tempted to
introduce this fashion from Pest."

Buda-Pest, though the capital, is not the place to find the best
Hungarian society. Many of the old families prefer Pressburg; and
Klausenburg is to Transylvania what Edinburgh was to Scotland, socially
speaking, before the days of railroads. In the season good society may
be met with at the various baths, but every year the facilities of
travel enable people to go farther a-field health-seeking and for
pleasure.

CHAPTER XXIX.

A visit at Schloss B------National characteristics--Robber
stories--Origin of the "poor lads"--Audacity of the
robbers--Anecdote of Deak and the housebreaker--Romantic story of a
robber chief.

The three weeks I remained at Schloss B---- were amongst the most
agreeable days I spent in Transylvania. There were a great many visitors
coming and going, affording me an excellent opportunity of seeing the
society of that part of Hungary. With regard to the younger generation,
the Transylvanians are like well-bred people all the world over. The
ladies have something of the frankness of superior Americans--the sort
of Americans that Lord Lytton describes in 'The Parisians'--and in
consequence conversation has more vivacity than with us.

In the elder generation you may detect far more of national peculiarity;
in some cases they retain the national dress, and with it the Magyar
pride and ostentation, so strongly dashed with Orientalism. Then again,
in the houses of the old nobility, one is struck by many curious
incongruities. For example, Count T---- has a large retinue of
servants--five cooks are hardly able at times to supply his hospitable
board, so numerous are the guests--yet the walls of his rooms are simply
whitewashed, and the furniture is a mixture of costly articles from
Vienna and the handiwork of the village carpenter. A whole array of
servants, who are in gorgeous liveries at dinner, may be seen barefooted
in the morning.

In talking with some of the elderly members of the family, I heard many
curious anecdotes of old Hungarian customs; but "the old order changeth"
here as elsewhere, and a monotonous uniformity threatens the social
world. Even as it is, everybody who entertains his friends at dinner is
much the same as everybody else, be he in Monmouth or Macedon.
Distinctive characteristics of race are found more easily in the common
people, who are less amenable to the change of fashion than their
superior