HUNGARY has been without a king since the Habsburg family was dispossessed in 1918. But the country that never cared for the Habsburgs has suddenly turned loyal, more loyal indeed than Austria, which had her emperors to thank for her wealth and luxury.* Hungary still calls herself a kingdom and has constitutionally remained one.

Admiral Horthy, who has been at the head of the Government for the past twelve years, is styled Regent. He lives in the Royal Palace, but he has not discarded the uniform of admiral of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which has ceased to exist. The Regent is acting temporarily in lieu of the king, though who that king may be is yet to be seen.

THE NATION'S ULTIMATE RULER TO BI CHOSEN

King Charles IV, last Habsburg to be crowned Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, died ten years ago. The eldest of his eight children, Otto, is being educated abroad, an exile from the countries his forefathers ruled, and brought up in a way that he may take his place one day as king of Hungary, a country that has been reduced by the Treaty of Trianon to one-third of its former size. By another international agreement the Habsburgs are excluded from succession to the Hungarian throne except under conditions most unlikely to take place. So the question is in abeyance, and no one knows how long it may remain so.

Thus has Hungary become that strange thing, unprecedented in history-a kingdom without a king. Fortunately I forgot to think of all that whenever I looked out of my window across the Danube. One can't keep up a climax of patriotic depression for more than a decade and nothing would be further from the elasticity of the Hungarian character than to do so. I gazed upon the four bridges that span the Danube to unite old Buda and young Pest-as a matter of fact, there are six of them, but the two others are rather too distant to be in the picture-arid reflected upon the best place to go and have supper.

THE CAPITAL'S SUMMER APPEAL

St. Margaret Island, gay with cafés and hotels, the gray ruins of the abbey and nunnery where Princess Margaret lived and died, slumbering beneath the oaks, glittered a green gem in midstream, with little white steamers and swift rowboats scurrying around it. From the rear windows I could look out upon the roofs of Pest, sweltering in the heat. No daring skyline to Pest- houses seldom rise above five or six floors-and most of the honors of silhouette go to Buda's battlements, outlined against the setting sun.

Beyond Pest, however, where the horizon meets the outskirts of the city which houses a million inhabitants, beyond the long, straight line of Andrássy Street, lies green Town Park, waiting for us with places of amusement, restaurants, and music. There are the pleasant pavement cafés along the river, too, where one may eat ices and drink Tokay wine and watch crowds sauntering past and lights glow, reflected in the slow-moving river.

After passing in review all these summer joys of Budapest, we decided to stay at home.

The children enjoyed it. They went marketing with cook, down below Francis Joseph Bridge, to the Central Market Hall, where flat barges discard their loads of fruit and vegetables at dawn, and mountains of melons and cabbages, of cucumbers, and, above all, of paprika, Hungary's national spice, rise on the embankment. They helped her carry home choice specimens of the screeching army of fattened geese and juvenile chickens, to be bereft of their enormous livers or fried in crisp bread crumbs and set afloat in paprika sauce, respectively, for the benefit of the family.

The daily round of summer housekeeping in Hungary went on. Midday dinner remained the feature of the day, a regular three-course meal, and preserves had to be put up. Labor-saving in Hungary is as yet a dream. Of course, there are conserve factories. The rich, mellow cherries, apricots, and peaches, with the glow that the dry, warm climate and the volcanic soil lend to Hungarian fruit, stand in canned rows on grocers' shelves here, as elsewhere, to be had for the asking; but few really selfrespecting Hungarian housewives do ask for them.

When we had finished the apricot jam and the candied strawberries, there came a clay when the cook, the housemaid, and I wallowed in tomato sauce. Then two bricklayers sprawled upon the bathroom floor, since summer is the time for repairs,

and a youth undertook to paint the bedroom ceiling, pacing the room, huge as a primeval giant, using his ladders for stilts and whistling melancholy tunes from morning till night. Thereupon I sat down and declared I was through.

"Very well," the head of the family acquiesced. "But you are not to start over again, tiring yourself out with getting clothes and shutting up the apartment and that sort of thing. We will spend a fortnight with the Sághys at their Balaton estate; they have asked us ever so often. We don't need clothes there. And as soon as they have a new batch of visitors coming in, we'll just take tó our heels and roam about the country for a bit. The Carpathians might be cooler, but `see Hungary first' is not a bad slogan."

