ride; for the
middle of the day in July is really too hot for exertion in this part of
the world, and I found it was best to rest during the great heat of the
day. From Szaszka I pushed on to Moldova, and judging from my former
experience of driving the same road, I must say I prefer the saddle
infinitely. I should observe that on leaving Szaszka I got into a dense
mist on the top of the mountain. Fortunately I knew my bearings. When
it cleared off I had a magnificent view all the way, reaching the Danube
about nine o'clock. Here I spent the day and night at the house of Mr
G----, with whom I was slightly acquainted, and who received me
hospitably. The next morning very early I started for Svenica, a lovely
ride along the Szechenyi road. I had been in the saddle from five to
eleven A.M., and reaching Drenkova, I was not sorry to stop on
account of the great heat. It has only a wretched inn, where myself and
horse fared very badly. The Danube steamers are not unfrequently obliged
to stop at Drenkova and reship their passengers into smaller boats. This
happens when the water is low, and sometimes when the season is very dry
the river has to be abandoned for the road. When the Eastern Question is
settled a vast number of improvements are to be carried out on the
Danube it is said. The first ought to be the deepening of the channel in
this particular part of the river. There would surely be no great
difficulty in removing the obstructions caused by the rocks. But there
are always political difficulties creeping up in this part of the world
to prevent the carrying out of useful works.

My siesta over, I was off again, soon after three P.M., on my
way to Svenica. I had a splendid view of the river, and stopped my
horse more than once to watch the boatmen at their perilous work of
shooting the rapids. Getting to Svenica soon after six o'clock, I made
inquiries about the distance to Uibanya. No two people agreed, but the
chief spokesman declared it was a couple of hours' walk, and he
volunteered to show me the way. The inn was horribly dirty, as one might
expect from the appearance of the village, which is inhabited entirely
by Serbs, otherwise Rascians. It appears that a vast number of Slavs
from Servia took refuge in Hungary at the end of the seventeenth
century. Some were Roman Catholics, but they were mostly of the Greek
Church. A colony settled at Buda. Lady Mary Wortley Montague, writing
from that town in 1717, says that