After this came a dreadful thunderstorm, accompanied by rain and hail, the hail breaking windows right and left, even those that were made of plate-glass.  The hailstones were on an average the size of walnuts, and some very much larger.  Two trees were struck by lightning within thirty yards of me.  I had a narrow escape, for these large trees were shattered, and the fragments dispersed by the hurricane; it was an awful moment, and I shall never forget it as long as I live.

“Yesterday I went over to the Buda side, where twenty houses have been entirely washed away.  Nearly the whole of the town is flooded, and every street converted into a river five or six feet in depth.  It is estimated that more than two hundred people have been drowned....  On Sunday morning I saw the Danube bearing swiftly away the terrible wreckage of the storm.  There were large articles of furniture, the bodies of men, women, and children, together with horses and cows, all floating on the whirling waters....  It rained a waterspout for nearly five hours, and in consequence the small valleys leading down from the mountain were in some places thirty feet deep, for a time, in rushing water....  The tramways in some places are destroyed; the mountain railway wrecked; the vineyards on the hillside simply ruined....  You will scarcely credit me when I tell you that a house situated at the bottom of the valley and near the railway station was literally battered in by a drift of hailstones.  The doors and windows were burst in before the inmates could escape, and they were actually buried alive in ice.  When I saw the house twenty-two hours afterwards it was still four feet deep in hailstones, though they had been clearing them away with spades.  Just as I got there they recovered the body of a poor woman who had perished.  From this spot, and for about a mile up the valley, no less than fifty-seven bodies were found.”]

CHAPTER III.

Maidenpek—­Well-to-do condition of Servians—­Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s journey through Servia—­Troubles in Bulgaria—­Communists at Negotin—­Copper mines—­Forest ride—­Robbers on the road—­Kucainia—­Belo-breska—­Across the Danube—­Detention at customhouse—­Weisskirchen—­Sleeping Wallacks.

We reached Maidenpek without further mishap, and here I began to make inquiries again about a horse.  I was informed that in some of the villages farther up I should be sure to find the sort of horse I wanted, and not sorry for an excuse for exploring the country, I agreed to go, at the same time getting my friend to join me.

We hired some horses for the expedition, and set off, a party of four:  three Englishmen (for we had picked up a friend at Maidenpek) and a Serb attendant, who was to act as our guide.  He rode a small plucky horse, being armed with a long Turkish gun slung over his shoulder, while his belt was stuck full of strange-looking weapons, worthy of an old-curiosity shop.  We were mounted on serviceable little nags, and had also our revolvers.