There is a custom in Vienna of demanding your passport when you first make your appearance at the barrier, and requiring you to show yourself, within four-and-twenty hours afterwards, at the police-office. The object of these arrangements is, that you may satisfy the authorities of your solvency, and receive from them a letter of security for such length of time as you propose, or they be willing that you should remain in the city. We attended to the established regulation, of course, and now, having fixed the hour of our departure, endeavoured to obtain from the Hungarian chancery the license, without which it would have been impossible to pass the frontier. It was granted without hesitation, though in terms at once vague and rigid. I stated my business; that I went merely as a traveller, curious to become acquainted with the people and the country, and that not knowing the points which I might be induced to visit, or the length of time which might be required to visit them, I was anxious to receive a passport, as generally and loosely worded as might be. The gentleman to whom I addressed myself was exceedingly polite; but he did not exactly fall into my views. "There is no necessity," said he, "to deviate in your instance from the common order of such things. A passport is required from every traveller at the frontier; but after you are once in Hungary, you may go where you please, and stay as long as you feel disposed, without attracting the slightest notice. I will, therefore, write upon your passport, that you are permitted to visit Pesth and its vicinity for a month, and to return." I thought this odd, but could not, of course, object to it, because I concluded that a person in authority must be a much better judge of what was necessary than I; and I have now given the detail at length, because the sequel will show that what was esteemed perfectly regular in Vienna, had well-nigh told against me in one of the remote provinces.