Round About the Carpathians Part 18

These Rusniacks, or "Little Russians," as they are called, are tolerably numerous--not less than 470,000, according to statistical returns. They are to be found almost exclusively in the north-east of Hungary. They were fugitives in the old days from Russia, to whom they are intensely antagonistic, having probably suffered from her persecutions. In religion they are dissenters from the orthodox Greek Church, a.s.similating more with Roman Catholicism. These people are another variety in the strange mixture of races to be found in Hungary. It is thought, and it would seem probable, that the very fact of the military conscription will help to civilise these Rusniacks by drawing them out of their savage isolation in the wild valleys of the Marmaros Mountains.

There are many peculiarities respecting the races inhabiting the northern parts of Hungary. It would be a great mistake to put the Slavs of the north in the same category with the Slavs of the south: the former are on far better terms with the Magyars; they are for the most part contented, hard-working people, not troubling themselves at all about Panslavism. The reason is not far to seek. The Slovacks, as they are called by way of distinction, numbering about two millions, do not belong to the Greek Church. The greater proportion are Roman Catholics, the rest Lutherans and Calvinists. Many of the Catholics are said to be descended from refugees who fled from the tyranny of the Greek Church in Polish Russia.

After leaving Kiraly-haza we got into charming scenery. As we approached the Carpathians we pa.s.sed through vast oak-forests, and here and there had a glimpse of the Theiss rushing along over its stony bed.

Occasionally we caught sight of herds of buffaloes bathing in the river.

It is difficult to imagine that these fierce-looking creatures, with their ma.s.sive s.h.a.ggy heads, can ever be tractable; yet they can be managed, though only by kindness--"the rod of correction they cannot bear." At length we reached the end of our railway journey. Marmaros Szigeth is the present terminus of the line, and I should say will very probably remain such; for the iron road would hardly meander through the denies and over the heights of the Carpathians, to descend into the spa.r.s.ely-inhabited wilds of the Bukovina. We sought out the princ.i.p.al inn at Szigeth, a wretched place, with only one room and a single bed at our disposal.

My friend took possession of the bed at my request, for I told him I was quite independent of the luxury, having provided myself before I left England with an excellent hammock made of twine. I had learned to sleep in these contrivances during my naval volunteer days, but the order to "sling hammocks" would not have been easy to obey under the present circ.u.mstances. I was forced to put my screws in the floor and hang my net over some heavy furniture; but when I got in, the table that I had chiefly depended upon gave way with a crash, and I found myself on the floor. My friend laughed heartily; he had never seen a hammock before, and, spite of my representations, I do not think he was properly impressed by the great utility of the invention. Of course I was not to be foiled, so I cast about for another method of "fixing." I tried several dodges, but nothing answered exactly; something always gave way after a few minutes of repose--either I came down with a b.u.mp, or some abominable, ramshackle chest of drawers got over-turned.

Now my friend was very tired and sleepy, and desired nothing so much as a little repose. My experiments ceased to interest him, and the noise caused by my repeated misfortunes irritated him. A large-minded man would have admired my tenacity of purpose, but he did not. One can never tell what people are till we travel with them. In a tone of mingled solicitude and irritation he offered to vacate his bed in my favour. He declared he would willingly lie on the hard floor, or indeed, if I would only consent to take his place, he would sit bolt upright in a chair through the livelong night.

"I will do anything," he added piteously, "if you will only be quiet and not try to hang yourself any more in that horrible netting."

I would not hear of my friend leaving his bed, and after one or two more mischances self and hammock were suspended for the night at an angle a trifle too low for the head. Except for the honour and glory of the thing, perhaps I might have slept as well on the floor; but one does not carry a patent contrivance all across Europe to be balked of its use after all.

My friend woke me once during the night by shaking me roughly. He said I had nightmare, and made "such a devil of a row that he could not sleep."

I have some dreamy recollection of finding myself in a London drawing-room in the inexpressibly scanty garments of a Rusniack, and when I turned to leave in all decent haste I found the way barred by an insolent fellow with the head of a buffalo bull. When I awoke in the early morning I found my friend already dressed and rather sulky. He observed that he had never met a man so addicted to nightmare as myself, adding, that another time if I must sleep in my hammock, it would be better to see that the head was higher than the feet.

"It does not make any difference to me," I replied cheerfully, "I am as fresh as a lark."

There was no time for further discussion, for our breakfast was ready (a very bad breakfast it was, too), and the vehicle we had chartered the night before was also waiting to convey us some miles into the interior of the country, to the soda manufactory at Boeska. On our way we pa.s.sed through the village of Karasconfalu, inhabited entirely by Polish Jews.

