enturies--a most instructive subject of contemplation.

* * * * *

THE CSIKOS OF HUNGARY.

Of the chivalry, the gallantry, the splendor, the hospitality, the
courage, and the love of liberty of the Hungarian noble or gentleman,
no one doubts. Of his ideas of true constitutional freedom, or the
zeal with which that or Hungarian independence has been maintained
first through Turkish, and then German domination for some hundred
years past, doubts may be entertained. Neither do the Hungarian
peasantry or people reflect high credit on their "natural superiors."
Something should be deducted for the forced vivacity and straining
after effect of the litterateur; but this sketch of a large class of
peasantry from Max Schlesinger's "War in Hungary," just published
in London, must have some foundation in truth--and very like the Red
Indians or half-breeds of Spanish America the people look.

"The Csikos is a man who from his birth, somehow or other, finds
himself seated upon a foal. Instinctively the boy remains fixed upon
the animal's back, and grows up in his seat as other children do in
the cradle.

"The boy grows by degrees to a big horse-herd. To earn his livelihood,
he enters the service of some nobleman, or of the Government, who
possess in Hungary immense herds of wild horses. These herds range
over a tract of many German square miles, for the most part some level
plain, with wood, marsh, heath, and moorland; they rove about where
they please, multiply, and enjoy freedom of existence. Nevertheless,
it is a common error to imagine that these horses, like a pack of
wolves in the mountains, are left to themselves and nature, without
any care or thought of man. Wild horses, in the proper sense of the
term, are in Europe at the present day only met with in Bessarabia;
whereas the so-called wild herds in Hungary may rather be compared
to the animals ranging in our large parks, which are attended to and
watched. The deer are left to the illusion that they enjoy the most
unbounded freedom; and the deer-stalker, when in pursuit of his game,
readily gives in to the same illusion. Or, to take another simile, the
reader has only to picture to himself a well-constituted free state,
whether a republic or a monarchy is all one.

"The Csikos has the difficult task of keeping a watchful eye upon
these herds. He knows their strength, their habits, the spots they
frequent; he knows the birthday of ever