say "our midst," for Hungary
throws a glamour over the stranger that is within her gates, and, moved
by irresistible sympathy, you are led to rejoice in her joy and mourn
with her in her sorrow.

Buda-Pest presented on the day of Deak's funeral a scene never to be
forgotten. It was a whole people mourning for their friend--their safe
guide in time of trouble, the statesman who of all others had planted a
firm basis of future prosperity.

Francis Deak was endowed with that rare gift of persuasion which can
appeal to hostile parties, and in the end unite them in common patriotic
action. Any one who has attentively considered the state of parties in
Hungary during the last decade will know with what irreconcilable
elements the great statesman had to deal. To the Magyars he said, "He
who will be free himself must be just to others;" while to the Slavs he
said, "Labour with us, that we may labour for you." "Reconciliation"
and "compromise" with Austria were the most unpopular words that could
be uttered at that time, yet Deak bravely spoke them in his famous open
letter on Easter day 1865. He continued his calm and steady appeal to
public opinion till his patriotic efforts were rewarded by the close of
that long-standing strife between the Hungarian people and their king.

On the day of the funeral the ground was white with snow, the cold was
intense, but a vast concourse of people followed Deak to his grave. On
the road to the cemetery every house was hung with black, the city was
really and truly in mourning; and well it might be, for their great
peace-maker was dead, the man who beyond all others of his generation
had the power to restrain the impatient enthusiasm of his countrymen by
wise counsels that had grown almost paternal in their gentle influence.

While we were still thinking and talking of Deaks political career, a
very present cause for anxiety arose in reference to the state of the
Danube. The annual breaking up of the ice is always anticipated with
uneasiness, for during this century no less than thirteen serious
inundations have occurred. This year there was reason for alarm, for
early in January the level of the river was unusually high, and a
further rise had taken place, unprecedented at that season.

The greatest disaster of the kind on record took place in 1838, when the
greater part of Pest was inundated, and something like four thousand
houses were churned up in the flood; nor was this all, for th