ed in the growth of the
nation, and accounts for their characteristic love of freedom in the
present day. It was this that made the freedom-loving peasant detest the
military conscription imposed by the Austrians in 1849, an innovation
the more obnoxious because enforced with every species of official
brutality.

The poor Czigany had not been so fortunate as to preserve even the
Hungarian serf's modicum of liberty. Mr Paget mentions that forty years
ago he saw gipsies exposed for sale in the neighbouring province of
Wallachia.

There are a great many "settled gipsies" in Transylvania. Of course they
are legally free, but they attach themselves peculiarly to the Magyars,
from a profound respect they have for everything that is aristocratic;
and in Transylvania the name Magyar holds almost as a distinctive term
for class as well as race. The gipsies do not assimilate with the
thrifty Saxon, but prefer to be hangers-on at the castle of the
Hungarian noble: they call themselves by his name, and profess to hold
the same faith, be it Catholic or Protestant. Notwithstanding that, the
gipsy has an incurable habit of pilfering here as elsewhere; yet they
can be trusted as messengers and carriers--indeed I do not know what
people would do without them, for they are as good as a general
"parcels-delivery company" any day; and certainly they are ubiquitous,
for never is a door left unlocked but a gipsy will steal in, to your
cost.

The gipsy is sometimes accused of having a hand in incendiary fires; but
I believe the general testimony is in his favour, and against the
Wallack, whose love of revenge is the ugliest feature in his character.
These people seem to forget the saying that "curses, like chickens, come
home to roost," for they will set fire to places under circumstances
that not unfrequently involve themselves in ruin.

We were calmly sitting one day at dinner when we heard a great row all
at once; looking out of the window, we saw dense clouds of smoke and
flame not a hundred yards from the house. We rushed out immediately to
render assistance, but without water or engines of any kind it was
difficult to do much. However, Herr von B---- and myself got on the top
of the outhouse that was in flames, and stripped off the wooden tiles,
removing out of the way everything that was likely to feed the fire.
There stood close by a crowd of Wallacks, utterly panic-stricken it
seemed: they did nothing but scream and howl as if p