THE FIRST BUDAPEST BRIDGE NEARLY A CENTURY OLD

The night before we started a lovely thunderstorm broke over Budapest. A fierce deluge of almost tropical rain washed the trees, the hills, the houses, to a gemlike morning brilliance.

The car that was to take us to our destination sped across Chain Bridge, the first that had joined Buda to Pest a little less than a hundred years ago, taking the place of the old boat bridge that used to be put up every summer. Count Stephen Széchenyi was one of those great dreamers of Hungarian dreams whose career ended in tragic defeat, but he had realized some of his great conceptions, at least : the Chain Bridge, Danube regulation, and the Academy of Science, in front of which stands his statue.

Our son István is young enough to shudder every time we pass below the St. Gellért Memorial upon the cliffs (see page 742), supposedly on the very spot from which the martyr bishop, who first tried to convert stiff-necked pagan Magyars to Christendom, was rolled down in a barrel into the angry river.

Soon the fates of bishops and martyrs were forgotten in the delights of "real country." One can drive miles and miles

and miles in Hungary without seeing a trace of human habitations. Even in the districts west of the Danube, which are by far the most densely inhabited, villages and houses are few and far between. There is no waste land, however, in this part of the country.

The storm of the previous night had done away with the white dust that is the curse of the highways of Hungary, and the splendid Budapest-Balaton road stretched out invitingly before us. We sped along the pleasant countryside, through the occasional peaceful little one-horse towns and villages, consisting mostly of a single wide main street, no more than a double row of low whitewashed cottages. Two windows and a wide yard-gate face the street on each house and pillared porches run along the whole length of the house on the yard side.

FOOTBALL AND HORSEBACK RIDING MOST

POPULAR SPORTS

At Székesfehérvár our older boy, János, tried to rattle off all that he had learned about this ancient city, where kings of Hungary were crowned, down to Ferdinand the First. Fortunately, however, we were passing the city playgrounds and a football match that was in progress claimed the wayward attention of my sons.

Football has become almost a national game in Hungary. Baseball and basketball are unknown, but Olympic and other international prizes speak for Hungarian prowess in football, fencing, and swimming. Horseback riding is another national sport, tennis is very popular, and athletics, which until recently had no part in any school curriculum, now play a very large part indeed. A State college for physical education has been established, and most boys under twenty - one are either scouts or "leventes"- a term perhaps Nest translated by the words "young knights."

Practically every village boy is a "levente," but the term signifies little save that the youths are drilled in their spare time in moral and physical discipline.

LAKE BALATON IS HUNGARY'S OCEAN

The first glimpse of Lake Balaton, the "Hungarian Ocean," comes at I,epsény, but nobody looks at it. The road here runs across an estate belonging to the Nádasdy family, one of the most ancient and aristocratic of the country. Countess Nádasdy had the idea of establishing a charming little roadhouse for motorists at Lepsény, where excellent food and the choicest of Hungary's famous wines are served by lackeys in knee-breeches. The Countess remains in the background, but supervises her business, and no Budapest storekeeper running clown to Balaton to spend a weekend with his family can resist the temptation of stopping here to partake of a meal prepared by an aristocratic chef.

Soon Balaton spread before us, wide and calm. It is the largest lake in central Europe and one of tile least known. It has the atmosphere and the moods of the sea the loneliness, the colors, the whims, the untamed self-will of the ocean. Storms come with terrific suddenness, and only old lakedwellers, boatmen, and fishermen can read their signs (see, also, page 6c~4).

The stunner vacationists who flood the little lakeside places during July and August often do not believe these old oracles of Balaton, who can discern, even on a calm sunny day, the glassy green color of the water that forebodes evil. Fatal disasters to canoes and yachts claim their victims every summer.

LIFE ON A HUNGARIAN ESTATIE IS FEUDAL

Balatondombori is a puszta of a thousand acres. Puszta is a term with a double meaning. It signifies an estate or farm and at the same time it means the barren plain, best translated with the Russian term of "steppe." There is nothing barren about Dombori, however. Wheat, corn, rye, beets, flax, even lentils, and other vegetables are grown on the puszta, and some of the finest cattle in Europe graze in its meadows. The fields are bordered by apple, walnut, and mulberry trees, and you eau never be sure when a little boy, his skirtlike linen trousers stained with mulberry, his mouth likewise, will drop upon you from a wayside tree, where he has been picking leaves for the silkworms, which the peasants of this section tend in great numbers. Fences are practically unknown in Hungary, except for lattices and plaited twigs around yards and gardens.

