with plummet and line. Here are no hills forty feet high; not even the smallest hillock or hollow is to be seen. All is smooth, unruffled, and flat, as the ocean during a dead calm. is spread out one of the most fertile districts of | landscape is as perfectly level as if marked down country that the world can show. The route from Szegedin to Temesvar leads through a flat and often swampy country, but at the same time so overladen with the riches of production, that the prospect is one of surpassing luxuriance. In the season of the harvest, wide fields are waving with yellow grain, often so full in the head as to have sunk under its own weight, and the whole plain seems alive with laborers. "The landscapes of the Bauat might be compared to those of Holland, but there is one great difference between them. Holland is full of rivers, canals, ditches, and dikes; all the country is intersected by them, and the boundaries of the fields are every where marked out by water. This fea ture is entirely wanting in the Banat. From St. Miklos to Szegedin, more than forty miles, we saw, with the exception of a small arm of the Maros, on which Szegedin stands, but one trumpery little brook, which was running about, to what purpose I know not, and in all probability it would have been puzzled itself to assign a reason for its existence. No canals intersect the country; the fields are divided neither by hedges nor ditches; all is one monotonous, dry, unbroken level. Holland is richly cultivated, and is thickly sown with populous towns and thriving villages. The whole Torontal province, occupying the northwest, contains not a single town, and but one hundred and sixty villages and hamlets, making on an average about one inhabited spot in every square mile. These villages are very unequally arranged, lying sometimes close together, and sometimes three or four miles apart. Between them, all is one dreary and desolate plain, without bush or tree, without hillock or stone. The soil is a rich black loam, and its productive powers, heightened by a climate more nearly tropical than temperate, are truly wonderful. The same crops are repeated year after year, on the same spots; the ground is only once turned up to receive the seed; a fallow is unknown; manure is esteemed injurious; and yet, such abundant produce as ill-treated, unaided Nature here bestows on her children, excites the astonishment of the traveller from western Europe. Except the olive and the orange, there is scarcely a product of Europe which does not thrive in the Banat. Wheat, barley, oats, rye, rice, maize, flax, hemp, rape, sunflowers, (for oil,) tobacco, (of different kinds,) wine, and silk are produced with facility, and even cotton (tried as an experiment) is said to have succeeded. The climate approaches nearly to that of Italy; but the winters are still too severe for the olive and the orange. Even in summer, the nights are often very cool. After the hottest day, the sun no sooner sets than a cool breeze rises, refreshing at first, but which becomes dangerous to those who are unpre-pressive, indeed I may say highly picturesque and pared for it. The Hungarian never travels without his fur or sheep-skin coat, and the want of such defense is often the cause of fever to the unsuspecting stranger. The following description by Kohl will serve to give one a good idea of the appearance of this remarkable country :— "The appearance of the Banat beyond St. Miklos was very peculiar. The country is, as I have said, a perfect level. Many parts of Prussia and Holland are also quite flat and even, yet there is an immense difference between the flatness of those countries and that of the Banat. "The neighborhood of Berlin, level as it appears, does yet contain small swellings of the ground, little insignificant hollows and rises, and here and there sandy hillocks six or seven feet high. If we view the country from a church tower, or any other elevated point, there are sure to be visible somewhere in the wide landscape hills thirty or forty feet high. Not so in the Banat, where every 'Among the excellent sketches of Hungary, lithographed by the Englishman Hering, which preserve the true character of the country with a remarkable accuracy and fidelity, unlike any other representations of Hungarian scenery which I have ever seen, there is a view of one of the desThe print, although olate plains of the Banat. large, represents nothing whatever but one broad expanse of country, with a broad expanse of sky above; the only object of relief being a stork, who stands beside a well in the foreground. In spite of its monotony, the picture is striking, im poetical, as every genuine representation of nature is sure to be. The sky is covered with light clouds, faintly tinted by the morning sun, which follow one another in long gradual perspective to the distant horizon. The plain lies quite desolate and level in the foreground, and further and further, the long even parallel lines repeat themselves again and again, fainter and fainter, into the boundless distance of the far-off horizon. As the eye follows these lines, it seems to descry continually a further boundless