HUNGAEY. 



83 



than any other in Europe,* traverses the plain in manifold windings. Its islands 

 and channels change with every flood. Its numerous channels, many of them 

 deserted, form a perfect labyrinth, sometimes spreading out for 10 miles. Below the 

 large island of Csepel, upon which Arpad established his camp, the river incessantly 

 encroaches upon its western bank, not only because of the rotation of the earth, 

 but also, it is supposed, in consequence of the prevailing south-easterly wind, 

 known as Kosava to the Servians. Between Peterwardein and Belgrad the river 

 annually shifts its bed about 18 inches to the westward. 



The Lower Drave rivals the Danube in its sinuous course, but of all the 

 rivers of Hungary the Tisza (Theiss) is the most winding. The valley of that 



Fig. 52.— The Tisza (Theiss). 

 Scale 1 : 350,000. 



»^ 



I n '0 1 of p 



lis?,chv Orveiiv ! \ f.^ * 





'lvo$^/? 



If V4- éâ 





\^J 



so-ifO' ii.ofai 



5 Miles. 



river has a length of 338 miles ; but the river itself, including its numerous 

 divagations, measures no less than 930 miles. " Dead " river channels, swamps, 

 and marshes line its banks. Formerly it was thought sufficient to connect the 

 many loops of the river by " cuts," and to construct embankments, in order to 

 protect some 3,000,000 acres against inundation, and to banish the malignant 

 fevers born in summer from stagnant swamps. The landowners of each 

 district only looked to their own interests, and even the works constructed 

 more recently under the direction of the engineer Vâsârhelyi, though conceived 



* Discharge at Buda-Pest, when the river level has fallen to zero of the gauge, 24,700 cubic feet per 

 second ; when it has risen to 9 inches above zero, 106,000 cubic feet ; at 18-7 feet above zero, 240,000 

 cubic feet. 



