Austria-Hungary

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.

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.