some pleasant excursions.  One of our rides was to a place called “The Desolate Path,” a singularly wild bit of scenery, and curiously in contrast to the rich fertility of Rosenau and its immediate neighbourhood.  This pretty little market town lies at the foot of a hill, which is crowned with a romantic ruin, one of the seven burgher fortresses built by the Saxon immigrants.  There is a remarkably pretty walk from the village to the “Odenweg,” a romantic ravine, with beautiful hanging woods and castellated rocks disposed about in every sort of fantastic form.  It reminded me somewhat of some parts of the Odenwald near Heidelberg.  Very likely the wild and mysterious character of the spot led the German settlers to associate with it the name of Oden.

We also rode over the Terzburg Pass.  The picturesque castle which gives its name to this pass is situated on an isolated rock, admirably calculated for defence in the old days.  It belonged once upon a time to the Teutonic Knights, who held it on condition of defending the frontier; but they became so intolerable to the burghers of Kronstadt, that these informed their sovereign that they preferred being their own defenders, and thus the castle and nine villages were given over to the town.  The Germans who had left their own Rhine country for the sake of getting away from the robber knights were not anxious for that special mediaeval institution to accompany them in their flitting, we may be sure.  The democratic character of the laws and customs of the Germans of Transylvania is a very curious and interesting study; in not a few instances these people have anticipated by some centuries the liberal ideas of Western Europe in our own day.

After returning from the visit to my military friends at Rosenau, I was told I must not omit to make some excursions to the celebrated mineral watering-places of Transylvania.  The chief baths in this locality are Elopatak and Tusnad.  The first named is four hours’ drive from Kronstadt.  The waters contain a great deal of protoxide of iron, stronger even than those of Schwalbach, which they resemble.  Tusnad, I was told, is pleasantly situated on the river Aluta, an excellent stream for fishing.  The post goes daily in eight hours from Kronstadt.  The season is very short, being over in August.  Tusnad is said to contain one hundred springs of different kinds of water.  I am not a water-totaller, so I did not taste all of them when I visited the place later on; but undoubtedly alum, iodine, and iron do severally impregnate the various springs.

I remembered reading long ago Dr Daubeny’s work on “Volcanoes,” in which he says that Hungary is one of the most remarkable countries in Europe for the scale on which volcanic operation has taken place.  There are, it is stated, seven well-marked mountain groups of volcanic rocks, and two of these are in Transylvania.  The most interesting in many respects is the chain of hills separating Szeklerland from Transylvania Proper.  It is within this district that most of the mineral springs are found.