The Argosy — page 284: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Among the Hungarians. 267 But now the train modified its already less than moderate speed ; a line of low whitewashed houses came in sight, and I discovered that I was arriving at my destination. A change from the stifling air of the railway carriage to what resembled the steadfast, burning heat of an oven, and presently I was astonished to see—emerging from a group of Wallachians in long sheepskin cloaks—the incongruous figure of a footman in English livery. The man came up to me, and touching his hat, announced that he was sent by Count Zitvay, and that the carriage was waiting. ‘This announcement, however, did not agree with his costume, for it was made, not in English, but in German, and with a strong Hungarian accent, that by this time I had learned to recognize. He made way for me among the groups of lounging and squatting peasants, and in a few moments we were raising aieeating clouds of dust on the road to the village. This road, being the chief thoroughfare of the village, was nearly a quarter of a mile wide, so that there was room on both sides of the carriage track, as it went meandering and zig-zaging along, for broad ditches, either dried and cracking into huge fissures in the sun, or still containing filthy stagnant water, on which a few sleepy ducks and geese tried to gratify their aquatic tendencies. At last we jolted and rattled into the village. On either side the principal street (the ditches serving as a kind of ornamental front garden) were rows of thatched cottages or huts, standing sideways towards the road, each having a yard or court separating it from its neighbour and shut off from the general public by a great wooden gate, under which fierce-looking curs squeezed sometimes their heads, and sometimes their whole bodies, while joining in a general chorus of indignation at my arrival. The houses are all built in the same style—long, low, straight, and whitewashed, and are constructed out of the mud which forms the principal feature of the surrounding country. If one of the inhabitants wishes to be accommodated with a family residence, he makes arrangements for digging a considerable hole somewhere in the neighbourhood, and with the material thus acquired erects himself a desirable tenement with one door, and two very small windows, warranted not to open. Here he installs himself and family, and perhaps a few friends, and, if he is well off, a few pigs and geese. In the course of time it is very probable that the holes dug by these enterprising Hungarians with a view to the erection of family mansions, may fill with water—as they generally do, considering that the land around is rather of a swampy nature ; but that does not disquiet them. So much the better for the ducks and geese—what would those interesting birds do without water? ‘This water, having no outlet, becomes slightly disagreeable after a time; then more so, GOnlGaooks (CO) mn