The dirt and squalor of this place beggar description. The dwellings are not houses, but are simply holes burrowed in the sandbanks, with an upright stone set up in front to represent a door; windows and chimneys are unknown. If it were not for a few erections more like ordinary human habitations, the place might have pa.s.sed for a gigantic rabbit-warren.

As we drove through we saw some of the villagers engaged in slaughtering calves and sheep in the middle of the road, the blood running down into a self-made gutter; it was a sickening sight. The people themselves have a most peculiar physiognomy, especially the men, who in addition to long beards wear corkscrew ringlets, which give them a very odd appearance.

Their princ.i.p.al garment is a kind of long brown dressing-gown, which in its filthy grimness suits the wearer down to the ground. The feet are bound up in thongs of leather. The shoemaker's trade is apparently unknown in these parts. The inhabitants of this delightful village have the reputation of being a set of born cheats and swindlers; if it is true, then certainly the moral is plain, that dishonesty is not a thriving trade. The fact is, being all of one sort, the profession is overcrowded, and the result is that the sharpest amongst them emigrate, or rather I should say go farther a-field to exercise their craft. I am told that many of the low Jews, who make themselves a byword and a reproach by their practices of cheating and usury throughout Hungary, may be traced back to this foul nest in the Marmaros Mountains. It would be well for the credit of the Jewish community in Hungary, as well as elsewhere, if something were done to raise these people out of the utter degradation which surrounds them from their birth.

Not far beyond Karasconfalu we came upon Boeska, situated in the midst of the most beautiful and romantic scenery, not at all suggestive of the neighbourhood of a chemical manufactory. Putting up at the house of the manager of the works, we remained here two or three days, during which time we made some excursions into the heart of the mountains. One of our drives took us some miles along the side of the beautiful river Theiss, which though a proverbial sluggard when it reaches the plain, is here a swift and impetuous stream. Our object was to see the timber-rafts pa.s.s over the rapids; it was a very exciting scene, and as this was a favourable season, owing to the state of the river, we came in just at the right time. The Rusniacks--the people generally employed in this perilous work--certainly display great skill and coolness in the management of their ticklish craft. If by any mischance the timbers come in contact with the rocks, then the danger is extreme; and hardly a year pa.s.ses that some of the poor fellows do not get carried away in the swirling waters, which have made for themselves deep and treacherous holes in this part of the stream.

The pine-trees in the forests of the Marmaros Mountains are simply magnificent; the birch and oak are hardly less remarkable. It is really grievous to see the amount of ruthless destruction which is allowed to go on in these valuable forests, more especially in those belonging to the State. It is the old story--the Rusniack herdsman, to get herbage for his cattle, will set fire to the forest, and perhaps burn some hundreds of acres of standing timber. The result brings very little good to himself; but the blackened trunks of thousands of half-burned trees bear witness to the peasant's inveterate love of waste, and the utter inefficiency of the forest laws, or rather of their administration.

Throughout Hungary it is the same, the power of the law does not make itself felt in the remoter provinces. For example, in the year 1877 there have been scores of incendiary fires in the county of Zemplin; homesteads, hayricks, and woods have suffered, and yet punishment rarely falls on the offender. Government should look to this, for lawlessness is a most infectious disorder.

The Marmaros district is chiefly known for the salt mines, which have been worked here for centuries. Salt is a Government monopoly in Hungary, and is sold at the high price of five florins the hundredweight, forming, in fact, an important source of revenue. The mines at Slatina, not far from Szigeth, are well worth a visit. One of the chambers is of immense size; in this a pyramid of salt is left untouched, and by its downward growth marks the progress of excavation.

At the foot of this pyramid is a little altar, where every year, on the 3d of March, ma.s.s is celebrated with great ceremony, that being the day of Kunigunde, the patron saint of the mines.

One of our expeditions was to visit the mines at Ronasick. Here, too, is an enormous cave with a dome-shaped roof, one hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the water, which covers the floor to the amazing depth, it is said, of three hundred feet. Part of the visitor's programme is to be paddled about on this subterranean lake. We embarked on a raft slowly propelled by rowers; a cresset fire burning brightly at the prow of our craft cast strange lights and shadows on the black waters, added to which the shimmering reflection of the white-ribbed walls had a very singular effect. But the sensation was still more weird when we saw other mystic forms appearing from out the black darkness; first a mere speck of red light was visible, till nearing us we beheld other boats freighted with grim-looking figures that glided past into the further darkness. These phantom-like forms, steering their rafts through the black and silent waters, were grotesquely lit up from time to time by the pulsating red firelight. It might have been a scene from Dante's 'Inferno'!

It was with the sense of escape from a living tomb that we emerged from the depths below into the upper air, and here awaited us a sight never to be forgotten, more especially for its singular contrast to the horrid gloom of the under-world. Here, above ground, in the blessed free expanse of earth and sky, we beheld the heavens ablaze with all the intensest glory of a magnificent sunset. One's soul in deep gladness drank in the ineffable loveliness of nature, as if athirst for the beauty of light and life.

