STEAM NAVIGATION OF THE DANUBE.

45

the dangers were exaggerated. Our plans led us to Constantinople; the reputed beauty of the scenery on the banks of the Danube attracted us towards its waters as a medium of conveyance; and an opportunity was not likely to occur twice in a life of seeing Hungary, Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Moldavia, through which that noble river flows. At the same time, we were unprepared for what we had to encounter at the conclusion of the voyage; when, landed in one of the least civilized countries of Europe, we found ourselves without the common comforts of life, and lamented, when too late, that accurate information had not suggested the purchase of mattresses and other luxuries while we were yet in a land where they could be procured.

It was on a warm and clear morning that we embarked from the quay on the steamer destined to convey us to Pest, which disputes with Presburg the honor of being the modern capital of Hungary and is far more popular among the natives than that triste metropolis. The proprietors of the vessel refused to convey more than one carriage as far as Pest, and a limited number beyond that town. These places were already secured; so that other passengers were denied permission to take their

46

HUNGARIAN GENTLEMEN.

vehicles, and were obliged either to sell them or make arrangements for their safe keeping at Vienna. The steamer was crowded to excess, insomuch that it was no easy task to walk the deck. A hundred and sixty passengers, with boxes and packages innumerable, covered the poop, exhibiting a singular variety of costume and character. The majority were Hungarian nobles whom the diet had brought to Presburg. Among these were several intelligent, polite, and communicative men, who afforded a pleasing specimen of national character. Their conversation was carried on, as we had been led to expect, in Latin; and it was highly interesting to listen for the first time to that classic language employed as a living tongue. Its sounds, so intimately associated with early days, seemed to place us once again in communion with authors familiar in our schools; while in the plain, honest, unsophisticated manners of our companions, fancy could almost trace something of those primitive characters which exercised the pens of the Roman satirist and comedian. This effect can never be produced by Italian, even when heard in Rome, nor by the polished, but less sincere, courtesies of the nobles of Italy. It is probable that the Hungarian, which resembles the Scotch, pronunciation of

LATIN COMMONLY SPOKEN.

47

Latin does not differ very much from the ancient; or, at least, that it approximates to it far more than our own; since it would appear that the language of the Romans has continued to be spoken here ever since they were in possession of Dacia. Its retention, or subsequent adoption, as a common medium of communication among the educated, may be attributed to the difficulty of selecting another, intelligible to all the different tribes that inundated the country between the third and tenth centuries. Some say that it was generally introduced about the year 1000 A. D. when Stephen, the first king of Hungary, was converted to Christianity. At that time a number of priests flowed into the kingdom from Bohemia and other parts of Germany, who brought in not only their religion, but, together with it, the language in which all its doctrines are taught. This is, perhaps, the most probable cause of the prevalence of Latin in Hungary; at least, when combined with the absence, above referred to, of any one dialect intelligible throughout the country.

A Hungarian is almost necessarily an accomplished linguist, and here every well educated man speaks six or seven tongues with facility: he must learn Sclavonian as the language of the peasantry; Latin, as that of the middle and

48

SIFTING GOLD-DUST.

upper classes; and French, as that of universal Europe: being the subject of a German emperor, he must speak the language of his ruler; while circumstances bring him into perpetual contact with Polish, Italian, and Wallachian.

As we sailed down the stream at an even rate of ten miles an hour, the native gentlemen pointed out every object of note in our route, furnishing the name and history of each successive locality. Though the charm of conversational interest cannot be transferred to paper, the facts can be recorded, and thus consigned to a guardianship more faithful than that of memory.

After passing the town of Carlsburg, the ancient Castra Gerulorum, we sailed by a large island, enclosed between two branches of the Danube and known to the Romans under the name of Insula Cituorum. On the banks a number of people were employed in sifting sand mixed with gold-dust. This was placed in baskets and washed in the stream, which carried off the lighter particles of earth, leaving the gold at the bottom.

Passing Raab, Gönyo, and Martinsberg, the oldest Benedictine convent in Hungary, we reached Comorn, the Roman Comoronium, standing on the confluence of the Vagh, or Vagus,

and the Danube. To this fortress, which has never been captured, Francis, the late emperor of Austria, sent his treasures, when the French obliged him to fly from his own capital: the most conspicuous object is a handsome church formerly occupied by the Jesuits. Just opposite Comorn is the site of Bregaetion, founded by a Greek colony. Still farther, on the left, is Parkany, a spot where, as a little boy of fourteen years of age told us with sparkling eyes, the Turks were defeated in 1685. Pursuing our course by Neszniely, famous for its wine, and Neudorf, and sailing for some miles parallel to the Verteschian hills, we reached the confluence of the Granus and the Danube, where is seen the town of Gran, called by the modern Hungarians Esztergon, and by the ancients Strigonium and Istripolis. Once it was the residence of the kings of Hungary, some of whose tombs it contains; now it is the seat of the primate, who ranks next in dignity to the palatine; he used formerly to crown the king, and had the privilege of creating nobles within his jurisdiction. The cathedral, in process of erection, forms a striking object on an eminence overlooking the city. About fifteen miles lower down the stream, a proud old edifice of solid masonry, rising above the town of