Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI | Page 3

and very clever in handling the raft,
which requires great skill, especially when conducted over the falls at
low water. Sometimes there is only one little spot where the raft can
pass, and to conduct it over those rapids requires absolute knowledge of
every rock hidden under the shallow falls. If notice is given in time, a
rude hut will be built on the raft to give shelter and make it possible to
have meals cooked, altho in the simplest way (consisting of baked
potatoes and stew), by the Slavs who are in charge of the raft. If
anything better is wanted it must be ordered by stopping at the larger
towns; but to have it done in the simple way is entering into the true
spirit of the voyage.
THE GIPSIES[2]
BY H. TORNAI DE KÖVËR
Gipsies! Music! Dancing! These are words of magic to the rich and
poor, noblemen and peasant alike, if he be a true Hungarian. There are
two kinds of gipsies. The wandering thief, who can not be made to take
up any occupation. These are a terribly lawless and immoral people,
and there seems to be no way of altering their life and habits, altho
much has been written on the subject to improve matters; but the
Government has shown itself to be helpless as yet. These people live
here and there, in fact everywhere, leading a wandering life in carts,
and camp wherever night overtakes them. After some special
evil-doing they will wander into Rumania or Russia and come back

after some years when the deed of crime has been forgotten. Their
movements are so quick and silent that they outwit the best detectives
of the police force. They speak the gipsy language, but often a
half-dozen other languages besides, in their peculiar chanting voice.
Their only occupation is stealing, drinking, smoking, and being a
nuisance to the country in every way.
The other sort of gipsies consist of those that have squatted down in the
villages some hundreds of years ago. They live in a separate part of the
village, usually at the end, are dirty and untidy and even an unruly
people, but for the most part have taken up some honest occupation.
They make the rough, unbaked earth bricks that the peasant cottages
are mostly made of, are tinkers and blacksmiths, but they do the lowest
kind of work too. Besides these, however, there are the talented ones.
The musical gipsy begins to handle his fiddle as soon as he can toddle.
The Hungarians brought their love of music with them from Asia. Old
parchments have been found which denote that they had their songs and
war-chants at the time of the "home-making," and church and
folk-songs from their earliest Christian period. Peasant and nobleman
are musical alike--it runs in the race. The gipsies that have settled
among them caught up the love of music and are now the best
interpreters of the Hungarian songs. The people have got so used to
their "blackies," as they call them, that no lesser or greater fête day can
pass without the gipsy band having ample work to do in the form of
playing for the people. Their instruments are the fiddle, 'cello, viola,
clarinet, tárogato (a Hungarian specialty), and, above all, the cymbal.
The tárogato looks like a grand piano with the top off. It stands on four
legs like a table and has wires drawn across it; on these wires the player
performs with two little sticks, that are padded at the ends with
cotton-wool. The sound is wild and weird, but if well played very
beautiful indeed. The gipsies seldom compose music. The songs come
into life mostly on the spur of the moment. In the olden days war-songs
and long ballads were the most usual form of music. The seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries were specially rich in the production of songs
that live even now. At that time the greatest gipsy musician was a
woman: her name was "Czinka Panna," and she was called the Gipsy
Queen. With the change of times the songs are altered too, and now
they are mostly lyric. Csárdás is the quick form of music, and tho' of

different melodies it must always be kept to the same rhythm. This is
not much sung to, but is the music for the national dance. The peasants
play on a little wooden flute which is called the "Tilinko," or "Furulya,"
and they know hundreds of sad folk-songs and lively Csárdás. While
living their isolated lives in the great plains they compose many a
beautiful song.
It is generally from the peasants and the musical country gentry that the
gipsy gets his music. He learns the songs after a single hearing, and
plays them exactly according to the singer's