The aspect of the Alfőld varies considerably according to the nature of the soil. In some places it is boggy; in others sandy and incapable of cultivation; in others again it is so marvellously fertile that it produces crops which by an English agriculturist would be deemed absolutely fabulous. In such areas shafts have been sunk five hundred feet for the purpose of ascertaining the depth of the soil, but even then without the bottom having been reached. In this rich alluvial deposit wheat, poppies—the latter grown for a kind of confectionery—sunflowers, buckwheat, hemp, flax, maize and tobacco, are all cultivated.

In the cultivation of some parts of the Alfőld the method adopted is to plant or sow in strips of about eighty feet wide and several miles in length; and the stranger, seeing no habitation far or near as he plunges along in his britzska or “shaker,” is led to wonder where the people live for whom the roads are made and who they are who cultivate the soil, or whether benevolent earth spirits do not rise during the night to till the land, sow the seed, and hoe and weed those endless lines of golden maize and undulating corn.

The soil being so fertile, the harvests, as I have said, are wonderfully abundant, and this, too, in spite of the drawbacks to which the crops are subject, arising from droughts on the one hand, and inundations on the other. The former are attributed in a great measure to the absence of trees, one of the first peculiarities that strike the traveller on entering the Alfőld.

To remedy this evil to some extent, namely, the dryness of the soil, trees are being planted in great numbers in many districts of the plains, whilst in others attempts are being made to irrigate the land by means of canals.

The inundations, however, are a difficulty that can never be overcome. Year by year a war offensive and defensive is waged by the waters of the Danube, and its tributaries the Marős and the Theiss, with the unfortunate inhabitants of the towns and villages situated on their shores. As the beds of these rivers rise, the dykes are raised also; but when there happens to be a sudden thaw in the higher Carpathians, no artificial barrier is strong enough to resist the great pressure brought to bear upon them, and the result is the bursting of the dykes, as in the case of Szegedin, and the inundation of the surrounding country.

There is also another phenomenon prejudicial to the interest of agriculturists. The rivers flow subterraneously. In dry seasons they drain the soil by drawing down its moisture to themselves; while in rainy seasons the water of the overfull rivers, welling up through the light alluvial soil, converts the plains into a gigantic swamp. Nor is this all. The Danube is perpetually changing its course; in some instances it has left towns and villages many miles distant which were once situated on its banks; whilst it now flows close to others at one time far away.

Geologists declare that at some pre-historic period the plains formed three inland seas, and it is quite impossible to travel in the vicinity of this greatest of all European rivers and its tributaries, without feeling that in Time’s great cycle the waters must once more submerge the whole district of the Alfőld.

In spite of all these disadvantages, the Magyars love their plains just as the Swiss do their mountains, and see in them the embodiment of all natural beauty.

Across these steppes the roads, which are often little better than a waggon track overgrown with grass, are occasionally given to being vague. Proceeding on our way we reach a point where two such roads meet. The driver is evidently puzzled which to take. That to the left appears to vanish in a corn-field, and the one to the right to lead to a farm lying half-hidden in low brushwood. Pausing to consider our bearings, we soon descried creeping lazily along the former, another long waggon, the only kind of vehicle we have passed since leaving Fűred.

“Ho! Hi! Soger!” cries our driver—“which is the way to Stuhlweissenburg?”

The word Soger, which in that sense meant German, was an unfortunate epithet, most insulting to a Magyar.

“Brother!” was the reply, uttered in a savage tone of voice and accompanied by what sounded like an oath, the waggoner at the same time giving a sharp tug to the reins that brought the waggon right across our path and landed his team in a bog at the side. Then, standing upright on the seat, he traced with his finger slowly and majestically the whole circle of the horizon and exclaimed, “There!”

The Hungarians entertain a deep-rooted dislike to Germans individually as well as to everything German; and to pretend to mistake a Magyar for one of the hated race is a favourite and very effective mode of insult.

After a delay of half an hour, during which the oxen are being extricated from the bog, and the waggon dragged into position again, we journey on once more and come to villages, the one-storied houses of which are so uniformly built that, with their white gables facing the same direction, they look from a distance precisely like tents. In fact, wherever the observant traveller goes in Hungary, he is struck with two peculiarities: one consisting in the relics of Orientalism possessed by the people, as exhibited in their costume, manner of cooking food, and many other domestic habits; the other, in the resemblance their dwellings of to-day bear—in form and arrangement at any rate—to those of their Turanian ancestors. The general features of the Hungarian villages exactly correspond to a military camp; and a stranger who travels merely from Pest to Presburg, or vice versâ, will see this statement amply exemplified. The railway skirts the Danube nearly the whole way, and looking across the broad and glassy stream he will here and there observe, as the train bears him along, what appear to be thousands of tents standing in groups at the foot of, or lying on, the slopes of the hills; and should it happen to be his first visit to Hungary, he will be under the full impression that the whole army is camping out, until he suddenly finds, on nearing a village, that what he imagined from a distance to be white tents are after all but cottages.

