I pulled repeatedly at the bell before I could rouse the hausknecht, and induce him to make an appearance.  At length he deigned to emerge from the recesses of the dirty interior.  Having discharged the Wallack in a satisfied frame of mind (he had the best of the bargain after all), I was at leisure to follow mine host to inspect the accommodation he had to offer me.  A sanitary commissioner would have condemned it, but en voyage comme en voyage.  With some difficulty and delay I procured water enough to fill the pie-dish that did duty for the washing apparatus.  I had an old relative of extremely Low Church proclivities who was always repeating—­for my edification, I suppose—­that “man is but dust;” the dear old lady would have said so in very truth if she had seen me on this occasion.

After supper I strolled into the summer theatre, a simple erection, consisting of a stage at the end of a pretty, shady garden.  Seats and tables were placed under the lime-trees, and here the happy people of Oravicza enjoy their amusements in the fresh air, drinking coffee and eating ices.  Think of the luxury of fresh air, O ye frequenters of London theatres!

The evening was already advanced, the tables were well filled; groups gathered here and there, sauntering under the greenery, gay with lanterns; and many a blue-eyed maiden was there, with looks coquettish yet demure, as German maidens are wont to appear.

A concert was going on, and I for the first time heard a gipsy band.  Music is an instinct with these Hungarian gipsies.  They play by ear, and with a marvellous precision, not surpassed by musicians who have been subject to the most careful training.  Their principal instruments are the violin, the violoncello, and a sort of zither.  The airs they play are most frequently compositions of their own, and are in character quite peculiar, though favourite pieces from Wagner and other composers are also given by them with great effect.  I heard on this occasion one of the gipsy airs which made an indelible impression on my mind; it seemed to me the thrilling utterance of a people’s history.  There was the low wail of sorrow, of troubled passionate grief, stirring the heart to restlessness, then the sense of turmoil and defeat; but upon this breaks suddenly a wild burst of exultation, of rapturous joy—­a triumph achieved, which hurries you along with it in resistless sympathy.  The excitable Hungarians can literally become intoxicated with this music—­and no wonder.  You cannot reason upon it, or explain it, but its strains compel you to sensations of despair and joy, of exultation and excitement, as though under the influence of some potent charm.

I strolled leisurely back to the inn, beneath the starlit heavens.  The outline of the mountains was clearly marked in the distance, and in the foreground quaint gable-ends mixed themselves up with the shadows and the trees—­a pretty picture, prettier than anything one can see by the light of “common day.”