The railway from Hermanstadt to Kronstadt takes us mostly through a rich undulating country, for, leaving the mountains always farther behind us, we near them again only as we approach the end of our journey.

Salzburg, or Vizakna as it is named in Hungarian, renowned for its salt-mines, is the first station on the line on leaving Hermanstadt—a melancholy, barren-looking place, seemingly engendered by Nature in one of her most stagnant moods. A wearisome stretch of sandy hillocks, their outlines broken here and there by unsightly cracks and fissures, is all that meets the eye; not a tree or bush to relieve the monotony of the short stunted grass, where starved-looking daisies, and spiritless, emaciated chamomiles, are all the flowers to be seen. No wonder the great white cattle look moody and dissatisfied, as from the sandy cliff above they sullenly gaze down at their own reflections in the dull green waters of the T?k?li Bath. This bath, highly beneficial in cases of acute rheumatism, is nothing more than an old salt-mine dating back to the time of the Romans, and which, through some accident or convulsion of nature, has been flooded. The brine it contains is so strong as to bear up the heaviest bodies and render sinking an impossibility, so that, though of tremendous depth, persons absolutely ignorant of swimming can walk about in it in perfect safety, with head and shoulders well above the surface.

There are various other baths in the place, all somewhat weaker than the T?k?li and other salt-mines, which, only worked in winter, yearly furnish some eighty thousand hundred-weight of salt. But the weirdest and gloomiest spot about Salzburg is an old ruined mine, deserted since 1817, and where over three hundred Honved soldiers found their grave in 1849. They fell in battle against the revolutionary Wallachians, and, as the simplest mode of burial, their bodies were thrown down the old shaft, which is over six hundred feet deep and filled with water to about a quarter of its depth.

A magnificent echo can be obtained by firing a gun or pistol down{340} the shaft; but it is dangerous to approach the edge, because of earth-slips, for which reason the place is enclosed by a wire railing. However, neither this danger nor the fear of the three hundred ghosts who may well be supposed to haunt the spot is sufficient to restrain the Roumanians from prowling about the place. On fine moonlight nights—as I was told by the revenue officials, whose guard-house is close by—they will let themselves down by ropes to chip off whole sackfuls of salt. Sometimes they are caught in the act by some wide-awake official, who then threatens to cut the rope and send the culprits to rejoin the Honveds below, till the unfortunate wretches are forced to sue for their lives in deadliest fear.

The prettiest of the Saxon towns we passed on our way to Kronstadt is Sch?ssburg, situated on the banks of the river. Towers and ramparts peep out tantalizingly from luxurious vegetation, making us long to get out and explore the place; particularly inviting is a steep flight of steps leading to an old church at the top of a hill.

It is here that Hungary’s greatest poet, Pet?fi, perished in the battle of Sch?ssburg on the 31st of July, 1849, when the revolted Hungarians, led by the Polish general Bem, were crushed by the superior numbers of the Russian troops come to Austria’s assistance.

Pet?fi’s body was never found, nor had any one seen him fall, and for many years periodical reports got afloat in Hungary that the great poet was not dead, but pining away his life in the mines of Siberia. There seems, however, to be no valid reason for believing this tale, and more likely his was one of the many mutilated and unrecognizable corpses which strewed the valley of Sch?ssburg on that disastrous day.

SCH?SSBURG.

(Reprinted from publication of the Transylvanian Carpathian Society.)

To the west of the town we catch sight of a solitary turret perched on the overhanging cliff above the river; it is said to mark the place where a Turkish pacha, besieging the town with his army, was slain by a shot fired from the goldsmiths’ tower. The pacha was buried here sitting on his elephant, and this tower raised above them, while that other tower from whence the shot was fired, held ever since in high honor, was decked out with a golden ceiling. This latter has now fallen into ruin, and the inscription on the pacha’s resting-place has become almost illegible, but the legend still runs in the people’s mouths, and is told in verse as follows:
“By Sch?ssburg, on the mountain
A turret gray doth stand,
{343}
And from the heights it gazes
Down on the Kokel land.
And ne’er a passing wand’rer
This turret who doth see,
But pauses to inquire here
What may its meaning be.
“It is a proud remembrance
Of doughty deeds and bold.
Still faithfully the people
Relate this legend old:
In by-gone days of trouble
Went forth, with sword and brand,
A mighty Turkish pacha,
To devastate the land.
“Thus also would he conquer
This ancient Saxon town;
But here each man was ready
To die for its renown.
And there upon the mountain
The pacha took his stand,
An elephant bestriding,
And cimeter in hand.
“The mighty Ali Pacha,
He swears with curses wild,
That by his beard will he destroy
The Saxon, chick and child.
Then struck the haughty Moslem
Full in the breast a ball;
With curses yet upon the lip,
A death-prey he must fall.
“The leaden ball came flying,
Full thousand paces two,
From out a fortress turret,
With deadly aim and true.
A sturdy goldsmith was it
Who fired this famous shot;
The Turkish horde, which seeing,
Their courage all forgot.
“And panic-struck escaping,
Their pacha left to die,
The elephant still bestriding,
With fixed and glassy eye.
Then sallied forth the Saxons
As thus the Moslems fled,
{344}
And gazed on the dead pacha
With joy and yet with dread.
“They built up Ali Pacha
Within that turret gray,
From head to foot still armed
In battle-field array;
His elephant beside him
Was buried here as well,[77]
And outside an inscription
Their history doth tell.
“By times a plaintive wailing
May here be heard at night;
Or chance you to see flitting
A phantom figure white,
The pacha ’tis, who cannot
Find lasting rest, they say,
Because ’mid heavy curses
His spirit passed away.”

Another point of interest we see from the railway is the ruined castle of Marienburg, crowning a bare hill to our right hand, about half an hour before reaching Kronstadt, built by the knights of the Teutonic order during their occupation of the Burzenland in the early part of the thirteenth century.

These knights, whose order unites some of the conditions of both Templars and Maltese knights, had been founded in Palestine about the year 1190, for the double purpose of tending wounded crusaders, and, like these, combating the enemies of the Holy Sepulchre. Only Germans of noble birth were admitted as members, under condition of the customary vows of chastity and obedience. They had, however, not been long in existence when their position in Palestine began to grow insecure; and casting about their eyes in search of some more tenable position, they were met half-way by the King of Hungary, Andreas II., who, on his side, was in want of some powerful alliance to secure the ea............