The unaccountable decisions of a short-sighted Ministry, which, without ostensible reason, send unfortunate military families rolling about the empire like gigantic foot-balls—from Hungary to Poland, down to Croatia, and up again to Bohemia, all in one breath—too often burst on hapless German _ménages_ like a devastating bomb, bringing moans and curses, tears and hysterics, in their train, according as the sufferer happens to be of choleric or lachrymose temperament. Only those who have lived in this country, and tasted of the bitter-sweets of Austrian military life, can tell how formidable it is to be forced to pack up everything—literally everything, from your stoutest kitchen-chairs to your daintiest egg-shell china—half a dozen times during an equal number of years. For my own part, however—and I am aware that I am considered singular in my views—I had little objection to being treated in this sportive fashion, as long as it gave me the opportunity of seeing fresh scenes and different types of people. There are two sides to every question, a silver—or at least a tin-foil—lining to every leaden cloud, and it is surely wiser to regard one’s self as a tourist than as an exile? What if crockery perish and mirrors be shivered in the portentous flitting? Dry your eyes, and console yourself by gazing at mountains new and lakes unknown. And if furniture be annihilated, and your grand piano-forte reduced to a wailing discord, what of that? Such loss is only gain, for in return you will hear the music of unknown tongues and the murmur of strange waters. If the proceeding be often illogical, the change is always welcome; and on this particular occasion I secretly blessed the playful impetus which had sent our ball of fate thus high up in the air, to alight again in the land beyond the forest. It was in the beginning of April that we started on our journey, and in Galicia we left everything still deep in ice and snow; but scarce had we passed the Hungarian frontier, and got down on to the broad plains, when a warm, genial breeze came to meet us and tell us that winter was gone. The snow left us by degrees, and with it the poverty-stricken, careworn expression peculiar to Poland; spring flowers ventured out of their hiding-places, singly at first, then in groups of twos and threes, till they grew to extensive patches of gold or sapphire blue, pressing up to the rails on either side of our way. Greasy _kaftans_ began to give place to sheepskin _bundas_, and pointed mustaches became more numerous than corkscrew ringlets. The air seemed full of joyous music—the voice of the lark and the strains of a gypsy fiddler alternately taking up the song of triumph over the return of spring. The railway communications are very badly managed, so that it was only on the evening of the second day (fully forty-eight hours) that we arrived at Klausenburg, where we were to stop for a night’s rest. It would hardly have taken longer to go from Lemberg to London.