met Rachel. The immediate banks of the river are mostly sand-hills and reeds, fringed by straggling willows which give scanty shade, and the bed of the stream, ever varying in depth, needs careful navigation.

Kalocsa is the seat of an archbishop, and contains a famous college and an astronomical institute in which observations of value and importance to the whole world have been made. A branch line joins this town with Kiskaros, the birthplace of Alexander Petöfi.

Then we come to Mohács, ever memorable as the scene of the disastrous battle when the Turks so completely overwhelmed the Hungarians that the nation was ground beneath the heel of the conqueror for generations. This was in 1526, and out of 30,000 Hungarians only 6000, it is said, were left alive.

WASTE LANDS NEAR KALOCSA

Shortly after we come to the Francis Canal, connecting the Danube with the Tisza, Hungary’s second river. It was opened in 1802 but became choked and useless. By the energy of Zürr Stephen, who enlarged it and cut two new canals connected with it, it was once more turned into a useful waterway. When joined by the Drave, the river gains in size and importance, but it is not until we pass into the spurs of the Carpathians that the scenery once again grows grander, and after seven or eight miles we find a steam ferry where a whole train is carried bodily across the Danube. Ruined forts and towering crags now spring up once more, and on a lump or rock 200 feet high is the fortress of Peterwardein, with the little town at the foot; this was called after Peter the Hermit, whose birthplace it is supposed to be. Not far off the little town of Karlovicz nestles among its vineyards; it is renowned for its vermouth.

Where the Theiss or Tisza flows into the larger river the larger plains on each side are broad and level. This is a well-loved river and carries with it the hearts of the Hungarians, more even than the Danube, which has such a cosmopolitan character. The Tisza belongs to Hungary, from source to outlet, and traverses the great plain which so embodies the Hungarian’s ideas of his country. It runs across such flat ground that the fall is very small, consequently the windings are absurdly exaggerated, and the river has the appearance of a twisted bit of ribbon falling in heaps.

With the junction of the Save on the right bank the Danube forms the southern boundary of Hungary itself, separating it from Servia, whose capital, Belgrade, is just at this corner, which appears a most dangerous situation for a capital. After this the navigation gets more difficult, and many fortified places on the hills which have played a share in the relentless wars against the Turks stand up conspicuously on their isolated promontories. There is endless diversity of scenery, endless variation in the swiftness of the current as the bed of the river widens or contracts.

The river Temes flows into the Danube which, once more bifurcating, forms another island nearly 4 miles in length. The Kubin then joins it from Servia, and from Bazias the Lower Danube begins. The island of Moldava, 3 miles long, lies in the midst of an area of shifting sand-banks. At the far end the Danube is over 2000 yards broad, contracting with startling suddenness to a quarter of that width. At the end of this wedge is the pinnacle-like rock of Babakhai, standing out in midstream near two islands. It has an interesting legend connected with it.

The next place of interest is the castle of Kolumbacz.

This fine description is still as true as when it was written many years ago.

The Kolumbacz fly, a peculiarly virulent kind of mosquito, is known and dreaded far and wide. Tradition says that in a cave in these rocks St. George slew the dragon and that the swarms originated in its putrefying carcase, an explanation which does not incline one to endure the torments meekly.

Finest of all the defiles through which we go is the Kazan Pass, where the river-bed narrows to 400 feet, and the towering cliffs rise to a height of 2000 feet, and fall so sheer to the water that without artificial means not even a goat could pass along their base. But no less than two roads can be seen, one on each side; one is clear and well-kept, the other fallen to ruin. The first was that made by the Romans in the time of Trajan, and wonderfully they did their work. In the absence of gunpowder, they made a way by fixing great baulks of timber, cut from the primeval forests of oak which clothed the cliffs, into niches or sockets cut in the living rock. These they further supported by hewing out a terrace or platform for part of their length, and then by filling in the projecting part with other timber; thus they formed a kind of hanging gallery broad enough for men to march along. Part of the rock was smoothed and an inscription recording the date of the work was made, but wind and weather have done their part, and it became almost indecipherable. Stimulated by this fine example, Count Széchenyi followed it in the nineteenth century, and made a road all along the river, which will endure for all time, because, having the use of gunpowder, the solid rock was blasted to make it. At the entrance to the Pass a smooth tablet cut in the rock records his work.

At Orsova Servia and Hungary, which have marched with the Danube, meet Roumania, so that the famous “Iron Gates” are the concern of all three rulers equally.

The term Iron Gate leads one instinctively to expect a defile as stern as that of Kazan or many another further upstream; as a matter of fact, the term gate is more appropriate than it would be to a mere defile, which, however narrow, would be open. The gate consisted of ridges of rock in the river-bed, forming quite as great an impediment to river traffic as any iron barrier reared vertically. These rocks have been removed by blasting and now, though the channel requires navigation, it is quite practicable at any state of the water. The “Gate” was declared open by the rulers of the three countries which meet at this point in 1896, though the work had been completed by Hungary alone. The length of the rapids is 1700 yards more or less, and the drop is considerable. This is the end of our special subject in this direction, though a continuation of the trip to the Black Sea may be recommended.

CHAPTER XI BOHEMIA AND OTHER LANDS

There is a kingdom in the Austrian Empire which arose at one time to such a height of power that it might well have been the one eventually to overshadow the others and assume, as Prussia did, the leading position in the German confederation. This is Bohemia, at first a duchy, which became a kingdom about the thirteenth century. At one time its king had so extended his dominions by purchase and conquest that they included almost all the Empire of Austria as at present known, the kingdom of Poland, and more besides, and reached from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea.

It is well known that Shakespeare in The Winter’s Tale gives Bohemia a sea-coast, a thing which at the present time, when many countries intervene between Bohemia and the sea, seems absurd. There is, however, no real absurdity in it. The date of the play is not fixed, and the traditions of Bohemia’s ancient dominions existed long in the minds of those who had known them. It is true that even in the “long ago” the sea-coast can hardly be described as Bohemia itself, but it was under the rule of the king, and therefore the “absurdity” at all events disappears.

The word “Bohemian,” which has become so deeply rooted in our language as a synonym for those who despise convention and live careless artistic lives, has nothing to do with the real Bohemians, who, artistic as they undoubtedly are, especially in the direction of music, cannot be described as unconventional in any unusual way. It arises from the fact that certain wandering gipsies were supposed to have come from Bohemia in the Middle Ages, whether with truth or not seems unascertainable, and “Bohemian” was thenceforth used as a synonym for gipsy.

There is another point which tends to make Bohemia known even to those who have no taste for European geography, and to whom the middle of Europe is for the most part only a confused welter of nationalities, usually German-speaking, and at any rate quite uninteresting. This is the fact that the motto of the English Prince of Wales, “Ich dien,” with its proud humility, and the crest of three feathers were taken from those of the blind king of Bohemia, who was killed at the battle of Crécy in 1346 while fighting for his ally, King Philip of Valois. The Black Prince, his conqueror, adopted as his own the crest and motto, which have been held by successive Princes of Wales ever since.

This compact little land of Bohemia, lying surrounded on three sides by mountains, now forms the north-western corner of the Austrian Empire. It contains much beautiful scenery and is more varied than many other parts of the Empire, being hilly and level, wooded and cultivated in different places, so that every kind of landscape is met with. Bohemia has always had a struggle to preserve its national unity, for it was surrounded on the one side by the German-speaking peoples of Bavaria and Saxony and on the other by the Magyars of Hungary, and it had to sway into alliance with one or the other accordingly as the opposite one attacked it. Moravia has always been closely associated with it, and Poland and Hungary have frequently in the course of history been ruled by the same king.

Many times before the ruler of Bohemia adopted the title of king had it been offered to him by the Emperor of “The Holy Roman Empire.” Once this was in the reign of Ottakar II. one of the best remembered and most loved of the rulers of Bohemia. He was of the Premsyl dynasty and succeeded to the throne in 1253.

The ancient tradition of the origin of this dynasty, which gave a long line of rulers to Bohemia, beginning before authentic history and continuing to 1306, is too picturesque to pass over. One of the semi-mythical rulers of Bohemia, Krok, is said to have left no sons but only three daughters, the youngest of whom, Libussa, a woman of intrepid spirit and masculine force, succeeded him. However, in spite of her fine qualities, her subjects disliked being ruled by a woman and some of them questioned her judgments. At length, to satisfy them, she agreed to select a husband, and standing in the midst of her nobles she pointed to the hills and told them to go to such and such a place where they would find a man ploughing with two oxen; him they must bring and him only would she marry. His name was Premsyl. The peasant was found as described, and readily took up the rôle allotted to him, becoming the husband of Libussa, ruler of Bohemia, and founder of the greatest dynasty in his country’s annals.

Ottakar, his descendant, brought the fame of Bohemia to its highest pitch, for he possessed himself of the dukedom of Austria, and became lord of all the territories now included in the Austrian Empire on the western side, with the exception of the Tyrol. Mr. James Bryce, in his Holy Roman Empire, speaks of him as “the rampart of Christianity, a lion in bravery, an eagle in goodness.”

Ottakar was offered the dignity of Emperor when it became vacant, but refused, and Rudolph of Hapsburg, whose domains lay in Switzerland, and who until that time had been comparatively unknown, was chosen instead. Curiously enough this man was to found a dynasty ruling not only over all the lands held by Ottakar, but also over Hungary, which had not even acknowledged his lordship. It seems almost as if Ottakar must have had some intuitive dread of this new candidate for the high honour, for he protested violently against his election, basing his protest on the ground that he himself, though an elector, had not cast his vote. He appealed to the Pope, but was overruled on the ground that even had he cast it he would have been in a minority. His fears were quickly justified, for Rudolph was no sooner in firm possession of the Imperial dignity than he attacked Ottakar, claiming that Austria, Styria, Carniola, and Carinthia should be restored to the German Empire, of which they had formerly been a part. When his claims were refused he made war on Ottakar, and quickly got the best of it, using the forces of the German confederation to enforce his claim. Ottakar was compelled to yield up his latest acquired provinces on condition of being allowed to keep his older dominions of Bohemia and Moravia, and Rudolph made the Austrian lands hereditary in his own family, even though they had been won at German expense.

