and
the rapid increase of her population. Austria and Hungary were alike the
prey of a feverish agitation which pervaded all classes. In a single day
at Vienna as many as thirty gigantic stock companies were formed;
hundreds of superb structures sprang up monthly; people who had been
beggars but a few months before rode in carriages and bestowed gold by
handfuls on whoever came first. The wind or some mysterious agency which
no one could explain brought this financial pestilence to Pesth, where
it raged until the _Krach_--the Crash, as the Germans very properly call
it--came. After the extraordinary activity which had prevailed there
came gloom and stagnation; but at last, as in America, business in Pesth
and in Hungary generally is gradually assuming solidity and contains
itself within proper bounds. The exciting period had one beneficial
feature: it made Pesth a handsome city. There are no quays in Europe
more substantial and elegant than those along the Danube in the
Hungarian capital, and no hotels, churches and mansions more splendid
than those fronting on these same quays. At eventide, when the whole
population comes out for an airing and loiters by the parapets which
overlook the broad rushing river, when innumerable lights gleam from the
boats anchored on either bank, and when the sound of music and song is
heard from half a hundred windows, no city can boast a spectacle more
animated. At ten o'clock the streets are deserted. Pesth is exceedingly
proper and decorous as soon as the darkness has fallen, although I do
remember to have seen a torchlight procession there during the
Russo-Turkish war. The inhabitants were so enthusiastic over the arrival
of a delegation of Mussulman students from Constantinople that they put
ten thousand torches in line and marched until a late hour, thinking,
perhaps, that the lurid light on the horizon might be seen as far as
Vienna, and might serve as a warning to the Austrian government not to
go too far in its sympathy with Russia.

[Illustration: CITADEL OF BUDA]

Buda-Pesth is the name by which the Hungarians know their capital, and
Buda is by no means the least important portion of the city. It occupies
the majestic and rugged hill directly opposite Pesth--a hill so steep
that a tunnel containing cars propelled upward and downward by machinery
has been arranged to render Buda easy of access. Where the hill slopes
away southward there are various large villages crowded with Se