"tamborica"-a small steel-stringed instrument that is twanged with a
chip-like piece of wood. Their singing is excellent in its way, but to
the writer's taste there is no comparison between their tamboricas and
the gypsy music of Hungary. There are no bicycles in all Eszek save ours -
though Mr. Freund, who has lately returned from Paris, has ordered one,
with which he expects to win the admiration of all his countrymen - and
Igali and myself are lionized to our hearts' content; but this evening
we are quite startled and taken aback by the reappearance of the assistant
editor, excitedly announcing the arrival of a tricycle in town. Upon
going down, in breathless anticipation of summarily losing the universal
admiration of Eszek, we find an itinerant cobbler, who has constructed
a machine that would make the rudest bone-shaker of ancient memory seem
like the most elegant product of Hartford or Coventry in comparison. The
backbone and axle-tree are roughly hewn sticks of wood, ironed equally
rough at the village blacksmith's; and as, for a twenty-kreuzer piece,
the rider mounts and wobbles all over the sidewalk for a short distance,
the spectacle would make a stoic roar with laughter, and the good people
of the Lower Danubian provinces are anything but stoical. Six o'clock
next morning finds us travelling southward into the interior of Slavonia;
but we are not mounted, for the road presents an unridable surface of
mud, stones, and ruts, that causes my companion's favorite ejaculatory
expletive to occur with more than its usual frequency. For a portion of
the way there is a narrow sidepath that is fairly ridable, but an
uninvitingly deep ditch runs unpleasantly near, and no amount of persuasion
can induce my companion to attempt wheeling along it. Igali's bump of
cautiousness is fully developed, and day by day, as we journey together,
I am becoming more and more convinced that he would be an invaluable
companion to have accompany one around the world; true, the journey would
occupy a decade, or thereabout, but one would be morally certain of
coming out safe and sound in the end. During our progression southward