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Updated: May 1, 2025
The boat which bears me away from the Servian capital has come hither from Semlin, the Austrian town on the other side of the Sava River. It is a jaunty and comfortable craft, as befits such vessels as afford Servians their only means of communication with the outer world.
The interpreter took the letter, but did not do as he was bid. "Well, to make a long story short, the interpreter made a deal with the Huns, and this Dr. Semlin was sent to England from Washington, where he had been working for Bernstorff, to fetch the letter at the address in London indicated by the interpreter.
To my surprise, she spoke in French, and on inquiry I found that she was the daughter of a certain Baron Conrad de Hetzendorf, an Austrian, who possessed a house in Budapest and a chateau at Semlin, in South Hungary. She told us a curious story. Her father had some business in Transcaucasia, and she had induced him to take her with him on his journey.
I could see him, immobile as a statue, standing at the end of the corridor. Except for him and us, the passage was deserted. Again the elderly man spoke and his voice betrayed his anxiety. "Who are you?" he asked almost in a whisper. "What have you done with Grundt? Why has he not come?" Boldly I took the plunge. "I am Semlin," I said.
Say that I sent you, and there should be no difficulty." Precisely at midnight the train started. Quickly gathering speed, it ran through the tumbledown suburbs of the city and rumbled across the iron bridge that spans the Tave River. In twenty minutes it was at Semlin, and Austrian officials were examining passports.
In these days we know nothing of it, for it is a hundred and fifty years since a vain widow in Semlin brought an infected shawl, and fell dead as she went to church in it. But we have to thank the regulations which shut the door against it for this immunity. For each contact with a new people has endowed us with a new disease.
The frontiers of Hungary were decorated with the bodies of Crusaders hanging at the gates of Semlin. Immediately Peter ordered war. The people of the city fled to a hill, with the Danube on one side and a forest on the other. They were driven into the river, four thousand being put to the sword. Belgrade first knew of the battle by the corpses floating past her walls.
On approaching Semlin, a few small cannons were fired off on board our boat. Unfortunately the steward did not receive notice of this event early enough to allow of his opening the windows, consequently one was shattered: this was a serious misfortune for us, as the temperature had sunk to zero, and all the landscape around was covered with snow.
I reluctantly agree, though advocating going on to Semlin this evening.
The Danube is here crossed by a bridge of boats, and this place also forms the military boundary of Austria. The surrounding landscape appeared sufficiently picturesque; the little town of Karlowitz, lying at a short distance from the shore, among hills covered with vineyards, has a peculiarly good effect. Farther on, however, as far as Semlin, the scenery is rather monotonous.
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