The Hungarians are in very truth an odd mixture, here exhibiting traits plainly traceable to their Ugro-Finnish forefathers, and there those common to their former subjugators the Turks.

What, for instance, can be more truly Oriental than the ágás or Hungarian well, to another of which, as we continue to jog along the plains, we have just arrived? It consists of a deep shaft sunk in the soil, and enclosed by a low parapet or wall. The water is raised by means of a long cross-beam, fastened to a pole of equal length, to which a rope and bucket are attached; the whole forming the exact counterpart of the wells found on the plains of Hindustan, and doubtless the same as that at which Abraham’s servant met Rebekah and Jacob fell in love with Rachel on the plains of Mamre.

These primitive wells are principally made for the use of shepherds, to enable them to water the flocks which graze on the uncultivated wastes of these vast plains. Unharnessing the horses, Jöszef leads them across to the one we have just reached. Hard by stands the shepherd’s hut, which is made of straw, its shape that of a beehive; whilst the shepherd himself, a tall man with a sheepskin cloak, who in his shaggy garment looks not unlike the sheep he is tending, comes out and, raising the water, holds the cool, dripping bucket to the noses of our thirsty team.

After this we move on again as before, and pass lonely farmsteads, surrounded by wooden palings and sheds for cattle. Near these enclosures, and leaning wearily all on one side, may generally be seen a rusty iron crucifix, throwing its pathetic shadow across the path.

Our Jehu, who has been smoking vigorously almost ever since we started in the morning, now takes his pipe from his mouth, and, placing it for safety in the leg of one of his top-boots, begins to doze. András, sitting beside him, also dozes, the horses doze, we doze, all nature dozes, in the sultry calm of eventide. The tired flocks cease to browse; the tinkling of their bells is heard no longer, and the shepherd—not he whom we passed an hour ago, and who gave our horses water, but another, his double—lies stretched upon his bunda fast asleep, his dog keeping watch beside him.

On, through the same kind of pastures; the same waving corn-fields; the same villages with their twin churches—Roman Catholic and Calvinist—standing peaceably side by side; the same vague roads, which might be sheep-tracks, or anything, or nothing for that matter; the same dust, the same birds taking their evening bath in the white sand, the same sun, the same sky, the same everything. Yes! and I declare the same melancholy iron crucifix, all on one side, just as we left it whole hours ago behind.

“Hullo!” cries F., opening his eyes, and giving Jöszef a sudden shake, that nearly overbalanced and knocked him off his seat on to the road, “we are not going to be deceived this time. This is no Déli-báb. We have been going backwards for an hour at least; what is the meaning of it, you rascal?”

But, no: Jöszef, thus aroused—giving the horses an indignant reminder with his whip—observes that it is not Nagy-Palota that we have come to, “and which we left behind us long ago,” but Nagy—something else. But by what possible sign he knows a particular village when he sees it and gives it any name whatever is a perfect mystery, for one and all are as absolutely alike to our unpractised eyes, except in minute details, as two pins in a paper.

At length reaching Nagy—whatever it may happen to be (it is quite impossible to catch the outlandish names of these small places)—just as the sun had set, and the plains, suffused in soft tints of opal, seemed dreaming of the morrow’s sunrise, we come to a halt, and decide to remain here for the night.

Our entry into the village excited no small interest. At the sound of our horses’ hoofs, every man, woman and child, who did not already happen to be outside, either came to the doorways, followed by their equally inquisitive pigs, or peeped through the windows of their houses, to ascertain what could possibly be coming to disturb the equanimity of their pastoral retreat.

No sooner had we come to a standstill than we were surrounded by an eager crowd, prompted—as we subsequently proved—not so much by idle curiosity, as by a sincere desire to welcome and be of service to us; but no Americans ever manifested more inquisitiveness, or a greater desire for information than did the dwellers of this small village. Who were we? whence had we come? and whither were we going? were questions which András had to answer all in a breath; whilst that ostentatious little Magyar, doubtless thinking he would shine by a reflected glory, was telling them in a “stage whisper,” and by a succession of small falsehoods, that we were very great people indeed—a great English family, compared with whom all their lines of Eszterházys, and Bánffys, and Keménys put together, were as nothing—not even chaff before the wind.

