cidents of the chase 355

CHAPTER XXXV.

Tokay vineyards--The vine-grower's difficulties--Geology of the
Hegyalia--The Pope's compliment to the wine of Tallya--Towns of
the Hegyalia--Farming--System of wages at harvest--The different
sorts of Tokay wine 364

_Map of the Banat and Transylvania with Mr Crosse's route._

ROUND ABOUT THE CARPATHIANS.

CHAPTER I.

Down the Danube from Buda-Pest--Amusements on board the
steamer--Basiash--Drive to Oravicza by Weisskirchen--Ladies of
Oravicza--Gipsy music--Finding an old schoolfellow--The _czardas_.

One glorious morning in June 1875, I, with the true holiday feeling at
heart, for the world was all before me, stepped on board the Rustchuk
steamer at Buda-Pest, intending to go down the Danube as far as Basiash.

Your express traveller, whose aim it is to get to the other end of
everywhere in the shortest possible time, will take the train instead of
the boat to Basiash, and there catch up the steamer, saving fully twelve
hours on the way. This time the man in a hurry is not so far wrong; the
Danube between Buda-Pest and the defile of Kasan is almost devoid of
what the regular tourist would call respectable scenery. There are few
objects of interest, except the mighty river itself.

Now the steamer has its advantages over the train, for surely nowhere in
this locomotive world can a man more thoroughly enjoy "sweetly doing
nothing" than on board one of these river-boats. You are wafted swiftly
onward through pure air and sunshine; you have an armchair under the
awning; of course an amusing French novel; besides, truth to say, there
is plenty to amuse you on board. Once past Vienna, your moorings are cut
from the old familiar West; the costumes, the faces, the architecture,
and even the way of not doing things, have all a flavour of the East.

What a hotch-potch of races, so to speak, all in one boat, but ready to
do anything rather than pull together; even here, between stem and stern
of our Danube steamer, are Magyars, Germans, Servians, Croats,
Roumanians, Jews, and gipsies. They are all unsatisfied people with
aspirations; no two are agreed--everybody wants something else down
here, and how Heaven is to grant all the prayers of those who have the
grace to pray, or how otherwise to settle the Eastern Question, I will
not pretend to say.

Meanwhile th