Pest is on one bank and Buda on the other, beside a wooded hill climbing steeply up to the old citadel, somewhat as the west bank of the Hudson climbs up to Storm King.

I first came on the Danube at Budapest in the evening after dinner and saw, close in front of me, what looked to be some curious electric-light sign.  It seemed odd in war time, and I stared for a moment before I saw that this strange design was really the black, opposite bank with its zigzag streams of lamps.

Few cities have so naturally beautiful a drop-curtain, and, instead of spoiling it with gas-works’ and grain-elevators as we should do, the Hungarians have been thoughtful enough to build a tree-covered promenade between the Danube and the string of hotels which line the river.  In front of each of these hotels is a double row of tables and a hedge, and then the trees, under which, while the orchestras play, all Pest comes to stroll and take the air between coffee-time and the late Hungarian dinner.

Hundreds of cities have some such promenade, but few so genial and cosey a one as that of Budapest—­not the brittle gayety of some more sophisticated capitals, but the simpler light-heartedness of a people full of feeling, fond of music and talk, and ready to share all they have with a stranger.

The bands play tunes from our musical comedies, but every now and then —­and this is what the people like best—­they swing into the strange, rolling, passionate-melancholy music of the country.  Wherever the tzigany music comes from, it seems Hungarian, at any rate—­fiery and indolent and haphazard, rolling on without any particular rhyme or reason, now piling up and now sinking indolently back as the waves roll up and fall back on the sand.  People will listen to it for hours, and you can imagine one of those simpler daredevils—­a hussar, for instance —­in his blue-braided jacket, red breeches, and big cavalry boots, listening and drinking, and thinking of the fights he has won and the girls he has lost, getting sorry for himself at last and breaking his glass and weeping, and being very happy indeed.

There is a club in Budapest—­at once a club and a luxurious villa almost too crowded with rugs and fine furniture.  When you go to play tennis, instead of the ordinary locker-room one is ushered into a sort of boudoir filled with Chippendale furniture.  It is a delightful place to get exercise, with tea served on a garden table between sets; yet, when I was in Budapest, the place was almost deserted.  It was not, it seemed, the season that people came there, although just the season to use such a place.  For six weeks they came here, and nothing could bring them back again.  They did things only in spurts, so to speak:  “They go off on hunting trips to the ends of the earth, bring back animals for the Zoo, then off to their country places and—­flop!  Then there is a racing season, and they play polo and race for a while, then—­flop!”