We had scarcely alighted, when some one came hurrying towards us, to whom all gave place, and whom from his general appearance we had no difficulty in recognising as the curé. Without interrogating us, as his parishioners had done, he begged we would at once accompany him to his house, and make it our home as long as it suited us to avail ourselves of so humble a shelter—a suggestion echoed by the whole admiring crowd.

As the Hungarians are known to excel every other nation in the virtues of hospitality, this invitation gave us no surprise. Our ci-devant host, however, was a priest, and as such may have been influenced by the apostolic admonition regarding the entertainment of “strangers.” Be this as it may, we were not destined to avail ourselves of his hospitality; for our guide—who had left us a few minutes previously to spy out the land and its capabilities—came hurrying back at this juncture with the intelligence that a tolerable inn existed in the village, containing decent accommodation for man and beast: whereupon, thanking the priest for his kindness, we proceeded thither at once.

The fogado in question was a straggling building of which the kitchen formed the principal room, where men—waggoners, apparently, whose horses or teams of oxen we had seen reposing in the álás close by—were drinking slivovitz.

In common with the generality of roadside inns in Hungary, there was an odour of garlic pervading the apartments.

Garlic! Why should we turn up our insular noses at the classic bulb? Did not Socrates himself advocate its use in the Banquet of Xenophon, and the children of Israel hanker after it in spite of their manna?

To the right of the kitchen, furnished in the most primitive fashion, was the guest-room, whose small windows, placed high in the wall, made it seem like a prison. The hostess was a Jewess, but the house was scrupulously clean, as are nearly all on the Alfőld.

In a corner of the room apart from the rest sat two men in the costume of the peasantry, who, taking off their hats, rose at our entrance.

“They are nobles,” whispered the hostess as she led us to an inner room—“bocskorosok nemesemberk (Lords of the Sandal), as they are sometimes called in ridicule, because half of them have not wherewithal to buy csizmák” (top-boots).

These aristocratic rustics, nicknamed “bocskorosok nemesemberk,” are in reality peasants, who have fought on the battle-field, or otherwise served their country, and have received letters-patent of “nobility”—a title, however, that merely gives them certain legal privileges.

The fogado covered a considerable area. Where land is so abundant there is no need to economise space. Every room was on one floor, and arranged round a large courtyard, which was bordered with evergreens and flowering shrubs, growing in brightly-painted tubs. Beyond was a cluster of cowsheds, and beyond these again a clump of trees, beneath which a party of gipsies were bivouacking.

Out in the plains, in the direction of the west and opposite the gipsies’ camp, a number of cattle were browsing peacefully; a man on horseback was driving home a flock of sheep, the outline of his form rendered vague and undefined by the crimson haze which flooded all nature; the trees stood out against the brilliant sky, now bathed in the afterglow, all golden towards their summits, and purple as they neared the ground; the smoke from the gipsies’ fire curled upwards in graceful wreaths; warm shadows lay across the greensward; a woman flitted to and fro with milk-pails, her dress a rich mingling of red, brown, and orange, and her head covered with a blue kerchief—the whole forming a beautiful picture of sympathetic colour and repose.

These roadside inns are far less frequented now than they were, when the ordinary country roads formed the only communication between one town and another. The opening of railways must be an incalculable boon to the inhabitants of both Alfőld and Felfőld alike, for, until they existed, no towns in a state of siege could have been more cut off from the outer world than were those of Hungary in winter, when the roads become absolutely impassable, even for a light vehicle. The inhabitants were consequently obliged either to purchase everything they needed from a distance before the winter began, or to wait till the spring came to release them from their durance.

Even yet, towns and villages connected by railways are few and far between; and very dreary, one would think, must be the people’s lives in places where none exist, when the earth has once lain down in the sepulchre of winter, and the frost has set its iron grip upon the broad expanse of plains. Locked in completely during this season from all communication with their fellows, how do they manage to live? They are, however, a contented, happy people, and their home joys greater far, it is said, than those of dwellers in towns and cities. Let us hope they are.

In the long winter evenings, seated round their large high stoves, they read the passionate and patriotic utterances of their national writers, improvise rhymes to the csárdás, or compose those sad and plaintive melodies for the telinka which one hears in the open air in summer-time. It has been well said that external nature is the outer body of national life, and these dwellers of the great Alfőld, with its impressive breadth and silence, possess contemplative and poetic minds, as nearly all do who are continually surrounded by nature’s solitudes. Even in their most joyous moments there is, indeed, a tinge of melancholy always perceptible in the temperament of the Magyars.

