The only part of Eszterház at present occupied is the stables, which had just received an importation of twelve beautiful thoroughbred horses from England, with some very promising young stock. An old English groom had been sent out with them, and bitterly did he complain of the difficulties he had to encounter before he could convince the _beamters_--a race of hungry stewards by whom the estates of the nobles are mismanaged and the revenues plundered--of the many little wants and luxuries requisite for English race-horses.
The estates of Prince Eszterházy are said to equal the kingdom of Würtemberg in size; it is certain they contain one hundred and thirty villages, forty towns, and thirty-four castles! The annual revenue from such vast possessions is said, however, not to amount to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds per annum, though it is capable of considerable increase. The incumbrances at the present time are greater than with most other Hungarian magnates, few of whom are indebted to a less amount than half their incomes.
I remember some years since an anecdote going the rounds of the papers to the effect that Prince Eszterházy had astonished one of our great agriculturists who had shown him his flock of two thousand sheep, and asked him with some little pride if he could show as many, by telling him that he had more shepherds than the other had sheep! By a reckoning made upon the spot, with one well acquainted, we found the saying literally true. The winter flock of Merinos is maintained at two hundred and fifty thousand, to every hundred of which one shepherd is allowed, thus making the number of shepherds two thousand five hundred! But, as a _spirituelle_ of the neighborhood observed when we were discussing these matters, "Les Eszterházys font tout en grand: le feu prince a doté deux cents maîtresses, et pensionné cent enfans illégitimes!"
It is not right to leave Eszterház without mention of Hánystock, or the wild man of the Hanság. The Hanság is a bog about twenty miles long, on the borders of which Eszterház is built. About eighty years since, in some part of this bog, an extraordinary creature is said to have been found, possessing something of the human form, but with scarcely any other quality that could entitle it to a place among our species. It was three feet high, apparently of about the middle age, strongly built, and said to have webbed feet and hands. It was unable to utter any articulate sounds, lived entirely on fish and frogs, showed no signs of any passion or feeling, except fear and anger, and was in every respect in the lowest state of brutality. The most curious part of its history is that no one ever heard of it till accidentally found by a peasant in the bog, when it was brought to Eszterház, where, after remaining fourteen months, it escaped, and was never heard of again. I believe there is some reason to suspect an imposition, for an Italian adventurer appeared and disappeared about the same time with Hánystock, and though unable to cite name or place, I feel pretty certain that a similar occurrence took place in another part of Europe soon after.