"Magyarland" Volume 1 (of 2)

The day had dawned with a glorious awakening. How bright and fair all was under its glistening veil of sparkling dewdrops, as we sat by the open door of the fogado and partook of our simple breakfast! Beyond were the green plains and the distant sea-like horizon; near us broad vine-trellises, through which the sunshine flickered like a shower of gold. From afar came the distant lowing of cattle and the muffled bark of a sheep-dog; whilst all around us was so still, so very still, that we might have been in the vast prairies of the New World. The birds, playing at hide-and-seek amongst the reddening, dust-covered vine-leaves, or perched high up in the sooty eaves of the little station, chirped and bubbled over with song, as if their smoky and sandy domain had been the umbrageous aisles of some lonely forest. How grateful they were for their meagre mercies as they carolled forth their hymn of praise this dewy golden morning whilst we waited for the train, how glad they seemed to live, and what joy was there in their little lives as the Slovene waiting-maid scattered towards them the crumbs from the table-cloth of the restaurant!

Our train was announced to leave at ten minutes to ten; but overdue, it did not arrive from Trieste until half-past eight o’clock, and how could any one be so unreasonable as to expect it to be got ready to start again in the short space of one hour and twenty minutes? At the time specified the engine-driver, seated on a heap of sand outside the platform, was dozing over his pipe, and the guard leisurely finishing his breakfast in the inn kitchen. And why not? No one thinks of hurrying himself in Hungary, where everybody has plenty of time for everything.

The trains, punctual enough in their departure from large stations, are wholly indifferent as to the time they either arrive at or start from the smaller ones, which are generally situated in districts where persons take life easily, and with whom the railway authorities appear to think an hour or so out of the twenty-four can make no possible difference.

Taking our places at last, and dragging slowly on, we pass here and there, at long intervals, true specimens of Hungarian villages, with their low-roofed one-storied houses, and cemeteries filled with small red, blue, and white crosses, which, just showing above the rank grass, look from a distance like wild flowers growing in a meadow. The traveller seems here to have been suddenly carried back to some remote period of the world’s history, everything is so heavy and so slow. At the stations at which we stop, curious-shaped vehicles are waiting to take the arrivals to towns and villages—who shall say how many miles away? Long waggons made simply of planks of wood nailed together, and others with open ladder-like sides, drawn by three horses abreast, or small light carts, called szekérs, to which, by a most uncomfortable arrangement, one poor, lean, miserable horse is harnessed to a pole. All are driven by strange-looking men in sheepskin cloaks or hussar-jackets called mentes, embroidered in divers colours of needlework, and wearing such full white trousers that they look like petticoats. Stranger people still get into these vehicles—women wearing sheepskin cloaks like the men, strange head-gear and top-boots—and, leaving the enclosure which surrounds the station, jog away over quagmires that seem to lead to nowhere, or to some distant world far beyond our ken.

Turf is burnt in the engine, so that the speed, as may be imagined, is not very alarming—its “linked sweetness long drawn out” scarcely exceeding ten miles an hour; besides which we linger at the various stations, time, as we have seen, being no object in this primitive country.

Railway travelling in Hungary has in fact frequently been known to produce in the passenger—especially if he happen to have come from Western Europe—a species of temporary insanity; the particular form which the malady assumes causing the unfortunate sufferer to lose for the nonce all sense of his own individuality, and to imagine himself the “Wandering Jew,” destined to go on to all time.

À-propos of the slowness of the Hungarian locomotives, it is related that a certain peasant, when asked one day by a friend why he did not take the train to the market town, replied, “I have no time to-day; I must walk, or I shall arrive there too late.”

As we wait, the villagers, leaning over the wooden palisades, gaze at us wonderingly, or gossip with the guard; the women clothed in the shortest of short petticoats, worn over a number of white under-garments frilled at the edges, and which, hanging a few inches below each other and starched almost to the stiffness of a board, are intended to serve as a hoop to keep the top skirt out.

