Peterwardein to besiege it, but they had only their labor for their
pains, for Prince Eugene drove them away. This was in 1716. It seems
hard to believe that a hostile force of Turks was powerful enough to
wander about Christendom a little more than a century and a half ago.

After passing Peterwardein and Neusatz the boat's course lies through
the vast Hungarian plain, which reminds the American of some of the rich
lands in the Mississippi bottom. Here is life, lusty, crude, seemingly
not of Europe, but rather of the extreme West or East. As far as the eye
can reach on either hand stretch the level acres, dotted with herds of
inquisitive swine, with horses wild and beautiful snorting and
gambolling as they hear the boat's whistle, and peasants in white linen
jackets and trousers and immense black woollen hats. Fishers by hundreds
balance in their little skiffs on the small whirlpool of waves made by
the steamer, and sing gayly. For a stretch of twenty miles the course
may lie near an immense forest, where millions of stout trees stand in
regular rows, where thousands of oaks drop acorns every year to fatten
thousands upon thousands of pigs. Cattle stray in these woods, and
sometimes the peasant-farmer has a veritable hunt before he can find his
own. Afar in the wooded recesses of Slavonia many convents of the Greek
religion are hidden. Their inmates lead lives which have little or no
relation to anything in the nineteenth century. For them wars and rumors
of wars, Russian aggression, Austrian annexation, conspiracies by Kara
Georgewitch, Hungarian domination in the Cabinet at Vienna, and all such
trivial matters, do not exist. The members of these religious
communities are not like the more active members of the clergy of their
Church, who unquestionably have much to do with promoting war and
supporting it when it is in aid of their nationality and their religion.

One of the most remarkable sights in this region is a herd of the noble
"cattle of the steppes," the beasts in which every Hungarian takes so
much pride. These cattle are superb creatures, and as they stand eying
the passers-by one regrets that he has not more time in which to admire
their exquisite white skins, their long symmetrical horns and their
shapely limbs. They appear to be good-tempered, but it would not be wise
to risk one's self on foot in their immediate neighborhood.

As for the fishermen, some of them seem to prefer living on the water
rather