The bad condition of the roads, at all events those of the Alfőld, is of course mainly due to the absence of stone, and the enormous expense which bringing the necessary materials from a distance naturally involves. We were told by a gentleman with whom we once travelled from Pest to Nagy-Várad, that one of the roads across the plains had cost the Government no less than what represented in English money £20,000 per mile; and when the vast area of the plains is taken into consideration, one no longer marvels at the quagmires that carriages have to drag through whilst travelling from town to town and village to village.

Nor is the absence of stone the only disadvantage the dwellers of these steppes have to contend with, for wood is almost as scarce, and in some remote districts the villages, from these combined causes, consist of a mere cluster of mud cottages, thatched with the dried stalks of Indian corn; whilst the farmers, unable to procure material with which to build granaries, are obliged to bury their corn in holes in the ground, which are lined with straw for the purpose.

As evening wears on, and the plains are swallowed up in shadow, fires blaze up here and there in the vast expanse, indicating in unexpected places the presence of gipsies or travellers bivouacking for the night. During harvest-time, in the month of August, they are to be seen in every direction. The nights being chilly, notwithstanding the heat of the day, the reapers, in the absence of wood, make their fires of wheat-sheaves—a thing thought nothing of in this region of cereal abundance—and sit round them in merry groups as they eat their evening meal.

Whilst the corn is being cut and gathered in, the peasants do not return to their homes, the distance, in most cases, being too great. They consequently sleep out of doors for many weeks together, until the harvest season is over. In some parts of Hungary the reaping of the grain is accomplished by moonlight, and the scene is very picturesque. The ruddy glow of the fires lights up the bronzed faces of the reapers, as they fell the long straight stalks of the Indian corn heavy with their weight of golden grain, or plunge their sickles into the softer and more supple labyrinths of wheat and rye, and forms pictures that, once seen, it is impossible to forget.

After the labourers have partaken of their simple meal, which generally consists of black bread and bacon, a period of rest ensues, when they crouch or lie at full length round their fires, listening to songs improvised by one of their party. He adapts rhymes of his own composition to some popular melody, accompanied by a companion on the telinka, a kind of Arcadian pipe; for the Hungarian peasant, like the shepherd, is in a small way not only a musician, but a poet. Occasionally they get up a dance; and should the czigány-folk be wanting, besides the telinka some one is sure to have brought his bagpipes with him, and to these strangely antagonistic instruments, the one so plaintive and pastoral, the other so wild and savage, they dance together in the moonlight. All are clad in sheepskin garments, the wool at that time of year being worn outside, and the whole scene reminds one of the days when Pan tended his flocks, and fauns and satyrs danced to the music of his reed. In whatever phase, or under whatever circumstances one meets with the Hungarian peasant or labourer of the Alfőld, he is the same half-savage, noble, kindly creature, possessing an odd mixture of qualities wherein the good predominates. During harvest-time the Slovaks from Upper Hungary migrate to the plains, so that, although the area under cultivation is vast beyond anything we in England are accustomed to, yet the lack of labourers is seldom felt.

As we sit on the szóhordó beneath the gable of our primitive hostel, we listen now to the rude cadence of a peasant’s song as he comes tramping home from work, and anon to the distant rhythmic beat of music proceeding from a cottage farther up the village. Let us follow up its strains; ten to one we shall find our friends the gipsies.

Yes, there they are fiddling for dear life at the far end of the room. In their endeavours to leave as much space as possible to the dancers, just at this moment, in the very height and wild delirium of the csárdás, they have seated themselves on the high stove, in which exalted position, concealed, all but their Asiatic faces, by clouds of dust and tobacco smoke, they appear above the white wreaths like dark cherubim sawing away at violins.

A wedding, christening, or some other domestic festival, is evidently being celebrated, for through the wide open doorway we can see into an inner apartment where a long table is spread, its numerous viands decorated with flowers. Half the village would seem to have congregated together, judging from the number of persons crowding the walls of the room where the dancing is taking place. What shouts, stamping of feet, and clashing of spurs is there as the men and their gentler partners whirl and twirl with the velocity of dervishes! How the long ribbons fly and the violet stockings quiver beneath the short red skirts, as the little feet of the Magyar maidens patter swiftly over the earthen floor!

Outside, the frogs holding a deafening concert croak an indignant protest against these proceedings, and an insulted owl hoots from the tower of the church hard by. In the little cemetery the kindly moon keeps watch over the long green mounds upon which the crosses throw their shadows as if to keep them safe. Away, beyond the village, and out in the moonlit plains, the plaintive sound of a solitary sheep bell is heard, as some dissipated member of the woolly flock turning night into day nibbles the dewy grass.

But the nights are always chilly in Hungary, no matter at what season, and as we make for our humble quarters we fold our wraps around us, for there is ague abroad on the air.