desert, beyond what at first seemed the horizon. The colors change on all sides in the same gradual manner, from the bright green of the foreground to a more bluish green, then to gray, and lastly to a pale distant blue. There is a strange dreary solemnity in the spectacle; not even one little bird is to be seen fluttering through the air. A slight line of shading on the horizon alone indicates the possibility that some solitary herdsmen have kindled a fire at a distance. The lonely stork in the foreground stands motionless, the only living thing in the wilderness, save the frogs hopping about in the marshy ground around him. The pump at the bogs covered with white powder, and occasionally well is desolate and seldom visited, and the clank-meadows with fine cattle; such are the only vaing of its handle as the wind moving over the rieties seen when travelling on a Puste. Ŏccaplain raises and stirs it, accompanies the croaking sionally a lonely Sallash or Tsharde,* or a soliof the busy frogs, and thus forms a dreary con- tary herdsman's hut, gives token of human habicert, which night and day is the only sound that tation; now and then a far-off pump rears and disturbs the perfect silence. sways its long arm before us, and sometimes, too, though more rarely, we behold the unfailing token of our approach to a town or village, namely, a handsome, well-kept, large, white -gallows!" (P. 342.) I know of no better way in which to conclude this account of Hungary, than with the patriotic apostrophe of Baron Joseph Eötvös to her " green plain." It forms "The Village the conclusion to his novel, Notary": "This excellent picture of Hering is a true representation of a great many scenes in Hungary. Let the reader imagine a great picture-gallery, containing five hundred such pictures, each representing the same objects, sky, plain, pump, and stork, with only this variation, that in one picture the clouds shall be grouped differently from what they are in another; in one the pump-handle is swinging to the right, in another to the left; in one the stork stands on his right leg, in another on his left; in one he is routing among his feathers with his beak, in another he has caught a frog. At every tenth picture, the prospect might be "But before I close this book, let me turn to the varied by the presence of a solitary herdsman with his herd, and at every twentieth by some boundless plain of my country, and to the scene distant village steeple on the horizon. The marsh of the joys and sorrows of my youth, to the banks in the foreground might here and there contain a of the yellow Theiss! There is a beauty in the few reeds and rushes, with which variation, how-mountains; there is a charm in the broad waters ever, the painter must by no means be too liberal; and finally, every hundredth picture might represent the interior of a village. Such a gallery would be a perfectly correct representation of the plains of eastern Hungary." (Pp. 327, 328.) The same author has also given a not uninteresting description of the desert pusztas, which are frequent between Szegedin and Pesth: "Immediately after crossing the Theiss, the tray eller perceives that he has entered a new kind of country. At Szegedin, the first sand-plain begins, and the ground is no longer as perfectly flat as I have described it in the Banat. The plain is broken by little sand-hillocks; agriculture more and more gives way to grazing. The population consists either entirely of Magyars, or, at least, is thoroughly Magyarized. The sand of this district is very fine, and is mixed with fragments of shells. It extends so deep that nowhere have the inhabitants yet succeeded in boring through it, and reaching its clayey foundation. Large tracts are entirely desolate, without any trace of vegetation. In such places the sand is often raised by the wind into the air, as in the sand-storm of the Sahara. This sand-wind is much dreaded by the Hungarians, for in its course it often destroys the most fertile fields. "Among the remarkable attributes of these deserts, is the total absence of water. In the two hundred German square miles between Pesth and Szegedin, there is no trace of running water, no single brook, river, or stream, and not even a solitary well, with the exception of one little bubbling stream, which rises in a marsh near Kets kemet. Another peculiarity of these deserts is the total absence of trees. Every thing is bare, desolate, and naked; nowhere rises a cooling grove, or even a solitary bush or tree. "Sand-plains with sand-wind, green patches with wild birds, marshes with cranes and storks, soda of the Danube; but to me there is a rapture in the thought of the pride of Hungary-Her green plain! It extends, boundless as the ocean; it has nothing to fetter our view but the deep blue canopy of heaven. No brown chain of mountains surrounds it; no ice-covered peaks are gilded by the rays of the rising sun! withers where it stands; thy rivers flow in silence "Plain of Hungary! Thy luxuriant vegetation among their feed-covered banks. Nature has denied thee the grandeur of mountain scenery, the soft beauty of the valley, and the majestic shade of the forest, and