Chapter VIII

Vienna offers an unsightly water-front to the Danube navigator. A succession of huge passenger and railway bridges span the river, and but for the constant busy traffic seen upon them would appear unnecessarily numerous in full proportion to their ugliness. At one end they touch the marshy, desolate shores of the great plain of the Marschfeld, which stretches away to Hainburg and Theben at the Hungarian frontier, and at the other their solid piers and embankments either stand isolated on waste ground, or are supported by ragged and scattered settlements along the bank, with here and there a huge manufactory. From the level of the water a broad veil of smoke rising above the trees is the only visible indication of the proximity of the great city, except it be the bridges themselves and the numerous tow-boats and excursion steamers. The city lies in a semicircular valley between the hills of the Wienerwald and the Danube on both sides of the little river Wien, which drains the hills to the west and empties its muddy flood into the Danube three or four miles below the city. The northern angle of this little stream, in the very heart of Vienna, is connected by a canal with the Danube at some distance above the town, and the Wien has been canalized and enlarged from its junction with the canal to its mouth, so that there is a practicable waterway through the town. The large Danube passenger boats cannot enter the canal, however, but are waited upon by small steamers which connect with them at the mouth of the Wien. The great park, the Prater, where the International Exhibition of 1873 was held, and a broad flat of rough land adjoining, separate the city from the broad Danube, which, with wonderfully rapid current, rushes off to the east towards the distant hills which mark the Hungarian frontier.

Vienna was originally a Celtic settlement called Vindobona, which the Romans seized in the second decade of this era and made into a military post. From the end of the Roman occupation at the close of the sixth century until the beginning of the eleventh century, the town practically disappeared from history. During the Crusades, however, it increased in size and wealth with great rapidity, and since that time has frequently been the scene of important historical events, not only in the wars with the Mahometans, but in more recent times. The Marschfeld, close at hand, has been a favorite tilting ground for hostile nations from earliest history down to the Napoleonic campaign, when the battles of Aspern and Wagram were fought here. Vienna has its share of stock sights--the beautiful Cathedral of St. Stephen, numerous historical buildings, including the little house where Richard Cœur de Lion was captured, seldom visited by travellers; extensive and monumental public edifices; immense collections of historical relics; superb galleries of works of art, ancient and modern, and places of entertainment and amusement more numerous in proportion to its population than in any other city in Europe. Its citizens comprise a score of nationalities, most of whom represent distinct and important elements in the composition of the empire.

The casual traveller will notice first in Vienna the great speed of the cabs and the skill of the drivers, the wonderfully adorned dray-horses, the prevalence of the kerchief as a head-covering among the women, the shop signs in a dozen languages, the perfect system of tram-ways and omnibuses, and the sudden contrast between the broad and spacious thoroughfares outside the fine boulevards, the Ring Strasse, and the old town within this limit. Even more than Paris, Vienna is essentially a city of apartment-houses and restaurants. These have always been distinct features of Viennese life, and the great rage for building which culminated in the panic at the time of the International Exhibition was induced by the popularity of new apartment-houses which seemed to foretell a great demand for them during the exhibition and later. In consequence of this fever for building, numberless immense caravansaries of apartment-houses were erected in all the new quarters, and the advantages of cheapness and comfort offered by these houses have effectually stifled any tendency among the people of the middle class towards separate residences. One peculiarity of the apartment system in Vienna is the long-established custom of closing the main door at ten o’clock in the evening. After that hour the concierge has the right to collect ten kreutzers (5 cents) from every occupant or visitor who enters the door. He seldom or never waives this privilege. How long this relic of social life of the Middle Ages will last is a much discussed question in Vienna itself.

