do.

I now asked the Wallack in German if he could drive me to Oravicza, for I saw he had made up his mind to drive me somewhere. To my relief I found he could speak German, at all events a few words. He replied he could drive the "high and nobly born Excellency" there in four hours. The time was one thing, but the charge was quite another affair. His demand was so outrageous that I supposed it was an implied compliment to my exalted rank: certainly it had no adequate reference to the services offered. The fellow asked enough to buy the whole concern outright—cart and four horses! They were the smallest horses I almost ever saw, and were further reduced by the nearest shave of being absolute skeletons; the narrow line between sustaining life and actual starvation must have been nicely calculated.

We now entered upon the bargaining phase, a process which threatened to last some time; all the stragglers in the place assisted at the conference, taking a patriotic interest in their own countryman. The matter was finally adjusted by the Wallack agreeing to take a sixth part of the original sum.

Seated on a bundle of hay, with my things around me, I was now quite ready for the start, but the driver had a great many last words with the public, which the interest in our proceedings had gathered about us. Presently with an air of triumph he took his seat, gave a loud crack or two with his whip, and off we started at a good swinging trot, just to show what his team could accomplish.

We took the road to Weisskirchen, leaving the Danube in the rear. The country was fairly pretty, but nothing remarkable; fine scenery under the circumstances would have been quite superfluous, for the dust was two feet deep in the road, and the heels of four horses scampering along raised such a cloud of it that we could see next to nothing.

We had not proceeded far when the speed sensibly relaxed; I fancy the horses went slower that they might listen to what the driver had to say, he talked to them the whole time. He was not communicative to me; his knowledge of German seemed limited to the bargaining process, a lesson often repeated, I suspect. As time wore on the heat became almost tropical; as for the dust, I felt as if I had swallowed a sandbank, and was joyful at the near prospect of quenching my thirst at Weisskirchen, now visible in the distance.

Hungarian towns look like overgrown villages that have never made up their minds seriously to become towns. The houses are mostly of one story, standing each one alone, with the gable-end, blank and windowless, towards the road. This is probably a relic of Orientalism.

Getting up full speed as we approached the town, we clattered noisily over the crown of the causeway, and suddenly making a sharp turn, found ourselves in the courtyard of the inn.

I inquired how long we were to remain here; "A small half-hour," was the driver's answer. This was my first experience of a Wallack's idea of time, if indeed they have any ideas on the subject beyond the rising and the setting of the sun.

I strolled about the place, but there was not much to be done in the time, and I got very tired of waiting: the "half-hour" was anything but "small;" however, one must be somewhere, and in Hungary waiting comes a good deal into the day's work. I was rather afraid my Wallack was indulging too freely in slivovitz—otherwise plum-brandy—a special weakness of theirs; but after an intolerable delay we got off at last.

Soon after leaving the town we came upon an encampment of gipsies; their tents looked picturesque enough in the distance, but on nearer approach the illusion was entirely dispelled. In appearance they were little better than savages; children even of ten years of age, lean, mop-headed creatures, were to be seen running about absolutely naked. As Mark Twain said, "they wore nothing but a smile," but the smile was a grimace to try to extract coppers from the traveller. Two miles farther on we came upon fourteen carts of gipsies, as wild a crew as one could meet all the world over. Some of the men struck me as handsome, but with a single exception the women were terribly unkempt-looking creatures.

It was fully six o'clock before we reached Oravicza; the drive of twenty-five miles had taken eight hours instead of four, as the Wallack had profanely promised.

We entered the town with a feeble attempt at a trot, but the poor brutes of horses were dead beat, and neither the pressure of public opinion nor the suggestive cracking of the driver's whip could arouse them, to becoming activity.

Oravicza is very prettily situated on rising ground, and the long winding street, extending more than two miles, turns with the valley. Crawling along against collar the whole way, I thought the street would never end. There are very few Magyar inhabitants in this place, which is pretty equally divided between Germans and Wallacks; the lower part of the town belongs to the latter, and is known as Roman Oravicza, in distinction to Deutsch Oravicza. The population is altogether about seven thousand.

I fancy not many strangers pass this way, for never was a shy Englishman so stared at as this dust-begrimmed traveller. I became painfully self-conscious of the generally disreputable appearance of my cart and horses, the driver and myself, when two remarkably pretty girls tripped by, casting upon me well-bred but amused glances. All the womenkind of Oravicza must have turned out at this particular hour, for I had hardly passed the sisters with the arched eyebrows, when I came upon another group of young ladies, who were laughing and talking together. I think they grew merrier as I approached, and I am quite sure I was hotter than I had been all day. "Confound the fellow! can't he turn into an innyard—anywhere out of the main street?" thought I, giving my driver a poke. He knew perfectly well where he was about to take me, and no significant gestures of mine hastened him forward in the very least. Presently, without any warning, we did turn into a side opening, but so suddenly that the whole vehicle had a wrench, and the two hind wheels jolted over a high kerbstone. Meanwhile the group of damsels were still in close confab, and I could see took note that the stranger had descended at the Krone. We were all in a heap in the courtyard, but we had to extricate ourselves as best we could, for not a soul was to be seen, though we had made noise enough certainly to announce our arrival.

I pulled repeatedly at the bell before I could rouse the hausknecht, and induce him to make an appearance. At length he deigned to emerge from the recesses of the dirty interior. Having discharged the Wallack in a satisfied frame of mind (he had the best of the bargain after all), I was at leisure to follow mine host to inspect the accommodation he had to offer me. A sanitary commissioner would have condemned it, but en voyage comme en voyage. With some difficulty and delay I procured water enough to fill the pie-dish that did duty for the washing apparatus. I had an old relative of extremely Low Church proclivities who was always repeating—for my edification, I suppose—that "man is but dust;" the dear old lady would have said so in very truth if she had seen me on this occasion.

After supper I strolled into the summer theatre, a simple erection, consisting of a stage at the end of a pretty, shady garden. Seats and tables were placed under the lime-trees, and here the happy people of Oravicza enjoy their amusements in the fresh air, drinking coffee and eating ices. Think of the luxury of fresh air, O ye frequenters of London theatres!

The evening was already advanced, the tables were well