146 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Dr. V. Sixta and Son 

 A YOUTH OV DETTVA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, 

 DRESSED IX II IS SUNDAY HEST 



A festival scene in Slovakia presents a 

 veritable cascade of color in the variety of 



native costumes. 



ernor of Podkarpatska Rus (Ruthenia), 

 which is an autonomous part of Czecho- 

 slovakia, is a Pittsburgh lawyer and an 

 American citizen. From the little capital 

 of Uzhorod (Ungvar), he has one of the 

 most difficult problems of government 

 in all of Europe. 



His people are not only densely igno- 

 rant for the most part, many of them 

 wolfish, low-browed men, who remind 

 me of the present-generation Ainu of 

 Japan, but are also miserably poor, 



This fact did not prevent the collection 

 at the church I attended from being re- 

 markably generous, and at least two 

 women wore as their proud jewelry but- 

 tons of the Third Liberty Loan. 



The men used to go down into the 

 Hungarian plains to work and there get 

 bread for their families ; but a political 

 barrier has been erected where before 

 there was a thoroughfare. 



DIFFICULT DAYS AHEAD 



Pastoral Slovakia is to industrial Bo- 

 hemia what the Scotch highlands are to 

 the midlands of England. Many of the 

 men are uncouth shepherds, who wear 

 tremendous leather corsets studded with 

 brass, that make the regulation Sam 

 Browne belt look like the toy accoutre- 

 ments mounted on cardboard which de- 

 partment stores used to sell for five-year- 

 olds. But the Slovakian shepherd is a 

 polished gentleman compared with the 

 mountaineer of Podkarpatska Rus. 



This ill-favored but beautiful land was 

 long an economic dependent of the rich 

 Hungarian plain, but Governor Zatko- 

 vitch does not think that such conditions 

 need last forever. There is almost twice 

 as much land under cultivation here this 

 year as last, and he believes that the little 

 state can feed itself in time. 



Alucli food used to be obtained in ex- 

 change for timber, which was floated 

 down to the factories on the Hungarian 

 rivers;* but much of the completed furni- 

 ture and paper used to be shipped back 

 past the forests where the wood was 

 grown, and the Ruthenians are now being 

 encouraged to start furniture and paper 

 factories of their own, which will elimi- 

 nate this waste. 



Within Podkarpatska Rus itself con- 

 ditions have also changed. Formerly all 



