gathered at the spot where the conflict had
raged, and he resolved patiently to hear, and
calmly to investigate, the Austrian version of
the story among Prince Schwarzenberg's
friends and supporters at Vienna. Thence
he intended to proceed to Hungary, where he
proposed to listen to the accounts which the
Hungarians themselves gave of their cause;
its protracted defence, and final overthrow.
With that " smartness " not wholly peculiar
to our Transatlantic cousins, he was, at the
same time, resolved to turn the ideas he
realised on his tour to immediate account
upon paper; thus converting his freshly-bought
experience into dollars and cents; in
which shapes he calculated it would go far
towards defraying the expenses of his journey.
For this purpose, arrangements were made
with the editor of a New York newspaper,
and while Mr. Bunce promised to write as he
went, the editor agreed to print and pay as
he wrote.

After a short stay in England, the tourist
crossed the Channel and proceeded to Vienna,
where he at once devoted himself to the first
portion of his task. Nothing could be more
delightful for a man in health and spirits—
one who could, like Mr. Bunce, divide his
attention between gastronomy and the state
of Europe—than to hold an unofficial political
mission in that capital. The Viennese live
in their coffee-houses, which are delightful
places, especially for Americans who like
smoking. Their restaurants are excellent:
their puddings defy the boldest imaginations
of the northern epicures. To the foreign
idler, life in Vienna is a continual round of
coffee-drinking, smoking,dining, promenading,
and concert-hearing. You scarcely ever visit
a Viennese in his own home. You meet him
at a café or at an hotel, in the Prater or in the
Volksgarten. Mr. Bunce was soon at home
in this easy slip-shod sort of life. He imbibed
the views of the government and military
party as he sipped his "Capuziner" at Daum's;
he listened to the mediæval plans of the
Austrian aristocracy, while he ate his " Obersstrudel"
at the " Adeligen Casino; " he saw
the actors and opera-singers at " Katzmayers,"
and the malcontents at " Ott's." Every
class of society and every political party
has its own houses of resort; and even
out of doors, while the people congregate
round the gingerbread and Punches of the
"Wurstel Prater," the magnates of the land
hold their Corso in the Prater itself. This
arrangement makes it easy for a student of
Austrian politics to hear and compare the
views of the most extreme parties in the
course of a single morning, and to come in
contact with almost all the gradations of
the social scale. Mr. Bunce was alive to
these facilities, and turned them to account;
but there was another peculiarity of which he
was ignorant, and which was turned to account,
though not by him. In a free country,
the views, the plans, and the circumstances
of the people are made known by the press,
and by the speakers at meetings. Through
these channels the government is every
morning informed of the topics which agitate
the public mind; of the purposes of parties
and persons, and of the means they have for
their accomplishment. In a despotic country,
the case is far different. The press is fettered.
Public meetings are prohibited. Opposition
has no means of making itself heard; yet the
very silence, which is intended to suppress it,
makes it the more formidable. The plans
and resources of the malcontents are concealed
from the world, but they are also concealed
from government; and extraordinary and very
exceptionable expedients must be resorted to
by the authorities, to ascertain the number and
the objects of their political antagonists. A
despotic government must, therefore, keep a
large staff of spies to watch over and to report
the proceedings of the disaffected, or
those who are likely to be so. A citizen of
a republican country; one, too, which had
shown the most lively sympathy with the Hungarian
insurgents, was necessarily an object
of apprehension and suspicion. Wherever
Mr. Bunce went, he was followed by the
invisible agents of the governmental conscience.
At the café, at the opera, in his
walks, during his dinners; even in his hotel,
the eyes of the "familiares " were upon him.
His every word was caught by eager ears;
all his actions—we may almost say his feelings
—were noted down; while he, in happy
unconsciousness, endeavoured to master the
subtleties sometimes of Austrian pastry;
sometimes of Austrian politics.

Good-natured and unsuspecting, he congratulated
himself on his progress. He had
actually been initiated into all the mysteries
of a Viennese bill of fare. He had seen
Government officers, aristocrats and radicals.
He had listened to them with great politeness,
and contradicted them with all the suavity he
could muster. He had read many books and
pamphlets, in which the justice of the Austrian
cause was set forth with great zeal. He had
also obtained glimpses of some of the pamphlets
which the booksellers in Austria dare
not sell, and which are passed from hand to
hand stealthily—with fear and trembling—
because they criticise the acts of the government,
and uphold the justice of the Hungarian
cause. Notwithstanding the variety and apparent
disinterestedness of his researches, he
contrived to confirm the suspicions of the Austrian
police, who dreaded him as an American
and an inquirer.

He left Vienna, and travelled into Hungary.

If there was anything more than another
calculated to change the angry suspicions of
the Vienna " Stadthauptmann-schaft " into a
conviction of the evil designs which were attributed
to the unsuspecting stranger, it was
this movement. Mr. Bunce was not, however,
warned before setting out; nor was he stopped