Then, again, the position of Pest is not healthy; it lies low, indeed some part of the city is built on the old bed of the Danube.  The drainage, however, is very much improved of late years, and the magnificent river embankments have done much to obviate the malaria arising from mud-banks.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Skating—­Death and funeral of Deak—­Deak’s policy—­Uneasiness about the rise of the Danube—­Great excitement about inundations—­The capital in danger—­Night scene on the embankment—­Firing the danger-signal—­The great calamity averted.

The winter is usually a very pleasant season at Buda-Pest.  There is plenty of amusement; in fact, during the carnival, parties, balls, and concerts succeed one another without cessation.  The Hungarians dance as though it were an exercise of patriotism; with them it is no languid movement half deprecated by the utilitarian soul—­it is a passion whirling them into ecstasy.  But dancing was not the only diversion.  The winter I was at Buda-Pest a long spell of enduring frost gave us some capital skating.  The fashionable society meet for this amusement in the park, where there is a piece of ornamental water about five acres in extent.  Here the Skating Club have established themselves, having erected a handsome pavilion at the side of the lake to serve as a clubhouse.

From time to time fetes are given on the ice.  I was present on more than one occasion, and I must say it would be difficult to imagine a more animated or a prettier scene.  The Hungarians always display great taste in their arrangements for festive gatherings.  During the gay carnival of 1876 “all went merry as a marriage-bell” till the sad news spread that the great patriot Deak was sick unto death.  Then we heard that he had passed away from our midst—­I say “our midst,” for Hungary throws a glamour over the stranger that is within her gates, and, moved by irresistible sympathy, you are led to rejoice in her joy and mourn with her in her sorrow.

Buda-Pest presented on the day of Deak’s funeral a scene never to be forgotten.  It was a whole people mourning for their friend—­their safe guide in time of trouble, the statesman who of all others had planted a firm basis of future prosperity.

Francis Deak was endowed with that rare gift of persuasion which can appeal to hostile parties, and in the end unite them in common patriotic action.  Any one who has attentively considered the state of parties in Hungary during the last decade will know with what irreconcilable elements the great statesman had to deal.  To the Magyars he said, “He who will be free himself must be just to others;” while to the Slavs he said, “Labour with us, that we may labour for you.”  “Reconciliation” and “compromise” with Austria were the most unpopular words that could be uttered at that time, yet Deak bravely spoke them in his famous open letter on Easter day 1865.  He continued his calm and steady appeal to public opinion till his patriotic efforts were rewarded by the close of that long-standing strife between the Hungarian people and their king.