G09 

 THE BLACK MASK. 



A LEGEND OF HUNGARY. 



As the Danube approaches the ancient city of Buda, it traverses a 

 vast and almost uninhabited plain, surrounded upon every side by rude 

 and barren mountains. This tract, thickly wooded with forest trees of 

 great age and size, has been called the " Black Forest" of Hungary, and 

 has been long celebrated as the resort of the wild boar and the elk, 

 driven by winter to seek a shelter and cover which they would in vain 

 look for upon the rocky and steep mountains around : there, for at least 

 five months of every year, might daily be heard the joyous call of the 

 jager horn, and at night, around the blazing fires of the bivouac, might 

 parties of hunters be seen carousing and relating the dangers of the 

 chase. But when once the hunting season was past, the gloom and 

 desolation of this wild waste was unbroken by any sound save the shrill 

 cry of the vultures, or the scream of the wood squirrel as he sprang 

 from bough to bough, for the footsteps of the traveller never trod this 

 valley, which seemed as if shut out by nature from all intercourse with 

 the remainder of the world. Hunting had been for years the only 

 occupation of the few who inhabited it, and the inacessible character of 

 the mountains had long contributed to preserve it for them from the 

 intrusion of others ; but at length the chase became the favourite 

 pastime of the young noblesse of Austria as well as Hungary: and to 

 encourage a taste for the " mimic Jight," as it has been not inaptly termed, 

 the example of the reigning monarch greatly contributed. Not a little 

 vain of his skill and proficiency in every bold and warlike exercise, he 

 often took the lead in these exercises himself, and would remain weeks 

 and even months away, joyfully enduring all the dangers and hardships 

 of a hunter's life, and by his own daring, stimulate others to feats of 

 difficult and hardy enterprise. Some there were, however, who thought 

 they saw in this more than a mere fondness for a hunter's life, and 

 looked on it, with reason, perhaps, as a deeply laid political scheme ; 

 that, by bringing the nobles of the two nations more closely into contact, 

 nearer intimacy, and eventually, friendships would spring up and eradi- 

 cate that feeling of jealousy with which as rivals they had not ceased to 

 regard each other. 



It was the latter end of December of the year 1754; the sun had gone 

 down and the shadows of night were fast falling upon this dreary valley, 

 whilst upon the cold and piercing blast were borne masses of snow-drift 

 and sleet, and the low wailing of the night wind foreboded the approach 

 of a storm, that a solitary wanderer was vainly endeavouring to dis- 

 entangle himself from the low brushwood, which heavy and snow-laden, 

 obstructed him at every step. Often he stood, and putting his horn to 

 his lips, blew till the forest rang again with the sound, but nothing 

 responded to his call save the dull and ceaseless roar of the Danube, 

 which poured along its thundering flood, amid huge masses of broken 

 ice or frozen snow, which rent from their attachment to the banks, were 

 carried furiously along by the current of the river. 



M. M. No. 84. 2 S 



