lish and those things under the sheet he seemed to have much the same
feeling of strangeness: both were something foreign, rather
uncomfortable. He looked relieved when the bandages were on again and
the white sheet drawn up. "We had dozens of them during the winter--one
hundred and sixty-three frozen feet and one hundred frozen hands in this
hospital alone. They had to be driven back from the front in carts, for
days sometimes. When they got here their feet were black--literally
rotting away. Nothing to do but let the flesh slough off and then
amputate."

We strolled on down the sunny, clean-smelling wards. The windows were
open. They were playing tennis in the yard below; on a bench under a
tree a young Hungarian soldier, one arm in a sling, and a girl were
reading the same book. Sunday is a very genial day in Budapest. The
cafe tables are crowded, orchestras playing everywhere, and in dozens of
pavilions and on the grass and gravel outside them peasants and the
humbler sort of people are dancing. The Danube--beautiful if not blue
--flows through the town.

Pest is on one bank and Buda on the other, beside a wooded hill climbing
steeply up to the old citadel, somewhat as the west bank of the Hudson
climbs up to Storm King.

I first came on the Danube at Budapest in the evening after dinner and
saw, close in front of me, what looked to be some curious electric-light
sign. It seemed odd in war time, and I stared for a moment before I saw
that this strange design was really the black, opposite bank with its
zigzag streams of lamps.

Few cities have so naturally beautiful a drop-curtain, and, instead of
spoiling it with gas-works' and grain-elevators as we should do, the
Hungarians have been thoughtful enough to build a tree-covered promenade
between the Danube and the string of hotels which line the river. In
front of each of these hotels is a double row of tables and a hedge, and
then the trees, under which, while the orchestras play, all Pest comes
to stroll and take the air between coffee-time and the late Hungarian
dinner.

Hundreds of cities have some such promenade, but few so genial and cosey
a one as that of Budapest--not the brittle gayety of some more
sophisticated capitals, but the simpler light-heartedness of a people
full of feeling, fond of music and talk, and ready to share all they
have with a stranger.

The bands play tunes from our musical comedies, but every now and then
--and this i