Round About the Carpathians

et-place-Cserna Valley-Hercules-Bad, Mehadia-Post-office mistakes-Drive to Karansebes-

pted, as it fitted in very well indeed with my plans. Karansebes is directly on the route to Transylvania, whither I was bound. The district we were to shoot over is the rocky border-land between Hungary and Roumania. My friend F--agreed to accompany me,

festoons from the trees; sometimes they reach across to the trees on the other side of the road, forming a complete arch of greenery. In the autumn the vine leaves turn to a glowing red, like the Virginian creeper, and then the effect of this mass of rich colouring is indeed glorious. Meanw

eases to be pent up between a defile, the hills recede from the shore, and the "Gates" are merely ledges of rock peculiarly difficult for navigation. Orsova is celebrated as the place where the regalia of Hungary were concealed by Kossuth and his friends from 1849 to 1853. The iron chest which held the palladium of the kingdom, the sacred crown of St Stephen, was buried in a waste spot, covered with w

k huts forming a kind of suburb. These huts are built of wattles stuccoed with mud, always having on one side of the dwelling a space enclosed b

e narrow ravine. On our left we passed a ruined aqueduct of Turkish origin, eleven arches still remaining. As we proceeded, the valley narrowed considerably, and the scene

of every variety of foliage. There are two kinds of springs, the sulphurous and the saline. The Hercules source bursts out from a cleft of the rock in such an immense volume that it is said to yield 5000 cubic feet in an hour. The water has to be cooled before it is used, the natural heat being as much as 131° Fahrenhe

f Parisian fashion. Men in patent-leather boots devoted to cards and billiards, while in the immediate neighbourhood of glorious scenery, with bear and chamois shooting to be had for the asking, seem to me "an unknown species," as Voltaire said of the English. From what I learned of the ways of the place it seems that th

hat I was a Britisher, the postmaster gave me all the letters he possessed with English postmarks. Many of them were of considerable antiquity. Out of the goodly pile I selected some half-dozen t

assic times. There are many interesting remains here-fragments of altars, sculptured capitals, a

ary Frontier. As an example of the quick temper of the Wallacks, I will mention a little incident which happened on the road. We met some of these people, and one of them, who was looking another way, stumbled most awkwardly against the groom's horse, and very nearly met with an accident. Though it was so clearly his own fault, he had hardly recovered himself when, raising his axe, he was about to strike o

ed out from behind a rock, seized the horses, and with a powerful grasp brought them down on their haunches. F-- had the reins, so I jumped down and made straight at the fello

driving much slower than ourselves, and F-- began to lose patience; so holding the horses well in hand, he told me to fire off my revolver in the air. After this they thought proper to draw aside, but even then leaving us so little room that we risked our necks in passing them in a ve

under the Austrian military rule, for, she said, having been accustomed to the strict military system so long, the Wallacks, now they have more liberty, have become utterly lawless, and exceedingly troublesome to their German neighbours. She added that the gendarmes, who were supposed to keep order in the district, were f

ed in civilisation as to be indifferent to the first principles of order. The Wallacks want education, and above all they want a decent priesthood, before they can make any

hardly merits the name of pass, inasmuch as it only crosses the spur of the hills. The distance from Orsova on the Danube to Hatszeg in Transylvan

gathering of people. In driving into the town we passed a long bridge which crosses a low-lying meadow, the central arch being sufficient to span the stream, at least in summer. From

broidered in divers colours. But the blue-eyed, fair-complexioned German was far more numerous. The Magyar element is very much in the minority in this particular part of Hungary. The Jews and the gipsies were there in great numbers-they always are at fairs-in the quality of horse-dealers and vendors of wooden articles for the kitchen. The Jew is easily distinguished by his bla

other part you see piles of Servian rugs, coarse carpets, sheepskin bundas, hairy caps of a strange peaked form, broad hats made of reed or rush, and the delightful white felt garments before mentioned, which are always embroidered with great taste and skill. Horses, cows, and pigs are also brought here in grea

h poor diet.... The Hungarian oxen are considered by naturalists as the best living representative of the original progenitors of our domestic cattle." Of the buffalo the same writer says: "It was introduced into H

ensive dairy where upwards of a hundred buffalo cows were kept. The farm all

market can look to Hungary for a supply of cattle at present. This gentleman did not, I believe, visit Transylvania, and I am inclined to think the supply from that part of the kingdom is grea

ht in a string fresh from the mountains, were wild, untamed-looking creatures; but hardly as wild as the Wallacks who led them, dressed in sheepskin, and followed each by his savage wolf-like dog. The dogs are very formidable in Hungary. It is never safe to take a walk, even in the environs of a town, without a revolver, on account of these s

at ply backwards and forwards. He regularly takes his walk over there, and then returns as before by steamer. This is his practice in summer; but when winter arrives, and the ice on the Danube stops the traffic of the steamboats, then Jockey has recourse to the bridge. I believe there is no doubt of this ane