n-circumstances in her demeanor. A
royal supper could she serve, and the linen which she spread on the
small wooden table in the back courtyard smelled of lavender. I took
my dinners, after the long days' rides, in inns which commanded
delicious views of the Danube--points where willows overhung the
rushing stream, or where crags towered above it, or where it flowed
in smooth yet resistless might through plains in which hundreds of
peasants were toiling, their red-and-white costumes contrasting
sharply with the brilliant blue of the sky and the tender green of the
foliage.

[Illustration: BELGRADE, FROM SEMLIN.]

If the inns were uniformly cleanly and agreeable, as much could not
be said for the villages, which were sometimes decidedly dirty. The
cottages of the peasants--that is, of the agricultural laborers--were
windowless to a degree which led me to look for a small- and dull-eyed
race, but the eloquent orbs of youths and maidens in all this Banat
land are rarely equalled in beauty. I found it in my heart to object
to the omnipresent swine. These cheerful animals were sometimes so
domesticated that they followed their masters and mistresses afield in
the morning. In this section of Hungary, as indeed in most parts of
Europe, the farm-houses are all huddled together in compact villages,
and the lands tilled by the dwellers in these communities extend for
miles around them. At dawn the procession of laborers goes forth,
and at sunset it returns. Nothing can give a better idea of rural
simplicity and peace than the return of the peasants of a hamlet
at eventide from their vineyards and meadows. Just as the sun was
deluging the broad Danube with glory before relinquishing the current
to the twilight's shades I came, in the soft April evening, into the
neighborhood of Drenkova. A tranquil afterglow was here and there
visible near the hills, which warded off the sun's passionate farewell
glances at the vines and flowers. Beside the way, on the green banks,
sat groups of children, clad with paradisiacal simplicity, awaiting
their fathers and mothers. At a vineyard's hedge a sweet girl, tall,
stately and melancholy, was twining a garland in the cap of a stout
young fellow who rested one broad hand lightly upon her shoulder. Old
women, bent and wrinkled, hobbled out from the fields, getting help
from their sons or grandsons. Sometimes I met a shaggy white horse
drawing a cart in which a dozen sonsie lasses, their faces bro