Life on a Hungarian estate is feudal and patriarchal at the same time. Our destination, the pleasant country house at Dombori to which the peasants on the farm and in the tiny adjoining village had given the grand name of "the castle," was a groundfloor, whitewashed building of nine rooms, larger but not much more imposing than the letter type of peasant cottages in the village. It had all the difference of modern improvements, though, whereas the Hungarian peasant aims at improvements only as far as his agricultural work goes.

Bathrooms are an unknown quantity in a peasant cottage, and the Nest room, the "clean room," as it is called, is not lived in, bat kept merely for show. A bed is piled as high as the ceiling with down-filled, elaborately embroidered pillows and eiderdowns, but no one sleeps in it. The kitchen, the porch, and perhaps another room suffice for the needs of the family.

THE IDEAL GUEST IS OBLIGATED TO GET FAT

In the peasant farmer's barn, however, you play find the most modern agricultural machinery he can afford, and though Mr. Farmer has no knowledge of literature or the fine arts, he is steeped in the sane philosophy of the man of the soil, and has a profound interest in and mostly a very shrewd view of politics and the wheat market. The Hungarian peasant talks little but he talks sense.

The "castle" at Dombori, however, is a home of culture and an ideal place for being delightfully lazy. The only drawback to a Hungarian estate is that you must get irrevocably fat. All the swimming in Balaton was of no avail against the detrimental effects of the cuisine of the puszta. "Pörkölt" chicken, turós csusza (dough boiled and garnished with cottage cheese, cream and greaves), stuffed cabbage, and, above all, the royal dish of paprika fish - richly seasoned stew that contains all the choice produce of the lake, which prides itself on the variety of its finny tribes - cannot be withstood, especially when you are a guest and don't have to look after the cooking.

Our hostess spent the hot mornings in the kitchen ordering about her scullions, while we acquired appetites for dinner in the cool lake. I doubt, however, whether we derived more enjoyment out of our kind of sport than she did out of hers. She is a Hungarian housewife of the old school and is never happy unless she has the house full of guests.

It is the head of the family who invites the guests, who is deeply hurt and offended when they go away, who used to have carriage wheels removed just to keep his guests there longer, in the good old clays when guests came in carriages, and he blames his wife if visitors leave before they have gained at least five pounds-a standard which must be kept up for the honor of the house and of which a record is kept in the Dombori guest book!

THE "COW-UNCLE'S" FOLK TALES

Pali bácsi, the "cow-uncle" (small children always call older people "aunt" and "uncle" in Hungary), was a great friend of my boys. Of the many folk tales he related to them none were more popular than those legends relating to the castle ruins that crown the volcanic basalt hills along the north shore of the lake, and the tale about the peculiarly shaped pebbles - "goats' nails" - that are found on Tihany Peninsula.

The story goes that in ancient times a beautiful golden-haired princess (Who ever heard of a dark princess?) tended her golden-fleeced goats on Tihany Hill. She had a lovely voice and was so proud of it that she guarded it jealously from all people, thinking no one was good enough to hear it. The son of the King of Balaton chanced to hear her one day and forthwith fell so deeply in love with her voice that he sickened with longing to hear it again.

The princess tossed her head and refused to sing for him, although the youth spent his days sitting on top of a wave just to catch a glimpse of her, and ultimately died of longing. Thereupon irate King Balaton stirred up a storm in which all the goldenfleeced goats were drowned. The lake still flings up their nails on Tihany Beach when it is stormy.

As for the princess, she was imprisoned in a cave on Tihany Hill, and the penalty for her pride is that she must now answer anyone who cares to call to her. This is the origin of the famous Tihany echo. When T was a child the Princess repeated twelve or thirteen syllables, but so many villas have since been built on Tihany that soon nothing will remain of the echo but the legend, and the Princess will be well out of it.

As a worthy conclusion to our Balaton visit, we took the children on a motorboat trip around the lake, visiting the twenty - odd small resorts and the few larger places - Balatonföldvár, patronized by the wealthy; Siófok, summer paradise of Budapest tradesmen's families ; Balatonfüred, health resort whose hot springs, baths, and sanatorium are visited at all seasons of the year.

