HUNGARY. 91 



is believed to be caused by abrupt changes of temperature, and not by miasmata 

 risino- from swamps. The inhabitants are careful to protect themselves against 

 these sudden changes.* 



As the climate is necessarily reflected in the vegetation of a country, that of 

 the plain of Hungary recalls the flora of the Russian steppes, in spite of the 

 Carpathians, which separate the basin of the Danube from the basins of the 

 Dniester and the Dnieper. Asiatic types replace in Hungary the European types 

 met with farther west, and it is believed that, owing to the climate becoming 

 more extreme in its character, the former are gaining the upper hand. Wars, 

 too, have had something to do with this invasion of Asiatic plants, and since 1849 

 a spring thistle {Xanthimn fjnnosiim), formerly unknown, has made its appearance 

 in the fallows of Transylvania. Popularly this thistle is known as " Muscovite 

 spine." 



Inhabitants. 



The inhabitants of the greater pirt of the bed of the old Danubian inland sea 

 have come from the steppes. The Magyars, whose name appears to signify " sons 

 of the soil," are undoubtedly kinsmen of the Fins. They have become Euro- 

 peanised, as it were, but iheir legends, some of their customs, and, above all, their 

 language, sufficiently attest that they are Turanians. Whilst elsewhere in Europe 

 the Uralo-Altaic invaders have been swallowed up by the rest of the population, the 

 Magyars have firmly established themselves in the plain overshadowed by the 

 Carpathians. The far-stretching Pitszta reminded them of the steppes they had 

 quitted, and even enabled them to continue their nomad life. 



The Magyars, however, are not confined to the plain ; they also inhabit some 

 of the hilly districts. Their country is bounded by the Drave and the Mur in the 

 south-west, by spurs of the Alps in the west, by the outliers of the Carpathians in 

 the north, by the mountains of Bihar in the east, and by the swampy lowlands 

 of the Maros and the Tisza in the south. Five millions of Magyars form a com- 

 pact mass within the limits thus indicated. They occupy also several detached 

 territories beyond, in the midst of Germans, Slovaks, Rumanians, and Servians. 

 They are numerous in the valleys of Transylvania and in the mining districts. 

 The Székely (Szeklers of the Germans) are the kinsmen of the Magyars of the 

 Alfold, and, as their name implies, they occupied the frontiers of the country 

 towards the east. Ancient customs which have long since disappeared elsewhere 

 still surviving amongst them, they claim to be more noble than their kinsmen in 

 the plain. 



