CHAPTER XXIV.

DESCRIPTION OF DEBRECZIN.

From Grosswardein I proceeded in an open sledge to Debreczin, for the cold was still severe and sledging the usual mode of conveyance; I thus easily performed the journey in one day with the same horses. At the halfway house we stopped to dine, a very humble road-side inn, and on entering the room cold and hungry, found any thing but comfort, the floor being of earth, several peasants wrangling with each other, one of whom clenched his argument by seizing a large bottle of wine and dashing it on the table, the glass and liquid scattering about in all directions, and the landlady in tears.

When I asked whether I could get any thing for dinner, she said "nothing but bread and wine; for," added she, "these drunken men have carried off a stock of meat that I had prepared this morning, and have not only done that, but on my insisting on having money, have broken and dashed to pieces all my pots and pans, and will neither pay nor go away." This she told me in passable German, shedding tears as she spoke. I asked her if there was no law or authority in the place. And she informed me that her husband was gone to the magistrate of the place, and that she was in terror for her life. None of the peasants spoke German, so that we continued our conversation uninterrupted by them; and however indignant I might have been, I did not think it prudent to meddle in the matter, for her account of their habitual conduct tallied with all that I have heard of the condition of the peasantry since the insane measure of the abolition of labour rents without previously determining in each particular case, what money equivalent the peasant became responsible for, from the day that the labour rents ceased, as was done in our own country, when the vassal became farmer. The commutation of rents in kind and labour

into money has been highly beneficial to the British landlord and tenant; but in Hungary the peasant, so far from having enriched himself, has merely devoted a larger amount of his time and money to the public-house, while the landlord has been nearly ruined. Thus, "ill-gotten gearn ever thrives," and no man was ever the more prosperous by being freed from the payment of just debts which he could regularly and conveniently liquidate.

When the husband came in he brought with him another man, who I suppose was a constable, and one of the drunkards went away out, and in a short time returned with money, which he paid over to the people of the house. The landlord himself was a respectable looking countryman, and wore a very showy frogged and braided new surtout. He told me that "his name was Gaspar Kis, and that he was a lieutenant in the Hungarian army, and was one of those that were in Comorn," and pulling out a large greasy pocket-book, showed me his passport under the capitulation, and that he had taken this public-house. "But," added he, “I mean to give it up, for these daily brawls with the drunken peasants weary my life out;" and his wife said, "I weep all day, when I think what I was as the wife of a lieutenant, spending my time in the pleasant societies, and what I am now. I tell my husband," said she, "that I can hold out no longer, and that we must seek our fortune in some other employment."

When the horses were baited I started again, it being very clear sunshine, and by moonlight I arrived at Debreczin. But we passed house after house and went through street after street of scattered house, so that it was a considerable time before we arrived at the Nador, which is the principal inn of the place. So widely scattered is Debreczin, in consequence of every house, except those of the centre of the town, having a considerable patch of ground attached to it. At length I arrived at the inn, which I found to be a very good one, and much better than I expected, for even in Pesth I had heard exaggerated accounts of the badness of the accommodation, which were not realised,

for my bedroom was nicely papered or stencilled, the bed was clean, the floor matted, and the service very good. In the public rooms I saw a distinction which I had no where else observed in Hungary. One being inscribed as military and the other as civilian, which I understand was for the purpose of avoiding all irritating discussions between the garrison and the people of the town.

I found a loud hubbub going on in the civilian public room, and at one end of it a large table laid out with a supper, which one of the townsmen was giving to his fellow citizens on his birth day; and next the window were five or six gipsy musicians, who played Hungarian airs from time to time. They were all well advanced in their cups, and in fact it was an orgie, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I could avoid their constant offers of wine and their endless toasts; but it was the best gipsy band I had ever heard, a man with dark Hindoo features, never spoke a word during the whole evening with his lips, and might have passed for dumb. But with the violin in his hand and with erected bow, his eyes and eyebrows were in perpetual telegraphic communication with the giver of the feast, as to when he should begin and when he should stop, so that to this hour of writing, his visage stands before my mind's eye, with such quaint expressive distinctness, that I regret that I am not artist enough to reproduce its living lineaments.