Balaton is a wonderful place in winter. The enormous frozen expanse, with its famous sunsets, is incomparably beautiful, but the dwellers of the few lakeside townships - Keszthely, Tapolcza - keep the pleasures of ice sailing, ice tobogganing, and winter fishing through holes cut in the ice for themselves. Only Balatonfüred has winter comforts for visitors.

THE LAST HABSBURG OCCUPIED A CELL IN TIHANY ABBEY

A kindly Benedictine monk showed us over Tihany Abbey, from the vault in which lies interred King Andreas I of Hungary to the small bare cells where the last king, Charles, and Zita, his wife, were interned in 1921.

Charles, landing in a plane that brought him from his exile in Switzerland, had made one last attempt to regain his throne. He failed and was escorted by water, across Balaton and along the Sió Canal, to the British cruiser Glowworm, which took him down the Danube, by way of the Black Sea and the Dardanelles, to Funchal, in the Madeira Islands, where he died a few months later.

Since we had contrived to gain twenty pounds among us in a fortnight, there was no offense in saying farewell to our hosts, and the "castle" at Dombori was ready to receive the next batch of visitors to be nourished.

BAKONY FOREST HARBORED ITS ROBIN HOODS

We motored through Balcony Forest, a region that still teems with legends about 19th - century highwaymen. "Poor fellows," the peasants called these romantic figures, who were sons of local families, and the population, though fearing them, had much sympathy with their exploits.

Our chauffeur, who had been evolved from a Balcony coachman, had learned the ins and outs of a motor, but his heart was still attached to horses. His eyes sparkled when he spoke of the horse-stealing feats of Sobri Jóska, the famous Balcony highwayman.

"This is just where Sobri Jóska shot down, single-handed, the four gendarmes who had brought three of his men to the gallows, and he got away with all the four horses, too," he added with enthusiasm.

Twilight was falling and I caught István glancing apprehensively round his shoulder once or twice, although János jeered, "Silly ; that happened eighty years ago !" But none of us minded getting out of the gloomy forest.

We spent the night at Veszprém, and in the morning at Körmend viewed a princely mansion on one of the feudal domains of the wealthy old landed aristocracy of Hungary.

We motored into Szombathely, a busy commercial center, and to the lovely old Romanesque church at Ják. This is one of the few churches that were spared during the Tatar invasion in the 13th century and by the Turks also. The Ják church is beautifully restored and well worth seeing. But after Ják István rebelled. He would have none of the fascinating Renaissance and baroque buildings in Sopron, one of Hungary's most cultured provincial cities. He wanted his dinner and a swim in Fertö Lake. But when he saw the reed-grown banks and the gray, dense, shallow water of the lake that is now the boundary between Hungary and Austria, he made a f ace.

"Balaton water is quite, quite different," he declared. "even the Danube is more blue. Why, one can't swim in that-just wade." In rainless summers it dries up entirely.

Austria, being better versed in salesmanship than Hungary, is nevertheless making much of her side of Fertö. The reeds have been cleaned out, restaurants and huts for week-end camping built on poles right into the lake, and trains and motor buses convey

many visitors from Vienna. But my son was right. We got stuck as soon as we started to swim, and even a sail in one of the shallow canoes failed to pacify him. But my mother's heart saw advantages in a lake where drowning was out of the question, although foundering seemed probable.

BACK IN BUDAPEST

In the afternoon we returned to Budapest by way of Gyor. Komárom, and Esztergom, the seat of Hungary's highest church dignitary, the Arch Primate. The beautiful cathedral on top of the hill overlooks the Danube, far into the country that is now Czechoslovakia. An hour later we were back in our apartment.

The lights on the Danube, the radiance of reflectors shed on the Bastion and the Citadel, looked as lovely as ever, but the apartment reeked of camphor, naphthaline, paint, and plum jam. The flowers in the window-boxes looked parched, and I realized I had missed my chance of winning a prize at the municipal competition of "Flourishing Budapest" in the fall.

If you speak to a Hungarian he is sure to tell you during the first five minutes of the conversation that there is no nation as unhappy as his own. A tragic war, a disastrous peace, economic troubles, and unsolved political problems might be expected to cast a shadow over this lighthearted city; but the casual observer can not discover it. We have evidently grown used to troubles and carry them well. Whenever you go to a restaurant or a play in the company of a Hungarian, he will invariably wonder how all those people can afford to be there, and he forgets that he is one of those who can't.

