Hardships of travel through the near East have vanished, although, in countries so backward and so seldom visited by the sightseer, it would be highly improbable that inconveniences would not be encountered. But these inconveniences are doubly cancelled by the pleasures and sensations of vibrating between the beauty-spots of pugnacious little principalities, whose histories have been written so indelibly with blood upon the pages of the world’s progress. CHAPTER II BUDA-PESTH AND BELGRADE Buda-Pesth and Its Language—From Buda-Pesth to Belgrade—The Servian Passport System—First Impressions of Belgrade—Garden Spots in and about the Servian Metropolis. Buda-Pesth, with its imposing buildings, its kaleidoscopic market scenes and its impossible language, seems to be the Eastern jumping-off place, so to speak, of Continental travel. It is the suburb of Europe; but what a fascinating suburb it is, to be sure! Its architectural beauty is unsurpassed; its situation unrivalled, with the Danube coursing between the old city, Buda, and the new city, Pesth; its parks are veritable bowers of refreshing green; its cafés are interesting and its military music delightful. It is the Mecca of Magyar aristocracy and, if one can infer aught from natural proof, it has been well adopted. But the language! The atrocious combinations of vowels and consonants fairly numb your powers of pronunciation. In order that your attempts to even read the signs may be made all the more tantalizing, our own, the Roman, alphabet is used to muddle the brain of the foreign visitor. When we see the writings of the Chinese or the Greeks, for instance, we are not inclined to regard these tongues as altogether unmasterable, but to behold the letters of _our_ alphabet so haphazardly jumbled together and capped with many accents, grave and acute, seems bitter indeed. Taking it all in all the Hungarian tongue seems analogous to a waste of talent. [Illustration: THE FISCHER RAMPARTS, PESTH.] One delightful evening I summoned my courage and ventured into a trolley-car, hoping that it might eventually take me near the Casino of the principal park. It did, _mirabile dictu_, and I alighted. But a week in Buda-Pesth had not passed without many and varied experiences. In order to be doubly cautious and not mistake my car to return to the hotel—for, luckily, this one made the park its terminus and returned by the same route—I unsheathed my note book and copied then and there the name of the route from a sign on the side of the car. Fortified with this valuable data I was prepared to enjoy the evening with reckless abandon, mingling with the crowds, listening to the music and concerning myself not at all as to the way to get home, for I had only to wait until a car came along marked “Városlíget-Eskü-Tér-Podmaniczy-Utcka,” whatever that means, and I would be among friends.