hearts, pushed off, waved a last farewell to the young ladies who accompanied us a short distance in a wherry, and paddled out into the glowing twilight. The frequent villas that dot the shores below Visegrád we now looked upon through glasses of different color. Only twenty-four hours before we would have named them landscape-spoilers, and would have turned our faces from them as we passed. But we had caught the infection of the happy land; the microbe which, once in possession, never leaves the willing victim, had begun to attack us, one and all, and we saw possible friends in every pretty garden and in every luxurious pleasure-boat. At this moment less than ever did a great city have any attraction for us, and we wildly planned to cut Budapest altogether, and continue our joyful cruise down into the great wild region beyond, where the river life is active and varied, and where our days should be a succession of pleasant experiences and surprises--where, indeed, we might learn to know, with an intimacy that only such a free life makes possible, the people in their unaffected, simple existence. [Illustration: VISEGRÁD] Just above Waitzen, a good-sized town with prison and manufactories and busy quay, with barges and peasant market-boats, the river bends gracefully around to the south, divides past a long flat island covered with fertile farms, and then loses itself in the distance where the grand old fortress on the summit of Blocksberg overhangs the suburb of Ofen (Buda in Hungarian) on the right bank, and looks down upon the imposing façades of Pest on the opposite shore. An accident, happy in its result, but threatening for a moment a painful disaster, made a pause at Budapest a necessity. Sudden summer thunder-storms swept [Illustration: SWINEHERD] over the river from the cloud-compelling summits in the west, and then cleared away with a strong wind, which, blowing across the current, soon stirred up what the ocean pilots would call a “nubbly” sea. The temptation to hoist sail and triumphantly dash past the populous waterfront of the great city was not long to be resisted, and soon the sparkling river was enlivened by three pairs of snow-white sails. Open-mouthed millers stared at us as we swept past their groaning floats, throwing up spray like so many yachts. Suddenly a polished rudder gleamed in the air, following the total eclipse of one of the canoes, crew and all. A multitude of objects tossed on the waves and bobbed away down-stream, while the humiliated canoist came up, shining like a seal, and righted his water-logged craft. A landing was made, not without difficulty, more soaked and ruined articles were recovered than it would have been thought possible to stow under the mahogany hatches, and we were glad to seek refuge, after the canoe was baled out, in the hospitable boat-house of the Neptune Ruder Verein, a mile or two below the scene of the accident, among the pleasant groves of the Margarethen-Insel (Margitsziget).