It is a festival of some sort, and, as we approach the villages, the cracked bells from the church towers are chiming away joyously, and all the people are dressed in their red-letter day attire, the women with black, red, or green bodices, full white sleeves and white chemisettes embroidered at the throat. Quaint children stand beside them, who, dressed in every respect precisely like their elders, even to top-boots, look like small men and women seen through the wrong end of a telescope.

Entering the district of the river Drave, we are all at once surrounded by low, undulating hills which rise out of the plains, and wherever we turn our eyes, we see persons on their way to distant churches; the men walking together in front, and the women following at a respectful distance. The roads are muddy, and the women gather up their voluminous petticoats over their top-boots in a most exemplary manner; whilst the children, emulating the example of their mothers and holding up their little petticoats likewise, form one of the most amusing spectacles possible.

Presently we reach a large town, situated in the midst of what appears to be a ploughed field, the houses so wretched that they seem not to have been built, but to have grown there like cabbages or mangel-wurzel, or to have been heaved up from beneath by ill-conditioned and untidy gnomes.

Whilst staying at this place, persons arrive from distant and unseen towns far away beyond the limits of the visible horizon, in vehicles more strange even than any we have yet seen, and such as might have existed in the camp of Attila. A score of tired but patient men and women are lying on their bundles, waiting the arrival of the down train from Buda-Pest to take them to their destination, whilst others are standing or walking about the platform; women, whose heads and faces enveloped in dark-blue kerchiefs, and sleeves padded at the shoulders, give them a strange incongruous look, half-Turkish, half-European; men—what splendid fellows! with manly faces bronzed by the fierce summer sun of the Alfőld, and with limbs as muscular as those of athletes.

The times of the arrival and departure of the trains are indicated in a somewhat primitive manner on a slate; and whilst we are wondering what on earth can be keeping us here so long, we see a carriage drawn by six horses and surrounded by a cloud of dust, coming along the road at a terrific pace, the horses galloping furiously under the lash of the driver’s long whip. Possibly it is for this we have been tarrying. A tall, graceful, and very pretty woman descends from the carriage—a kind of calèche. Two men, one of whom wears a feather in his hat, the other a bunch of wild-flowers—servants apparently, who had previously arrived with the luggage—stoop and kiss her hand as they see her into the train; and as soon as the engine-driver and guard have charged their pipes afresh, the heavy, lumbering machine slides out of the station, and we drag on again as though it were a matter of the most sublime indifference as to what time we arrive at the end of our journey—if we ever do.

In process of time, however, we do reach Gross Kanizsa, where our line of railway joins that from Agram and Vienna. At this place, which contains twelve thousand inhabitants, the sandy enclosure of the station is so full of girls in holiday attire that it looks like a flower-garden, and we feel we are in Hungary indeed, the land of beautiful women. Was anything half so ravishing as those little scarlet leather top-boots embroidered at the side, and which, adorned with rosettes, look like scarlet clappers as they peep forth from the bell-like skirts? What little darlings are the wearers, with their demure but coquettish faces, some blonde, some brunette, the plaits of their hair—which hang loosely down the back—ornamented with many-coloured ribbons reaching almost to the heels! Near some of these Kanizsa belles stand their brothers or sweethearts, wearing embroidered cloaks or little jaunty hussar-jackets, thickly covered with bright silver buttons, and white plumes in their small caps.

Whilst waiting at this station, we are reminded of a very different scene that occurred the last time we were here. We had just arrived by train from Croatia, and on going into the buffet, which we found already crowded with passengers, many of whom were not only Croatians, but Servians, Slavonians and people from Lower Hungary, we could not help observing that our entrance seemed to be regarded as an intrusion. Seeing vacant seats at a table near the centre of the room, round which our fellow-travellers were already partaking of a table-d’hôte repast, we also took our places, wondering greatly at the disturbance which our presence evidently created.

In a few moments several persons who had been sitting near us, with a surly glance and muttered exclamation, withdrew from the table, and walked to the farther end of the room. It was impossible to help perceiving that an insult was intended, although, as may be imagined, we were perfectly ignorant of the cause.

