active arguments of hunger persuaded us to explore one of these lagoons in search of an inn, and after a while we came upon a straggling collection of low shingled houses gathered into the semblance of a village by low fences of wattled willow. With a microscopic vocabulary of Hungarian words we succeeded in getting food to satisfy our colossal appetites, and in holding the friendliest relations with the bronzed peasants, who were fast courting oblivion through the medium of strong wine in the Italian-like hostlery. Here we first made acquaintance with Hungarian dust and Danube mud, an intimacy which ripened as we went on, until at last no adjectives would fitly apply to the one or describe the disgusting characteristics of the other. The willow, too, in this first great flat stretch forced itself on our notice, and began to aggravate us with its monotony, turning an otherwise agreeable landscape into a series of object-lessons in simple perspective. But even the willow came to an end here after a while, and for an agreeable change we welcomed [Illustration: HUNGARIAN CATTLE] an open country, with broken mud banks, where we heard the plaintive music of shepherds’ pipes, saw stalwart swineherds against the sky, and startled, as we drifted past, great droves of wild-looking cattle cooling themselves in the shallows. The life on the bank became at intervals more busy, and all sorts of domestic operations were carried on in the open air along the muddy shores. Whole families splashed about in the shallow water as little heedful of our presence as if we belonged to them. The River Raab sneaks into the Danube in the guise of a lesser side lagoon, and but for our delightful flower-carpeted camp in sight of the group of barges at its mouth and within the sound of the tattoo of many mills, we should scarcely remember it as a feature of our trip. A brief pause at Komorn, regular and uninteresting architecturally as most Hungarian towns are, did not increase our desire for exploration, and we voted, since our time was limited, to land in the future only at places which, smaller and less Germanized by the commerce of the river, would probably be more characteristic and picturesque. But the great Cathedral of Gran--Esztergom is the sonorous Hungarian name--rising above the ruins of a great brick fortress on a prominent height among vineyard slopes, made us accept a speedy amendment to this resolution, and under the lee of its bridge of boats we drew up alongside of one of the great arks which recall the naval architecture of the pre-deluge period. We sampled the characteristic cookery of its famous restaurant, and passed an hour or two of wild excitement over the wonderful colors in the market-place, where shoulder-high heaps of scarlet paprika (big sweet peppers) set the key for a combination of rich and varied tones that would have exhausted the palette of an old Venetian painter; and when at