Rudolph had a numerous family of daughters, and he was accustomed to cement peace or buy over a foe by offering one of them in marriage as a prize. As Ottakar had already been married more than once, his present wife being a daughter of the King of Hungary, it was on behalf of his son, then a child, that the bribe was offered. It seemed for a while as if peace might be secured, but not so; there was between the two men a deadly and ineradicable antipathy, and it was not long before the smouldering flame burst out again. With the fire of despair Ottakar collected his troops and flung himself into a contest with the conqueror and was slain at the battle of Marchfeld.

Rudolph did not act vindictively; he arranged that the dead king’s son should succeed to the Bohemian throne, ruling in subordination to himself as overlord, and that when he was old enough he should still marry the promised bride. But Queen Kunegunda, his mother, restless under this submission, called in help from outside in the person of Otto of Brandenburg, who promptly repaid her by grinding Bohemia into misery and carrying away her and her son as prisoners. The Queen, however, managed to escape, and the young King Wenceslaus was at length ransomed, and returned to Bohemia in 1285 as a boy of twelve to begin his reign. Two years later he married Rudolph’s daughter.

King Wenceslaus became King also of Poland and eventually, when the male line of the Hungarian kings died out, he was offered the crown of Hungary as well. He accepted it for his son, who succeeded him, but who turned out to be a weak and dissolute man, and with his death ended the male line of the house of Premsyl.

PRAGUE: THE HRADSCHIN, FROM WALLENSTEINSTRASSE

Various experiments in rulers followed, more or less unsatisfactory, including John of Luxembourg, who became blind, and was killed at Crécy, as mentioned above. His son Charles held the dignity of Emperor (as Charles IV.), as well as that of King of Bohemia. Charles founded the first German university, that of Prague, and was the originator of the Golden Bull, a charter which settled—so far as it could be settled—the difficult question of the right of election to the position of emperor. He was succeeded in turn by his two sons. In the reign of the second, named Sigismund, arose the celebrated reformer John Huss, or Hus, a Bohemian, whose fame is second only to that of Wyclif in England. He was born in 1369 at the village of Huss, from which, as was common in those days, he derived the surname which distinguished him from other Johns.

The people of Bohemia are the Czechs, the most important branch of the Slav race, and they have a burning sense of their national dignity, which seems to be centred more in the preservation of their language than in anything else. Up to the Middle Ages Latin had everywhere been the language of communication in Bohemia for all official and religious purposes, as it had in Austria and Hungary, but when John Huss came into prominence it was chiefly because he fanned the flame of nationalism, and was the first to bring out in Czech books and pamphlets stirring up patriotism and appealing everywhere to the strong sense of nationality in the people. Consequently he was adored by them. He was a disciple and follower of Wyclif, who was a little senior to him. Mr. Geoffrey Drage, in his interesting book Austria-Hungary, thus sums him up:

Huss denounced the abuses then to be found in the Church strenuously and at all times. Papal wrath was aroused against him. He was summoned to the Council of Constance, and went under a safe-conduct, but was imprisoned and, after some time, burnt to death on July 6, 1415, his birthday, a fate which fell also on his fellow-citizen and follower, Jerome of Prague. The end of these two earnest men aroused a storm of wrath in their native country and the doctrines of the Reformation swept over the land. Civil war followed, and continued until the demands of the Hussites were granted. The great leader of the Hussites was Zizka, who showed admirable judgment and courage. His name is held in little less reverence than those of Huss and Jerome themselves.

Though the kings of Bohemia were nominally elective, yet as a rule the crown descended from father to son as smoothly as in countries where the dignity was hereditary. That is to say, when there was a son to succeed, but it very frequently happened that, as in the case of other titles when heirs are earnestly desired, heirs very often failed to put in an appearance. As Sigismund had no sons, he managed to secure the succession of the throne to Albert, Archduke of Austria, who had married his daughter. Albert, however, reigned a very short time. A posthumous son was born to him, and after considerable debate, he was crowned king at the age of fourteen, only to die unmarried five years later, as a result of the terrible plague which acted as such a scourge in the Middle Ages.

The Bohemians were therefore once more in the unenviable position of having to choose a king, and the influence which the Reformed doctrines had by this time gained is shown in the choice of the first “heretic” king, a national leader called George of Podebrad. After Podebrad’s death thirteen years later, there was great rivalry for the vacant place, numberless claimants starting up in the persons of the rulers of the small kingdoms adjoining Bohemia, but at length the son of the King of Poland was selected, as there was a very close community of interest between Poland and Bohemia. He eventually became King of Hungary also, and was succeeded in all three kingdoms by his son Louis.

Louis was the unfortunate monarch who perished in the debacle at the battle of Mohács in Hungary, when the Turks swept in like a tidal wave and submerged the unhappy country for generations. So fearful an impression did this disaster make upon the minds of the Hungarians that even to this day, when a man loses house or land or parents or children, it is a saying, “More was lost on Mohács field.”

On the death of Louis the same strenuous competition for the vacant throne was aroused as before his father’s accession, and this time the Archduke Ferdinand, brother of the reigning Emperor, Charles of Austria, was chosen. Ferdinand became also King of Hungary and Archduke of Austria, thus uniting in the person of a common ruler three kingdoms inhabited by different nationalities. This settled the matter as to the succession for a while, for the throne passed from Ferdinand’s son to his grandson Rudolph. Rudolph was eventually deposed in favour of his brother Matthias. During all this time the ceaseless warfare between the Roman dominion and the Reformed doctrines went on, and the rival parties were ever striving to gain power and to swing the balance over to their side. The country was restless, families were divided against themselves, and no one felt safe.

It was during the reign of Matthias that the curious incident about throwing the councillors out of the window of the council-chamber took place, a scene unequalled in any other assembly in any age.

The soreness between Protestants and Catholics had reached a head in regard to the succession to the throne, for King Matthias was another of the many childless monarchs. The Catholic councillors had therefore arranged that he should be succeeded by Archduke Ferdinand of Styria, a determined persecutor of the Protestants. The Protestants took immediate action in protesting, but were checkmated by a royal message prohibiting the meeting of their “Estates” or council. Their leader was Count Thurn, who had been Burgrave of the Karlstyn, but had been superseded by a Catholic called Martinic. The Estates usually met in the Hradcany Palace at Prague, but when they issued a manifesto attacking the royal councillors they were forbidden to meet there any more. Accordingly they met elsewhere secretly. Count Lutzow, in his charming little book The Story of Prague, thus describes what followed:

About a year after this incident King Matthias died and was succeeded by Ferdinand of Styria, who was not recognised by the Protestants. They chose instead Frederick, the Elector Palatine, who had married the daughter of James I. of England. About two months after his coronation in Prague his wife Elizabeth gave birth to a son called Rupert; he lived to be known as the dashing Prince Rupert, who played such a gallant part in the English Civil Wars. He and his brother Maurice both died without children, and it was through their sister Sophia that the Hanoverian kings of England came to the British throne after the unhappy termination of the Stuart line. Sophia’s son was George I. of England.

The Elector Frederick is known as “the Winter King,” because hardly had he assumed the crown than the forces of the Austrian Empire met the Bohemians in a severe battle, called the Battle of the White Mountain, near Prague, in which the Bohemians were completely routed and their newly made king was forced to fly. His brief reign therefore extended only over a few winter months. The battle was followed by wholesale executions and confiscations among the Protestants; in the market-place at Prague, on June 21 in the same year, twenty-six leading Protestants, headed by Count Slik, were executed.

After this, national aspiration was crushed, and the country was Germanised by its rulers; the House of Hapsburg was in the ascendant and became the reigning hereditary rulers of Bohemia. It is only since the settlement of 1867 that there has been a revival, and the Czechs have once more been warmed into animation in the desire to keep alive their national tongue within the Empire.

PRAGUE · CARL’S BRIDGE

Prague is a mediæval town and one of the most interesting existing, in spite of some very unsatisfactory buildings dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Though it has been again and again the scene of conflict, there is still enough remaining from the past to afford a rich feast to the lover of antiquities. The castle of Vysehead, built of the stones of a still older fortress, stands high above the city, and is a monumental chapter of history in itself if properly studied. The town is on the river Moldau, and overlooking this is the Hradcany Palace of the ancient kings, dating mainly from the fourth century, but since greatly rebuilt and added to. The fine bridge of Charles IV., fourteenth century, has a high ornamental tower at one end, a very leviathan of its kind, rich in decorative effects, though simple in general style. The Cathedral of St. Vitus is only one of numerous religious buildings well worth seeing. Many of the houses are quaint and irregular, but the modernisation of the town, and the inevitable arrival of trams, has given a certain veneer which sits oddly on the ancient framework.

Bohemia has produced many musicians, and at the present day the leading professor Sevcik attracts pupils from all over the world; while Kubelik, with his melodious violin, was a pupil at the conservatoire and is the son of a Czech. The best-known Bohemian composer is Dvorak, and rather less known, but little inferior in merit, is Smetaud. Many other names might be added. Anton Dvorak was born in 1841 at Nelahozaves and was the son of an innkeeper, and from the first was wild to follow music as a career. He went to Prague, and as a mere boy kept himself by his violin, playing in orchestras. He married, and as a means of adding to his small earnings took pupils. He was very energetic, and turned out a multitude of compositions. At the age of thirty-four he was lucky enough to secure a position which relieved him from the fear of want, and from thenceforth gave himself up to producing larger works, symphonies and operas. He visited England frequently, and for three years lived in America, holding the post of head of a conservatoire in New York. He died in 1904. His best-known works are the Stabat Mater, Symphony in D, and the opera Jacobin.

The political history of Moravia is so bound up with that of Bohemia that it does not need telling separately. Since 1029 the country has been incorporated with that of Bohemia and has shared its fortunes. The people are Slavs, and are generally known as Slovaks or Moravians, but are really very much like the Czechs. There is also a strong German element, and the German and Slav electors choose their deputies separately, voting according to their nationality. The country sends forty-nine deputies to the Austrian Parliament. The Moravians are very industrious, and their commerce and manufactures compare favourably with the rest of the Empire. Linen, cotton, and woollen goods are manufactured in the capital, Brunn; and beet-sugar, leather, and brandy are also reckoned in the output. The name is derived from the river March or Morava, which runs through the country.

The principal idea which has reached the mind of the world at large in connection with Moravia is the use of the word Moravian to distinguish the sect of an extreme evangelical type started in the times of Huss, which has since spread far and wide. The Moravian Church has no formal creed, but believes in simplicity of life and above all in missionary effort.

The country is cut off from Hungary by the North-West Carpathians, which form a high ridge between, and several of the spurs of these mountains run down into Moravia.