The Zriny march was encored with immense enthusiasm; a stout old man of between seventy and eighty years of age with long white beard and mustachios, and who was said to be a jeweller in the town, dancing about the room like a madman and snapping his fingers to keep time with the movement of the march, and when "God save the Emperor" was played, shouted aloud, "God save the Emperor, but the Austrian camarilla ought to give an amnesty." As midnight approached, the fun grew fast and furious, but in spite of my being a fanatico per la musica, I felt most inclined for bed, and enjoyed a sound sleep after passing a long day in the keen bracing air of

the puszta of Debreczin, with the cold to be sure diminished from what it had been, but still from sixteen to eighteen degrees of Reaumur.

Next day was devoted to seeing the internal part of the town and delivering my letters. I was much pleased with the great square of the town, which has really a much more noble and civilised appearance than I had been led to expect. In fact there is no medium in the place. When I looked at this public square with its great Calvinistic church-the massive town-house, and several other remarkably handsome edifices, and then thought of the endless lanes of cottages in which the citizen farmers lived, I recognised the presence of the Asiatic element, and remembered those Turkish provincial capitals, where a mosque or two of magnificent architecture contrasts with streets of extensive unvarying meanness. It was market day when I first traversed the square and saw it crowded with people, the females wrapped in fur jackets and cloaks, many of them with crimson coats. The principal articles of traffic being flitches of bacon, large and fat, the staple production of the district, of which I saw thousands laid out on the snow, while the centre space was kept clear for sledges sliding and jingling along.

Debreczin possesses fourteen square German miles of territory, most of it good pasture land, or land that might be arable; and this it lets to its own citizens, who cultivate it in the inconvenient manner I have formerly described, and who sell the produce in the town, which causes it to be a place of great trade in wool, hides, bacon, hog's lard, &c.; so that the population is not less than 50,000 souls, nearly all of whom are Calvinists, except a few Catholics.

Most prominent among the edifices is the Calvinistic church, a building of great size, built in the beginning of this century, of a mongrel Italian sort of architecture, which has acquired a historical celebrity, by its having been the locality of Kossuth's celebrated declaration of independence. Here is a service of psalms and prayers every morning at the hour of eight. I confess I have

never been able to discover much euphony in the spoken language of the Magyars, although the popular notion is that it was the language in which God spoke to Adam; but nobly did it sound in my ears, when, passing from the snow-covered market-place, where the sun was shining in keen frosty brightness, I entered the temple, and heard these Magyars addressing the Deity, while the tones of the organ resounded through its vaults. There is no altar in Calvinistic churches; but the communion-table, within a wooden enclosure, was the spot where the declaration of independence was made by Kossuth.

This was not the usual place of the meeting of the convention of Debreczin, which was in a small chapel, or oratory, of the Calvinistic college, a large edifice built behind the church; and, with its wide passages, great staircases, and general arrangement, had the air of an Italian convent. Theology, literature, and some sciences, are taught here, its principal object being the preparation of Calvinistic pastors. In the library I was shown several incunabula, or books printed before the year 1500; and the party that accompanied us through the place told me that their endowment has a slight accession by an annual payment of 751. sterling, from a religious society in Great Britain; and for some time after the conclusion of the war, this building had been the principal hospital of the wounded and sick of the Russian army, until their recovery enabled them to undertake a winter journey. The Oratory, in which was held the celebrated secret sitting that preceded the declaration of independence, might contain 300 or 400 persons; the usual seat of Kossuth having been pointed out to me in the front row to the right on entering, a small square gallery above having been reserved for ladies.

As to what is commonly called society, it cannot be said to exist at Debreczin, and is represented by a few lawyers, merchants, and physicians, with the professors of the college, who might be counted on the fingers; and