the average Viennese is not the person to miss so important an occasion.
Three other wheelmen are awaiting us in the suburbs, and together we
ride through the waving barley-fields of the Danube bottom to Schwechat,
for the light breakfast customary in Austria, and thence onward to
Petronelle, thirty kilometres distant, where we halt a few minutes for
a Corpus Christi procession, and drink a glass of white Hungarian wine.
Near Petronelle are the remains of an old Roman wall, extending from the
Danube to a lake called the Neusiedler See. My companions say it was
built 2,000 years ago, when the sway of the Romans extended over such
parts of Europe as were worth the trouble and expense of swaying. The
roads are found rather rough and inferior, on account of loose stones
and uneven surface, as we push forward toward Presburg, passing through
a dozen villages whose streets are carpeted with fresh-cut grass, and
converted into temporary avenues, with branches stuck in the ground, in
honor of the day they are celebrating. At Hamburg we pass beneath an
archway nine hundred years old, and wheel on through the grass-carpeted
streets between rows of Hungarian soldiers drawn up in line, with green
oak-sprigs in their hats; the villagers are swarming from the church,
whose bells are filling the air with their clangor, and on the summit
of an over-shadowing cliff are the massive ruins of an ancient castle.
Near about noon we roll into Presburg, warm and dusty, and after dinner
take a stroll through the Jewish quarter of the town up to the height
upon which Presburg castle is situated, and from which a most extensive
and beautiful view of the Danube, its wooded bluffs and broad, rich
bottom-lands, is obtainable. At dinner the waiter hands me a card, which
reads: "Pardon me, but I believe you are an Englishman, in which case
I beg the privilege of drinking a glass of wine with you." The sender
is an English gentleman residing at Budapest, Hungary, who, after the
requested glass of wine, tells me that he guessed who I was when he first
saw me enter the garden with the five Austrian wheelmen.