CARINTHIA: MARIA-WÖRTH, ON THE WÖRTHERSEE

The three duchies, with beautiful poetic names, Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, are comparatively unknown to strangers outside the borders of the Empire. Seamed by ranges of the Alps, cut by torrents, and clothed in rich forests, they include some of the most glorious parts of the country, and as they get better known will probably be as popular with tourists as the Tyrol or Switzerland. The two first-named average about 4000 square miles each, and the last over twice as much. In Carinthia the largest proportion of the inhabitants are Germans, and in Carniola all but 5 per cent are Slavs, known as Slovenes. In both countries the bulk of the people are of the Roman Catholic religion.

The title Duke of Carinthia first appears in the tenth century and is to be found in the chronicles of many of the local disturbances throughout succeeding centuries. The celebrated Margaret Maultasche, mentioned in the account of the Tyrol, received the province as part of her patrimony from her father the Duke, but it was taken from her by the King of Bavaria and handed over to the Austrian princes. On the death of Ferdinand of Austria in 1564 his third son, Charles, became Duke of Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. When Buonaparte created the province of Illyria, these three countries were incorporated in it.

Carinthia is cut in two by the river Drave. Its capital is Klagenfurt. Carniola, which has always been closely connected with it, is traversed by the river Save. Its capital is Laibach.

The Slovenes of Carniola are very near akin to the Croatians, and the two languages are sufficiently alike for the people to understand one another without much difficulty. In uniting these provinces as Illyria, Buonaparte aroused national aspirations which still linger.

Carniola is desperately anxious to preserve alive her nationality and to cultivate her own tongue. The writer in the tenth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica says:

In both these provinces the mountains are honey-combed by caves, grottoes, and subterranean passages. The grottoes of Adelsburg are among the most remarkable in the world. The Terglou peak in Carniola rises to a height of 10,000 feet. The celebrated Tauern line, already mentioned as being one of the most recent of the State enterprises, runs through both countries. It leaves the main east and west line at Schwarzach. Its construction was the result of the law of 1901, which secured to the State the construction of a number of new lines and the linking up of others. Nine years passed before this particular line, which presented enormous difficulties, was completed; it pierces no less than three of the ranges of Alps. It may not be generally realised, we may remark in passing, how very large a portion of the Alpine system is included in Austria. Nearly one-quarter of the Austrian dominions is embraced by these mountains. They extend through the Rhaetian, Noric, Salzburg, Carnic, Dinaric, and Julian, and other chains, and the new railway traverses no less than three, the Tauern, Karawanken, and Julian chains. The tunnels cutting these mountains are respectively 8520 metres, 7976 metres, and 6399 metres in length.

Any one traversing this route would do well to spend some days at Salzburg, in order to see the town itself with its cathedral and fortress, and also to visit the Salzkammergut with its galaxy of lovely lakes, including the Attersee and Mondsee, or Gmunden, where is the Duke of Cumberland’s summer residence, and Ischl, where the emperor himself lives at the best season of the year. The railway after leaving Schwarzach passes by many a gorge and viaduct and embankment, across precipices and around hills, to Badgastein, the famous health resort, with its hotels and bathing establishments and wonderful scenery, at the foot of the Tauern range. It is after traversing this range that the railway descends into Carinthia, which can show some scenery as beautiful as any in Austria. The line touches at Mallnitz and runs high above the Möll valley dotted with huts and cottages, which show up like toy dwellings from the heights above. From the station Obervellach climbers can ascend the Great Glockner. Once again by tunnels and viaducts, and an ever-changing panorama of mountain and valley, it reaches Spittal-Millstättersee, the station for Millstättersee, a lake which bathes the wooded hills of the Millstätteralps. From Spittal to Villach the trains run over the lines of a private company, the Sudbahn. This railway deserves a special note. It is part of the line from Vienna to Trieste, and was engineered by Karl von Ghega, an Austrian who had visited America to study the problems connected with his craft. It was built at a time of great commotion and disturbance in the monarchy, 1848–50, and is amazing in itself with its tunnels and viaducts and cuttings and embankments even at this time, but when considered as a feat performed in the early days of railway-making is a positive marvel. Sixteen thousand men were employed on the making, and the blasting of rock-work was mistaken at Vienna for the cannon of an army of insurgents!

STYRIA: THE GRIMMING, FROM PÜRGG

Villach is a town which forms an excellent centre, being on the lines connected with Vienna, Venice, Botzen, and Meran. From here there are views of the glacier-covered Ankogel and other mountains in the Seebach valley. Through the Karawanken Alps we come down into the atmosphere of the Mediterranean, and find everything more advanced and smiling than on the northern side. Here we are in Carniola. The line crosses the Save valley by a viaduct 165 metres long, runs through a tunnel, and eventually reaches Veldes—another health resort—with a castle standing high above a lake. Other tunnels follow, and at last we come to the Wocheiner See, lying in a deeply cut cleft and most wonderfully situated. This gives its name to the last of the Alpine tunnels, that through the Julian Alps, and then we arrive at the most difficult and impressive part of the new railway, where the engineering feats make us hold our breath. Through the Isonzo valley we pass, with the river of that name flowing deep-green and curiously bright among water-carved white rocks. The river is crossed by a viaduct not once only, but again, and the second time by what is the largest stone railway bridge in the world at Salcano, 36 metres above the water. Tunnel after tunnel follows, until we reach Gorz, the capital of the principality of Gorz and Gradiska, the houses are grouped round the castle on its hill, and the place enjoys renown as a winter resort on account of the mildness of its climate. It is not until we are through the Opcina tunnel that we emerge to see the panorama of the Adriatic.

Styria lies to the east of Carinthia and Carniola and is no whit less interesting. It is traversed by the range of the Carnic, here called the Styrian or Karawanken Alps. Of these, the highest peak is the Stou, 7346 feet, but higher still is the Hochgolling, 9392 feet, in the prolongation of the Tauern range. The whole country is mountainous, and in consequence it is, like so much else of the Empire, rich in minerals; its iron mines are well worked and produce a large quantity of ore annually. There are also numerous mineral springs, of iron, of alkali, and of brine. Gratz, which is the capital town, has a population of over 100,000. There is a university here, and the inhabitants are almost all Roman Catholic; about two-thirds of them are German. The industrial side of Styria is worked much better than most parts of the Dual Monarchy. There is a good manufacture of iron tools and agricultural implements. The country also produces linen, paper, shoes, glass, and many other things. It was at one time held by Hungary, but has generally shared the fate of the two adjacent provinces. Styria shared in the Reformation, but was re-Catholicised by the determined efforts of the Archduke Charles in the sixteenth century. He settled the Jesuits in Gratz and set up a Catholic printing-press there. “A university for Jesuit instruction was founded in 1586. The nobles were obliged under pain of disgrace and even punishment to send their children to this university, and no one was allowed to attend the heretical schools of Germany.” When Charles died his work was carried on by his successor Ferdinand, who “began by driving all the Protestant preachers from Gratz and other towns; he then took possession of their schools, burnt their books, and forced the members of the Reformed churches to sell their property and quit the country. The Capuchins were sent for to help the Jesuits to bring back the people to the right way, and liberty of conscience was stifled for long years to come” (History of Austria-Hungary, by Louis Leger).

CHAPTER XII THE TYROL AND ITS HEROES

It certainly would be no exaggeration to say that the best-known part of Austria, to other nations at all events, is the Tyrol. That strange, mountainous, beautiful corner of the empire is now as much a playground for the nations of Europe as Switzerland is. One of the first men to make a map of the Tyrol was Burghlechner in 1603, and, with the licence of the time, which allowed strange vagaries in the way of imagination, he drew it to resemble an eagle clutching with one of its claws the lion of Venice and with the other the native ibex. The resemblance, however, is not one that the practical Briton can trace, any more than he can see bears and human figures in the scattered constellations; to him the Tyrol, the Austrian part of it, is just a peninsula stretching out westward from the rest of the country and expanding at the two outermost corners.

There are several ways of reaching this delightful land by rail, one is by way of Vorarlberg from Lake Constance to Innsbruck, its capital; another from the north by way of Munich and Kufstein; another from the south by the railway over the remarkable pass known as the Brenner, the most famous of all the Alpine passes in the Tyrol.

One enterprising plan of the Austrian state railways certainly deserves encouragement from all lovers of beautiful scenery. In 1912 the Railways made arrangements with the Canadian Pacific Company to put upon their lines some of the famous observation cars with which all western travellers are familiar. These cars are constructed so as to give the traveller the fullest opportunity for seeing the panorama passed without obstacles, and besides the large plate-glass windows there is a platform where the view is as free as from a motor car. They are being built in Austria, and differ a little from the Canadian ones, having observation platforms at both ends, and these platforms are covered-in on account of the very numerous tunnels to be traversed in this hilly country. In connection with the cars a typist, an up-to-date library, and a free medicine-chest are carried! They have been made at Prague and in Moravia. Services have been put on from Buchs to Innsbruck, from Innsbruck to Vienna, and, as already explained, from Salzburg to Trieste, and places are available to first or second-class passengers on payment of five kronen in addition to the usual fares, a krone being equal to tenpence. These two routes have been chosen to cross the country from west to east and from north to south. Approaching from the west we get the first view of the Tyrol after passing through the Arlberg tunnel,—the fourth largest in Europe. All the valleys are crowned by gleaming peaks, the pastures look vividly green, and the little huts and farms absurdly neat. Through towering mountains 6000 feet or more, over the mighty single arch of the Tresanna bridge we pass to Landeck and the upper valley of the Inn. To the south glisten the glaciers of Wildspitze and Weisskugel, rising above the Oetztal valley before we sweep downward to Innsbruck.

Innsbruck is generally the first objective of the man who visits the Tyrol, and only when he has arrived there does he begin to think how he is going to jump off. Innsbruck is in itself a fascinating town, with picturesque streets ending in mountain heights crowned with glittering snow and appearing near enough to be reached with a well-directed stone. The town stands in a cross-stream of continental traffic, for it is on the Berlin-Rome and the Paris-Vienna-Constantinople lines, and most people who have penetrated Europe at all have come across it on one or the other. Though the capital of such a mountainous land, and itself surrounded with mountains, it stands on a plain, with the river Inn winding along through it close to its junction with the Sill. Like so many other places, Innsbruck is the daughter of one of its own suburbs, a little place called Wilten, which is far older as a burgh, but has now sunk to comparative insignificance in the growth of its mighty offspring. Innsbruck is now well supplied with trams and funiculars, and hotels on the heights as well as in the streets; and when one wanders up the mountain-sides one comes on the little kiosks and beer-houses so dear to the Germans, but in spite of all this Innsbruck remains unspoilt.

