The streets were perfectly dark, and it was an affair of no small
difficulty to find our way. It happened to me that I stepped into
something soft and bumpy. I could not conceive what it was. I made a
long step forward, thinking to clear the obstacle, but I only stumbled
into another soft and bumpy thing. Was it a flock of sheep lying packed
together? The skins of the sheep were there, it is true, but as covering
for the forms of prostrate Wallacks. A lot of these fellows, wrapped in
their cloaks, were sleeping huddled together at the side of the street.
I found afterwards that this is a common practice with these people. The
wonderful _bunda_ is a cloak by day and a house by night.
[Footnote 4: Letters and Works, edited by Lord Wharncliffe, 1837, p.
351, 359.]
[Footnote 5: The robbers were subsequently taken and executed.]
CHAPTER IV.
Variety of races in Hungary--Wallacks or
Roumains--Statistics--Savage outbreak of the Wallacks in former
years--Panslavic ideas--Roumanians and their origin--Priests of the
Greek Church--Destruction of forests--Spirit of
Communism--Incendiary fires.
The mixture of races in Hungary is a puzzle to any outsider. There is
the original substratum of Slavs, overlaid by Szeklers, Magyars, German
immigrants, Wallacks, Rusniacks, Jews, and gipsies. An old German writer
has quaintly described the characteristics of these various peoples in
the following manner:--
"To the great national kitchen the Magyar contributes bread, meat, and
wine; the Rusniack and Wallack, salt from the salt pits of Marmaros; the
Slavonian, bacon, for Slavonia furnishes the greatest number of fattened
pigs; the German gives potatoes and vegetables; the Italian, rice; the
Slovack, milk, cheese, and butter, besides table-linen, kitchen
utensils, and crockery ware; the Jew supplies the Hungarian with money;
and the gipsy furnishes the entertainment with music.
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