[Footnote 23: Journal of Agricultural Society, vol. x. Part xi. No.

xx.]

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

The Tokay district--Visit at Schloss G------Wild-boar hunting--Incidents of the chase.

My first expedition to the Tokay district was in the winter; I was then the guest of Baron V----, who has a charming chateau, surrounded by an English garden, in this celebrated place of vineyards.

In the winter there is a very fair amount of good sport in this part of Hungary. Sometimes one is enabled to go out hare-shooting in sledges; of course the horses' bells are removed on these occasions. Hares are not preserved in the Tokay district, but they are pretty numerous. I myself shot fifty-four in the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks, which is nothing compared to an English battue of a single day; but then this is sport, and there is immense pleasure in dashing right across country behind a pair of fleet horses, thinking yourself well repaid if you bag a couple or three hares in the afternoon's scamper. For wolf and wild-boar hunting one must penetrate into the forests which extend in the rear of the southern slopes of this Tokay range of hills.

During my stay at G---- a party was got up for a few days' shooting in the interior. On this occasion we were to shoot in Baron Beust's forests, which extend over an area of about forty miles square; as it may be supposed, the sport is not the easy affair it is in the well-stocked parks of Bohemia.

There was not snow enough for sledging, so we drove to the rendezvous on wheels, using the springless carts of the country, the roads being far too rough for ordinary carriages. Wrapped in our _bundas_, we were proof against the cold. The wolf-skin collar turned up rises above the head and forms a capital protection; and very necessary it was on this occasion, for there was a keen cutting wind the day we started.

I carried a smooth-bore breechloader charged with the largest buck-shot in one barrel and with a bullet in the other. In Hungary the forests are usually so thick that one scarcely ever fires at a long range, and heavy shot at a short distance in a thicket is better than a bullet. After driving in a break-neck fashion for about two hours we arrived at the river Bodrog, a tributary of the Theiss. Nearly every winter the country hereabouts is under water; I remember once seeing it when there was all the appearance of an extensive inland sea. Sometimes the inundations are disastrous, but the ordinary flood is an accepted event, and no damage accrues beyond the prevalence of marsh fever in April and May, when the water recedes. This part of the country offers first-rate wildfowl-shooting in the season.

Everywhere in Hungary the different races are strangely mixed up together: the Tokay Hegyalia, it is true, is chiefly peopled by Magyars, and the language is said to be the purest Magyar spoken anywhere; but there are Slavs and Jews amongst them, and our drive of twenty miles brought us into an area where the Slavs predominate. The difference of these races is very marked: the one, fair complexioned and blue eyed; the Magyar, dark, almost swarthy amongst the lower cla.s.ses. At Olasz-Liszka, a small town within the Tokay district, there is an Italian colony, as the name Olasz (Italian) would imply. As long ago as the days of Bela II. this place was peopled by Italian immigrants from the neighbourhood of Venice, invited hither by the king, who greatly encouraged the cultivation of the vine.

Go where you will in this country, there is a Babel of tongues. In this instance our special coachman was a Bohemian, speaking his own language--a very different dialect from the Slovacks who were the "beaters" for our hunt. The gamekeepers, or rather the foresters (for the game is of secondary consideration), were all Magyars. Their language, as we know, bears no affinity to any of the rest. The marvel is that the world gets on at all down here. The gentlemen of our party spoke together indifferently German, French, and English.

It is curious to hear the peasant come out with, "Why the Tartar are you doing this?" for an angry expletive. It is a relic of the old troubled times when the country suffered from the frequent depredations of Turks and Tartars. The Tokay district, say the chronicles, was fearfully hara.s.sed by the Turks as late as 1678.

It is worth while recalling a contemporaneous fact. In 1529 the crescent had been subst.i.tuted for the cross on the Cathedral of Vienna to propitiate the Turks, and it was not till 1683 that the symbol of the dreaded Moslem was removed. When the Hungarians ceased to fear the Turk, they ceased to hate him; and since 1848 they remember only the generous hospitality of the Porte, and the cruel aggressions and treachery of the Russians. The Slav has a longer memory, for to this day he repeats the saying, "Where the Turk comes, there no gra.s.s grows."

When we arrived at our destination our appet.i.tes were far too keenly set to think about the Eastern Question, and right glad were we to see active preparations for supper. The national dishes, the _gulyas hus_ and the _paprika handl_, were produced amongst a number of other good things, such as roast hare. You get to like the _paprika_, or red pepper, very much. I wonder it is not introduced into English cookery, it makes such a pretty-coloured gravy. If the traveller finds himself attacked by marsh fever, and should chance to be without quinine (a great mistake, by the way), let him subst.i.tute a spoonful of _paprika_ mixed with a little red wine, repeating the dose every four hours if necessary. While smoking our peace-pipes after supper, one of the keepers came in to announce the welcome fact that it was snowing hard; fresh-lain snow would materially increase our chances of tracking the wild-boar.