Italian influence is very noticeable in the architecture, especially in the old quarter, where many houses have arcades, and are covered with frescoes. The name of the town means “Bridge of Inn,” but the old wooden bridge, which saw desperate fighting between the Tyrolese and Bavarians, has been swept away, and there is now only an iron “structure,” identical with many a hundred others. A curious item pointed out to visitors is the bow-window of a palace, covered with copperplates, heavily gilt, and known as the “Golden Roof.” The monarch called “Frederick of the Empty Purse” built this freak in order to demonstrate the injustice of his popular nick-name!

A more important monument, from a material point of view at all events, is that of Maximilian I. This is one of the best known of its kind on the continent, and is visited by hundreds every year. It shows the emperor kneeling in prayer, and around him are twenty-eight colossal figures in bronze, like warriors guarding his repose. Among these are Clovis of France, Theodoric the Goth, the British King Arthur, many of the Austrian rulers and their wives. There are no less than twenty-four bas-reliefs in fine Carrara marble on the sides of the sarcophagus, depicting scenes in the emperor’s life. His marriage, his battles, his sieges, his marches, his councils are all given with especial care; the dress and arms of the figures introduced are true to life, and the cities which come in as backgrounds have evidently been represented as truly as possible. This was done by Alexander Colin of Malines, who finished it in 1565, excepting the four last plaques, which show quite another hand. Notwithstanding the magnificence of this monument, Maximilian is not buried here but at Neustadt, near Vienna. He passed a fortnight every winter in a cell in the monastery of the Capuchins at Innsbruck, cooking what food he wanted and attending to his own needs. The story accounting for this strange custom tells of a day when the Archduke was hunting chamois in the neighbourhood of Innsbruck and lost his footing on a giddy precipice. He caught on some projecting forked branch, and there he swung. His followers, who seem to have made no attempt to rescue him, gave him up for lost, and having by some means brought a priest to the foot of the precipice persuaded him to extend the holy Sacrament in the direction of the king, as a softening of the terrible end before him. But a chamois hunter passing along the top of the rock risked his life on the face of the cliff and succeeded in saving the monarch. The precipice where this is said to have occurred is Martinwand (the wall of St. Martin), and is nearly 800 feet high. In memory of his deliverance Maximilian became a hermit every winter thereafter.

From the very earliest times there must have been some sort of a fort to guard the entrance to the Brenner Pass, one of the best known ways through the Alps in this region. The Romans, of course, seized upon this strategic position, and fortified it.

It was in the twelfth century that the Counts of the Tyrol first began to be noticed, and Meinhard, who ruled at the end of the thirteenth century, consolidated the country, and held all the land within the limits as at present known. He held at the same time Carinthia and Styria. His grand-daughter Margaret, known through the ages as “Pocket-mouth,” the equivalent of the “Muckle-moued” Meg of Scottish history, inherited the country on the death of her father, Henry of Carinthia, in 1335. But on the death of her only son, ten years later, she ceased to take any interest in public affairs, and made over all her possessions to the House of Hapsburg, and the land has been since held as the personal property of that house; and the people have displayed astonishing loyalty to their rulers, so much so, that, on account of this and its position and impregnable hills the Tyrol has been called “The Shield of Austria.” But there was an interregnum in the rule of the Hapsburgs in the time of Buonaparte. The name of Andreas Hofer stands out in the Tyrol as that of the supreme patriot which national history seldom lacks. He was one of the few men who dared to defy the Colossus who bestrode Europe and terrified men into submission by his invincibility even before they had met him. Andreas was the son of an innkeeper in the Passeir valley, and innkeepers in those days, especially in country places, played an important part. It was the innkeeper who collected and disseminated all the news from the surrounding district; his house was a focus for any common cause, and he himself, by reason of his position and authority, was looked up to and respected. In these circumstances an innkeeper must be a strong man, mentally and physically, to succeed, for if he cannot rule his own passions, and is too weak to enforce his authority, he will soon go under. The Passeir or Pusterthal valley, in which young Hofer was brought up, is one of the most important in the country, extending from Lienz to Mulbach, a distance of nearly ten miles. It is best known in these days under the name of Pusterthal. Margaret Maultasch, or Pocket-mouth, peculiarly favoured this valley, and only a very short time before the country became subject to Austria, gave to the inhabitants the privilege of pasture on both sides of the river Etsch as far as Eisach, and also the right to carry salt, venison, and wine over the Gaufen. A large trade in horses was the consequence, and Hofer senior took part in it, bringing up his son to it. Andreas was born in 1767, and thus was twenty-nine when the war broke out with the French in 1796, but it was many years later before he came prominently to the front. He is described as having been of Herculean make, with black eyes and brown hair; he stooped considerably from having been accustomed to carry heavy burdens over the hills before he had come to his full strength. His voice was soft and pleasing and his smile good-natured. His long black beard was a very noticeable feature of his appearance reaching to his waist. He had been one of the representatives of Pusterthal to the Diet of 1790, which shows that he had travelled a little and was educated. The traffic he had carried on in wine and horses had led to his meeting people of many races, and he spoke Italian fluently though in the Venetian dialect. He wore the dress of his country, a large black hat with a broad brim, adorned with black ribbons and a black curling feather, a short green coat, red waistcoat, over which were green braces, a broad black girdle with a border, short black breeches with red or black stockings, and occasionally boots. Such are the details which have come down to us from his contemporaries.

INNSBRUCK (TYROL)

In 1797 Buonaparte, having frightened Italy into submission, crossed the Alps and advanced on Vienna. The Austrian monarch thereupon sued for peace, and for the moment gained it, but as is invariably the case, weakness defeats its own end, and he was made to yield more and more as he gave way. The whole map of Europe was disorganised and remade to suit the conqueror’s will without regard to justice or right, and in the beginning of the new century worse followed, for Buonaparte, having meantime been over into Egypt, returned to Europe and marched upon Vienna, entering it as a victor. This time he snatched away again the Venetian territory he had previously granted to Austria as payment for her compliance, and handed over the whole of the Tyrol to Bavaria.

This infamous transaction was endorsed by the Treaty of Pressburg. The Tyrolese, however, had not been idle during the quiet years, but had organised and trained their forces and were not in the least disposed to acquiesce. Austria had treated them shamefully, but they, for their part, were willing to fight for the rights so iniquitously reft away. Terrible fighting ensued between the Bavarians and their allies the French, who entered the Tyrol, and the natives under the leadership of Hofer and his comrade Speckbacher, with the support of Haspinger the Capuchin, who did not fight but inspired others to do so. The Tyrolese began by inflicting an overwhelming defeat on the invaders at Sterzing, where they made every use of narrow passes and their knowledge of the country. When the battle raged in the passes, the peasants, who had stationed themselves on the heights, hurled down masses of rock, tree-trunks, and stones upon their enemies beneath, and speedily disorganised them.

Innsbruck was next the scene of a wild fight, where, with tremendous bravery, the natives repulsed the foe, though many of them had no better weapons than axes and pitchforks and other implements of agriculture. But without arms, money, or support, it was impossible to keep up such an unequal contest, the Tyrolese were inevitably beaten at Worgl, and afterwards the Bavarians occupied Innsbruck. The persistence and tenacity of the mountaineers were never shown to better advantage, for even while the enemy occupied their capital with a force it would have been foolhardy to attack, they posted themselves all round on the heights, and with eye and finger skilled by the chase of the native chamois, picked off every enemy who ventured within range of their unerring rifles. Fortune once more favoured the weaker side, and at Berg-Isel in May, and again in the autumn, the mountaineers defeated the Bavarians with great loss. After this Hofer became the head of the government of his native land. He took up his quarters at the imperial castle in Innsbruck, and on October 4 a great festival was held in his honour, when he was formally invested with a medal at the foot of the tomb of the Emperor Maximilian. The Austrians, who by this time were once more at war with France, supported the Tyrol. The Bavarians only waited to gather up fresh forces before again hurling themselves on their foe, insignificant in numbers but formidable in courage. The Tyrolese were driven in from the frontiers, and had the worst of it whenever they met the tide of advancing soldiers. In the midst of these calamities they heard that peace had been finally concluded between France and Austria, and that their own monarch had handed them over definitely to the Bavarians. After this hundreds of the peasants threw down their arms and submitted, and Eugène Beauharnais, Buonaparte’s stepson, was sent to take command. Hofer did not give in but made a despairing attempt to renew his defence, though he was forced to evacuate Innsbruck. He retired to the mountains and a price was set on his head. It was now the end of November, and snow lay thick in the passes; in his solitary hut far up on the mountain-side he was dependent for supplies on his friends, and one of them, a treacherous priest named Douay, gave away his whereabouts to the enemy, who marched upon him with a large force, and with every precaution. They took him and his wife, as well as his son—who was only twelve—and his daughter, prisoners to Botzen, and carried them afterwards on to Mantua, where Hofer was accorded the farce of a trial by court-martial, and was by Buonaparte’s orders executed twenty-four hours after.

His wife and children were allowed to return to Austria, and Buonaparte gave them a pension and afterwards permitted the widow, at her earnest wish, to go back to the valley where she had lived. The conqueror behaved generously enough, now that the man who had given him so much trouble was out of the way.

In 1823 Hofer’s body was brought back to the Tyrol, and now a marble monument in Innsbruck commemorates this brave and upright man. It was after the fall of Buonaparte that the Tyrol reverted to its ancient rulers, the House of Hapsburg.

