On the west of Hungary lies that mountainous land, rich in minerals, namely Transylvania, which so long stood alone and even now is possessed of a spirit of independence, which is likely to give trouble, though for the time in full legislative and political union with Hungary. The Magyar name for the country is Erdely, meaning forest-land, and is akin to the Latin one with its obvious signification “beyond the woods.” The country contains about 21,000 square miles, and on account of its rugged heights resembles a great natural fortress. The chief peoples, the Wallachians, Saxons, and Roumanians, different as they are among themselves, are united in common discontent against the attempts of Hungary to impose her own language and ideas on the land they share. They cannot forget that for nearly two centuries, from 1538, they were an independent kingdom under a king of their own choosing, and it was not till 1699 that the influence of Austria as suzerain was allowed. The support of the Turks alone rendered this independence possible, it is true, but, however obtained, it gave the people a taste for freedom. In 1849 Transylvania became an Austrian crown-land, but since the settlement of 1867 it has been an integral part of Hungary. The university founded at Klausenburg or Kolozsvar in 1872 is Hungarian, and Magyar is the official language.
The hardy race of men called Wallachs are as different from the Magyars as the Magyars are from the Austrians. Besides the Wallachs and Roumanians, which are the two dominant races, there are also Jews, Armenians, Saxons, and Szeklers, who are descended from early Magyar settlers, and have developed on different lines from their brothers in the plain. The Transylvanians are as restless, and as great a thorn in the side of Hungary as she is in that of Austria, and the complete Magyarisation of the country can never be carried out with these opposing elements behind. The State schools teach in Magyar, but in opposition to these a large number of elementary voluntary schools are kept up where Roumanian is the principal tongue.
There are passes into the country from the Hungarian side, but toward Russia the mountains are so precipitous and steep that they give the appearance of artificial escarpments made for defence on a giant scale. The highest peaks attain a height of over 8000 feet. The climate varies greatly, the summers being very hot and the winters intensely cold.
Transylvania is completely hemmed in by the South-Eastern Carpathians, besides being cut up by them, and its people are mountaineers, looking with disdain on the dwellers in the level plain. To them life without heights and hollows, and the constant sense of watchful grandeur given by rising peaks, would be tame and colourless. The mountaineer’s muscles are wrought to india-rubber by continual change of action. His spring is as light as that of a roebuck. To look down into the blackness of a crevasse, to see the roaring torrent filled by the last downfall of rain or by the melting of the pure white peaks far above, is an everyday experience with him, as little noticeable as the passing of wheeled vehicles to a townsman. He has to work hard to gain a scanty living, but the fatness of the plains covered with waving cornfields would seem to him suffocating. The roar of the landslide hurtling down the mountain-side in the night and the crack of a falling tree are sounds that cause him no fear; he has been accustomed to them from childhood.
Transylvania is a very rich country, though the greater number of its inhabitants are poor. The ores to be found in its mountains are wonderful, quite the richest in Europe, and many people, especially the gipsies, earn a livelihood by desultory washing for gold in the rivers. There are plains bordering the rivers where flocks and herds may be fed. Horses are bred and exported annually in thousands. Salt occurs in large quantities both in solution and sometimes in complete hills. Every one who gets the chance should visit one of the salt mines, some of which have been worked over a thousand years. The salt is so pure that it can be hewed out in great blocks and cubes, and the air is full of the dust which settles down in a fine white powdered frost like the artificial frosting of a Christmas card.
Maize, wheat, rye and other cereals are grown in the valleys of Transylvania, also vines, while fruits are abundant. A most interesting land it is, both as to its peoples, its scenery, and its products, and a land that is not half so much known as it deserves. Any one with hardihood enough to explore Transylvania, knapsack on back, in the simplest manner, would be well rewarded for the risks he ran.
A Hungarian writer says:
Those who travel on Transylvanian soil look with bated breath on the fabulous colouring of the bewitching picture which water, rocks, forest, mountain and valley, Alps gleaming white with snow, present at every step, every phase of beauty being represented, from the idyllic to the awe-inspiring majestic, and with wonder they gaze at the wealth of natural treasures and natural phenomena, some of which are wonderful both as sights and as marvels of the cunning of nature. It is in the Transylvanian Alps that we find the sources of the two mighty rivers of that country, the Maros and the Olt, as well as of the Szamos, the Kukullo, and the Aranyos.
It was in Kolozsvar that King Matthias was born, and there is in his native town a magnificent equestrian statue of this one of the best-loved of Hungarian kings, executed by John Fadrusz. The birthplace of the King is now the Museum of the Transylvanian Carpathian Society.
