Algernon Blackwood

“ The good people all invited us to their villas, and gave us to eat of their delicious national dishes and to drink of their famous wines, but they could not for the life of them understand what we wanted there and what pleasure we found travelling in our rickety canoe and camping out when there were beds everywhere waiting to receive us. ”

“ It is quite the best spot for a permanent camp on the whole lake. There is wood galore⁠—small oak, pollard, and thorn trees. We found a shady place for the tent und a sandy bay for the canoe. Not a quarter of a mile behind our camp, through the pleasant shady woods, was a farm, where we got milk and eggs and bread as often as we required them. Moreover, the farm had a well of cold clear water, and the pail into which our cooking-pots fitted (one inside the other) just held enough to last us through the day. ”

“ The fishing in the Platten See is a snare and a delusion. In the first place it is forbidden, and in the second there is nothing to catch except fogas⁠—a fish peculiar to these waters. A company has the fishing rights over the whole lake, and with immense nets (covering a sweep of a mile and more) catch the fogas, and send them to Buda-Pesth, Vienna, Fiume, Agram, and all the other towns. ”

“ About eleven o’clock, as we were lying on the sand beside the tent, not even the lantern lit, we heard footsteps approaching through the swamp. Presently two figures, apparently boys, came to within a few yards, inspected us curiously, and made off again at a run. “Gipsies,” we heard them say in Hungarian, Our tent being a gipsy tent had misled them evidently, but it was not a pleasant reflection, because gipsies are forbidden by law to live in tents or to travel at all in Hungary. They are compelled to live in houses and have a trade. ”

“ Nothing seems too good for one of the nation that welcomed Kossuth. It is impossible to spend a single krenzer, and the want of proper apparel was never once felt. We looked like brigands, yet felt like princes, and the tact and kindness that can accomplish this are to be found only in communities where the spirit of snobbery is unknown⁠—not, alas! ”

“ But even Buda-Pesth became wearisome after a time. Our tent had been patched up and our cooking pots secured, and one day we left the friendly rowing club behind us and took the train inland to the Platten See, whither the mended canoe had preceded us by freight.
The Hungarian name for this lake is Balatontó (tó meaning lake) , and many of the villages along its shores have Balaton for a prefix. It is a curious body of water, fifty miles long, from two to five miles wide, with warm yellowish waves, and nowhere over thirty feet deep. It has no islands. ”

“ Covered with dust and with a strong flavour of camp about us, we were not prepared to face a party. Moreover, one of us carried a huge paper parcel from which carrots and onions (for the pot!) projected out all angles, and the other dangled a milk-can to be filled on the way home for supper. ”

“ The south shore is flat, hot, and sandy, but the line on the northern side is diversified with deep bays and bold promontories, and the mountains rise pieturesquely to a considerable height. Their volcanic origin is plainly seen in the truncated coves which rise here and there in a series of vigorous landmarks. Vineyards cover their lower slopes, and dotted about everywhere are the little country estates and summer villas of the rich folk from Buda-Pesth and Agram. ”