CHAPTER XIII THE MOUNTAIN PASSES

The Tyrol, which is not much more than half as large as Switzerland, is an extraordinarily mountainous country, and these mountains are divided by one or two deeply marked valleys, so that the character of the country is different from that of the Republic, where mountains and valleys and even plains are mingled inextricably. The Tyrol is a paradise for rock climbers from all over the world, and in fact as soon as the Bavarian border is crossed, near Kufstein, some rock pinnacles and precipices are seen not unlike the Dolomites on a small scale, which so tempt the adventurous novice that he is apt to think he can tackle them without a guide, one peak, the Todtenkirchel (Death’s Chapel), being thus known from the number of accidents which have occurred to the reckless in attempting it. Any traveller who does not intend to climb mountains and get off beaten tracks, must in the Tyrol be prepared to follow certain well-defined routes. Of the entrances to the country we have already spoken. One of the main passes is that of the Brenner, running north and south, along which the Berlin-Rome line passes. This goes down to Roveredo, and soon gains the plains of Italy. Another great valley, roughly crossing this at right angles, is the valley of the Inn, which runs from Switzerland to Kufstein, and so out to Bavaria. The third main artery is that crossing from east to west, having the Pusterthal as its eastern wing, and another from Botzen to Glurns as its western, but as the two run across the main axis they may be considered as one. In connection with the latter must be mentioned the famous Stelvio Pass over the Alps, from Switzerland to the Tyrol, a little south of Glurns. This is the highest pass crossed by a carriage-road in Europe, attaining a height of over 9000 feet. It is only open for three months in the year, and is so marvellously graded that the tremendous ascent is comparatively little felt, and it rises over the shoulder of the Ostler Alp, the highest in the Tyrol. There are, of course, many smaller ones, but these are the great highways marked out by nature. The valley of the Inn stands apart from the rest of the Tyrol, shut in by mountains and having only one outlet to the south, the Brenner Pass. In the midst of this valley is the capital of the country, Innsbruck. There are many other extremely interesting places in the valley of the Inn, including Hall, where there is a celebrated salt manufactory which has been carried on since the beginning of the fourteenth century. “A path leads up the ravine towards the mines, which lie about eight miles further in the heart of the mountain. The grandeur of the views, and the ruggedness of the objects, in traversing a gorge which penetrates so many miles into the recesses of the mountain, may be imagined. Enormous masses of overhanging rock seem to be suspended above almost by a miracle; old pine forests hang upon the rugged cliffs; the torrent rushing by is spanned by bridges of snow, while huge unmelted avalanches lie in its bed below, cascades tumble from a hundred heights, while peaks, some dark, some snowy, many thousand feet high almost close overhead, and seem to jut into the sky.” The valley of the Inn is bounded by lofty mountain ranges on both sides, and is of an average breadth of two to six miles. It is highly cultivated, and a good deal of Indian corn is grown, the little patches of agricultural land pushing up the slopes of the steep ground as they overflow the valley.

KUFSTEIN (TYROL)

The Brenner Pass, as one of the gateways of the Alps, is known by name to many who could not place it geographically did their lives hang on the chance. Numberless military expeditions have wound their way through these precipices and crags, beginning with the wild tribes of the ages before history has detailed records, on to the days of the Romans, who made the road through the pass. Theodoric, Odoacer, and Attila all made use of this pass, and some attribute the origin of the name to Brennus, the Gaul who harried the city of Rome. Not only was the pass the highway for armies, but for trade and bands of merchants, whose lives indeed in the Middle Ages were seldom less adventurous than those of recognised men of war. They poured their caravans with rich freight through this defile. Traversed now by a railway, the modern traveller has the advantage of being able to sit at ease and enjoy the scenery while the powerful locomotives (often two) do the straining and panting to the highest altitude at 4600 feet, for here there is no tunnel to mar the view or choke the traveller with briquette-smoke, as on so many Italian railways. The railway curves and curves again in its ascent up the incline, only having recourse to very brief tunnels and rock cuttings. The line is part of that from Berlin to Rome and is owned by a private French-Italian company. The station at the summit level is called Brenner, and to the south of it is Sterzing. The ascent from Innsbruck to Brenner strikes any one who sees it for the first time as fine, but when he has penetrated further, and explored the descent from Brenner to Brixen, he forgets all about it in the much grander scenery unrolled before him. Sterzing is celebrated in the annals of the Tyrolese for the desperate fight for liberty in 1806. The little town stands high and is situated in an open place. It is overlooked by a castle, and it may be remarked that castles, mostly ruined, are seen in inaccessible and desolate spots all over the Tyrol. Their number is legion and hundreds may be counted.

The valleys of the Eisach and Adige, lying south of the Brenner mountain are quite different, and, as is natural, the Germanic influence is most strongly felt on the north of the great barrier, and the Italian on the south. The River Eisach joins the Rienz south of the Brenner, and afterwards meets the Adige at Botzen, whence it is known by the last name for the rest of its course to the Adriatic. Botzen, Meran, and Brixen are the most important places in this central zone. On the heights of the Brenner pass little produce can be grown, but in descending one comes again on fruitful fields of Indian corn, walnut trees growing luxuriantly, fruit trees of every kind, especially cherries, and lastly, vineyards plentiful and promising as we get on to the lowlands near the Lago di Garda. It fulfils the Biblical estimate of a prosperous land with its cornfields and vineyards and olive groves.

The other valley, the Pusterthal, has already been spoken of in connection with Hofer, whose native place it was. This runs between the Carnic Alps and the Great Glockner which is 12,464 feet high. The River Rienz runs down from the Carnic Alps through the Pusterthal, and the mighty River Drave begins here as a tiny streamlet.

The Great Glockner can be ascended from Heiligenblut, a little Alpine village nestling on its slopes, surrounded by deep ravines, fringed with woods, which carry downward foaming torrents, while behind all and dominating all are the flanks of the huge mountain.

INN VALLEY IN WINTER (ENGADINE)

If such is the nature of their country, what is the character of the people? Like all mountain folk, they are hardy, adventurous, and brave. They also cherish a high sense of independence. They live moderately and are frugal and sparing, but there is not much real poverty. A large class of the men still remain peasant-farmers, tilling their own land in much the same way as their fathers and grandfathers tilled it before them, by means of unremitting personal toil. Some, it is true, have learned easier ways of making a living, at all events during the tourist season, as guides, hangers-on to hotels, and so forth, but in the out-of-the-way valleys and off the beaten track the people are unspoiled, and tip-hunting is unknown. Roman Catholicism is the religion of the country and the peasantry are devout and simple-minded, sharing in the superstitions of their kind. Their chief amusements are social events, such as weddings and funerals, and they “enjoy” a funeral as much as the lower classes in England. Rough dancing to the tune of home-made instruments plays a large part in their lives, and the people are mostly musical. The peculiar jodelling of the mountains requires a trained ear and melodious voice, and the young lads learn to practise this art from their earliest years. They sing a good deal too, and singing and dancing go together. The men are born sportsmen and know the ways of their own wild hills almost as well as the chamois which grows yearly more shy and difficult.

The name of the Tyrol in the ears of Europeans is synonymous with all that is picturesque and daring, with feats of hardihood and sport without equal elsewhere, and this reputation is not a reputation only but rests on solid fact even to our own times. The men and girls are accustomed to hard work and difficult ascents from their childhood, and, owing to the emigration of the men, much of the hardest work, such as timber-felling, hut-building, and the carrying of heavy weights, falls on the women. Mr. Baillie Grohman, who knows the Tyrol as few men know it, speaks of “rows of women with short pipes in their mouths, and elbows leaning on the table, drinking their pint of Tyrolese wine [in the village inn] after their hard work.”

In the early spring-time, when the snow draws upwards on the mountain-tops, there is an annual migration to the higher levels in search of fresh pasturage for the herds, and those in charge of them gradually rise higher and higher as the summer waxes, living in the simple huts beside the feeding grounds, and cut off from all their relations for several months at a time. In very many cases these herd-keepers are women and girls, as the men have gone off to America or elsewhere to earn the money with which they may return in comfort to their native land.

The young men are of a lively and untameable disposition, extremely proud and as ready to fight as two stags. The well-known black-cock feather is as significant of the Tyrol as the plaid is of the Highlands, and sometimes when the young man wearing it is in a pugnacious mood he tips it over contrary to the usual way round, thus indicating that he is seeking trouble. It is often not long before he gets it! Even in their dancing a rough exuberance of spirits and strength, sometimes almost frightening to those accustomed to more civilised methods, is shown. The men career and caper and kick up their heavy boots and even raise themselves, resting with their hands on the shoulders of some strapping lass, and dance with their feet on the ceiling!

The chamois plays no less notable a part in identifying a Tyrolese to a tourist than the black-cock’s feather. It would not be Tyrol without some reminder of the chamois, and innkeepers have been known to prop up a stuffed animal of this species on an almost inaccessible height for the edification of their customers! The marvellous agility of the animal has long passed into a proverb, also his wonderful power of balance which enables him to leap on to a tiny pinnacle of rock and stand there with all four hoofs bunched together. He is generally about three feet long and two feet high at the shoulders, and his long tapering horns run to about eight inches and are black and polished. The hair is dark brown and longer on the back than elsewhere; this is called the “beard” and is the coveted trophy of the hunter. The hoofs are higher at the edges than on the soles and thus give the animal its grip on slippery ground. Its sight is remarkably keen, and its powers of running and leaping incredible. It is altogether wonderfully equipped by nature for its habitat, and the sport which seeks its life is fair because the animal has a good chance of outwitting its pursuer. The chamois live in herds and are usually guarded by a sentinel who gives the alarm at the faintest disturbance; they feed in summer on flowers and herbs, and in winter on the young shoots of the pines and firs. There are large preserves in the Tyrol kept by wealthy men for their own hunting.

CORTINA AND MTE. CRISTALLO

After the black-cock’s tail and the chamois, wood-carving comes next as a subject of admiration for the visitor to the country, and truly the skill of the people in this art is surprising; during the long dark winter nights, when there is but little to do, many a delicately-carved work has been turned out that would do credit to the greatest artist. These works can be bought in Innsbruck and most of the towns, and though the prices are “put up” for the stranger, yet, after all, it is work of a skilled kind and the sale is not either certain or large.

CHAPTER XIV THE DOLOMITES

The Dolomites occupy the south-eastern corner of the Tyrol. They are partly in Austria and partly in Italy, and may be concisely described as bounded by the cities of Brixen, Trient, Belluno, and Lienz as four corners of a rectangle. The ground lying between these towns is for the most part the country of the Dolomites, or at any rate is dominated by them. The best known and highest mountain, the Marmolata, rises almost in the centre. The valleys in this remarkable region run generally from north-east to south-west; one great valley beginning near Trient extends for nearly eighty miles, and forms the bed of the river Avisio; this valley is one of the usual approaches to the mountains. Another is from Belluno, and then there is the valley of Ampezzo, passing Cortina, which is a very favourite route; these three valleys are like main clefts or divisions, giving comparatively easy access to the knots of mountainous country. The name dolomite, as applied to the particular formation of these curious rocks composed of carbonate of lime and magnesia, was derived from that of the French geologist, Dolomieu, who was born at the town of that name at Isère in France, and was known by it instead of his own, De Gratet. He first “discovered” this stone, and the name, which, perhaps from association, sounds so appropriate, has become closely associated with this region where the rocks of this formation spring up in greater masses than elsewhere.

