THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



497 



Photograph by A. W. Cutler 



DAMES AND DAMSELS RETURNING HOME FROM MASS ON A SUNDAY MORNING 



In the land of the Slovaks, north of Pressburg, the young girls (those in front) usually 

 go bareheaded, but after marriage their hair is "done up" and placed under a cone-shaped 

 basket at the back of the head. When the wearer is on the street, this marriage millinery is 

 covered with a fringed silk kerchief of bright hue. 



THE MAGYARS 



The Magyars are the dominant race in Hun- 

 gary and the real founders of the kingdom. 

 Finno-Ugrians, they first appear in Europe as 

 a nomadic horde in the ninth century, crushing 

 the Moldavian kingdom and seizing the terri- 

 tory which they at present occupy. From this 

 center their wild raids over Europe made them 

 a universal terror for sixty years. Then a 

 severe defeat at Augsburg by the German Em- 

 peror, Otto I, showed their isolation among 

 enemies of different race and faith, more civil- 

 ized and more powerful than themselves. 



Political considerations seem to have deter- 

 mined their leaders to adopt Christianity and 

 enter the Roman Church. Wise sovereigns 

 tranquilized the country and brought in many 

 immigrants. In numerous cases special privi- 

 leges were accorded. All others, native and 

 foreign, except the Magyars, were treated as 

 subject races, on whom most of the taxes were 

 levied. The system of taxation was recently 

 modified, but the principle of inferior races is 

 still in force (see page 489). 



The Magyars consider the Golden Bull, 

 granted by Stephen II seven years after Magna 

 Charta, as the earliest proclamation of consti- 

 tutional rights in continental Europe. It con- 

 firms the excessive privileges of the great 



barons, the great wealth and power of whom 

 were later, even under the ablest kings, to 

 plunge the nation into anarchy and reduce the 

 masses to serfdom. 



The Magyars were for more than a century 

 the buckler of Christendom against the Otto- 

 man Turks. Their illustrious leader was Hun- 

 yadi, "the incarnation of Christian chivalry." 

 They have never recovered from their crushing 

 defeat by the Turks at Mohacs in 1526. 



Their general condition was not improved 

 by the fierce broils into which the Reformation 

 plunged the Magyars, among whom for a time 

 Protestantism was predominant. Through the 

 marriage of a Magyar princess to an Austrian 

 Archduke, the succession passed to the House 

 of Hapsburg, when the Magyars soon found 

 themselves also treated as a subject race. 



Discontent brought about the attempted revo- 

 lution under Louis Kossuth. Defeated, their 

 leaders took refuge in Turkey. Combined 

 Russia and Austria could not compel the Sultan 

 to violate the laws of hospitality and give them 

 up. This fact the Magyars have always grate- 

 fully remembered. In the Russo-Turkish war 

 of 1877-78 several deputations of Magyars vis- 

 ited Constantinople to emphasize their friend- 

 ship for their blood kindred, the Ottoman 

 Turks. 



Tn Hungary in 1910 there were 10,051,000 