Among the attractions of Transylvania are the Torda Glen, composed of split rocks forming gigantic precipices falling down to a narrow stream scarce six yards wide; the Government salt mines, from which 50,000 tons of salt are excavated every year; the forest resort of Borszék, hundreds of feet above sea-level, with its mineral spring, from which three million bottles are annually exported, and its healing baths; the Gyilkos-tó (Murderous Lake) not far distant:
A smooth sheet of water about 600 metres long, and nowhere exceeding 200 metres in breadth. The water is crystal-clear and in places thirty to forty metres deep. The surroundings of the lake are enchanting. To the east the Gyilkos-havas with its mantle of dark green pines, to the north the huge rocky pile of the Nagy-Czohárd stretches gleaming in red; while to the south the Nagy-Hagymás lifts heavenwards its rocky head. The Lake is a favourite haunt of trout. On the banks there is a tourists’ shelter.
The salt hill of Parajd is another sight.
It is steep and precipitous, its sides as white as snow, bright as the finest polished marble of Carrara.
There are many other watering-places with mineral springs; one of the most curious is at Kovásna, which stands at the foot of the wooded hills separating Hungary and Roumania.
In the square a fine towered building attracts our attention. Even if not pointed out to us the front of the structure would tell us that this is one of the great natural wonders of Transylvania. It is the Pokolsár (hell-mud). Within the building a strange murmur is heard, like that of boiling water. On entering a peculiar pungent smell greets us. A basin divided in half by a plank wall stands before us, it is the Pokolsár with its spouting, whirling, wheeling, boiling water. From the wall of the basin with terrific force and in huge volume, carbon dioxide pours forth and not only keeps the water in continual undulation, but softens and crushes the clayey slate that constitutes the wall of the basin and turns its colour to an ashen grey. The water of the Pokolsár, like some heaving volcano, at times overflows its basin and threatens to inundate the surrounding country. It tears up the wooden floor of the basin, vomits forth heavy stones and discharges volumes of vapour, the development of gas is so large and rapid that the choking fumes render it impossible to enter the building, while birds flying above the bath fall lifeless into the water. The water has a wonderful effect, especially in the case of rheumatic disorders. It is an alkaline mineral water. There are many mineral springs of the kind in the neighbourhood.
Another beauty spot is the lake of St. Anne, in the crater of an extinct volcano, which is in circumference 1800 metres.
It can be seen that Transylvania is a country for those to visit who love natural beauty and the wonders of nature and want to get off the ordinary tourist track. The Circular Railway, which now traverses it under State direction, makes this comparatively easy, and the civilisation of the towns will astonish those who think of Transylvania as still primitive.
In the north-east corner of the Dual Monarchy, to the north of Transylvania, lies the large and important country of Galicia, a slice of the now vanished kingdom of Poland, wiped off the map by the three great powers surrounding her. Galicia is larger than Bohemia but lacks picturesqueness of scenery, and is the least known of all the provinces of the Austrian Empire. It is nearly all mountainous, the land falling down from the Carpathians, which form the southern boundary, toward Russia. The highest peaks are the Woman’s Mountain, 5648 feet, and the Waxmundska, 7189 feet. The Vistula and the Dniester both rise in this country, which lies outside the system of the Danube, to which so great a part of the dominions of Franz Joseph belongs. There is a good deal of traffic in light boats down the Dniester to Odessa. The people are divided between Ruthenians (Red Russians) and Poles, the latter being in the western part.
By the end of the eighteenth century Poland was in a miserable state of decay and helplessness, and the proposal for her partition came from Prussia. Catherine II., ruling in Russia at the time, was quite ready to agree, Maria Teresa of Austria was doubtful and had many scruples but was at length over-persuaded, and the treaty was signed in 1772. Frederick II. of Prussia is said to have remarked of Maria Teresa, “She is always weeping, but she is always taking,” which was cynical. But the real truth is that Maria Teresa was unable to help herself. Unless she had been in a position to fight her two powerful neighbours single-handed she could hardly have prevented the spoliation, and she may have thought by taking her share in Galicia she ensured at least good government and justice for some of the unhappy Poles. However, of all three nations it is Russia in reality who has done most for her acquired subjects, and she has treated the peasants fairly well. Probably the strong kinship of race and tongue, stronger than in the case of either of the other nations, has helped to cement this fragment. In Germany the native tongue is strenuously suppressed, and grinding poverty reigns in many districts.
