Looking back, I could see the little town
straggling along in the shadow of the deeply-cleft valley, while beyond
stretched the sunlit plain, level as a sea, rich with fields of ripe
corn. The mists still lingered around me in the mountains, rolling about
in the form of soft white masses of vapour, with here and there a
fringed edge of iridescence. The cool freshness of the morning and the
beauty of the varied scenery made the ride most enjoyable.
Arriving at Steirdorf, I spent some hours in visiting the ironworks,
blast-furnaces, coke-ovens, &c. The coal produced here is said to be the
best in Hungary. The output, I am told, is 150,000 tons; but only
one-third of this is sold, the rest being used by the States Railway
Company for their own ironworks, and for the locomotive engines of their
line.
Professor Ansted,[9] who made a professional visit to this part of the
country in 1862, remarks that "the iron is mined by horizontal drifts or
kennels into the side of the hills. The coal is mined by vertical
shafts. The ironstone is of the kind common to some parts of Scotland,
and known as blackband. There are as many as eight principal seams."
I had sent a man in advance from Oravicza to take my horse back, as I
intended returning by rail. This mountain railway between Oravicza and
Auima-Steirdorf is a remarkable piece of engineering work. In a distance
of about twenty miles it ascends 1100 feet, in some parts as much as one
foot in five.
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