IN THE LAND OF THE MAGYAR.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14987, 6 June 1914, Page 2

IN THE LAND OF THE MAGYAR.

(Bt Matcolm Ross, F.R.G.S.) No. 3. Some people will tell yon that "Qjcjc is not much, to see in Fiume, others " that there is a great deal. For ray part T found it a most interesting place, with a special fascination that increased the more one studied its history and its cosmopolitanism. Travelling from Inns- j bruck to Verona, en route to Venice, one gathered that there was no love lost between the Austiians and tho. Italians. Indeed, on tho borderland south of the Tyrol there is a part of Austria that is more Italian than Austrian. In Fiume, too, we found that the Italians were not very content under Hungarian rule. Italy is not in tho Triple Alliance out of pure love and affection. Indeed, how could she be expected to bo enthusiastic over an alliance with her hereditary enemy? "Why do you go on building battleships and spending money on the fortifications of Venice when you are in the Alliance?" said a friend of mine to an Italian Admiral. And the reply was: "Do you think we arc going to stand idly by when Austria is building Dreadnoughts? It would never do to let Austria become stronger than we." Similarly we found that many Au6trians preferred the English to the Germans, and that the Hungarians were not at all enamoured of their German allies. Indeed it would seem as if tho Triple Alliance is based almost altogether upon fear, and very littlo upon friendship. Italy is in it because of her resentment against France and Austria-Hungary are in it because of their fear of Russia. An alliance or an entente in these Eastern countries may be a thing of a generation or of a year. There is no saying what sudden changes may be made. The antiAustriau demonstrations in Venice the other dny may smoulder or be fanned into flame. He would be a bold man who would undertake accurately to forecast the happening's of tho nest decade in these parts. Meantime tbe Balkan war has.hit some of these countries rather hard, and the farther oast we go the harder it hits. The Slavs and the Rumanians have also to be reckoned with, forj at this very moment, they are being worked upon $v luis'ian emissaries. Wo left Fiume for Keszthelv by train one ©veiling after dinner. There were no sleeping cars, but liberal tips to the guards enabled us to got a compartment to ourselves, and we drew the blinds,, pushed tho door to, and endeavoured to assume an air of possession that was perhaps not -wholly warranted. One ( man did endeavour to carry our domicile by assault but bteran assured him that a family of young children was soon coming in with us and ho fled. We stretched ourselves along the seats in pretended somnolence, but presently a guard, other than tho one .we had tipped came in, tapped mc on the leg, and in Hungarian asked mc to "make place:" but I remained mute. Stefan, however, turned on him. "I have," he said, 'given five krona for this compartment for ourselves—what sort of fairness is it that you now come and tisk us to make place for others?" Thereupon the guard went away, somewhat crestfallen, and we settled down to sleep Again. Soon after this guard, with another guard, came back, and the third one spoke, and said that he had not received any part of the fire krona. Apparently the other fellow Md gone to him for a share of the spoil, and had not been satisfied with : the division thereof,.but that was tho last, we heard of it. We left them to tight -it out between themselves, and for the rest of the ten hours' journey' we were left m comparative peace It was very beautiful going out of Fiume m the night-time. As the train mounted the grades we saw the lights of the city reflected in the placid hari hour. Then we passed a great illumination—the lights of the night shift ' working on the battle cruiser—and the - clatter of a hundred hammers came t up to us from the depths below. Higher , up still, through trees that fringed the _ railway, we saw the lights of Abbazia sparkling like diamonds in their dark forest setting, and sonding gleaming 1 lines across the blacker depths of the > bay. We wrapped Stefv un in my * warm New Zealand rug, Stefan got into his motor coat, and I into mine, ; ' » nd . """« toed to sleep. But Stefan and • I, having only ono side of the com- ■ partment between us, found this a difficult matter. It was a cold night, and | what 'slumber wo did get was of a fitful nature, so that the hours passed drearily. As dawn was breaking I 1 drew tho blinds, and found that" we ' were running across a well-cultivated ] upland plain, with lines of tall poplars, but no fences marking the boundaries 1 of the fields. In the chill dawn women ( \ were already tracking along the roads to work in the fields, and men were ' driving their oxen toward tho plough. They were an industrious peoole. and, apparently, there was no eight-hours' I day here. A HUNGARIAN VILLAGE. ] We steamed into the town of Keex- s thely in the early morn, engaged rooms S at an inn that was none too clean, performed our morning toilet, and strolled r off. into tho village, where we break- ' fasted in a cafe. We had eggs mixed t up with a bush fungns, raw bacon f .(smoked and fat, but quite tasty), and i! excellent coffee and bread. The pigs t hero are fatted on maize, and get very ? fat. In other districts they have the » lean, kind. In these restaurants you <] are charged for each item, so you have j, to remember what you eat. "How s many breads have you eaten?" is one J of the usual questions put to mc by Stefan, after a meal, or a morning or afternoon coffee. You can get tea, but it is weak and flavourless, and they *■ serve it with hot mirk, which makes it "" taste still worse. Some of the villagers B ' were very quaintly dressed, and the wo- "j men wore many petticoats, pleated and \ starched, so that they seemed to have " bulbous hips, very much like the T>utch R women one sees on the Isle of Marken. S They have an erect carriage and a ? peculiar, swaying walk owing to their V habit of carrying baskets on their heads. + Though it was a cold morning, several " were walking barefooted "in the streets r and along the country roads. Some in- B< dividuals wearing hard black.hats ami £ white woollen petticoats came down a jr side street chatting gaily. I wondered D at their peculiar gait until they caw _\ nearer, and I found they were Premon- h ter college men, a worldly order, mostly h, the sons of gentlemen with landed es- w tates, who devote their lives to teach- p ing. Following in their wake came a hi typical Hungarian smoking his long- m stemmed pipe, and carrying a primi- qi tive distilling apparatus, by means of d( which, under Government supervision st and tax, he makes a variety of brandy tl from plums. He bad just brought in in and sold in the market a portion of tl the orop from bis vineyard, and siwas now proudly making his way homo fii -with this new purchase. In this dis- w trict, which, is in the East of Hungary, tl one comes upon tbe pure Hungarians, s * who speak the real Magyar language g> with scarcely any foreign words intro- w duced. There were Hungarians and «3 Jews, all speaking the same tongue, for " here the Jew and tho Magyar have fl lived together in harmony for many °< generations, until the Jew has himself £ J become Hungarian. h. A STATE SCECOL. "™ Strolling through the town, we came tl upon one of tho State schools, and, a. being curious to see the inside of it and cc the manner oi teaching, we enteral, gj

