nd broken. This, too, was
full of pictures. As pictures they had no great merit, but together they
made up the prize for which previously I had looked in vain. This book,
published about the year 1680, consisted entirely of bald but careful
engravings of the principal castles of Hungary, some of them in ruins,
but most of them still inhabited. This book I showed to the Princess
likewise, having marked the castles which apparently were not very far
from Koermend, and asked her if they still existed, and whether a visit
to any of them would be practicable. Though she had heard of some of
them, her own knowledge was vague, but she passed the book on to Molna.
Many of these castles Molna knew by name. Some of them he had seen, some
of them were still inhabited, their aspect, so he reported, being
practically indistinguishable from that represented in the old
engravings. He picked out five or six as being well within the compass
of a day's or a two days' expedition. If, said the Princess, I wished to
see these places I might as well begin doing so at once, as she was
before long going to receive some visitors whom she trusted that I would
help her to entertain. Matters were arranged accordingly. She placed a
carriage and four brisk horses at my disposal, and under Molna's advice
my explorations began.

Most of the great castles of Hungary remained veritable castles long
after castles in England had been transformed into halls and manor
houses. The reason was that constant wars with the Turks made it still
necessary that every great house should be a fortress. Thus it came
about that the ornaments and luxuries of life--many of them under French
influence--developed themselves within walls approachable only by
drawbridges; that boudoirs were neighbored by towers loopholed for
musketry; and that under smooth lawns and orangeries rocks were hollowed
into caverns in which on occasion regiments of troops could hide. One of
the greatest of these great castles, Riegersbourg, was refortified in
the days of Pope and Addison. It covers an elevated plateau of which
every side is precipitous, and above the entrance arch is a white marble
tablet on which, in very bad Latin, the builder, Baron Hammer Purgstall,
bewails the fact that the rocks by their irregular shape have caused him
to violate the rules of classical architecture. Of such castles I
visited as many as I could. In all of them, as though by some
enchantment, the present had be