42 M. Beudanfs Travels in Hungary. 



the imperial palace of Schonbrunn, which contributed not a 

 little to improve the prospect on our right. The day of my 

 arrival was a holiday, and the road was thronged with cara- 

 vans going and coming with great rapidity, sometimes contain- 

 ing not less than twenty passengers ; they raised terrible clouds 

 of dust, which intercepted the sight at a few paces distance. 

 I reached the barriers at length, and proceeding through the 

 suburbs, which took up half an hour, I entered the city. Up- 

 wards of an hour was spent in the search of an apartment with 

 furnished lodgings ; the hotels and auberges were full, or other- 

 wise not to my taste, and I at last accepted the recommenda- 

 tion of my postillion, who removed me to Leopoldstadt, one of 

 the suburbs, in an island of the Danube. Here I found suit- 

 able accommodations, and regretted that I had not followed 

 his advice sooner. 



The city of Vienna, (Wien, Germ. Vindobona, and Vienna, 

 Lat. Bets, Hung.) stands on the right bank of the Danube, in 

 a pleasant situation, lat. 48, 12', 40", N. long. 17, 32', 30'', 

 E. of London, and about 413 feet above the level of the sea. 

 Some authors trace its origin to a village of the Windes or 

 Wendes, in the same place, the name of which must have 

 been Windewohn, a dwelling of the Wendes, whence the 

 Romans made Vindobona. Others assert that it took the 

 name of Fabiana, or Faviana, from a Roman governor named 

 Fabius, or from a king of the Rugians named Fava, the word 

 being afterwards corrupted to Viaua, and then to Vienna. 



At Vienna we must make a distinction between the city and 

 the suburbs. The city occupies but a very small space, and is 

 surrounded with fosses and fortifications. As it includes the 

 ordinary residence of the court, and is the centre of all the 

 public offices, and the seat of commercial transactions, it natu- 

 rally becomes the most populous. The streets are extremely 

 narrow, the houses very high, and the whole population is ex- 

 ceedingly straitened. Though the number of palaces, hotels, 

 and superb buildings is more considerable, in proportion, than 

 in any other great city, the aspect of the whole seems dark 

 and melancholy, breathing an air of austerity beyond the com- 

 mon standard of German gravity.* 



The suburbs are much more extensive, and infinitely more 

 agreeable j the houses are more spacious, less crowded to- 

 gether, the streets wider, and the gardens are in great num- 

 bers, diffusing a gay appearance over the whole. The suburbs 



* According to an average observation of the barometer, of 17 years, at the 

 mean temperature of 12, 5', 8", for the mercury, and 10 for the air, it will be 

 at Om, 7478. The hall of the observatory, wherein the barometer is fixed, is at 

 33" above the confluence of the Vienne and the Danube, 