Acquaintance with the common people in Vienna is made difficult by the atrocious dialect of German they speak there. The popular resorts of the artisan classes, with their musical and theatrical entertainments by local performers of talent, are always amusing, but the wit and humor of the programme is entirely lost to any one who is unfamiliar with the patois. The prevalence of the harsh sound of the letter “X” is one of the most noticeable features of this patois, and a story is told which illustrates the use of this sound and also the manner in which the adopted citizens of the town acquire the common speech. A Hungarian was overheard giving a compatriot assistance in German, and in the course of his lesson he said: “You’ll have to learn a new letter before you can speak German as well as I do. For example, when you drink a glass of beer in a party you must say ‘Xundheit! (Gesundheit) an die ganz’ ‘Xellschaft! (Gesellschaft).’” The Viennese are famous for their keen enjoyment and appreciation of humor, a reputation which is borne out by the popular support given to numberless comic papers, profusely illustrated, and all of them full of local hits. The life of the people is best seen on a holiday in the Wurstel Prater, a sort of Viennese Coney Island, or Crystal Palace, where all sorts of out-of-door entertainments are in progress. Here may be studied the characteristic costumes of many nationalities and of many districts, and a more interesting collection of types cannot be found in Europe. The environs of Vienna are particularly attractive. The great formal park and palace of Schönbrunn and of Laxenburg, the rural beauties of Kahlenberg, and the charms of the vine-growing district along the southern slopes of the hills near the town, all attract crowds of merrymakers on every pleasant holiday.

We did not attempt to enter the Danube canal with our canoes, but paddled down to the boat-house of the Lia Ruder Verein near the third great bridge over the main stream. Here we found a delegation of the club to welcome us, for our probable arrival had been announced to them, and the whole establishment was put at once at our disposal. Our canoes found shelter and healing varnish for their wounds and were stored in the company of forty-eight racing boats, from the eight-oar to the single-scull, while we were carried off bodily by the members of the club and comfortably installed in a hotel. The inexhaustible hospitality and cheery companionship of the members of the Lia Ruder Verein would never tire our muse were we to start the song agoing. This hospitality, not only general, but particular and special, so gilded our stay in the city that the bitterness of parting from Danube and canoes gave but a flavor to the joys of congenial society. One perfect summer morning we saw the last of the club-house as we shot the railway bridge and cast a hasty glance past the bellying mizzen of the bounding canoe. No less absorbing feeling than the glorious sense of freedom and irresponsibility as we found ourselves again on the river would have excused to our consciences the joy we felt at leaving Vienna. But the memory of its kindness and courtesy has survived all ephemeral sentiments.

After a short half-day’s paddle down a tossing current, past scores of floating mills and along miles of stone embankments, we came to the point where the hills again close in from both sides and form a wall along the eastern horizon. Though less imposing than some other mountain ranges we had passed, and, indeed, very narrow where it touches the river, this is the barrier where for many centuries constant and successful resistance was kept up against the advance of the Mahometans. Here for a long time was the extreme eastern bulwark of Christendom, the advance outposts of the West; and here, after countless campaigns, the hereditary enemy suffered the crushing defeats which, a little over a century and a half ago, marked the beginning of the decline of his power in Europe. This gateway to the great Carpathian plain, and the political as well as geographical frontier of Hungary, is as perfect a natural rampart as could be imagined. At the very river’s edge rise, on either bank, high isolated hills, covered now with masses of ruins, but formerly part of a complete system of fortifications perfectly commanding the river from both sides. These fortifications enclosed, as the ruins now plainly show, the little town of Hainburg, on the right bank, and Theben, a few miles below on the other side of the river, the highest Danube town in the Hungarian kingdom.

The sentimental spirit generated in us on the occasion of the happy visit to Dürrenstein, though veiled a little by the distractions of Vienna, was now stimulated afresh as we landed in Hainburg. We had accidentally chosen it as a place for a few days’ quiet work, and found that we had stumbled unawares into a little walled town full of archæological and historical interest. Through an ancient arched gateway near the railway station, Blutgasse (blood lane) winds steeply up between crowded whitewashed houses to a broad open square, where a large church with intricately ugly copper-covered spire throws a shadow over rows of peasant women squatting on the pavement beside their baskets of market stuff, their blue dresses and bright kerchiefs adding an agreeable note of color to the blond tones of the surrounding architecture. Blutgasse! No stretch of the imagination is required to picture the carnage when the Turks, hunting the inoffensive citizens through the streets with fanatical ferocity, left only one alive to tell the tale. This narrow lane, offering a possible escape to the river, was piled high with headless corpses, and the blood ran in streams under the oaken gate into the turbid river, which washed the foundations of the town walls. Tradition says that the one survivor was a woman, who hid herself, with a small store of provisions, in a disused chimney, where for three days she listened to the horrid sounds of the massacre.

