Kornieszti, Russia, For a week we have exercised quite a worries, dissppointmente, and mishaps, we Mark Tapley sort of spirit. Beset with Ihave been cheerful and' even jovial, and managed to find humour in what. other folks would think vexations. The Hungarian did their best to prevent us from Teaving Hungary, and the Roumanians displayed more than callousness as to whether we honoured their land with our presence or not. Onentering the Austro-Hungarian realm, we were each mulcted in the sum of fifty shillings as duty on our bicycles. We handed over the money after an assurance it would be returned to us when leaying the country. But the authorities on the Hungarian-Roumanian frontier never heard of such a thing. We were some degrees worse than idiots if we expected our money back again. And thereupon ensued trouble. We had been treadling our way up the Transylvanian valleys, with the mountain pines wagging their high tops on [either side, and the scarped and crevassed heights of great Cialho glowing afar in the sun, when we whisked past a couple of cottages, over a brook, through a gate painted with the tricolour, and then suddenly realised we were in Roumanian territory. We had hardly turned our machines round and crossed the brook again before soldiers hastened from out the Hungarian cottages, armed from head to foot, guns across their shoulders, eartridges in their pouches, and imposing cocktail plumes nodding in their hats. We saluted them, showed our passports, produced our receipts, and suggested that they might be kind enough to hand over the bicycle tax. Money? there wasn't so much on the frontier. And if there was, they were not going to part with it merely on the production of a receipt signed by some unknown officer on the other side of the Austrian empire, If we really wanted our £7 10s, we had better go to the vil of Tolgyes, lying some way off the main We went to Tolgyes. We gave the officials our names, allowed them to calculate our heights, find out the colour of our eyes, write down any peculiarities of feature or body. Then to a _parboiled, blear-eyed, and big-stomached gentleman, positively bursting with authority. we suggested the return of that money. Return? He laughed at the idea. Who ever heard of his government paying any money to anybody? Besides, it was his dinner hour, and we would oblige by getting out of his office, so that he might Tock it up. Then we became indignant and said rude things. A party of Roumanians came along to pay duty on some fissks of wine. We explained matters, but they shrugged their shoulders, were sorry they could not assist us, and proposed we should decrease the duty on their wine by helping to empty one of the bottles. We helped them. Then we returned to the attack and grew abusive. The Hungarian Customs officer was abusive in turn. We threatened all sorts of punishments. Yet he only scoffed. We were not to be outdone in that way. The miserable village inn was discovered, and then we telegraphed to Branau, on the other side of Austria, to give authority for the money to be hand-cover. In a day and a half we goto reply that our telegram was not understood and would we be more explicit. The official, noting our obstinacy, thought it well to wire to Buda-Pest for instructions. He got no reply at all. Waiting disconsolately in the inn we made the acquaintance of a smart lieutenant, the son of the mayor. He and his father took up our cause. But the Customs official was still stubborn. He knew nothing about the return of any Customs duty. So we lounged about that
cruel vengeance on all officials of whatever ened inn, cursed our fate, and vowed a land. The particular official against whom our vows were directed found wisdom with the morning. He also found special instructions in his rules about the return of duty on bicycles. After keeping us dawdling about his office, and pretending he had been only following instructions, he slowly doled out the seventy-five florins, laier 2 as thanks.
We picked up the money and gave him
Once more we jumped upon our machines and were off to the frontier. But not so quick. They have peculiar rules on the Continent about frontier crossing, and we found the gates closed. Frontier or no frontier, we were not to be debarred, To the speechless astonishment of the soldiery, we simply threw open the gates and walked into Roumania. There a horde of brigand-looking ruffians, unkempt, unshaven, their clothes in tatters, their sandal-shoes exposing their toes, their astrakhan hats greasy, rushed forward and stopped our way. Affecting ignorance, we wanted to ride on, but on second thoughts agreed that a bullet in the small of the back might prove uncomfortable. We hesitated. A pompous official, aroused from sleep, gazed though he could not read one word of with great deliberation at our passports,
them. Then he said we must pay duty. Tt was no good our fuming at such monstrous proposition. He was obdurate. Duty had to be paid on every vehicle, even 4 wheelbarrow, and he would make no exception. We threatened to telegraph to the King, but as the nearest telegraph station was in Hungary, and the office closed, the threat carried little weight. With protests we handed over the money. The desk in which the documents were kept was locked and the key lost. A crowbar, however, speedily wrenched it open, It took about an hour-and-a-half to write out a receipt, and in the meantime we rummaged an adjoining cottage, and suoceeded in getting gulyas—a soup composed half of red pepper,—firkins stuffed with a kind of minced meat, some good cream cheese, and plenty of local wine, At last we got our papers safely in our pockets, and away we went spinning through the dells of Roumania. For days we had climbing in Hungary and Transylvania, with the mountain streams always running towards us. Now they ran with us. Every two or three miles we came across a sentry box with a slouching countryman carrying a decrepit rifle or dozing on the ground. These were the frontier patrols, supposed to be on the watch for suspicious-looking travellers, and to see that no contraband goods were brought over the mountains. They were peasants, obliged by law to take a turn each to serve for one day as guard; a cheap way of securing service. Bicycles are not common in rural Roumapia, and as we
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.