ices to say that one cannot hear it played, even by a strolling band
of gypsies, without a strange fluttering of the heart, an excitement and
an enthusiasm which are beyond one's control. A nation with such a
_Marseillaise_ as the _Rakoczy_ certainly ought to go far in time of
war.

The Hungarians are a martial people, and are fond of reciting their
exploits. Every old guide in Pesth will tell you, in a variegated
English which will provoke your smiles, all the incidents of the
Hungarian revolution, the events of 1848 and 1849--how the Austrians
were driven across the great bridge over the Danube, etc.--with infinite
gusto. The humblest wharf-laborer takes a vital interest in the welfare
of his country, even if he is not intelligent enough to know from what
quarter hostilities might be expected. There is a flash in an
Hungarian's eye when he speaks of the events of 1848 which is equalled
only by the lightnings evoked from his glance by the magic echoes of the
_Rakoczy_.

The peasantry round about Pesth, and the poor wretches, Slavic and
Hungarian, who work on the streets, seem in sad plight. A friend one day
called my attention to a number of old women, most miserably clad,
barefooted and bent with age and infirmities, carrying stones and
bricks to a new building. The spectacle was enough to make one's heart
bleed, but my friend assured me that the old women were happy, and that
they lived on bread and an occasional onion, with a little water for
drink or sometimes a glass of adulterated white wine. The men working
with them looked even worse fed and more degraded than the women. In the
poor quarters of Pesth, and more especially those inhabited by the Jews,
the tenements are exceedingly filthy, and the aroma is so uninviting
that one hastens away from the streets where these rookeries abound. The
utmost civility, not to say servility, may always be expected of the
lower classes: some of them seize one's hand and kiss it as the Austrian
servants do. Toward strangers Hungarians of all ranks are unfailingly
civil and courteous. A simple letter of introduction will procure one a
host of attentions which he would not have the right to expect in
England or America.

The mound of earth on the bank of the Danube near the quays of Pesth
represents the soil of every Hungarian province; and from that mound the
emperor of Austria, when he was crowned king of Hungary, was forced to
shake his sword against the four quarters of th