Shortly after this, as we were doing our best to swallow the affront together with our soup—a doubtful compound called ungarischer sauerkraut, consisting of cabbage cut into thin strips and immersed in a colourless liquid in which small slices of sausage were floating—and washing down the whole with draughts of consoling badacsony, made of grapes grown on a mountain near Lake Balaton, a gentleman came across from the opposite side of the table and took his seat beside us. Addressing us in Latin, the frequent medium of communication between educated Englishmen and Magyars of Central Hungary, he explained the cause of his countrymen’s behaviour, and apologised profoundly for the rudeness to which we had been subjected. They had, he informed us, taken us for Russians, the political feeling against whom was very strong during that particular crisis of the Russo-Turkish war, then just at its height, especially amongst Hungarians of the lower provinces; but having been in England himself, though not for a sufficiently long period to acquire the language, he had at once recognised to what nation we belonged.

“Pileus ejus,” said he, looking towards me, and alluding to my hat, which was of the species familiarly known as “pork-pie,” turned up with a broad band of fur—“the Russian ladies wear precisely such hats as the one you have on, and take my word for it, wherever you go in Hungary, you will be mistaken for a Russian, unless you change it for another.”

Our train lingered here an hour, and whilst walking about the platform, we were more than ever struck with the variety of nationalities met with in this singular country. Standing round the door of the restaurant was a group of men, whose soft and effeminate tongue, delicate features, and supple figures, contrasting strongly with the manly energy and powerful physique of the Magyars, proclaimed them to be Yougo-Slávs from Croatia and Slavonia; there were others again, whose sandalled legs and feet, and lambswool caps the shape of mops, declared them to be Wallachs from Transylvania or the Lower Danube; besides Servians from their little colony in the capital, and men on their way to their homes in the Northern Carpathians, all of whom our previous acquaintance with Hungary enabled us at once to recognise.

Amongst the many peculiarities which exist in this interesting country, there is not one that perhaps strikes the stranger so forcibly as the variety of races. By far the largest portion of it is inhabited by the Magyars, or ruling people; next to them in importance come the Wallachs, occupying the most eastern portion of the territory; whilst sprinkled here and there over the vast area which constitutes the Alfőld are little colonies of Germans, exclusive of the so-called Saxons and Szeklérs in the south-east, each of whom forms a distinct nationality. All the above-named races, however, inhabit the central and south-eastern portion of the kingdom; but, in the entire realm of the Magyar, no fewer than eight languages are spoken, not including the various Sláv dialects.

In the south, divided from Bosnia and Servia by the river Save, lie the Hungarian provinces of Croatia and Slavonia, peopled by Croat-Serbs, whilst that portion of territory which extends south-west of the Northern Carpathians is inhabited by Slovaks, who border immediately on the Poles of Gallicia and the Tcheks of Moravia; the province south-east of the Northern Carpathians being inhabited by Rusniaks, or Ruthenians, there being no fewer than seventeen thousand Slavs in the dual-Monarchy. Besides these nationalities, there are also colonies of Greeks, Arnauts, and Armenians, spread over various parts of the kingdom.

The chief cause of the existence of these various races is the frequent invasions, and final occupation of the greater portion of it by the Turks, who in the fifteenth century, penetrating into the very heart of Aryan Christendom, desolated the whole face of Hungary by fire and sword. Not only did these invaders and subsequent conquerors of the country lay waste the entire surface of the fertile plains, but by burning the towns and villages, rendered them wholly uninhabitable. To such an extent did the incursions of the Moslem hordes affect the region of the Alfőld, that it is only within the present century that the Magyars may be truly said to have begun to recover their lost ground.

It is a common saying amongst Hungarians that “where the Turk treads no grass grows,” and so effectually was the country rendered desolate by the ravages of this foe, that after their final expulsion in 1777, by a series of battles nobly fought by the Hungarians, immigrants were called in, and encouraged by grants of land to re-occupy the ruined villages, and cultivate the soil rendered barren and unfruitful by the hated Moslem.

Thus Hungary became what we find her to-day,—a country peopled by many nations, all subject to the parent State; each retaining, besides, its language, its own costume, and distinct characteristics; and continuing—and this is perhaps the strangest fact of all—as isolated in point of individuality of existence and territorial position as if each race constituted a separate nation in itself. Hungary is, in fact, unlike any other country in the world, and there is a novelty and a charm about it that fills the traveller with delight.

