34 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AXD SPORT. 



fortune of the inhabitants, was destroyed and buried 

 under water." The statistics of the destruction of 

 houses at Szegedin have been already given. !N^or 

 does the Theiss district alone suffer, the Kb'ros and 

 the Berettyo rivers had also flooded hundreds of 

 miles of country before their waters reached the 

 Theiss. In short, the inundations in Hungary this 

 year have exceeded in extent anything of the kind 

 which has occurred during the present century. In 

 a lesser degree, the trouble has not been infrequent 

 in past times ; and a certain amount of flooding of 

 pasture-lands by the river's side is annual and in- 

 nocuous, if not directly beneficial. 



In considering the behaviour of the river, we must 

 look to its origin. The Theiss rises, as we are aware, 

 in the Marmaros mountains, a portion of the north- 

 eastern range of the Carpathians, passing through 

 some of the finest forest and rock scenery in Europe, 

 with the rapidity of a true mountain torrent ; it 

 then flows near Tokay into the level plain, and be- 

 comes the most sluggish of known rivers. Reach- 

 ing Szegedin, it receives, in the Maros river, the 

 tributary waters of a great part of Transylvania, 

 and finally flows into the Danube, twenty miles east 

 of Peterwardein. 



Just when the Theiss becomes slow, it becomes 

 mischievous and troublesome. As long ago as the 

 reign of Maria Theresa efforts were made to cure its 

 irregularities. But it was under the auspices of 



