608 UN DEBAT : LES MENTALITES COIXECTCV£S 18-
heard from Bootle all our proceedings at Vienna, where I pass’d a most happy month with him, 1 thought it needless to write to you merely for form’8 sake without having any information to give you. Of Bootle I shall only say (not can, I think, anything be said morę in his favor) that he is not in the least altered from what he was before he went abroad* & that at Vienna he was particularly liked by all his aeąuaintance. He wrote you Word amongst other things that I had aiailed myself of the Carte Blanche so kindJy allow’d me & had determined to accompany Morritt & Stockdale to Turkey & by that means to gratify myself with a sight of Constantinople which had always been my great object, & from thence turning KthWards to pass the winter at Moscow & Petersburg according to the original plan of the last year. Accordingly on the 21 st of June I left Vienna not with out considerabl e regret at parting so soon from my Brother, & went to Buda the Capital of Hungary situated upon the Danube. This place together with Pesth, which is only separated from it by the river, may contain perhapS between 30 & 40 thousand inhabi-tants, but as there is no trade going forward there, they are places of but little consequence & will continue such, unless at some futurę time the Emperor should obtain the complete navigation of the Danube by taking possession of the country to the mouth of that river, an [Fol. 2] object which Joseph 2d aim’d at but \rithout success or even a probabi-lity of it. Having soon gratified our curiosity in seeing whateyer was worth notice here we proceeded South & in 4 days reach’d Temesyar having traversed a plain above 130 • miles in length without the least inequality of ground verv indifferently cultiyated & in parts of which the wretched peasants of whom there are but few inhabit cabins under ground. to complete the misery of this tract of country the water is so bad that no one can drink it. Temesyar is a smali fortified town, tolerably neat & clean but not in any respect remarkable. From hence the usual road to Constantinople is by Belgrade, at present however SerVia being infested by robbers & a little infected with the plague, travellers are obliged to follow a different route & to proceed East to Hermanstadt in Transylvania &from thence by Bukorest to Turkey. We accordingly^ set out, on the 29th of June; from Temesyar the country changed & became much pleasanter on account of the ineąuality of ground and the appearances of woods which sight we had not enjoyed for a longtime. [Fol. 3J One evening late, Ave passed through a very thick forest wheie for the first time in my Life I saw glowworms flying about in great num-bers which had a very curious & pretty effect. After travelling 3 or 4 days we arriyed at Hemianstadt where we were obliged to make a little stop on account of passports, being then near the Frontiers of the Empe-ror’s dominions. From hence we passed through the defiles of the Wallachian mountains Avhich are beyond description beautiful. & madę us ample amends for the ugliness of the country we had travelled through to anive at them, this delightful scene lasted 3 days at the end of which we came to an extensive plain Arorse cultiyated & morę thinly peopled than any we had seen in Hungary. Here we saw excellent speeimens of Grecian manners & custonis which being the first we had witness’d stuck-us extremely, for one evening upon our amval at a yillage where there was no inn we were receiyed into the house of a Wallachian Boyar or