regarded as of comparatively
modern date. In the Ysil Valley there is a splendid deposit of _true_
coal."[14] Since the time when the above was written the resources of
the Ysil or Sil Valley--viz., Petroseny--have been abundantly developed,
as we see, and it has been pronounced to be "one of the finest coal
mines in Europe." One of the seams of coal is ninety feet in thickness;
but up to the present time it has been found impossible to make it into
coke.

The miners at Petroseny are great offenders in regard to the abominable
practice of killing fish by means of dynamite. It is very well to say
that the law forbids it; but the administrators of the law are not
always a terror to evil-doers, and perhaps the timely present of a dish
of fine trout does not sharpen the energies of the officials. Another
mode of destroying fish is practised by the Wallacks. There grows in
this locality a poisonous plant, of which they make a decoction and
throw it into the river, thereby killing great numbers of fish at a
time.

While driving round Petroseny I had an opportunity of seeing the
Hungarian manner of making roads. The peasants have to work on the roads
a certain number of days in the year, and if they possess a pair of
oxen, these must also be brought for a specified time. An inspector is
supposed to watch over them. One afternoon we came upon a score of
peasants, men and women, who were engaged in mending a bridge. Their
proceedings were just an instance of how "not to do a thing." They were
placing trees across the gap, and the interstices they were filling up
with leafy branches, over which was thrown a quantity of loose earth and
stones well patted down to give the appearance of a substantial and even
surface. Of course the first rain would wash away the earth and leave as
nice a hole as you could wish your enemy to put his foot into. For all
purposes of traffic the bridge was safer with the honest gap yawning in
the traveller's face.

It is said that the magistrates make matters easy and convenient for the
peasants, if the latter, by being let off public work, attend
gratuitously to the more pressing wants of the individual magistrate.

"You see, nobody suffers but the Government," says the man of easy
conscience, not seeing that, after all, the good condition of the roads
concerns themselves more than the officials in the capital.

In many things the Hungarians are like children, and they have not yet
grown out of t