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The story of Hungary. Armin Vambéry
Читать онлайн.Название The story of Hungary
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066233662
Автор произведения Armin Vambéry
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Thirty-eight passes lead from this mountain-system of gigantic dimensions, partly into the countries adjacent to Hungary, partly into the regions divided by them. Of these the most important are: the Jablunka pass, communicating with Silesia and the valley of the Vistula; the Vereczke pass between Munkács and Stry, supposed to be the pass through which the Hungarians entered their present country; the Radna pass, leading into Bukovina; the Ojtóz pass, communicating with Moldavia; the Tömös pass, leading to Bucharest; and the Red Tower pass, leading into Little Wallachia.
Besides the Carpathian mountains Hungary also contains a less considerable portion of the Alps, belonging to the so-called Noric Alps. They lie in trans-Danubian Hungary, the Pannonia of old. They embrace the Austro-Styrian border-range, between the valleys of the Danube and Drave; the Vértes-Bakony ranges, of which the Bakony forest forms a part; and the group of the Buda mountains, producing the celebrated wines of that name.
Croatia and Slavonia, which are parts of the Hungarian realm, are also traversed by mountains belonging to the Alpine system.
We perceive from the preceding account that a large portion of the country is mountainous, but over a third part of it is level land, and so fertile that it may compare to the prairies in North America. The great Hungarian plain, the so-called Alföld (Lowland), boasts of the best soil for the production of wheat, and, stretching down from the offshoots of the Central Carpathians to the frontiers of Servia contains upward of 35,000 square miles.
The extent of the water system of a country and its distribution is always of the first importance. In this respect, too, Hungary has been blessed by nature. Of the sea she has but little; a small portion only of the Adriatic washes her shores, the so-called Hungarian Sea-Coast, where Fiume, the only important Hungarian seaport city, is situated. The country possesses also some interesting lakes; one, Lake Balaton, forty-seven miles long and nine miles wide, has the characteristics of the sea to such an extent that it is called the Hungarian Sea. In this extensive water is to be found the savory fogas fish, and on its shores is situated Balaton-Füred, one of the favorite watering-places of Hungary, and near this place is the famous echo of Tihany. Another large lake is the Fertö (Neu-Siedler), eighteen miles long and about five miles wide, which became perfectly dry in 1863, so that even houses were built on its bed, but the waters have returned to it within the last few years. Several smaller lakes, besides the two mentioned, are scattered throughout the country.
With rivers the country is abundantly supplied. Its mightiest stream is the Danube, after the Volga, the largest river in Europe. The whole of Hungary belongs to its basin. Its length in Hungary is 600 miles, and it leaves the country at Orsova, after having formed several islands in its course. The largest among these is the Great Csalló region, which contains two towns and over a hundred villages; and the most beautiful of them is Margit (Margaret) Island, near Buda-Pesth—quite a miniature paradise, frequented by a great many strangers, who come here to get the benefit of its excellent baths. Of the numerous affluents of the Danube the Theiss is the most important; it has its sources in the country and empties into the Danube on Hungarian soil, near Titel. It is navigable for steamships. The Save and Drave are after the Theiss the largest tributaries of the Danube. All these rivers send their waters, through the medium of the Danube, into the Black Sea.
Thus harmoniously is the soil of Hungary varied by mountains, valleys, plains, and high plateaus, and gratefully watered by rivers and lakes; and if we but add that the country lies between the forty-fourth and fiftieth degrees of northern latitude, that is, in the most favorable part of the temperate zone, we may readily infer the superiority of the climatic conditions prevailing there. There is, of course, great variety of climate. The winter is raw and cold in the Carpathian regions; spring sets in later, winter comes earlier, and the cold sometimes reaches −22° F. In the hilly and level country the climate is much more genial, the summers hotter, and storms of more frequent occurrence. Wheat, grapes, and maize do not ripen in the regions of the higher Carpathians, whilst the Alföld produces the best and finest wheat, and even rice. The air is most genial on the shores of the Adriatic, and here are grown the fruits of Southern Europe. The climate, as a general thing, is dry, especially in the Alföld, where trees are rare.
Such is the topography and climate of the country which, lying in the central portion of Middle Europe, stretches between Moravia, Silesia, Galicia, Bukovina, Roumania, Servia, Bosnia, the Adriatic Sea, Istria, Carinthia, Styria, and Austria. It covers an area of 125,000 square miles, and has a population of nearly sixteen millions.
Politically the country is divided into three parts, namely: Hungary proper (including the formerly detached Transylvania), the city and territory of Fiume, and Croatia and Slavonia. Dalmatia, too, ought to belong under the old laws to the country, but, for a long time already, it has owned the supremacy of Austria.
Buda-Pesth is the capital of the entire kingdom. Situated on both banks of the majestic Danube, here spanned by three beautiful bridges, amongst them the famous suspension bridge, it is one of the finest cities of Europe. It has nearly 400,000 inhabitants, and is the centre of Hungary’s political, cultural, industrial, and commercial life. Fine public and private buildings, some of them beautiful specimens of architectural art, adorn the city, and it boasts wide thoroughfares, among which the delightful Corso along the left bank of the Danube, and the Andrássy Út (Road) leading to the city park, where the national exhibition of 1885 was located, deserve especial mention. The finest and largest cities, besides Buda-Pesth, are: Presburg (Pozsony), on the left bank of the Danube, formerly the seat of the Hungarian Diet; Comorn (Komárom), on the Danube, too, celebrated for its grand fortifications; Stuhlweissenburg (Székesfejérvár), once the capital of Hungary; Raab (Györ); Oedenburg (Soprony); Veszprém, one of the oldest cities; Erlau (Eger), renowned for its excellent wine; Szeged, the metropolis of the Alföld and one of the largest cities, which in 1879 was almost entirely destroyed by the overflowing of the Theiss, but has since been rebuilt, more beautifully than before, after the latest European pattern; Kassa, the finest city in Upper Hungary; Miskolcz; Debreczen, one of the most remarkable cities of the Hungarian Alföld and the seat of a considerable industry; Grosswardein (Nagy-Várad), the scene of many important historical events; Arad, Temesvár, and Carlsburg (Gyulafejérvár), all fortified cities memorable in history; Klausenburg (Kolozsvár), the capital of the former principality of Transylvania; the flourishing Transylvanian towns of Kronstadt (Brassó) and Hermannstadt (Szeben), inhabited for the most part by the descendants of Saxons; Fiume, the seaport on the Adriatic; Agram (Zágráb), the capital of Croatia, a beautiful city, which, however, was greatly damaged in 1880 by a terrible earthquake; and Eszék, the most prominent of the Slavonian towns.
The population of the country is composed of various nationalities. The conquering Hungarians did not oppress the ancient inhabitants of the land but left them undisturbed in the use of their native language, and, even in later days, their tolerance went so far as to actually favor foreign, and, more particularly, German immigrants, and to this exceptional forbearance alone must be traced the survival of so many nationalities, and the lack of assimilation, after so many centuries. Classified as to languages spoken by the inhabitants, the chief nationalities number as follows: 1, Hungarians or Magyars, 6,500,000—the ruling, and, so to say, the political nationality