A DETOUR TO MEZOKÖVESD, FAMOUS FOR EMBROIDERIES

On the whole, I didn't mind leaving Budapest again on the following Sunday. We had an excellent excuse for doing so. Our cook's sister was about to be married and had invited me and the boys to the ceremony. Their home is in a slightly out-of-the-way place-only two hours' walk from Eger, the nearest railway station. Not a two hours' drive-the road isn't fit for that. A tiny village in the Mátra, the highest range that is now left to Hungary.

That gave our trip somewhat the character of an excursion. The boys insisted on taking a picnic lunch with us, although I told them, knowing what a wedding feast means, that they would have all the trouble of carrying it home again in their rucksacks. Incidentally, as it developed, there was no need to get lunch or dinner for two days after. We were saturated.

I thought we might as well make a detour to Mezokövesd, the village of famous costumes and embroideries, beloved by tourists. We started at an unearthly hour, to be in time for early mass. I told the boys all about the gorgeous pageant of beautifulpeasant costumes that they were going to see-the girls in white, with intricately worked embroidery on countless petticoats, on finely bleated blouse sleeves, on kerchiefs and shawls, with glittering, bespangled headdresses.

The women would wear shawls over their heads; they have no right to wear the párta, or headdress, after they are married. "To tie up a girl's head" is another way of saying "to marry her," and "a girl who has kept on her párta" is a polite description of an old maid.

I told them the young matrons would be as gay as peacocks in their embroidered aprons and skirts with bright ribbons, and the men would be resplendent in the apparel that is characteristic of this part of the country-richly worked aprons down to the ankles, full embroidered shirt sleeves,

gay cravats and streamers to their hats.

The embroidery techniques and patterns come down from mother to daughter and belong exclusively to the various villages, like the patterns of Scotch tartans belong to a clan.

Export trade discovered Mezokövesd embroidery some years ago. Since that discovery, the patterns sometimes even come down from mother to son, for the lads are not ashamed to ply the needle in winter, when there is no work in the fields.

We drove into Mezokövesd at a high pitch of excitement, only to find the market place in front of the church deserted. A few old women in their peaked black shawls were straggling about, a few children dressed like miniatures of their elders, but no trace of the customary "church parade." Mass was over ; the ceremony evidently seemed to have been quickly disposed of.

István struck up a lightning friendship with a youngster who was munching mulberries on top of a fence, and while we were yet helplessly wandering about in quest of a bespangled párta or a few dozen swishing petticoats, he got information and mulberries out of his new friend.

"It's market day in the next village, the big annual fair," he called out. "That is where everybody has gone ; Feri here only stayed behind to take care of his granny, who's sick !"

A PEASANT WEDDING

But the wedding was a distinct success. I have wandered about a good deal in my country, but I had never seen this type of festivity before. Juliska, our cook's sister and our housemaid of the previous year, was not as beautifully attired as the Mezokövesd girls are wont to be, but she wore a dozen petticoats under her skirt, all the same, just to show that she was anything but penniless ; also, to prove this fact, there was her bedding. It was piled on a cart and taken to the new home, where her fiancé's female relations had the duty-or the privilege?-of unpacking it.

Criticism would have been far from tolerant, had there been any occasion for it, but Juliska's trousseau was impeccable. Accordingly, her mother-in-law gave her the grandest wedding cake that I have ever seen-a splendid affair, hung all over with ginger-bread hearts, and swords, and hussars, and babies-especially babies. Two girls carried it up to the bride's house on a stretcher.

The guests arrived with gifts of wedding cakes of their own. These had the shape of churches, stags, and hens outlined in candy; but the reason why these shapes were traditionally repeated remained a mystery. They had always been so. finally, one little girl presented Juliska's parents with a big rag doll, whether as a substitute for the daughter they were about to give up or in anticipation of a grandchild seemed doubtful.

The church ceremony was quite simple and soon over. Not so the dinner. When we left, the first few courses had barely disappeared ; there had only been hen soup, stuffed cabbage with homemade sausages, paprika chicken, roast duck and geese, curd cakes, and pastry, so far. It was about to begin all over again and finish up with fánk, a kind of glorified griddle cake, and sweet pastries, the whole generously washed down with the slightly sour, light wine of the countryside.

We spent the night at Eger in an excellent hotel. The city has a Turkish minaret and on a green hilltop the ruins of the castle which a Hungarian amazon, Katica Dobó, with a little army of women, helped their weary and war-worn menfolk defend against the Turk.