When we come to describe the scenery of the Dolomites it is difficult to do it justice. Chief among the weird attractions of these amazing freaks of nature is the curious red colouring which is seen when the sunset lights the high peaks and the valleys lie in blue-grey shadow. Many and many an artist has been fascinated and enthralled by the difficulty of putting this extraordinary light on his paper or canvas, and more than one has given up the task in despair. The peaks look like nothing on earth so much as red-hot glowing masses of iron fresh from the forge and casting out a rose-red glow. Yet the rocks themselves are not red, far from it, their usual colour is a grey or deep indigo; it is only here and there they are stained with patches of umber and madder, and only in the light of sunrise or sunset that they assume that amazing glowing red like burning iron.

Their serrated peaks are of a variety indescribable and have been compared with alligators’ teeth, while the huge isolated pinnacles or needles of rock, split off, have tempted climbers to vain feats.

KING LAURIN’S ROSE GARDEN, FROM THE SCHLERN

The first Englishmen to penetrate this region in a holiday spirit were Josiah Gilbert and G. C. Churchill, who wrote a book called The Dolomite Mountains. They went for the first time in 1856, returning again and again in subsequent years, long before holiday-makers or tourists had ever thought of so doing. These adventurous souls approached the region at first from the Danube by way of Carinthia and were accompanied by their no less adventurous wives, and, as they remark, “we were deprived of the abundant aids which surround the traveller in Switzerland, and other frequented routes, in the shape of guides, horses, side-saddles, etc., ... moreover our stock of German at that time was very limited.” Mules for the ladies, with springless carts as an alternative occasionally, were the means of conveyance; sometimes goats’ milk cheese and bread with coffee were the only food after a tremendous day’s climb; yet these things were taken lightly as all in the day’s work. And that the age had its compensations none can doubt, for when the party arrived in the Tyrol we read:

A few of these inns do indeed still exist but they are far in the recesses of the country, and on the beaten track have been replaced by “hotels” of the usual type in every district.

On this the first journey the travellers did not really make acquaintance with the Dolomites, they only saw them from afar; the first group they saw in the distance, “needle-pointed, pale and altogether weird-looking, soaring into the evening sky,” bewitched the party, and they never rested till they came again and yet again at intervals of years and grew to know them familiarly.

Returning alone in 1860, Mr. Churchill was able to penetrate the very heart of the district, approaching from the Botzen side. He gives a word-picture of the famous Marmolata peak as he first saw it:

MARMOLATA, FROM VERY HIGH ABOVE CANAZEI

Seeing it from the other side later he adds:

Another of the most famous peaks, the Rosengarten, thus struck him:

The Rosengarten is a much more typical Dolomite, with its jagged needle points, than Marmolata with its flatter masses. “The most prominent impression left on the mind by these Seisser Alp Dolomites was that of complete separateness and isolation, not only in relation to each other but to the green slopes on the summits of which they are placed.”

Among the very early travellers to this part was Miss Amelia B. Edwards, the authoress, who, in 1872, with a woman friend actually had the temerity to leave behind Switzerland with its luxurious hotels and “travel made easy” and penetrate into the wild and unknown regions of the Dolomites, greatly to the disgust of their comfortable well-fed courier. Writing in the following year she says:

Such a reproach could hardly be levelled at any one now. The difficulties encountered by Miss Edwards and her friend may be concisely summed up in the remark that there were only two side-saddles at that time in the whole country, and of these only one was for hire. It was necessary, therefore, for the ladies to bring their own. Sometimes for days together the friends travelled without meeting a single stranger to the country either at the inns or on the roads, and they met only three parties of English during the whole time between entering the country on the Conegliano side and leaving it by Botzen. And, even now, over forty years after, the solitary places of the Tyrol are unspoiled by a crowd of tourists, though fully appreciated by many a nature-lover.

One of the most remarkable rocks that Miss Edwards saw was the Sasso di Ronch, which attracts annually hundreds of visitors. This extraordinary isolated peak stands

The wild confusion of some parts of the Dolomites, their rent and torn spires, cannot be attributed to volcanic origin, for limestone is not volcanic; the greater part of the gigantic carving must have been done by the slow agencies of wind and weather and rain working on silently through age after age, and in some cases by earthquakes, which have overthrown the precariously-balanced needles and solid blocks of stone. One curious peak, which, though attaining to no great height (9833 feet) is well known owing to its odd form, is the Drei Zinnen or Three Peaks, rising like three pointing fingers of a giant hand. Miss Edwards’ description can hardly be improved upon. She says:

THE DREI ZINNEN, FROM THE HIGHEST RIDGE

Those who have spent an exhilarating holiday among these enchanting hills will know the freshness of the pure air, the stillness of the vast solitudes—home of the eagle and chamois—also the comfort of the rude huts provided by the Alpine Club, where one may shelter and find warmth and food, paying as he deems right; they will remember days spent on the glittering glaciers with their treacherous slopes, in view of the ever-changing ever-new outlines of the tempestuous peaks in their grotesque formations. No place on earth will ever draw them back as does the Dolomites, no other can evoke quite the same sensations as when they gaze on those startling contours or catch their breath to see the fiery glow rising over a foreground of blue-black firs.

One of the most important of the later improvements is the Dolomitenstrasse of which the last part was opened in 1909. It leads through beautiful mountain scenery and over three passes from Botzen to Cortina, and thence from Cortina to Falzarego. From Botzen it follows the Brenner road to Kardaun, and then turns into the magnificent gorge of the Eggental which separates the Latemar group from the Rosengarten group. This is now one of the most frequented parts of the Dolomites, with the beautiful blue-green lake of Karer, over which the Latemar towers with its slender peaks. The road ascends over the green Alps of the Karer Pass. There are large hotels in all these places now, and the Tyrolean red wine, at about twopence for a half-pint, is served in them, also home-brewed beer as well as the familiar Munich or Pilsener.

CHAPTER XV THE ILLYRIAN STATE

The name Illyria is a very ancient one, going back to centuries B.C., when the lands bordering the Adriatic on the eastern side were thus known. The boundaries of this state are uncertain and indeterminate, and varied greatly from time to time. Strabo, the ancient historian, mentions the country, saying that the coast-line was fertile and well supplied with harbours but that the people were barbarous and warlike. They are also described as tattooing their bodies and offering human sacrifices to their deities, but in a year given at various dates B.C. Illyria was made a Roman province and even became one of the four chief divisions of the Empire. The fine qualities of the men made the country a good recruiting-ground for the Roman army, and many of the Illyrians rose to the purple, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, and Maximian all being among the number. With the fall of the Empire the province lost its hold and was ravaged by the Goths. Then the Slavs and Huns began to occupy the northern land and push further and further south, and as the small Slavonic states became consolidated, they fell off from the central authority.

CLISSA: A STUDY IN GREY ROCK

Shakespeare, who had a taste for placing his scenes in this part of the world, lays here the action in Twelfth Night. In 1809 Buonaparte revived the ancient name, and included in it many of the more northern states such as Carinthia, Carniola, Istria, and Croatia. As a matter of fact this was a statesmanlike plan, as most of these peoples were Slav, and the fact of being united under the ancient name roused enthusiasm among them. There was a newspaper established called The Illyrian Telegraph. The poet Vodnik wrote an ode called “Risen Illyria,” part of which is given in the translation of Louis Leger’s History of Austria-Hungary:

Even when in 1816 these provinces were restored to Austria she retained the name of Illyria for some time, but it was dropped in 1849.

The two provinces, districts, countries—call them what you will—of Croatia-Slavonia fall within the bounds of Hungary, and the rest here described within the empire of Austria. It is since the rearrangement of 1867 that the first-named Dual province has been incorporated with Hungary, and it cannot, under the present constitution, deal directly with the monarch, but only approach him through the Hungarian minister. It shares, as do all the little countries of the Dual Monarchy, in the common army, the post-office, and the financial dealings of the whole, yet it has a measure of independence, for it is governed internally by its own Ban, which odd name signifies its head man, who would be called President elsewhere. The Ban is nominated by the Hungarian Prime Minister, though appointed by the monarch, and Croatia-Slavonia sends deputies to the Hungarian House, and has also its own Diet with ninety members for the transaction of provincial matters.

The state claims to be the oldest complete one included in the Dual Monarchy, and dates its independent history back to 924, when Tomislav welded the country together under his own leadership, and became king. Since that date the Croatians have shared kings with Hungary more than once, and the present system of a monarch in common is not at all novel; but, whereas the Croatians look upon the situation as embracing two equal nations joined by the tie of a common monarch, the Hungarians are apt to regard Croatia-Slavonia as a province under Hungary. It is obvious that both parties will constantly find grievances to discuss when their views are so diametrically opposite.

At any rate Croatian is the official tongue, and it resembles Servian more than Hungarian. Public instruction, legislation, and the commands in the territorial army are carried out in this tongue, and the national spirit can thereby find outlet. But it is a sore point that taxes are imposed by the Hungarian parliament, even though forty Croatian representatives go to the Lower and three to the Upper house of Hungary. A certain proportion of the money collected in taxes is handed back for local purposes, and this amount is constantly being revised.

The country, which occupies such an invidious position politically, lies between the two rivers Drave and Save, and it falls naturally into two parts—the plain between these rivers, and the mountainous country stretching along by the Adriatic. It might be imagined that the plain would be rich and the most valuable part of the land, but on the contrary it is the mountains which bring in the revenue, for they are thickly covered with trees, such as the pine and beech and chestnut, and the narrow valleys between are astonishingly fertile. In these forests herds of swine are fed, and in the valleys and the plain there is a good deal of mixed agriculture. The people are not idle, and the breeding of cattle and horses is one of their principal occupations. A very large number of the inhabitants are continually migrating to America, but the land holds them nevertheless and calls them back, when they have made money, often by the hardest toil in the mines; they nearly always return to spend their little fortune in their native land, which remains in their minds as the ideal of all that is beautiful and desirable.

