Szekszard has the reputation, hereabout, of producing the best quality
of red wine in all Hungary - no small boast, by the way - and the hotel and
wine-gardens here, among them, support an excellent gypsy band of fourteen
pieces. Mr. Garay, the leader of the band, once spent nearly a year in
America, and after supper the band plays, with all the thrilling sweetness
of the Hungarian muse, "Home, sweet Home," "Yankee Doodle," and "Sweet
Violets," for my especial delectation.

A wheelman the fame of whose exploits has preceded him might as well try
to wheel through hospitable Hungary without breathing its atmosphere as
without drinking its wine; it isn't possible to taboo it as I tabooed
the vin ordinaire of France, Hungarians and Frenchmen being two entirely
different people. Notwithstanding music until 11.30 P.M., yesterday, we
are on the road before six o'clock this morning - for genuine, unadulterated
Hungarian music does not prevent one getting up bright and fresh next
day - and about noon we roll into Duna Szekeso, Igali's native town, where
we have decided to halt for the remainder of the day to get our clothing
washed, one of my shoes repaired, and otherwise prepare for our journey
to the Servian capital. Duna Szekeso is a calling-place for the Danube
steamers, and this afternoon I have the opportunity of taking observations
of a gang of Danubian roustabouts at their noontide meal. They are a
swarthy, wild-looking crowd, wearing long hair parted in the middle, or
not parted at all; to their national costume are added the jaunty trappings
affected by river men in all countries. Their food is coarse black bread
and meat, and they take turns in drinking wine from a wooden tube
protruding from a two-gallon watch-shaped cask, the body of which is
composed of a section of hollow log instead of staves, lifting the cask
up and drinking from the tube, as they would from the bung-hole of a
beer-keg. Their black bread would hardly suit the palate of the Western