During the long centuries while history is silent this little town, with the neighboring region, has been the theatre of many another thrilling and dramatic episode now only faintly echoing in the murmur of tradition. On the whole length of this great water highway there has been no busier spot than this from the time when the goaded slaves first towed the ponderous Roman galleys against the rushing stream up to its docks until its complete destruction in the struggle against the Turks. Indeed, the whole neighboring country bears abundant witness to the importance of this point. Extensive Roman remains are scattered all over the fertile plateau a short distance above Hainburg, near the village of Deutsch-Altenburg and Petronell, where Carnuntum once stood. Military engineers, since the earliest mediæval days, have burned the shattered marbles for lime, and have built into hastily constructed defences tiles and mouldings, capitals and cornices; and in times of peace the local masons, with more deliberation and less excuse, have completed the work of destruction. Recent archæological explorations have uncovered the ruins of an amphitheatre, of villas and baths, and latterly a commendable local interest has been taken in these relics, a proof of which is the popularity of the little museum where are stored a multitude of objects of Roman origin. The farmers now point with pride to the crumbling ruins of the great triumphal arch, which they but recently considered an unsightly excrescence on the fair surface of a broad wheat-field, and speak of Carnuntum as familiarly as if its glories were but of recent date.

Nearer Hainburg the hill-sides are scored with grassy mounds of ancient earthworks, and on the high, isolated peak behind the town the extensive ruin of a mediæval castle is a landmark visible for many miles both up and down the river. Immense Government tobacco factories and a school for military cadets have somewhat disturbed the mediæval aspect of the streets, and a railway has ruthlessly cut through the walls, and trains crunch and rumble high up on a row of ugly arches that disfigure the quay. The old side walls, with frequent towers of irregular shape and at various angles, converge from the water-front, and, narrowing the town limits as they go, join by a solid cross wall at the foot of the hill, and then clamber up the precipitous, rugged declivity to the angles of the great château which covers every yard of the summit. The hill itself is gay with numberless varieties of wild-flowers and shrubs--a botanist’s paradise. In Alfred Parsons’ botanical note-book is the following information concerning this region:

“The Schlossberg behind the town of Hainburg is very rich in plants--one large rock garden. On it grow several kinds of sedum and campanula, dwarf iris, coronilla, genista, two species of dianthus (one of which has white fringed petals and a very strong scent), a yellow and a pink allium, wall-rue, thalictrum, and many other plants and shrubs. In the woods around the town are pyrola, hepatica, Turk’s-cap lily, and there I also noticed a very handsome leaf of an umbelliferous plant. The bladder-nut is a common shrub, and on the borders of the woods grows a melampyrum with yellow flowers which turn orange when older, and have a tuft of bright mauve leaves above them. Masses of this, with the slender white spikes of the small St. Bruno’s lily (_Anthericum liliastrum_) growing up through it, had a very beautiful effect. In the cornfields grow poppies and daisy-like flowers, also a beautiful annual larkspur with purple and blue flowers, and a pale, bluish-white nigella. On the stony slopes at Theben I first saw an everlasting flower with pinkish-mauve blossoms, which grows abundantly east of this point. The commonest flowers on the sandy patches near the river are the yellow snap-dragon (butter and eggs), pink ononis, and a pale-green eryngium, very prickly. In the meadow at the mouth of the Raab I saw _Eryngium amethystum_, and a herbaceous clematis, drooping flowers with blue petals and a yellow centre.”

From the ruined walls, high above the quiet town and the glittering expanse of the river, threading its intricate way through the flat and fertile plain to the shadowy heights rising above the smoke of Vienna, we could look far beyond the castle-crowned rocks of Theben and the great hill of Pressburg, over the rich plain of Hungary checkered with growing crops, stretching away to a mysterious horizon distant as the sky itself. The wooded hills of the boundary range tempted us with their shady paths and wealth of wild-flowers, and we found new beauties at every turn, new delights in every glimpse of the fertile valleys, where whitewashed villages shimmered in the sunlight among the yellow fields of ripening corn. On rare occasions we met Hungarian peasant men with queer hussar jackets and breeches, round hats with cockade of badger hair, and wonderfully high-heeled boots, and sturdy peasant women with stiff, outstanding short skirts, and high riding-boots like the men--skirmishers of the host of novel types and costumes the Danube had in store for us. Steep and narrow footways lead over the hills three miles or so to the nearest village of Hundsheim, which, quite off the highway, and therefore as yet unspoiled by the touch of the modern architect, is so perfect a specimen of a rural hamlet, practically unchanged since mediæval times, that we made it the goal of our evening expeditions. Here, as in all the neighboring villages, it has been the custom, dating from the early days of conflict with the Turk, to build the houses each like a tiny castle, with court-yard and arched gateway, with few and often no windows on the street, and solid high walls on all sides. At Hundsheim two parallel irregular streets straggle down opposite sides of a stony stream which serves as a public washing-place, and furnishes abundant water for all purposes. Each house is like its neighbor in main lines, differing only in unimportant details. All are whitewashed with scrupulous care, and although the streets are little more than rough gullies, there is a refreshing air of

