A few pages later Spencer described the country on a visit in 1850, after the uprising had, with Russia’s help, been ruthlessly put down. ‘The scene of ruin and desolation which everywhere met our view was perfectly appalling … we beheld traces of the barbarian hordes of half wild Croats, Wallachs, and Serbs, and we may add Austrians and Russians, who had so lately rode roughshod over the entire land, and by imperial authority massacred every human being of Magyar origin who fell into their hands; and even at this time, when it might be supposed that the worst passions of man’s nature would have been satiated by indulgence, there was scarcely any abatement in the cruelties exercised by the government towards this unfortunate people. The brutality of the soldiers was unrestrained, the vexatious insolence of the police unendurable — the sufferings of the unhappy prisoners who filled the dungeons of the fortresses and all the strong places were such as revengeful tyranny alone delights to inflict.’
Murray, in his guide of a few years later, tells us: ‘Police regulations are, in respect of passports, at least as stringent as in any other part of the Austrian dominions.’ He goes on to say: ‘The greater part of English travellers in Hungary are contented with a visit to Pest, which is most easily effected by descending the Danube from Vienna by steamer in 10 to 12 hours.’
Should you disregard this advice and go out of the main cities, Murray has other observations to pass on to you: ‘The Hungarian inns are on the whole the worst I have found in Europe. They are generally of one storey, planted in the midst of a court-yard ankle-deep in mud, with an arcade running round them; broken steps and uneven pavement lead up to them. Landlord and waiter are seldom at hand to receive a traveller when he presents himself; the attendance is slow and bad: but these are trifles. I am not over nice, but I must confess the public dining-room, with its tobacco fumes, dogs, the practice of spitting to excess, and not unfrequently the horrid smell of garlic, and, what is worse, the total absence of all attempt to purify the apartment, filled me with disgust. But you are no better off in the bed-rooms: they are equally bespitten, and as seldom cleaned. The spider nestles for ever in the corners, and his tapestry is the only drapery which adorns the bare walls. As for the beds, I shudder to think of them. With all the discomforts of those of Germany they have this in addition, that they are usually filthy. The sheets are sewn on to the coverlid, and how often they serve it is impossible to say. You must especially order clean sheets, and your desire will then be complied with. A bell is almost unknown, even in the chief towns. If you want anything, you must open your window or door and call out to the waiter. You need not expect an answer; but go down stairs, and you will find him in the passage curling his moustachios.’
A stout travelling carriage is absolutely necessary for getting around: ‘Except on one or two roads, Hungary affords nothing but common carts. Leather sheets are desirable, and sleeping in a carriage is often preferable to a bed. No Hungarian gentleman thinks of travelling without his sheets, pillow, pillow-case, and leather sheets. Mattresses are required by those about to penetrate from Hungary into the far east. Mosquito-curtains will be found of the greatest service to those who descend the Danube, and who value skin, sleep, or comfort, since myriads of those venomous insects are engendered on the marshy shores of the river.’
As for food, a chicken may be put on the traveller’s table within half an hour of arrival, ‘but in other respects the larders of the country inns are very badly provided; therefore let the traveller furnish a basket with cold meat, etc., and take several bottles of good wine from whatever starting point he may set out from.’
One of the main highways into the Balkans was the Danube, on which river steam navigation had been started by two English shipbuilders in 1828. Even so, they had ‘commenced the undertaking unaided by others, and, sharing the usual discouragements which attend strangers in a foreign land, they would have been compelled to abandon their plan, had it not received the encouragement of two enlightened noblemen’. The earliest boats were ‘vessels of a peculiar construction, used for the conveyance of pigs from Serbia to Vienna. Many of the engines are by well-known British engine-makers.’
To get downriver from Vienna to the Black Sea took five days on the faster steamers, which were ‘built after the American fashion, with a spacious deck saloon, and sleeping cabins behind. Provisions are not included in the fare, but there is a very tolerable restaurant on board, and the dinner-hour is 12 o’clock. The sleeping accommodation is not good, fleas are very numerous; there is a small ladies’ cabin, generally very crowded; and round the gentlemen’s cabin is a sofa or divan, serving instead of beds; but in summertime it often happens that there is not room for half the passengers, and the remainder must therefore sleep on the floor or on deck. The decks of the steamers are often crowded with merchandise, and the convenience of passengers is sacrificed to the accommodation of goods, inasmuch as they have barely room to stir. Two or three other inconveniences must be mentioned. The mosquitoes, gnats, etc., abound, especially in the lower part of the river; and to escape this plague it may be prudent to take a mosquito net. The marshy land at the mouth of the Danube is most unhealthy at certain seasons, teeming with fever and ague, which those who merely pass up and down without stopping do not always escape. The Hungarians almost surpass the Americans in the filthy habit of spitting, which is not always confined to the deck.’
If our traveller deviates from the river, to look for adventure in other parts of the Austrian dominions, the railway to Lemberg will take him through the land of the Slovaks, who are ‘a quiet, inoffensive, industrious people, but are said to be obstinate, avaricious, fond of flattery, and no great lovers of cleanliness’.
It may be as well to avoid Stuhlweissenburg where the ‘palace of the bishop, and some of the buildings connected with it, are handsome, but the whole town is disagreeably placed in the centre of a huge bog’.
A romantic story is related concerting the seventeenth-century castle of Murany, the residence of ‘the young and beautiful’ widow Maria Szecsi. She was a Protestant and, in defence of that cause, garrisoned her mountain fastness with a detachment of troops commanded by her brother-in-law. ‘The castle was amply furnished with provisions and ammunition; the troops brave and faithful; their commander, a staunch Protestant. Murany was therefore deemed impregnable, and the defenders laughed and made merry when, in 1644, they saw it invested by an imperial army under the Palatine Vesselenyi. The Palatine, however, soon managed to acquire possession of it, — not indeed by force of arms, but simply by marrying its fair occupant, gaining thus, at the same time, both the lady and the castle.’
Venturing into the wilder parts of Wallachia, one travelled in the common cart of the country, ‘made entirely of wood, without a particle of iron, very light, on low wheels, easily upset, and as easily righted. They are … capable of holding only one person, and, on account of the rude jolting, are only to be endured, by those accustomed to them, when filled with hay to sit or lie upon. 4 horses are harnessed to them, and they always go at full gallop, driven by a rough peasant on the near wheeler. The situation of a traveller in rainy weather, seated close behind, and on a level with the heels of 4 wild horses, is not agreeable; in a few minutes he becomes plastered over with mud.’
One of the crossing points into the Turkish Empire was at Belgrade which, to quote Captain Spencer, ‘with its picturesque old castle, its domes and minarets, first announces to the traveller on the Lower Danube that he has entered the territory of the unchanged and unchanging Land of the Crescent’.