they fell into an ambuscade arranged by the men of Herrmannstadt, headed by their burgomaster, the brave George Hecht.  At a concerted signal the Saxons rushed upon the despoilers with such a fierce and sudden onslaught, that though the Turks far exceeded them in number, they were completely overpowered.  Many a turbaned corpse lay that day on the green margin of the classical Aluta, and few, very few, of the hated Turks, it is said, escaped over the frontier to tell the tale of their disaster.  How many a home must have been gladdened by the sight of the rescued children after that happy victory!

These abductions are not altogether a thing of the past.  In the autumn of 1875, the very date of my tour, a paragraph appeared in a Pest newspaper stating that a young girl of great beauty in the neighbourhood of Temesvar, in the Banat of Hungary, had been secretly carried off into Turkey without the knowledge or consent of her parents.  It was further stated that these scandalous proceedings were of very frequent occurrence in the border provinces.  For some years past the supply of beautiful Circassians has been deficient, it is said, so doubtless the harems of Constantinople are supplied with Christian maidens to make up the numbers.  The late Sultan—­I mean the one who committed suicide—­was considered a moderate man, and he had eight hundred women in his harem, at least so a relative of mine was credibly informed at Constantinople.

CHAPTER XVII.

Magyar intolerance of the German—­Patriotic revival of the Magyar language—­Ride from Herrmannstadt to Kronstadt—­The village of Zeiden—­Curious scene in church—­Reformation in Transylvania—­Political bitterness between Saxons and Magyars in 1848.

My horse being all right again, I thought it high time to push on to Kronstadt, which is nearly ninety miles from Herrmannstadt by road.  There is railway communication, but not direct; you have to get on the main line at the junction of Klein Koepisch—­in Hungarian, Kis Kapus—­and hence to Kronstadt, called Brasso by the non-Germans.  This confusion of names is very difficult for a foreigner when consulting the railway tables.  I have often seen the names of stations put up in three languages.  Herrmannstadt is Nagy Szeben.  The confusion of tongues in Hungary is one of the greatest stumbling-blocks to progress; and unfortunately it is considered patriotic by the Magyar to speak his own language and ignore that of his neighbour.

It happened to me once that I entered an inn in a Hungarian town, and addressing the waiter, I gave my orders in German, whereupon an elderly gentleman turned sharply upon me, saying—­also in German, observe—­“It is the custom to speak Hungarian here.”