Up to the end of the eighteenth century Poland was still a powerful kingdom and had a long history of worthy exploits behind her. The name is derived from polé, meaning plain or field, as the greater part of the kingdom lay low and flat. There is no place here to go into the history of that kingdom, of which only a small part belongs to Austria. But it may be shortly said that her kings have ruled often well and wisely, and made a name for themselves in other fields than that of war or administration. Her literary men, in spite of the peculiarly difficult language which had to be used as a medium, have made themselves known beyond the borders of their own country. Of all her sons, John Sobieski is the one who stands out most clearly in the sight of other nations. He was one of the best generals Poland ever had, and in 1674 was elected king under the title of John III. His most famous successes were against the Turks, and when in 1683 the Turkish armies advanced on Vienna and Leopold the Emperor fled ignominiously, it was Sobieski who rallied his troops together and proceeded to the rescue. The Turks were besieging the city and assaulted it no less than eighteen times while it was held by Count Strahrenburg. Sobieski co-operated with Charles Duke of Lorraine, brother-in-law of the Emperor, and appeared on the heights of Kablenburg. The two armies met in a terrific encounter, and the Turks were badly beaten, leaving twenty thousand men behind them. When all was safe Leopold returned to his capital, but was jealous of the success of Sobieski, and showed it. In a letter to his wife Sobieski speaks of this treatment:
Our people have been much annoyed and have loudly complained because the emperor never deigned to thank them not even by a bow for all their troubles and privations. They give us neither forage nor provisions; our sick are lying on dunghills and our many wounded cannot obtain a single boat to carry them down to Pressburg, where I could more easily provide for them at my own cost.... Many of our men, finding that they were dying of hunger in the country, hurried to the town to find food; but the commandant of Vienna had given orders that they should not be allowed to enter, and that they should be fired on. After this great battle in which we have lost so many members of our most illustrious families, we are treated like plague-stricken men, whom everyone must avoid.
The downfall of the Turks was the more crushing because they had been accustomed to consider themselves invincible and appeared rather as a conquering cavalcade than as those who were fighting their way through a hostile country. One of their leaders on this occasion, the Vizier Kara Mustapha, had a tent made of green silk, worked with gold and silver and set with precious stones. The holy standard was carried inside it. After the battle Sobieski sent the golden stirrup of the Grand Vizier to his Queen, and the standard to the Pope. It is one of the minor ironies of history that Leopold, who after this marvellous delivery was chiefly occupied with minute points of etiquette, such as whether he ought to receive the elected King of Poland on the right or left side, should have been surnamed the Great!
The chief reasons given for the fall of Poland are that she had no natural boundaries of mountain or river, and that the three powerful nations around her all wanted something she had got. This was particularly the case with Prussia, who greatly coveted the outlet to the sea by way of Dantzig. Another reason is that there was in Poland no middle class, only the nobility, and the serfs far below them, and out of touch; and it has been rightly said that the middle class is the backbone of a nation.
The town of Cracow was exempted from the 1772 arrangement when Poland was partitioned, and made a free town, but it was found to be a focus of disturbance for all the dispossessed Poles who retained ideals of liberty, and it had to be firmly stamped upon more than once. Russia at first undertook the stamping, but as the town was in the Austrian dominions this duty eventually fell to Austria, and she did it effectually by annexing the rebellious town in 1846. This was not, however, until she had had some trouble, having sent troops to quell disturbances there, and having had the humiliation of seeing them beaten off by the nobles of the Polish aristocracy. So cordially did the serfs hate their masters that they even sided with the Austrians against their own high-born countrymen, and it was by their help that Austria maintained her position. In consequence of this the Emperor abolished compulsory cartage and forced labour during harvest to reward the peasants. The Galician peasants have by no means an easy time. In very many cases they are paid by a proportion of the harvests reaped and not in money. The place occupied in most countries by a stable middle class is here filled up by large numbers of Jews, who have bought the estates as they came on the market, and now grind down the remuneration of the workers to the lowest figure. Were it not that the peasants very often migrate into Germany for the summer months and there earn enough to keep body and soul together for the winter, their position would be worse than it is. Horse-breeding is a large industry here, as in many other parts of the composite kingdom; petroleum is found in great quantities, and there are salt and coal mines which give occupation to many.
By the settlement of 1867 Galicia was given Home Rule, though deputies are still sent to the Austrian Parliament. Cracow and Lembert are the two principal towns. Cracow is a seat of a famous university, and a statue of its greatest pupil, Copernicus, stands in the courtyard. Copernicus received his education here, though he was a native of Prussia. Lemberg also has a university.
The Ruthenians, who form so large a proportion of the Galicians, are a Slav race; they mostly belong to the Greek church and so suffer doubly under the domination of the Jews.