We have so far spoken of the joint provinces as a whole, but in reality it is Slavonia that occupies the rather featureless interior plains and Croatia that includes the rich and varied scenery along the coast, where the mountains are probably as rich in minerals as those of Transylvania, were they properly worked. The Croatians have not shown themselves amenable to industrial work, they have hardly as yet got beyond the first stage in the history of a nation, when agriculture or the supply of man’s natural needs from the soil is the prime work. In Southern Croatia the climate is often beautiful, and warm enough for the growth of the vine as well as lemons and oranges, but the winds sweep sorely over the northern plains and the temperature thus varies in extremes.

The capital of the country is Agram, and the only port that Hungary boasts, namely Fiume, lies in Croatia, though it is not of it, for the port was presented to the Hungarians by Maria Teresa, and has ever since enjoyed autonomy. When it is realised that this is Hungary’s only outlet to the sea, its importance may be realised, even though it has in many ways been overshadowed by the Austrian port of Trieste.

Fiume has 40,000 inhabitants of a curiously mixed blend; the majority, between 17,000 and 18,000, are Italians; there are only about 3000 Hungarians and between 7000 and 8000 Croatians, while Illyrians, Germans and Wends form the surplus. The town is governed by a royal Hungarian governor, and is described as corpus separatum of Hungary. It possesses picturesque, narrow, and irregular streets in the old part and a fine new quarter also. There are relics of Roman occupation, especially well seen in a triumphal arch dating from Roman days; and it has also a cathedral dating from 1377. Millions have been spent on the harbour, which has a breakwater about 4000 feet in length. The chief factories and works in the town are the Whitehead torpedo factory, paper-mills, paraffin-refining works, and shipbuilding yards.

Beyond the bridge over the Fiumara, on Croatian territory, adjoining Fiume, is the Croatian town of Susak, well-built and pleasant. In the mountain heights above, through which the train has wound down to the coast there are many tunnels and vast precipices. The terrible wind called the Bora, which rages around here at times, is so violent that trains have had to be protected by the building of a high stone wall along the side of the line. Before this was done they were sometimes actually caught up by the whirling force of the wind, swept from the lines and dashed into the depths below the embankment on which they traversed the mountain side.

The western slopes of the tableland, which here drops to the sea, are called the Karst, and differ from the pleasant wooded heights inland already described. The Karst is in three terraces, formed of gigantic blocks of stone heaped on each other in irregular masses, and it is only in the crevices and deep hollows that any sort of vegetation, and then only scraggy and stunted bushes, will grow. Forests used to extend over these heights, but their exposure to the full force of the terrible Bora, and their wanton destruction by man during the Venetian occupation, has stripped the rocks bare, and they stand ugly and ragged, vast and lonely, as a rampart to the ocean.

To the south of Croatia-Slavonia lies another composite country, namely Bosnia-Herzegovina, which by the Treaty of Berlin in 1878 was henceforward to be administered by Austria, a cession bitterly resented by Servia and Montenegro, as it drove a wedge between them. They knew well that once the Austrian foot was there in military occupation never again would it be withdrawn, and the future proved them right, for in 1908, when the Turk was in no position to protest, the whole control passed into the power of Austria, and the composite country became as much a part of the Dual Monarchy as those further north. Both countries which compose it are mountainous, many of the peaks rising to 6000 feet, and for the most part covered with forest. Lying so far south crops can here be raised which would not be attempted elsewhere. Those boxes or bottles of prunes, which so delighted our youth, come in large quantities from Bosnia, and are simply dried plums, though the flavour is so different from the fresh article. The vine, olive, fig, and pomegranate flourish in Herzegovina, but the chief product is tobacco. Mr. Geoffrey Drage says:

The names of Bosnia-Herzegovina are translated by some as “the land of salt” and “the land of stones,” but in regard to Bosnia “the land of coal” would be more appropriate, for it is said that the whole country is one vast coal-field, and if ever the time comes that our present supplies have run out and we have not yet learned to substitute petroleum, it is probable that here will be found the supplement. There is plenty of pasture-land in the country, and cattle, sheep, and goats are raised in large numbers, but the drawback to it all is that there is no coast-line or seaport, and therefore produce is turned inland for want of ready access by the coast, where the way is barred by Dalmatia. When the Austrians annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina one of the reasons they gave for doing so was that Dalmatia had no hinterland, that it stood in the air so to speak, a thin strip without support, but the reason seems somewhat frail; if it had been the other way and the Austrians had owned Bosnia-Herzegovina and sought an outlet to the sea-coast, as many another restless nation is now seeking to do, their object could have been more sympathetically considered.

The costume of the Bosnians is peculiar and picturesque; the men wear the red Turkish fez and their nether garments are fashioned in many and complicated folds around the seat, ending in extremities as tight as putties. This garment is secured by a wide sash or cummerbund, and above it is a white shirt covered by a sleeveless waistcoat richly embroidered. A Bosnian gentleman in full dress is a very beauteous object.

Dalmatia is a long narrow strip, forming practically the only sea-board of Austria, and therein lies its value. The only Austrian seaport, Trieste, is at the northern end. The people show strongly their connection with the Italians, to whose country theirs was so long joined. It belonged to the Venetian republic for the greater part of its career, but in 1796, by the Treaty of Campo-Formio, fell into Austria’s hands. Dalmatian history is a long series of see-saws between the Slav and Italian power, the country falling sometimes under the dominion of the one and sometimes under that of the other. The Croatians consider that Dalmatia ought to be incorporated into their state, and as the population is of the same race as themselves, Serbo-Croatians being in an overwhelming majority, against about 3 per cent of Italians, there is something to be said for this view. Dalmatia, however, is part of the Austrian empire, and sends eleven members to the Reichsrath, while Croatia, as we have seen, is included in Hungary. Cattle-breeding, the growing of vines and olives, fishing and shipbuilding, chiefly occupy the inhabitants of this coast-land, and any one who visits Dalmatia cannot fail to be struck by the enormous number of goats kept by the peasantry.

By far the best-known town in Dalmatia is Spalato, famous by reason of the magnificent ruin of the palace of the Roman Emperor, Diocletian. This was built in 303 A.D., and a good deal of it is still standing. The little town is situated at the head of a bay backed up by a line of low hills, and the Emperor showed taste and judgment when he selected this site. His palace covered about eight acres of ground, and the south front facing the harbour was 521 feet in length. The palace was built in a quadrangular form, and each side faced one point of the compass. The building was more of a camp than what we are accustomed to associate with the word palace, and enclosed within its walls many buildings, divided by regular streets running from the four gates in the outer walls. Here the Emperor Diocletian retired in the full prime of life, for he was only fifty-nine, to cultivate his garden and live in peace. Few men nowadays can shake themselves free from the fetters of business, and many postpone the enviable day of freedom simply because they have run so long in harness, they fear to fall without it. Yet this vigorous man laid aside power and responsibility and grandeur with firm determination. His action was the more wonderful in that he was born of slave parents, and might therefore have been expected to cling more closely to the purple robe than those whose lives have always been lapped in it.

In the town, compressed into a space at one time sufficient only for the palace of one man, the houses are high and jammed together, the streets mere alleys, the buildings are entirely irregular and placed anyhow, the sunshine hardly penetrates the long narrow slits between. The city is now the See of a Bishop, and has an extensive trade in wine and oil. In its best days it was one of the most important ports on the Adriatic.

SPALATO: A DOOR IN DIOCLETIAN’S PALACE

That Spalato has a strong rival in Ragusa, the capital, is shown by Mr. Geoffrey Drage’s remarks:

To this we add the delightful little word-picture in Mrs. Russell Barrington’s book, Through Greece and Dalmatia:

Ragusa is an ancient republic and stood independent of the rest of Dalmatia until united thereto by Napoleon in 1809. The history of Ragusa is exceedingly interesting. The rich seaport, established since the seventh century, was coveted by many of the nations around, and from time to time for safety’s sake the inhabitants had to submit nominally, at least, to one or another in order to preserve their real independence. In this way they came under the sway of Venice, they bowed subsequently to Hungary and even paid tribute to the Turks, but they managed nevertheless to keep their plums unfingered. In the fifteenth century 300 ships traded from the port, Ragusa boasted 40,000 inhabitants, and had agents and consuls at all known Mediterranean ports. But in 1667 a cruel earthquake tore the town to pieces, killing over 5000 people, and the town never completely recovered from the blow. After having been joined to Dalmatia it came into the possession of Austria. Even now, though containing but a few thousand inhabitants, it is known as a centre of Slav literature, and the reminiscences of the early days, when in the Middle Ages it was the seat of a school of Slav poetry which produced works still considered classics, hang around it. Ragusa has brought forth many famous sons including the mathematician, Bos Kovic.

Trieste occupies the proud position of being Austria’s only port, and supports the burden easily. Through a long and chequered history the city has generally managed to retain control of its own affairs, and the inhabitants look on themselves as a race apart. Standing on the debatable ground between Italy and Austria, ground so often drenched in blood, coveted as a jewel beyond price by the Venetians, Trieste is scarred with war. She carries the traffic, necessitated by her being the outlet for the empire, without difficulty, and holds her own in political affairs. As a writer in the Times (December 13, 1912) says:

RAGUSA: THE PLOČE ROAD FROM SAN GIACOMO. MORNING

Trieste is connected with Villach and Salzburg by rail, and this is one of the routes on which the Austrian government has agreed to place the Canadian observation cars. The steamers of the Austrian-Lloyd line sail from here, and it is the point of departure for India, China, and Japan. Quite recently the Canadian-Pacific Railway Company have put on a service of steamers to link up Austria with Canada, a fact of which numbers of emigrants are taking advantage. A voyage of four and a half hours lies between Trieste and Pola, the Austrian naval base. The principal government dockyard is at Pola, but at Trieste there are two building slips capable of receiving dreadnoughts.

CHAPTER XVI TRANSYLVANIA AND GALICIA

On the west of Hungary lies that mountainous land, rich in minerals, namely Transylvania, which so long stood alone and even now is possessed of a spirit of independence, which is likely to give trouble, though for the time in full legislative and political union with Hungary. The Magyar name for the country is Erdely, meaning forest-land, and is akin to the Latin one with its obvious signification “beyond the woods.” The country contains about 21,000 square miles, and on account of its rugged heights resembles a great natural fortress. The chief peoples, the Wallachians, Saxons, and Roumanians, different as they are among themselves, are united in common discontent against the attempts of Hungary to impose her own language and ideas on the land they share. They cannot forget that for nearly two centuries, from 1538, they were an independent kingdom under a king of their own choosing, and it was not till 1699 that the influence of Austria as suzerain was allowed. The support of the Turks alone rendered this independence possible, it is true, but, however obtained, it gave the people a taste for freedom. In 1849 Transylvania became an Austrian crown-land, but since the settlement of 1867 it has been an integral part of Hungary. The university founded at Klausenburg or Kolozsvar in 1872 is Hungarian, and Magyar is the official language.

