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CHAPTER III.

VOYAGE ON THE DANUBE. FROM PEST

TO SEMLIN.

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Embarkation on steamer.-Description of passengers.— Their behaviour and manners. Want of delicacy. — Arrangements for night.-Csepel.-Tolna.-Anchor.- Course of Danube from Pest.-Word county.-Counties of Hungary. -Province of Sclavonia.-Scenery.-Peasants at Tolna.Dress. -Tobacco. Its present consumption. - Reminiscences of India.-Mohacs.-Erdut.-Anchor.-Scenery.Stoppage for coals. Courtesy of Hungarian baron.Gipsies. Costume.- Resemblance of their language to Hindoostanee.-Anecdote.-Sclavonia.-Origin of people. -Words slave and servant.-Ratze.-Rutheni.-Groups on bank. Water-carriers. wardein.-Roman colony and mine.-Market.-Fruit.Fish.-Carlovich.-Victory of Prince Eugene.-General Brenna. Hanoverian passenger.-Servian gazette.-The Theis. Unchangeableness of features of nature.-Sands of Theis. Mode of collecting gold. - Golden fleece.— Banat.- Derivation of name.-Military colonies.-Illyrians.-Inhabitants.-Country.-Climate.-Soil.-Temesvar. Semlin.-Trade in wool.-The Save.-Boundary of Austria and Turkey.-Visit to Belgrade.-Quarantine.—

Illok.Neusatz.

- Peter

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Health officers.-Turkish soldiers.-Mussulman sabbath.
-Minaret and mosque.-Dilapidations.-Pasha's house.-
Servants. Burial-ground.-Female's palanquin.-Games
of soldiers. - Citizens. Costume.- Words Moslim and
Mussulman.-Females.-Morals.-Breaking in horses.—

Bullocks.-Sakajees.- Filtering-stones.-Bazaar.-Shops. -Houses.-Chimneys.-Sultan's seal.-Greek church.Archbishop's house. New custom-house.-Cargoes of salt.—Visit to an Englishman.-Tamarisk.-Datura stramonium.-Leave Belgrade.-Watch-towers.-Carriage.— Flock of sheep.-Anecdote.-Government of Servia.Czerni Georges.-Servia made a distinct principality under Milosch Obrenovich.-A constitution granted.-Enlightened views.-Prospects of Servia.

HAVING laid in a stock of provisions not liable to speedy decay, to serve us in the event of our being thrown by any accident on our own resources in a spot where nothing could be obtained, we embarked before sunrise. Since the water in the Danube is very shallow as far as Pest, a small steamer is provided to ply between Presburg and that city; but the same obstacle to navigation no longer existing, a large boat is held in readiness at Pest, where the traveller is allowed a whole day to visit the principal objects of interest. This vessel, "Francis the First," has a cuddy about twentyfour by eighteen feet, lined on three sides with seats capable of affording sleeping room to ten persons, but destitute of cots. The ladies

72

DESCRIPTION OF PASSENGERS.

cabin has a semicircular floor, of which the radius may be four feet. A double row of benches, one above the other, surrounds this; and in two corners are indifferent couches. On our arrival, we found the cuddy full of mattresses and feather-beds, alive and almost moving, provided by travellers under the expectation of spending several nights on board. Believing that these necessaries would be supplied by the managers, we had adopted no such precautions. The air of the room was fraught with unsavory odors, and almost suffocating, several of the passengers having embarked the previous evening and passed the night in the cabin with every door and window closed. The ladies' apartment was less tolerable than the gentlemen's. A sick woman occupied one of the circular benches; and her feather-bed, protruding over the floor, nearly covered it. Next to the corner I had secured in the cuddy, a female, suffering from a tertian fever, was bolstered up with pillows and mattresses, which promised no small diminution of the scanty portion of comfort my berth was calculated to afford. The steward of the boat was attacked with the same disease. Thus our voyage towards the lowlands of Hungary, the nursery of autumnal fevers, commenced with a melancholy omen.

SCENE ON STEAMER.

73

The passengers gradually assembled, and when we started, the party exceeded fifty, who, together with their beds and cloaks, so filled the small room as to render every change of place a labor. This discomfort was greatly enhanced by that singular antipathy to fresh air manifested by Germans and Hungarians. No sooner was an attempt made to open a window, than one or two hands were extended towards it, seconded by a polite request that it might be left in statu quo. The natural refuge from such désagrémens would have been the deck but here further miseries awaited us. No less than seven carriages were stowed in two rows over the whole of that part usually left for perambulation; and between the wheels of these and the baggage piled up in the centre it required some skill to steer a course. Walking was out of the question.

Soon after 5 A.M, at which hour we got under weigh, it began to rain, and the whole party were necessarily confined to the cabin. A more heterogeneous mass has, perhaps, seldom been collected together: it would have afforded an admirable subject to the pencil of Hogarth. The English travellers, besides ourselves, consisted of the consul of Bukharest, with his mother and sister, and another gentleman. These

VOL. I.

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74

SCENE ON STEAMER.

all quitted the vessel at Giorgervo in Wallachia; and our foreign companions left us, one by one, in the course of the long voyage, till, at its conclusion, our number was reduced to three, exclusive of ourselves. Two Armenian Catholic monks, with enormous hats and jet black beards, a young lawyer fresh from school, and sundry parties of Austrians and Hungarians, swelled the group. Some Italians mingled their soft language and dirty habits with the raucity of German tongues and the vulgar manners of the motley tribe. A fat elderly woman, with half a dozen girls of various ages, seemed to be giving her family a holiday from the labors of the shop or needle, and strove to drown every other noise in that of her loud mirth and harsh unmusical voice. Here and there, a drowsy one, whose slumbers had been too early disturbed, strove in vain to recompose himself to sleep; while, close to us, a large coarse female, attired in night-cap and dressing-gown, who had roughed it through the night in the gentlemen's cabin, was equipping herself for the day's campaign with a freedom indicative alike of indifference to what was due to herself, and of disregard to the more delicate feelings of the men who surrounded her. Some attempts were made by the gentlemen to

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