e St Marguerite,
opposite Buda-Pest, when a little after six o'clock a fearful hurricane
arose very suddenly, sweeping over us with terrific force. Branches of
trees were carried along like feathers. After this came a dreadful
thunderstorm, accompanied by rain and hail, the hail breaking windows
right and left, even those that were made of plate-glass. The hailstones
were on an average the size of walnuts, and some very much larger. Two
trees were struck by lightning within thirty yards of me. I had a narrow
escape, for these large trees were shattered, and the fragments
dispersed by the hurricane; it was an awful moment, and I shall never
forget it as long as I live.

"Yesterday I went over to the Buda side, where twenty houses have been
entirely washed away. Nearly the whole of the town is flooded, and every
street converted into a river five or six feet in depth. It is estimated
that more than two hundred people have been drowned.... On Sunday
morning I saw the Danube bearing swiftly away the terrible wreckage of
the storm. There were large articles of furniture, the bodies of men,
women, and children, together with horses and cows, all floating on the
whirling waters.... It rained a waterspout for nearly five hours, and in
consequence the small valleys leading down from the mountain were in
some places thirty feet deep, for a time, in rushing water.... The
tramways in some places are destroyed; the mountain railway wrecked; the
vineyards on the hillside simply ruined.... You will scarcely credit me
when I tell you that a house situated at the bottom of the valley and
near the railway station was literally battered in by a _drift_ of
hailstones. The doors and windows were burst in before the inmates could
escape, and they were actually buried alive in ice. When I saw the house
twenty-two hours afterwards it was still four feet deep in hailstones,
though they had been clearing them away with spades. Just as I got there
they recovered the body of a poor woman who had perished. From this
spot, and for about a mile up the valley, no less than fifty-seven
bodies were found."]

CHAPTER III.

Maidenpek--Well-to-do condition of Servians--Lady Mary Wortley
Montague's journey through Servia--Troubles in Bulgaria--Communists
at Negotin--Copper mines--Forest ride--Robbers on the
road--Kucainia--Belo-breska--Across the Danube--Detention at
customhouse--Weisskirchen--Sleeping Wallacks.

We rea