to any but to the peasants who grow them, and the local
consumers of the same class. These wines, with which every peasant's
house, especially on the skirts of the mountain-districts, and every
little bothy-like public-house, are abundantly furnished, are both red
and white, and at a price within the reach of the poorest peasant.
Even in and about the great towns--such as Presburg, near the frontier
of Austria--where every article of food is double and treble the price
of the interior--the wines cost no more than from 2d. to 3d. a quart.
Most of the peasants grow their own, and make from 50 to 200, and even
1500 eimers or casks, containing 63 bottles each; and this is not like
many of the poor, thin, acid wines, known in so many parts of Germany,
the north of France, and other countries; but strong, generous
beverage, with a delicious flavour, perfectly devoid of acidity, and
at the same time particularly wholesome. Many of the white wines we
prefer to the generality of those from the Rhine, Moselle, &c.; the
red has a kind of Burgundy flavour, with a sparkling dash of
champagne, and is nearly as strong as port, without its heating
qualities.

For the sake of these agreeable and cheap enjoyments, the whole of the
population of the towns pass a great part of the summer in the woods,
orchards, and gardens in the neighbourhood, where every want of the
table is supplied without the trouble of marketing, cooking, or
firing; and, consequently, in the cool of a summer morning, the
inhabitants of Presburg, for instance, may be seen strolling in
different directions--either ascending the vine-covered hills to the
fresh tops, or wending their way through the deep, shady woods, along
the side of the Danube, to the Harbern or the Alt Muelau. There, after
having sharpened their appetites with this charming walk, they find
themselves seated at a neat little table, beneath the shade of an old
chestnut or elm. The cloth is laid by the vigilant host as soon as the
guest is seated, and often before, as the former knows his hour; for
nothing in machinery can equal the regularity with which meal-hours
are ordered, especially in Germany, where the habitual greeting on the
road is: 'Ich wuensche guten appetit'--(I wish you a good appetite.)
Coffee, wine, eggs, butter, sausages, Hungarian and Italian, the
original dimensions of which are often two feet long, and four to five
inches thick: these are to be found at the most humble houses of
re