the wayfaring man who traverses thee will not, in later years, think of one single beauty which reminds him of thee; but he will never forget the awe he felt when he stood admiring thy vastness; when the rising sun poured his golden light on thee; or when, in the sultry hours of noon, the mirage covered thy shadeless expanse with flowery lakes of fresh swelling waters, like the scorched-up land's dream of the sea which covered it, before the waters of the Danube had forced their way through the rocks of the Iron Gate; or at night, when darkness was spread over the silent heath, when the stars were bright in the sky, and the herdsmen's still that the breeze of the evening came to the fires shone over the plain, and when all was so wanderer's ears, sighing amidst the high grass. And what was the feeling which filled his breast than the sensations which the wonders of Alpine in such moments? It was perhaps less distinct scenery caused in him; but it was grander still, for thou, too, boundless Plain of my country, thou, too, art more grand than the mountains of this earth. A peer art thou of the unmeasured ocean, deep-colored and boundless like the sea, imparting a freer pulsation to the heart, extending on ward, and far as the eye can reach. "Vast Plain, thou art the image of my people. Hopeful, but solitary; thou art made to bless * Tsharde-a shed by the road-side. generations by the profuseness of thy wealth. The energies which God gave thee are still slumbering; and the centuries which have passed over thee have departed without seeing the day of thy gladness! But thy genius, though hidden, is mighty within thee! Thy very weeds, in their profusion, proclaim thy fertility; and there is a boding voice in my heart which tells me that the great time is at hand. Plain of my country, mayst thou flourish! and may the people flourish which inhabit thee! Happy he who sees the day of thy glory; and happy those whose present affliction is lightened by the consciousness that they are devoting their energies to prepare the way for that better time which is sure to come!" It still remains that we give some brief account of Transylvania, and of the Croatian and Servian dependencies of the crown of Hungary. Transylvania, in shape a somewhat irregular trapezoid, contains about sixteen thousand square miles, or rather more than the united areas of the three southern States of New-England. It is surrounded and intersected by mountain ranges, which are so numerous as to give to the country the appearance of a mass of small mountains, traversed in various directions by rivers that have cut for themselves water-courses from one hundred yards to a mile or two in width, occasionally, where a tributary stream lends its force, widening into small plains. The principal roads are formed along these valleys, so that travelling in Transylvania presents a succession of beautiful scenes rarely to be met with in other lands. The country is divided by two principal ranges into three parts: the southernmost drained by the Aluta; the central, by the Maros; and the northern, by the Szamos. Hermanstadt and Gronstadt are in the first of these, Carlsburg in the second, and Clausenburg just over the border in the third. The traveller in the valley of the Hatszeg, which lies in the extreme south-west portion of Transylvania, finds ample consolation for the badness of the roads in the exceeding loveliness of the landscape. In the autumn, the whole plain from Varhely to Hatszeg, yellow with the ripe maize, and traversed by half-a-dozen streams, broken by low hills, and sprinkled over with cottages and country houses; its mountain boundaries rising through the clouds which hang on their sides, and disclosing their summits whitened by the first fall of the autumn snow; and all heightened by the magic lights and shades of a fitful sky; forms a picture of the most exquisite beauty. From some fortunate elevated position, the tourist often beholds an extensive panorama spreading at his feet-plains, valleys, rivers, and wooded mountains rising over each other as far as the eye can reach. Here and there he comes upon an ancient castle with its massive walls and weather-beaten towers, frowning from its smiling vale beneath. Frequently, too, he crag over the will stumble upon a little mining hamlet, or be surprised by the sudden apparition of blackened furnaces, and tall chimneys vomiting flame and smoke amid the beauties of some secluded mountain retreat. The valley of the Maros, occupying the central portion of the country, is remarkable for its beauty. From the old castle of Dera, situated about thirty miles from the Hungarian frontier, the view extends for a considerable distance along this beautiful vale, and on the east is bounded by blue mountains, whose tops in the colder months are white with snow. The western part of this valley is rich, well wooded, and occasionally ornamented with pretty country houses. Upon the borders of Hungary, however, the scenery becomes wild to the last degreethe river bound in its channel by precipitous rocks, and the valley darkened by forests of native oak which have never known the woodman's axe. A distance