The hardy race of men called Wallachs are as different from the Magyars as the Magyars are from the Austrians. Besides the Wallachs and Roumanians, which are the two dominant races, there are also Jews, Armenians, Saxons, and Szeklers, who are descended from early Magyar settlers, and have developed on different lines from their brothers in the plain. The Transylvanians are as restless, and as great a thorn in the side of Hungary as she is in that of Austria, and the complete Magyarisation of the country can never be carried out with these opposing elements behind. The State schools teach in Magyar, but in opposition to these a large number of elementary voluntary schools are kept up where Roumanian is the principal tongue.

There are passes into the country from the Hungarian side, but toward Russia the mountains are so precipitous and steep that they give the appearance of artificial escarpments made for defence on a giant scale. The highest peaks attain a height of over 8000 feet. The climate varies greatly, the summers being very hot and the winters intensely cold.

HARVEST-TIME IN TRANSYLVANIA

Transylvania is completely hemmed in by the South-Eastern Carpathians, besides being cut up by them, and its people are mountaineers, looking with disdain on the dwellers in the level plain. To them life without heights and hollows, and the constant sense of watchful grandeur given by rising peaks, would be tame and colourless. The mountaineer’s muscles are wrought to india-rubber by continual change of action. His spring is as light as that of a roebuck. To look down into the blackness of a crevasse, to see the roaring torrent filled by the last downfall of rain or by the melting of the pure white peaks far above, is an everyday experience with him, as little noticeable as the passing of wheeled vehicles to a townsman. He has to work hard to gain a scanty living, but the fatness of the plains covered with waving cornfields would seem to him suffocating. The roar of the landslide hurtling down the mountain-side in the night and the crack of a falling tree are sounds that cause him no fear; he has been accustomed to them from childhood.

Transylvania is a very rich country, though the greater number of its inhabitants are poor. The ores to be found in its mountains are wonderful, quite the richest in Europe, and many people, especially the gipsies, earn a livelihood by desultory washing for gold in the rivers. There are plains bordering the rivers where flocks and herds may be fed. Horses are bred and exported annually in thousands. Salt occurs in large quantities both in solution and sometimes in complete hills. Every one who gets the chance should visit one of the salt mines, some of which have been worked over a thousand years. The salt is so pure that it can be hewed out in great blocks and cubes, and the air is full of the dust which settles down in a fine white powdered frost like the artificial frosting of a Christmas card.

Maize, wheat, rye and other cereals are grown in the valleys of Transylvania, also vines, while fruits are abundant. A most interesting land it is, both as to its peoples, its scenery, and its products, and a land that is not half so much known as it deserves. Any one with hardihood enough to explore Transylvania, knapsack on back, in the simplest manner, would be well rewarded for the risks he ran.

A Hungarian writer says:

It was in Kolozsvar that King Matthias was born, and there is in his native town a magnificent equestrian statue of this one of the best-loved of Hungarian kings, executed by John Fadrusz. The birthplace of the King is now the Museum of the Transylvanian Carpathian Society.

Among the attractions of Transylvania are the Torda Glen, composed of split rocks forming gigantic precipices falling down to a narrow stream scarce six yards wide; the Government salt mines, from which 50,000 tons of salt are excavated every year; the forest resort of Borszék, hundreds of feet above sea-level, with its mineral spring, from which three million bottles are annually exported, and its healing baths; the Gyilkos-tó (Murderous Lake) not far distant:

The salt hill of Parajd is another sight.

There are many other watering-places with mineral springs; one of the most curious is at Kovásna, which stands at the foot of the wooded hills separating Hungary and Roumania.

Another beauty spot is the lake of St. Anne, in the crater of an extinct volcano, which is in circumference 1800 metres.

It can be seen that Transylvania is a country for those to visit who love natural beauty and the wonders of nature and want to get off the ordinary tourist track. The Circular Railway, which now traverses it under State direction, makes this comparatively easy, and the civilisation of the towns will astonish those who think of Transylvania as still primitive.

In the north-east corner of the Dual Monarchy, to the north of Transylvania, lies the large and important country of Galicia, a slice of the now vanished kingdom of Poland, wiped off the map by the three great powers surrounding her. Galicia is larger than Bohemia but lacks picturesqueness of scenery, and is the least known of all the provinces of the Austrian Empire. It is nearly all mountainous, the land falling down from the Carpathians, which form the southern boundary, toward Russia. The highest peaks are the Woman’s Mountain, 5648 feet, and the Waxmundska, 7189 feet. The Vistula and the Dniester both rise in this country, which lies outside the system of the Danube, to which so great a part of the dominions of Franz Joseph belongs. There is a good deal of traffic in light boats down the Dniester to Odessa. The people are divided between Ruthenians (Red Russians) and Poles, the latter being in the western part.

By the end of the eighteenth century Poland was in a miserable state of decay and helplessness, and the proposal for her partition came from Prussia. Catherine II., ruling in Russia at the time, was quite ready to agree, Maria Teresa of Austria was doubtful and had many scruples but was at length over-persuaded, and the treaty was signed in 1772. Frederick II. of Prussia is said to have remarked of Maria Teresa, “She is always weeping, but she is always taking,” which was cynical. But the real truth is that Maria Teresa was unable to help herself. Unless she had been in a position to fight her two powerful neighbours single-handed she could hardly have prevented the spoliation, and she may have thought by taking her share in Galicia she ensured at least good government and justice for some of the unhappy Poles. However, of all three nations it is Russia in reality who has done most for her acquired subjects, and she has treated the peasants fairly well. Probably the strong kinship of race and tongue, stronger than in the case of either of the other nations, has helped to cement this fragment. In Germany the native tongue is strenuously suppressed, and grinding poverty reigns in many districts.

Up to the end of the eighteenth century Poland was still a powerful kingdom and had a long history of worthy exploits behind her. The name is derived from polé, meaning plain or field, as the greater part of the kingdom lay low and flat. There is no place here to go into the history of that kingdom, of which only a small part belongs to Austria. But it may be shortly said that her kings have ruled often well and wisely, and made a name for themselves in other fields than that of war or administration. Her literary men, in spite of the peculiarly difficult language which had to be used as a medium, have made themselves known beyond the borders of their own country. Of all her sons, John Sobieski is the one who stands out most clearly in the sight of other nations. He was one of the best generals Poland ever had, and in 1674 was elected king under the title of John III. His most famous successes were against the Turks, and when in 1683 the Turkish armies advanced on Vienna and Leopold the Emperor fled ignominiously, it was Sobieski who rallied his troops together and proceeded to the rescue. The Turks were besieging the city and assaulted it no less than eighteen times while it was held by Count Strahrenburg. Sobieski co-operated with Charles Duke of Lorraine, brother-in-law of the Emperor, and appeared on the heights of Kablenburg. The two armies met in a terrific encounter, and the Turks were badly beaten, leaving twenty thousand men behind them. When all was safe Leopold returned to his capital, but was jealous of the success of Sobieski, and showed it. In a letter to his wife Sobieski speaks of this treatment:

The downfall of the Turks was the more crushing because they had been accustomed to consider themselves invincible and appeared rather as a conquering cavalcade than as those who were fighting their way through a hostile country. One of their leaders on this occasion, the Vizier Kara Mustapha, had a tent made of green silk, worked with gold and silver and set with precious stones. The holy standard was carried inside it. After the battle Sobieski sent the golden stirrup of the Grand Vizier to his Queen, and the standard to the Pope. It is one of the minor ironies of history that Leopold, who after this marvellous delivery was chiefly occupied with minute points of etiquette, such as whether he ought to receive the elected King of Poland on the right or left side, should have been surnamed the Great!

CRACOW: BARBARAKAPELLE

The chief reasons given for the fall of Poland are that she had no natural boundaries of mountain or river, and that the three powerful nations around her all wanted something she had got. This was particularly the case with Prussia, who greatly coveted the outlet to the sea by way of Dantzig. Another reason is that there was in Poland no middle class, only the nobility, and the serfs far below them, and out of touch; and it has been rightly said that the middle class is the backbone of a nation.

The town of Cracow was exempted from the 1772 arrangement when Poland was partitioned, and made a free town, but it was found to be a focus of disturbance for all the dispossessed Poles who retained ideals of liberty, and it had to be firmly stamped upon more than once. Russia at first undertook the stamping, but as the town was in the Austrian dominions this duty eventually fell to Austria, and she did it effectually by annexing the rebellious town in 1846. This was not, however, until she had had some trouble, having sent troops to quell disturbances there, and having had the humiliation of seeing them beaten off by the nobles of the Polish aristocracy. So cordially did the serfs hate their masters that they even sided with the Austrians against their own high-born countrymen, and it was by their help that Austria maintained her position. In consequence of this the Emperor abolished compulsory cartage and forced labour during harvest to reward the peasants. The Galician peasants have by no means an easy time. In very many cases they are paid by a proportion of the harvests reaped and not in money. The place occupied in most countries by a stable middle class is here filled up by large numbers of Jews, who have bought the estates as they came on the market, and now grind down the remuneration of the workers to the lowest figure. Were it not that the peasants very often migrate into Germany for the summer months and there earn enough to keep body and soul together for the winter, their position would be worse than it is. Horse-breeding is a large industry here, as in many other parts of the composite kingdom; petroleum is found in great quantities, and there are salt and coal mines which give occupation to many.

By the settlement of 1867 Galicia was given Home Rule, though deputies are still sent to the Austrian Parliament. Cracow and Lembert are the two principal towns. Cracow is a seat of a famous university, and a statue of its greatest pupil, Copernicus, stands in the courtyard. Copernicus received his education here, though he was a native of Prussia. Lemberg also has a university.

The Ruthenians, who form so large a proportion of the Galicians, are a Slav race; they mostly belong to the Greek church and so suffer doubly under the domination of the Jews.

INDEX

THE END

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SKETCH MAP ACCOMPANYING
“AUSTRIA-HUNGARY”
BY G. E. MITTON.

PUBLISHED BY
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Transcriber’s Notes