6 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



or lake which covered the Hungarian plain was 

 bordered by a chain of active volcanoes, vomiting 

 forth masses of " trachytic and basaltic lava and 

 tufa." But in the course of ages the volcanic fires 

 have died out, and the waters of the lake have been 

 drained, leaving a rich heritage to mankind. The 

 bed of the old sea comprises an area of 37,400 square 

 miles, mostly consisting of what is called tiefland 

 or deep land, and so rich that the merest scratchings 

 of the plough can, without skill or labour, produce 

 crops almost unequalled in quantity and variety 

 elsewhere. 



The first view of the plain is depressing in the 

 extreme. You behold a level, featureless, intermin- 

 able stretch of earth, with the heavens above and 

 around you, like the folds of a vast tent ; where 

 neither hill nor forest throws any shadow, and where 

 the pathway of the sun is visible from the rising up 

 to the going down thereof. This great plain has been 

 aptly called une mer terrestre ; and under certain 

 atmospheric conditions the illusion is complete. It 

 appears even like the sea itself, rippled by green- 

 wave furrows, or calmed into utter stillness by wide- 

 spreading level mists that meet the sky-line. Dreary 

 as the plain may seem to the stranger, it is a place 

 beloved by the native with an attachment equal to the 

 Switzer's love for the Alps. The shepherd of the 

 lonely puszta has no more thought of wandering away 

 from the dear familiar scene than has the forest-tree 



