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New Bridge.

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Casino.

Redout. Quays and Streets. Sand-storms. Increase of Pest.-Museum. - Learned Society. - Meyer Höfe. - Neugebäude. Plain of Rákos. - - Ancient Diets. Modern Reviews.

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Races. Shop Signs.- Bridge of Boats. Tolls.- Rowing. Elizabeth Island. Buda.- Public Buildings. Royal Statthalterei. Austrian Policy. - Fortress. Turks in Hun

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gary. Turkish Remains. Environs of Buda.

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Picturesque. Gödölö.-Bureaucracy.

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Love for the

Blocksberg.

I HAVE not the least inclination to play the part of a cicerone in Pest, by giving a very particular account of all its churches and public buildings; and still less that of an ill-natured spy, by retailing all the stories, true or false, I may have heard of the owners of the splendid mansions now looking so

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empty and desolate: still I believe I must say something as to the whereabouts of the place, more especially as it was only this spring that a learned countryman of ours, whom spleen or the fidgets had driven so far from his usual haunts about Westminster Hall, declared with open eyes and gaping mouth that he had discovered Pest! Here was a city, Buda-Pest, of more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, of which this learned gentleman was, up to the time of his visit, entirely ignorant. To guard you, reader, from a similar error, I invite you to take a seat beside me in the fiacre, accompany me in my first drive round the town, and listen to the information I can pick up of it.

Of course we start from the Palatine Hotel in the Waitzner Gasse, because it is one of the best of its kind in the whole Austrian dominions; and therefore the one at which you and I shall remain during our stay in Pest, reader. And, first of all, please to notice the Fiacre: none of the dirty, heavy, shabby, slow coaches, found on the stands of London; but a very clean, smart, open calèche, with two high-bred little horses which whisk along at a famous rate; and a driver as far superior in sharpness and wit to his wooden-shod confrère of Paris as the equipage is to that of London. In winter, instead of the open calèche, a neat close chariot takes its place, for he is a very poor fiacre in Pest who has not a winter and a summer carriage.

Let us drive to the Quay. Observe those three

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or four first houses, and tell me if you know any private buildings on a more splendid scale, or built in a better style; some of them cost not less than 40,000l. They are inhabited by many families, living, as is common everywhere on the Continent, under the same roof. It is opposite these buildings that it is intended to erect the new bridge across the Danube.

Next we come to the Casino, a handsome building with an exceedingly elegant portico, a little spoiled, perhaps, by being glazed- and, as a kind friend has placed our names on the books, we will even introduce you there too. The rooms of the Casino occupy the whole first floor. As you enter a number of well-dressed footmen are standing about: one takes your hat, and another ushers you into the billiard-room, round the sides of which are rows of pigeon-holes, each bearing the name of a member arranged in alphabetical order, where letters, cards, or parcels are placed to attract his eye on entering. Beyond this, on one side, are two reading-rooms and a library; and, on the other, two or three drawing-rooms. On the reading-room table we were delighted to find that vagabond Englishman's consolation, Galignani; besides the Athenæum, Edinburgh, Quarterly, and Foreign Quarterly Reviews. In the centre is a very fine ball-room, where the Casino gives three or four balls every winter; and beyond this, again, is a long suite of supper-rooms. A dining-room, and a pretty good

232

HUNGARIAN CASINO

cook, complete the arrangements of one of the bestmanaged clubs in Europe.

The stranger, however, is rather astonished at the smell of tobacco, which pervades the whole establishment; and still more by the array of pipes presented in each room, all ready filled, with lights constantly burning beside them. Whether reading, talking, or playing, scarcely a man is to be seen without a pipe in his mouth. It must be recollected, however, that Hungary is not far from Turkey, that the tobacco is excellent, and that smoking is deprived of more than half its disgusting character when unaccompanied by drinking and spitting, neither of which have more to do with it in this part of the world, than a demure face with a clear conscience in some others.

The liberality with which the Casino is opened to strangers, contrasts strongly with the narrow principles on which most of our clubs are ducted in England. Nothing can be more mortifying to an Englishman than to receive favours which he knows he cannot repay in his own country; and nothing can astonish, not to say disgust, a foreigner more than to find he is not admitted into a society, of which his friend is a member, without a previous ballot,-nay, that if he calls on him at his club, he may have to stand in the hall among the servants till his friend is summoned out to see him. It has surprised me that none of our clubs have opened a correspondence with some of

AND ENGLISH CLUBS.

233 the best Continental Casinos, and agreed to receive their members during their residence in London, on condition of their own being admitted on the same terms abroad. How far English stiffness might unbend in favour of the foreigner in London, and tend to make the club a pleasant resort, I know not; but it would certainly give the English traveller abroad the means of forming a more general acquaintance with men of his own age and class than any letters of introduction could possibly secure for him; and the foreigner, if he derived from it no other advantage, would at least be able to get his dinner without being subjected to the exorbitant charges of an hotel-keeper, or running the danger of misjudging English habits from the scenes of a common chop-house.

As we drove along the Quay, which is here paved and walled in, we arrived at the Redouten Saal, a ball-room of very large dimensions and elegant proportions, gay in winter with happy crowds of nobles and citizens mingled together in the levelling waltz and gallopade.

The whole extent of the Quay is about an English mile, from which the city extends in a semicircle; most of the streets are wide, all of them paved, and some of them furnished with footpaths. The houses are of white stone, and, generally speaking, much handsomer than those we are accustomed to see at home. Most of the squares are very well built, but, from want of some object in the centre,

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