Next morning when we started the weather had somewhat cleared, which was just as well, seeing we had to walk two or three miles to our first battue. Arrived at the rendezvous, we found the "beaters" waiting for us. They were a wild-looking crew were those Slovacks, with s.h.a.ggy coats of black sheepskin, and in their hands the usual long staff with the axe at one end. Notwithstanding their uncouth appearance, later experience has shown me that the Slovacks, as a rule, are patient, hard-working people.

The forest where we were consisted entirely of beech and oak. The acorns attract the wild-boar, which have increased in a very remarkable manner in this locality. I was told that twenty years ago there were no wild-boar in these forests, while now there are hundreds. This seems odd, for the oak-trees are pretty well as old as the hills, and offered the same temptation in the way of food formerly as now. In fact the increase of the wild-boar is a serious nuisance to the vine-grower, for they tramp across to the southern hill-slopes, and occasionally make raids on the vineyards, devouring the grapes with unparalleled greediness, and what is still worse, they will sometimes plough up and destroy a whole plot of carefully-tended vineyard.

Formerly there were many deer in these forests, but now there are only a few roedeer. We saw no traces of wolves on this occasion, but there are plenty in this part of the country.

We were only ten guns, and were soon posted each man in his proper position waiting for the _schwarzwild_, as the Germans say; but, alas!

nothing appeared till the beaters themselves came in sight. So we had to organise battue number two. The beaters walk quietly forward, tapping the trees now and then. This is quite noise enough for the purpose of rousing the game; if they shouted or made too much row, the game would get wild and scared.

In the next battue I had hardly been five minutes at my post when I heard from behind the breaking of dead branches, as of some animal advancing slowly. It was a fine buck which made his appearance, but he scented me and made off. Again about a hundred yards off I got a glimpse of him between the trees. I fired with effect. We found him afterwards about two hundred yards farther on, where he had fallen. It was very provoking; up to lunch-time we sighted no wild-boar, though we saw by the snow that they must have been about the hillside during the night.

We had soon a good fire blazing, at which robber-steak was nicely cooked. I never enjoyed anything more. We washed down our repast with good Tokay.

After luncheon we commenced work again. By this time we had advanced into the very heart of the forest. The smooth boles of the tall beech-trees looked grand in their winter nakedness, rising like columns from the white frost-bespangled ground. I took up my stand, gun in readiness, waiting for the tramp, the snort, or the grizzly dark form of the wild-boar, but nothing came to disturb the utter solitude of the scene.

But hark! I hear shots fired repeatedly in the lower valley. I, too, begin to look out with quickened pulse, peering into the misty depths of the forest, and with ear alert for every sound, but all to no purpose.

Nothing comes my way, though again I hear two more shots echo sharply in the narrow valley nearer to me than before. After the lapse of a few minutes the beaters came up, breaking through the dead branches of undercover. I knew now that my own chance was gone, but I was curious to know what had happened, and joining two of my friends whose "stand" had been near mine, we hurried down the valley to see what sport had turned up for the other guns. On inquiry it appeared that at least seventy wild-boars had pa.s.sed close to one of our party, but the sight of so many at once had made his aim unsteady, and he only succeeded in wounding one of the number. The animal had dashed into the half-frozen stream at the bottom of the valley, and our friend had to reload and give him his final shot there.

We formed one more battue, but nothing came of it, and it was already high time to return to our quarters, for the whole scene was growing dim in the wintry twilight. Some of the party, myself included, went by arrangement to the house of one of the foresters. The good people, in their desire to be hospitable, gave us a warm reception. They had heated the rooms to such an extent that we were almost baked alive.

The next morning we resumed our sport. During the first battue eight wild-boars were sighted. One was shot instantly; the others broke through the line of beaters, but in doing so a very unusual thing happened, for one of the foresters succeeded in killing a boar by a tremendous blow from his axe. We were very much surprised that the animal had come near enough, for as a rule they will not approach human beings except when wounded, and then they are most formidable a.s.sailants. I regret to say that one of our dogs was ripped up by one of this herd of eight.

This was the beginning and end of our sport for the day. Our indifferent luck was to be accounted for from the fact of there being, comparatively speaking, not much snow.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

Tokay vineyards--The vine-grower's difficulties--Geology of the Hegyalia--The Pope's compliment to the wine of Tallya--Towns of the Hegyalia--Farming--System of wages at harvest--The different sorts of Tokay wine.