Oddly enough it is the Hungarian noblemen who are chiefly responsible for the exclusiveness of the Court at Vienna. It is they who, in acknowledging the Hapsburgs as their rulers, have imbued their fellow-subjects, the Austrians, with their own haughty temper. It is impossible to help mentioning here, rather than under the heading of their own capital, Budapest, the names of some of the princely Hungarian families such as the Esterhazys, whose castles stud the country in the neighbourhood of Buda. The estates of this one family alone cover an area equal to Ireland in extent, and include sixty towns and between 400 and 500 villages. Stories are told of the hauteur of the earlier Esterhazys, as when one of them remarked, “Below the rank of Baron no one exists,” and another who happened to be present at one of the famous Holkham sheep-shearings said casually to his host, the Earl of Leicester, that he possessed as many shepherds as the earl had sheep! Travel and mingling with the aristocracy of other countries has widened the views of later Esterhazys as to their own importance, and more than one of them is a welcome visitor to the English Court. It would be impossible indeed for any visitor not peculiarly favoured by introductions to get a glimpse of the interior of any of their feudal castles which still exist, such as that of Fraknó in the county of Sopron, the property of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, which stands high on an outcrop of rock and has fortified walls all round. There are twenty-one country seats belonging to the Esterhazys, ranging from a specimen such as this, through fine palaces, to huge modern buildings. There are acres of gardens, miles of forest, a famous racecourse and parks without end attached to these mansions. There are other names also rivalling that of Esterhazy, such as that of the Prince Festetics, and many another. But we have wandered far from Vienna. The town itself consists of a rather small kernel enclosed by the celebrated Ringstrasse, a tree-lined boulevard, built over the old fortifications removed in 1858; beyond this an immense outer ring of suburbs is cut by a second promenade. The old saying that “Vienna is the least part of itself” is true more than ever now when it overflows farther and farther on to the broken vine-clad slopes which surround it. [Illustration: VIENNA: CASTLE SCHOENBRUNN]