Introduction. 15 



It will be easily conceived, that something necessary to di- 

 rect the public judgment in these matters, might have been 

 expected from the Austrians, but though the disasters of wars 

 and revolutions are soon repaired, in a natural way, their moral 

 effects are not easily effaced. The people of Hungary have 

 long lived in an insulated state, indifferent to the progress of 

 useful studies or knowledge, devoted to ancient customs, and 

 subjected to prejudices which have hitherto been held sacred. 

 To describe them has been deemed a difficult enterprise, from 

 the diversity of their language, which a stranger must acquire, 

 more or less, before he can decide exalt narration to truth, 

 or reject it as fiction. 



Other circumstances contribute to prevent, or to retard the 

 progress of a foreign traveller. Hungary lies out of the way 

 of all frequented roads, and has none of those facilities of com- 

 munication which other countries contain. From the priva- 

 tions to be expected, the most experienced tourist would feel 

 a degree of diffidence in exploring such untrodden ground. 

 The climate, too, has been represented as prejudicial to health, 

 the people as cut off from the rest of mankind, half barbarous, 

 and tinged with an antipathy to the visitors of all other nations. 



These reports are exaggerated ; much, indeed, must be left 

 to time, habit, education, before society here can be freed from 

 its incidental blemishes, can rise to that superior civilization, 

 elegance, and embellishment, which are scattered over the face 

 of some other countries. 



To compensate for such defects, Hungary teems with mate- 

 rials and stores of curiosities which, duly methodised, would 

 furnish a subject interesting to science and to men of letters. 

 Among these it may be said, that as to the virtues of civil life, 

 the people hold a distinguished rank. They retain, in their 

 highest degree, a patriarchal hospitality, a noble frankness 

 arid simplicity of manners, such as an instructed mind would 

 naturally turn to study. From every gentleman, or rather 

 from every Hungarian, a stranger would meet with assistance, 

 protection, and friendship, where, indeed, he would be least 

 looking for it. 



There have not been wanting Works, however, treating of 

 Hungary ; some describing the different branches of its poli- 

 tical economy, others investigating its antiquities, geography, 

 numismatics, rural economy, natural history, and mineralogy. 

 On this last head, Hungary is deserving of particular notice, 

 being the only country on the continent of Europe that has 

 mines of gold and silver. These have been worked for ages, 

 and it has been found, by M. de Humboldt, and other scientific 

 characters that have visited the mines in America, that the 