“When I hear its name mentioned,” exclaimed a popular German author, “my waistcoat seems too tight for me; an ocean stirs within me; in my heart awaken the traditionary exploits of long ago, the poetry and song of the Middle Ages. Its history is that of yore; the same heroism lives within its borders, the names of its heroes alone have changed.” And he is right. There is an inborn chivalry and heroism in the character of the Magyars—traits evinced not only in their past, but recent history; the same noble and dauntless spirit that dwelt in their heroes of the Middle Ages lives in them now, and there is a bold and fearless independence, a straightforwardness, and high principle that cannot fail to win the love and admiration of all who really know them.

Returning to our places in the train, we observe standing near the steps of our compartment a lady engaged in earnest conversation with a poor woman clad in the costume of the Alfőld peasantry, and holding in her arms a little golden-haired child of about four years old. The woman was weeping bitterly, and the fragile body of the child was convulsed with suppressed sobs.

Our interest in both mother and child was kindled in a moment, and we subsequently learnt from a German-speaking Magyar who travelled with us that the lady was taking the little creature—the child of one of her husband’s földmevelök (farm-labourers)—to the hospital at Pest, to undergo a surgical operation that might detain her there for several months.

The parting of mother and child was one of the most touching things I ever witnessed. We could not understand their lip-language, but the heaven-born utterance of human love needs no mortal speech to express its meaning, and we felt all that their feeble, broken words conveyed.

No sooner had the train left the platform than—the necessity of restraining her feelings past—burying her face in the cushions, “Little Nell” (for so we called her) gave way to a wild burst of grief.

“Anyám! Anyám!” (Mother! mother!) was her agonising cry.

Poor child! like many another, she had entered all too soon within the portals of the “sanctuary of sorrow.” Did anything, I wonder, whisper to her heart that which on inquiry at the hospital we subsequently ascertained, viz. that she was not to see her mother again till they were folded in each other’s arms in Paradise?

The Hungarian gentleman sitting opposite wiped his spectacles, whilst F., turning abruptly to the window, began taking a most unwonted interest in the features of the country, and I doubt whether there was a dry eye between us, so truly does

But we are approaching our destination; and having passed through an immense forest of oaks, once notorious as the hiding-place of robber bands, and forming even yet a refuge for those szegény legény, or “poor lads,” over whom the popular sentiment of the country has thrown such a mistaken charm, we emerge again into the open plains, and see beyond us an azure lake lying calmly in the bosom of undulating hills. To the right stretches a vast tract of uncultivated land, roamed by wild horses, which with manes flying madly gallop away as we draw near, until they are almost out of sight and form mere dark specks in the distance, and we soon enter the swampy ground which marks the vicinity of the lake.

The Platten-See, or Lake Balaton as it is often designated—both names being derived from the Sláv word “blats,” signifying swamp or marsh—is the second largest lake in Europe. Although bounded on the northern side by lofty hills, to the south it is almost shoreless, except here and there where fishermen, availing themselves of the gentle undulations of sandy soil, have erected rude huts of plaited reeds. In many places tall grasses eight or ten feet high cover the marshes in dense jungly masses, and the surrounding country is so inundated that the whole, save on the northern shore, presents an appearance of a series of lakes.

Opposite Böglar, in the midst of vine-clad hills, rises the conspicuous mountain Badacson, from the grapes of which the celebrated wine is made; whilst jutting far into the lake a rocky promontory, crowned by an ancient abbey, stands boldly out against the fainter outline of the more distant hills.

And then we reach Sió-Fok, and our railway journey is at an end at last.

“Little Nell,” the golden-haired child, had long ago sobbed herself to sleep. That blessed nepenthe which mercifully follows childhood’s sorrow had folded her in the peace of heaven, and there was no sign of pain on her placid upturned face, as with an unspoken “God bless her!” we left the train for the steamer which was waiting to take us across the lake to Fűred.