man he had met. We parted with many handshakes and much bowing, and shall and were most kindly received by the head' of the school, who took us all over it. Jews, Catholics,' and Protestants attended it, and tho pastors of each denomination givo religious instruction to the children of their own sect. In one classroom, as we entered, a, pleasant young priest was engaged in his teaching. At our entry, the whole class of small boys stood up, and said together, "Sod brought youl" As wo shook hands with the young priest, and left the classroom, they said altogether, "God" be with you." They remained standing all the time wo wero in the room. That is the formula for worldly people, but if a priest should come in they would say. "Praise be the Lord Jesus Christ." If they wero Protestant or Jewish children, they would say, "Praise be the Lord. in each classroom there was prominently displayed a large sheet, with the printed words and music of the National Anthem, a fairly literal translation of which is:— "God, do save the Hungarians, givo them good food and plenty, offer them a protective arm if they are fighting with their enemies in bad luck, which is consuming them since a long time, bring to them years of joy, for they have suffered already sufficient penalty for the past and the future." The words were written by Franz Kolcsoy, the dreamer, who was a poet and an orator, as well as the founder of the Hungarian School of Literary Criticism. He was born in I7SO. Tho music is by the famous Franz Erkel, who was a contemporary of Liszt's, and the creator of Hungarian opera. Ho is best known by his works "Ladislaus Hunyadr" and "Bank Ban," the latter being a typical Magyar composition. His "Swan Song*' and "Fnne* ral March" are regarded as classical, Snd in tho anthem his genius has proneed a national song that, in its reeling and inspiration, seems to typify the strange Magyar race. He was born in 1810 and lived to the ripe age of 83. AN A&BICTJLTTJBAL COLL33GEL From the school we went to an up-to-date Agricultural College, where we were also most warmly welcomed and shown every attention. There are five such colleges in the so that the Hungarians quito put New -lealand in the shade in this matter of scientific agricultural education. As we* left the train in the early morning Stefan had said to mc: "I'll defy you twopence halfpenny that you won't hear English, spoken in this town." I took the wager, but, so far, there seemed littlo chance of my winning it. I won it at the college, for the professor, on learning that I came from New Zealand, promptly addressed mc in English. He had learnt it from one of his own countrymen who had been in America, and was quite delighted when he found that the first EnglishTnan ho had met could understand him quite well. For somo years he had had no practice in it, except by reading, and he had more difficulty in understanding mc than I him, for, as he, himself, very' quaintly pnt it: "With my eyes I understand ; with my ears I do not understand." He had great difficulty in thinking hi English, so had to think in Hungarian and then retranslate his thoughts to give them English expression. We went all over the school and finally came into his own room where was a library. Ho opened a section of the bookcase, and, diving into a lower shelf, produced bottles and somo small glasses, remarking as he did so, with a merry twinkle in his eye, the mysteries of the Bibliothiqne. Various liquors containing spint. Ixood for you, but I do not take because of a headache." However, we had no headaches, and so we drank his health, in a liquor that he himself had distilled—from coffee! It was rather sweet and heavy, but quite good, and there were no bad after-effects. He was a very clever man. and keen about his college, and he was quito excited in speaking English to the first English-I

probably hear from each other in thie future- He was much interested in New Zealand, and in what we were doing in connexion agricultural education, but we have no such college as this in all New Zealand. THE FISHERIES. We now sought out one Bariss Gynla, he to.whom Ihad the letter of introduction from my friend Vittorio de Gauss Garady, of the Bioiogica Marina at Fiume, and him we found to be as rhn-Tnrn- as all the others. The five of-ns hrached together at tho chief restaurant in the town —a typkal Hungarian luncheon —and we had much talk about the fish in the Lake of Balaton and the rivers that take their' riso in the High Carpathians. The fisheries in Hungary are looked upon from a purely e<»nomic point of viow, and these good people could not at all understand the Englishman's idea of sport in t conncxion with the catching of fish. They marvelled greatly at some small flies and a • fine cast that I had used on Loch Leven with some success, and happened to have with mc. We only wanted old Izaak and Venator to complete the symposium. But after all our talk I came to the conclusion that in this j matter of fisheries we are perhaps inj chned to think too much of sport, and j that in the near future we shall have to consider it more from the standpoint of ' economics. This, I know, at the present time is rank heresy, though in the end I shall pin my faith on economics. All the same I should dearly have liked to have a go at their rainbow trout in tho 6wiftly-flowing Carpathian rivers, or to have landed a gigantic tunny on a # small rod from the waters of the historic Quarnovo. We hoped to be the pioneers of a new sport in the Adriatic, for they have the tunny there, and England does not know it I But. alas I we had no time to go back, and Stefan's rods and reels, at the moment, were wandering somewhere across the Continent. (To be continued.)