*

and as the number of servants is usually very great, we generally gave quite as much as the inn would have cost us. Nor on the whole was Stephan wrong, for in travelling afterwards in company with Hungarian gentlemen, I found them paying nearly at the same rate. I am quite sure the old fellow never kept any of it for himself, though its distribution was left entirely to him: a more honest man I never saw.

From Trentsin our first point was Teplitz,* or the bath of Trentsin, as it is often called. It is situated about ten miles from Trentsin in a valley jutting off from that of the Waag, and ending in a cul de sac, at the bottom of which the baths are placed. Like every other bathing-place, Teplitz has the cold, bare, whitewashed look, proper to these places, with a promenade and shops full of useless articles, and old cripples and young cripples, and all the other amusing objects, for the love of which healthy people leave their comfortable homes to pass a month in bad lodgings.

Trentsin is a favourite resort of the Poles and Bohemians, as well as of the Hungarians of the north, and though said to be useful to the sick,t has little to attract the healthy.

Regaining the Waag, we continued our route

*

Teplitz is a Sclavish word signifying “ warm bath," and is therefore like the German “Baden,” scarcely a distinguishing name.

+ The most active ingredient in the water is sulphur, — the temperature is 30° R. These waters are chiefly recommended in chronic rheumatism, gout, &c.

HUNGARIAN TINKERS.

95

along the valley amid fine crops of hemp, buckwheat, poppies, and potatoes. We passed, at Dubnitz, a large mansion of Count Illyesházy, built like a barrack and placed in the very worst position that could possibly have been chosen, for the valley is here more beautiful than ever, the line of the Carpathians bounding Moravia is within an hour of the river, and the landscape almost perfect; yet is this mansion placed in a flat, dirty village, without a prospect beyond it.

The roads throughout this valley are excellent, and the horses better than usual, so that we were enabled to keep up a trot without intermission. The English reader may laugh at this idea of good travelling, but to us it was luxurious compared with what we had been used to for the day or two previous.

From the northerly and most mountainous part of this county and from some of the neighbouring districts, are said to come those wandering tinkers, - or I believe I should rather call them pot-menders, for they do not •come up to the dignity of tinkers, - who are seen pursuing their poor

trade not only in their native country, but in every part of the Austrian dominions. Their chief talent lies in repairing broken earthenware, by binding it together with the wire which they always carry about with them. At certain seasons they return to their own settlements, where the women and children remain during their absence. Excepting the gipsies,

these men are the very poorest and most miserable of all the motley population of Hungary.

Their language would declare them to be Sclaves, like the rest of the inhabitants of this neighbourhood; but I must say I think there is something in the expression and in the form of their features which distinguishes them, and seems to indicate some difference of origin.*

* These are the same people of whom Mr. Gleig speaks under the name of Torpindas. Where this writer obtained this name I know not; I have never heard it used in Hungary, nor can I find it in any Hungarian author. Has he not mistaken it for Topf-binder, pot-mender ? At Presburg they are called Trentsiner, Draht-flechter (wire-workers), or sometimes Drotari.

VAGH BESZTERCZE.

97

Although very fine men, their tight dress hanging in rags about their sparē forms, and their long, shaggy, dark hair escaping from under the broad round hat over their wild features, render them, without exception, the most savage-looking beings I ever saw, and to the casual traveller who meets them among the scenes of more civilized life, and hears them spoken of as Hungarian peasants, they must convey a strange idea of the country they come from. It may be as well to inform these travellers at the outset, that such is not the state of the mass of the Hungarian peasantry.

At Bellus the road leaves the Waag, and crossing a cold highland district, joins it again at Vagh Besztercze, where we arrived towards evening. As we got out of the carriage a miserable beggar presented himself, and welcomed us in tolerable Latin, and in reply to some kreutzers returned a “do gratias, Illustrissime!”

About half a mile beyond the village is another of those ruined castles which are so numerous on the Waag. It is placed on the summit of a sugarloaf shaped mountain, to which access seems almost impossible, and except by sudden surprise or hunger it was probably never reduced. As a ruin, excepting from its fine position, it has less to attract the artist than many of its fellows. In most of the castellated structures of Hungary, though fully equalling those of any other country in the strength and beauty of their position, in the vastness of their

VOL. I.

H

98

CASTLE ARCHITECTURE.

extent, and in their value as military posts of the age to which they belong, I observed few of those delicacies of architecture - coquetries of barbaric taste — with which the Norman and Teutonic knight loved to adorn his favourite stronghold, and which like the stiff collars and stately dress of his “ ladye faire,” might serve to defend as well as to ornament the fortress they surrounded.

The Hungarian castle has a solid and somewhat heavy appearance; the walls are rarely parapeted; the elegant watch-tower, so common on the Rhine, is wanting; the richly mullioned bay-window, the fretted archway and escutcheon-sculptured turret are very scarce; and, instead of the flat roof of England, every tower is commonly surmounted by a wooden covering very like an extinguisher. I am not quite sure that the flat roof belongs to the castle of these times by right; in most of the old pictures of castles, especially the German ones, the roofs are certainly high, and it is probable they did not disappear with us till knocked down by artillery. Formerly, I believe, the watch-tower, and sometimes, perhaps, the keep, had flat roofs.

Vagh Besztercze was once in the possession of two brothers Podmanin, who because they chose rather to fight for themselves than for their king, were discourteously entitled robbers instead of valiant knights. Here too there is a tale of love and war; but much as I like these legends myself, I dare not trouble my readers with the tenth part of