While Eger has a number of beautiful baroque houses, courtyards, and gates dat

ing from the days of Maria Theresa, the city's finest building is the Catholic seminary and library.

THE HORTOBÁGY PLAIN EXPLAINS DEBRECZEN'S PROSPERITY

János and István were looking forward to finding historical relics in Debreczen, but they were disappointed. The War of Liberty in 1848-49 is the period that fires the romantic imagination of every Hungarian boy. To Debreczen, the big city in the heart of the great plain, fled the first independent Hungarian cabinet when the Austrian army was bearing down upon Pest, bombarding the town from the Buda Hills. In Debreczen's Big Church the dethronement of the Habsburgs was declared 83 years ago, and here Kossuth was established Governor of Hungary.

János went to sleep that night over a volume of Petofi's revolutionary poems. but when we climbed out of the eiderdown beds of the Golden Bu11 next morning we found little to gratify our curiosity.

There is the Big Church, to be sure, the old college, the little old houses in the market place, but when all is said and done Debreczen is just a vast Hungarian village, a multiplication of endless village main streets, until you come to the handsome new university buildings in the Nagyerdo, the city's forest park.

With the memories of the wedding feast still vividly present, we spent little time over lunch and made an early start for Hortobágy in a hired carriage and pair.

Hortobágy is really what Debreczen stands for and lives on-a vast puszta that belongs to the city, an unbroken area of pasture land, where the city's famous cattle and horses are bred. It was what tempted the nomadic Asian race of Magyars to stay in the fertile valleys of the Duna (Danube) and Tisza rivers when they came across the Carpathians in search of fresh pastures a thousand years ago.

HERDMEN OF HUNGARY LIVE IN HUTS OF CLAY AND REED

We spent the night at an old inn, the only stone building far and wide, on Hortobágy. Cattle ranchers and horseherds live in reed and clay huts, alone with the sun, the stars, with infinity and their animals. (See "Hungary, a band of Shepherd Kings," by C. Townley-Pullam, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE for October, 1914.)

When I came out in the morning, István was trying to make friends with an old cowherd who was having a little morning drink by himself in front of the inn.

"Aren't you warm in that sheepskin cloak, uncle ?"

The Hortobágy herdsman is very taciturn by nature, but then István is irresistible.

"It keeps me cool, son ; keeps the sun off."

"Then what do you wear in winter ?" "This same cloak. Keeps the cold off." "Have you ever been to Budapest, uncle ?"

"I have, in 1896, when they had that exhibition on."

"Not since ? I wasn't born then. But of course you go into Debreczen often ?"

"What should I go into Debreczen for, son ?"

"Oh, just to see the town and the people and buy things in the shops-go to the movies..."

All the contempt of the puszta dweller for the scurrying busybodies in the city lurked in the old man's smile as he sat there, unchanging, unmoved as Hortobágy itself.

"I haven't been in Debreczen these ten years ; the women go in and get what we need."

What he needs is bacon, paprika, and tobacco-and a pair of boots every ten years or so. The sheepskin cloak lasts a lifetime.

HORTOBÁGY CATTLE ARE BRED IN THE OPEN

It took some time, but István got him round his little finger at last. He did it by singing the praises of the cows in Dombori. Our Hortobágy cowherd wouldn't stand for that. He has a pride of his own. He wanted to show us that 'I'ransdanubian cattle were just miserable cats as compared to those on Hortobágy. And he began to show off. He just stood by and watched us-a man who is sure of himself. The cattle didn't belong to him, but he belonged to them-more than to the world of human beings in the city.

Some of the best cattle in Europe graze on the Hortobágy plain, hardy from being bred in the open air summer and winter, and some of the finest horses in the world can he found in the city of Debreczen's famous stud.

Of course János wanted to ride bareback. In consequence I hurried over the preparations for departure.

"But we have really seen nothing of Hungary," my sons complained. "The cities-Pécs, Kecskemét, Szeged-the Tisza River, grape-picking at Tokaj-there's so much more to be seen."

I mentioned school, about to begin. János retorted with something about the advantages of learning history and geography in the practical way.

Finally a telegram from home set an end to the discussion. It ran

"Carpenters departed ; fall cleaning completed; cook returned; paprika preserves in full swing. Longing for my family."

There was no resisting such a summons. The next day saw us on our way home, to tell about our experiences and to discuss what would be the best thing to do next summer.