White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1932-12-08

Prepared by Ma1na Society,"
IN UDAPEST, twin city Of the Da-
X nube river, has been designat-
~ ed holy city for all Moslems
by the Pan-Islamic congress
which recently met in Jerusalem.
In the last decade the Moslem popu-
lation of Budapest has greatly in
creased and it is planned to establish
there great Mohammedan university
and mosque.
Budapest is city where, from two
hotel windows, provided they are on
the opposite banks of the Danube, the
visitor may gaze on magnificent views
that epitomize the geography and the
history of an entire nation.
A riverside window from the Pest
bank frames a nightly illumination as
brilliant as magnified Luna park,
dignified by the background of a thou
sand years of vivid history.
| In the immediate foreground is the
famed promenade, the Francis Joseph
quay, where, from Parliament house
toward the slaughterhouse-a cattle
! country shows no squeamishness at
mentioning the latter-a nightly pa
rade passes the scores of sidewalk
cafes. No wheeled traffic obstructs
the thousands Of strollers, and, on the
river side, clumps of trees shelter
benches where, for a few filler, the
pedestrian may sit for an hour before
the feminine collector punches his
ticket again.
The waters of the Danube, which
are chalky or chocolate by day-never
blue-have an inky shellac sheen by
night, rejecting thousands of dancing
lights. On the opposite banks rise
ghostly cliffs to support a fairyli!ze
curtain of starry lights, with occasion
al splotches of cleaning flood lights
etching in bold relief the headline
places of ten centuries.
One white splash marks the modern
citadel mounted on the hill beneath
which Roman galleys found a port.
where Christian maidens were neld
captive until they were needed for
pasha's harem.
Another illumined span is the impos
ing Royal palace of $50 rooms, built
by Maria Theresa, and scene of Hun
gary's last ball for the venerable Fran
els Joseph before his dual monarchy
was sundered The first royal resi-
dence was planted on that central
Buda hill in the Thirteenth century ~
Bella Nv, whose Hateful reign saw first
migration, then an invasion, of Mon
gol hordes. The marauders took all
the grain and other food stores they
could find, a plague of locusts ate the
crops, and when survivors emerged
from their hiding places after the re-
treat of both invaders, it is recorded
that "the starving people, in their
frenzy, killed each other, and it hap
pened that the men would bring to
market human flesh for SALE"
Beautiful Coronation Church.
Most beautiful high light of all, per-
haps, is the Gothic spire of the Coro-
nation church, dating back to the great
and good King Matthias, son of the
renowned Hunyadi, so bold that he
personally spied out the Notifications
Of Vienna, in disguise, and so scrupu-
lous that when plan was proposed to
poison an enemy king he retorted, 1--WE
fight with arms, not with poison" In
luxury of his court, though not in char
acter, he was the Louis XIV of Hun
gary. Prosperity persisted for time
after his death; so that, in 1913. a
certain Hungarian archbishop on his
way to Rome had his horses loosely
shod with silver shoes, SO they might
continually fall off and be picked up
by peasants.
In no other city in the world does
night let down curtain which, cleo
trically lighted, becomes a pageant of
such amazing history.
Six ghostly bridges span the river
that once split venerable, rocky Buda
from modern Pest, low-lying and fiat
AS becomes the commercial focus of
the vast plain that pours its grain and
wines. it's cattle and wool, into the
warehouses and factories to be shipped
or Fabricated for the Danube trade.
1t is hard to imagine the placid
summer Danube raging with winter ice
foes or spring floods. Less than a
hundred years ago, in 1898, an ice jam
flooded Pest. swept away fourth of
the 1000 dwellings then located in the
newer city, and drowned more than
thousand people
The neat quays, extending for more
than three miles along the Pest shores,
prevent another such disaster. I'm