farther to the east again, at Kapolnas, the valley widens considerably and presents a scene of extraordinary loveliness. For perhaps fifteen miles in length by three or four in width extends a plain covered with white villages, and groaning under the richest crops of grain, surrounded on every side by mountains covered to their summits by forests of oak, and traversed in its whole extent by the river. The Maros is a wide and wayward stream, and in summer has not more than two feet of water. There is no doubt, however, that it might be made navigable, and probably it will be so soon as increased population on its banks shall demand an outlet for its productions. The northern portion of Transylvania, in its general features, resembles the others, and need not delay us at present. Of the country as a whole, then, it may be said, that it is a hilly region surrounded and penetrated with mountains, well watered, of a diversified soil, which is excellently adapted in different portions to pasturage and to tillage, much of it formed from strata of a volcanic origin, and notwithstanding the severity of a long winter capable of assuming a high rank as a wine-growing district. Says a German writer: "There is perhaps no country which has not some beauties to exhibit, but I never saw any which like Transylvania is all beauty." Its population in 1840 was a little more than 2,000,000, and probably has not increased much since. The Magyars occupy the whole central and western portion, the Szeklers (a Magyar tribe with some diversities in language and customs) the northern and eastern districts, while the south is mostly in the hands of the "Saxons," who about the middle of the twelfth century were invited by the Princess Helena to repeople her waste lands. Clausenburg in thenorth, and Cronstadt in the south, are the largest towns; the former being the seat of government, and containing about 25,000 inhabitants, and the latter the principal place in the Saxon land, and a centre of considerable trade, with a population of some 36,000. Hermannstadt, lying on a branch of the Aluta, and Carlsburg on the Maros, are likewise places of some importance, the latter dating its origin from the time of the Romans. It is the ancient Colonia Apulensis, and has still to exhibit many interesting memorials of antiquity. It seems to have been the mining capital of the Romans in Dacia, the seat of the Collegium Aurariarum, and the residence of the Procurator of the Mines. The region in the neighborhood is mountainous and rich in mineral wealth. At Vörös Patak there is a hill, the entire rocky mass of which contains gold; and it has been pierced through and through on every side, and has acquired such a broken, perforated appearance that it is known in the region round about as the csetatie mike, or little fortress. In another place the top of a mountain has been so excavated by the miners that the shell has fallen in, and the summit presents now a hollow similar to a volcanic crater. ish side there are only three points where the mountains are penetrable by an army, the Dorna pass on the north-east, the arc south of Cronstadt, and the Rothenthurm pass. The last mentioned is a most beautiful valley, with bold and precipitous cliffs, and rich woods hanging upon the steep mountain sides, while here and there little green glades are discovered, the loveliest that the heart of poet or painter could desire. Through this pass in former days the Moslem hordes poured down upon the valleys of the Saxon land, and by the same road the Russian battalions entered two years ago to aid the Viennese Camarilla in crushing the liberties of Hungary. On the Hungarian side likewise there are only three passes that are practicable for artillery, and these all easily defensible. Croatia, and Slavonia or Servia, need detain us but a moment. These countries have been dependencies of Hungary since the eleventh century. The soil of the former is inferior on the whole to that of Hungary, and but poorly cultivated. The peasantry are oppressed by their Seigneurs. The nobles and the prelates are rich, but the people are poor. Notwithstanding all this poverty and wretchedness, the traveller sees more large churches and more images of saints in Croatia than in all the rest of Hungary together. The Drave and Save might easily be navigated into Croatia, and on the latter stream a line of steamboats has been established for a number of years. The soil of Slavonia in the eastern part is exceedingly fertile, but being mostly in the hands of a few great proprietors, the mass of the people are poor. Very few Magyars are to be found in either of these provinces. A line of military posts stretches along the southern frontier, all the way from Croatia to Transylvania. These border lands are divided into regiments and companies instead of counties and towns, and the adult male inhabitants are all disciplined soldiers, dividing their time between agriculture and But the region is full of wonders, and in- arms. These Border Regiments are of course teresting as it would be to describe them independent of any provincial control, and here, our plan does not allow us the