On the day of the funeral the ground was white with snow, the cold was intense, but a vast concourse of people followed Deak to his grave.  On the road to the cemetery every house was hung with black, the city was really and truly in mourning; and well it might be, for their great peace-maker was dead, the man who beyond all others of his generation had the power to restrain the impatient enthusiasm of his countrymen by wise counsels that had grown almost paternal in their gentle influence.

While we were still thinking and talking of Deaks political career, a very present cause for anxiety arose in reference to the state of the Danube.  The annual breaking up of the ice is always anticipated with uneasiness, for during this century no less than thirteen serious inundations have occurred.  This year there was reason for alarm, for early in January the level of the river was unusually high, and a further rise had taken place, unprecedented at that season.

The greatest disaster of the kind on record took place in 1838, when the greater part of Pest was inundated, and something like four thousand houses were churned up in the flood; nor was this all, for the loss of life had been very considerable, owing to the sudden nature of the calamity on that occasion.  The recollection of this terrible disaster within the living memory of many persons kept the inhabitants of Buda-Pest very keenly alive to any abnormal rise of the Danube waters.  There were, besides, additional circumstances which created uneasiness and led to very acrimonious discussions.  In recent years certain “rectifications” had been effected in the course of the Danube, which one-half of the community averred would for ever prevent the chance of any recurrence of the catastrophe of 1838.  But there are always two parties in every question—­“Little-endians” and “Big-endians”—­and a great many people were of opinion that these very “rectifications” were, in fact, an additional source of peril to the capital.

The case stands thus:  the river, left to its own devices, separates below Pest into two branches, called respectively the Soroksar and the Promontar; these branches continue their course independently of each other for a distance of about fifty-seven kilometres, forming the great island of Csepel, which has an average width of about five kilometres.  By certain embankments on the Soroksar branch the regime of the river has been disturbed, and according to the opinion of M. Revy, a French engineer,[22] this has been a grave mistake, and he thinks that the Danube misses her former channel of Soroksar more and more.  He further remarks in the very strongest terms upon an engineering operation “which proposes the amputation of a vital limb, conveying about one-third of the power and life of a giant river when in flood—­a step which has no parallel in the magnitude of its consequences in any river with which I am acquainted.”