My first walk was to the Kapellenburg, a hill which rises abruptly from the very walls of the town.  An hour’s climb through a shady zigzag brought me to the summit.  From thence I could see the “seven villages” which, according to some persons, gave the German name to the province, Siebenbuergen, “seven towns.”  The level Burzenland looked almost like a green lake; beyond it the chain of the Carpathian takes a bend, forming the frontier of Roumania.  The highest point seen from thence is the Schuelerberg, upwards of 8000 feet, and a little farther off the Koenigstein, and the Butschrtsch, the latter reaching 9526 feet.  Hardly less picturesque is the view from the Castle Hill.  Quite separated from the rest of the town is the quarter inhabited by the Szeklers.  This people constitute one of four principal races inhabiting Transylvania.  They are of Turanian origin, like the Magyars, but apparently an older branch of the family.  When the Magyars overran Pannonia in the tenth century, under the headship of the great Arpad, they appear to have found the Szeklers already in possession of part of the vast Carpathian horseshoe—­that part known to us as the Transylvanian frontier of Moldavia.  They claim to have come hither as early as the fourth century.  It is known that an earlier wave of the Turanians had swept over Europe before the incoming of the Magyars, and the so-called Szeklers were probably a tribe or remnant of this invasion, the date of which, however, is wrapped in no little obscurity.

This is certain, that they have preserved their independence throughout all these ages in a very remarkable manner.  “They are all ‘noble,’” says Mr Boner, “and proudly and steadfastly adhere to and uphold their old rights and privileges, such as right of limiting and of pasture.  They had their own judges, and acknowledged the authority of none beside.  Like their ancestors the Huns, they loved fighting, and were the best soldiers that Bem had in his army.  They guarded the frontier, and guarded it well, of their own free-will; but they would not be compelled to do so, and the very circumstance that Austria, when the border system was established, obliged them to furnish a contingent of one infantry and two hussar regiments sufficed to alienate their regard."[17] In another place Mr Boner says, “The Szekler soldier, I was told, was ‘excessive,’ which means extreme, in all he did.”

In the view of recent events, it may be worth while to recall to mind a few particulars of General Bem’s campaign in Transylvania.  In no part of Hungary was the war of independence waged with so much bitterness as down here on these border-lands.  The Saxons and the Wallacks were bitterly opposed to the Magyars; and on the 12th of May, in the eventful ’48, a popular meeting was held at Kronstadt, where they protested vehemently against union with Hungary, and swore allegiance to the Emperor of Austria.  Upon this the Szeklers flew to arms—­on the side