space. subject to the commands of the Emperor It will be evident from what has been said alone, administered through his military subthat Transylvania is a country of great nat-ordinates. This district is a camp, and ural resources, and very strong in a military knows none but martial law. point of view. Upon the Russian and Turk- Viewing now the kingdom of Hungary all together, we shall see that it is by nature cost. The wheat of Hungary is allowed to one of the richest countries in the world. be of excellent quality. Where the land is Possessing as it does a great variety of soil, of little or no value for other purposes, and and large quantities of the richest land in the rates of labor are low, it is difficult to Europe, with a corresponding variety and see how it can be produced any where more excellence of climate, filled with an abund- cheaply than here. Nor has any other cornance of all the chief staples of human sub-growing region better natural means of comsistence and civilized life, intersected with munication. The very richest portions of it navigable streams furnishing to every portion are those which border upon navigable rivof the country easy and cheap means of com- ers, viz., the region of the Batshka and the munication,-its surface adapted likewise in Banat, the plains on either side of the Theiss, a rare degree to the construction of railroads and the valleys of the Waas, the Raab, the and canals, we should say that nature in- Drave, the Save, and the Maros. tended it for a great centre of wealth and of power. In the first place, there are the mountain districts of the north, and of Transylvania, rich in wines, in timber, and in minerals. It has been stated by Beudant that there is more gold and silver found in Hungary than in all the rest of Europe besides. Copper is obtained in great abundance. Poorly as the mines were worked, they yielded fifteen years ago 2,000 tons annually. Iron abounds through extensive districts, said to be of very superior quality for conversion into steel, but badly wrought. Lead, and indeed every other metal, is obtained, but rather more sparingly. Sulphur occurs in eight different counties, The quantity of salt which this country can produce seems unlimited; and it can be produced as cheaply as in any part of the world. Soda, alum, potash and saltpetre are all abundant, but particularly soda, which occurs in great purity and plenty in the plain near Debretzin, as also in many other parts of the country. Coal is found in several districts, and of the very finest quality. The forests of Hungary are capable of furnishing vast stores of wood, especially of oak. Her hemp was several years ago both cheaper and better than that of Russia. Her broad pastures are fitted to yield an abundance of hides and tallow, of horse hair, of bristles, and of wool; which latter has long been an important staple in her commerce, chiefly because its exportation has been untaxed. The Hungarian wines rival the best in the world, and are produced over very extensive and very fruitful districts. Tobacco is raised easily and in abundance. A still more important article of produce is grain. Hitherto but a small portion of the land has been cultivated, and this although much of it is capable of furnishing the richest crops at very slight VOL. VIII. NO. II. NEW SERIES. Such is Hungary in her natural resources. Look now at her position. One of the most remarkable features in the continent of Europe, as it is presented to the eye by any good map, is the noble valley of the Danube and its branches. Surrounded on the north, west, and south by high ranges of mounains, the one reaching the sea, and the other coming within one hundred and fifty miles of it, this region is, geographically, a unit. It embraces the whole of the present kingdom of Hungary, with Transylvania and Bosnia, Servia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, Moldavia, and perhaps Bessarabia. Races and conquerors were not careful however to study physical geography when they divided this fruitful valley among themselves. The sword has assigned the upper part of it, the portion namely north of the Save, and of the southern mountains of Transylvania, to the Hungarians. The remainder has fallen to Turkey, and seems about to be yielded all of it, as a part has been already, to the mighty embrace of the northern Bear. Now is it not clear that, so far as position and geographical relations are concerned, this great valley of the Danube, if it must be divided politically at all, has been divided rightly? Hungary is a unit, marked off by distinct and genuine natural boundaries from all the surrounding countries. The Carpathians divide it from Poland and from Prussia; the Sablunka mountains, with the Styrian and Illyrian Alps, from Germany and Italy. Other mountains and a wide navigable stream serve as its boundary on the side of Turkey; not so good indeed, not so genuine as the Balkan range would be, and yet a natural and sufficient boundary. The region thus marked off has all the essential characteristics and resources required by an independent State. It is capable of existing without commerce, upon its own 10 |