prosperity about the place. The inhabitants cultivate the rich fields for miles around the village, pasture their countless sheep and cattle on the adjacent mountain-sides, and at night gather live-stock and farm wagons into the enclosure of each tiny castle and retire behind its ponderous gates as if the Turk were still a threatening enemy.

One bright morning--the 27th of July, to be accurate--a crowd of new-made friends assembled to see us pack the canoes and launch them in the eddying stream. The hospitable miller, who had housed the delicate craft for us in an empty shed, had not kept secret the hour of our departure, and there were hundreds watching us as we hoisted sail to cross the frontier with speed and in sporting style. A short half-hour, past bold cliffs and picturesque ruins on one side and a wooded bank on the other, brought us to the muddy March, pouring a sluggish, muddy flood into the yellow Danube. In another moment we landed in Hungary, under the overhanging ruins of the great Castle of Theben, which, with its fellow at Hamburg, guarded the entrance to the wealthy kingdoms along the great water highway. In the little whitewashed town, crowded into a narrow valley behind the castle, the musical accent of the Magyar tongue confirmed to our ears what our eyes had readily discovered--the presence of another type of face, of figure, and of character. The aspect of the village, too, was new to us, and suggested a warmer sun, longer summer, and habitual out-of-door life. We saw little gardens filled with bright flowers, tiny court-yards, with tables and benches shaded by trellises of grape-vines and gourds, and met a cheery hospitality at the rude inn, where Maria, the shy beauty of the village, soon forgot her coyness in her delight at our enjoyment of the spicy viands new to our palates. In kerchief and short petticoat, she had no rival between the ruins of Petronell and the château of Pressburg; but

when she hesitatingly yielded to our importunities for a sitting, and appeared, after a brief absence, in black silk frock, booted and gloved, and with parasol in hand, our pencils were too loyal to her peasant charms to attempt the caricature. No visitors of our nationalities had left any impressions on the minds of the simple folk here, but the mention of England and America was, as it always is in Hungary, our best introduction. The active sympathies of these two countries with the people struggling for freedom in ’48 are still gratefully remembered by the whole nation, and the traditions of that sympathy are handed down loyally to the rising generation. At the post-office, where we went to buy our first Hungarian stamps, the gossiping old postmaster and his wife--characters not unfamiliar in the rural offices in other countries--were so overwhelmed by the extent of our requirements and the number of our letters that the wheels of official machinery refused to work at all. After they had carefully read all the addresses, and had marvelled long at the range of our correspondence, we succeeded in communicating to their dazed senses the fact that we wanted to buy a stock of stamps of various denominations.

“What! so much money for stamps? Impossible!” protested the old man and his echoing wife. “You are already sending away florins’ and florins’ worth on these letters!”

“But we want a stock of stamps to keep for our convenient use,” we urged. “Yes, yes, you want to use them; but why don’t you buy them as you need them?” was the reply, as he shut the drawer under his elbow, apparently loath to part with any of its precious contents.

Arguments were useless, and we gave up the notion of securing a variety, and tempered our demand to a humble request for a few ten-kreutzer stamps for foreign postage.

“Ah, no!” he said. “I can’t let you have any ten-kreutzer stamps, for the sheets haven’t been broken into yet, and it is near the end of the month, when I make up my books, and I can’t have my accounts confused by selling ten-kreutzer stamps to any one.”

We compromised on a double number of five-kreutzer stamps, the ones in use for local postage, and ornamented our envelopes with effigies of Franz Josef until they looked like the walls of a chromo-dealer’s shop.