The land beyond the forest; facts, figures, and fancies from Transylvania . ew-chosen partner of your life,and likewise the pleasant arri&re-pensie that youcan begin again da capo next week if so pleasesyou. I went to visit this street for sale, which presentsa most doleful aspect. As the houses are continu-ally changing hands, none of the transitory ownerscare to be at the expense of repairs or keeping inorder; therefore rotten planking, hingeless gates,broken windows, and caved-in roofs are the generalorder of the day. A row of card-houses merelyto mark this imaginary sort of proprietorship
The land beyond the forest; facts, figures, and fancies from Transylvania . ew-chosen partner of your life,and likewise the pleasant arri&re-pensie that youcan begin again da capo next week if so pleasesyou. I went to visit this street for sale, which presentsa most doleful aspect. As the houses are continu-ally changing hands, none of the transitory ownerscare to be at the expense of repairs or keeping inorder; therefore rotten planking, hingeless gates,broken windows, and caved-in roofs are the generalorder of the day. A row of card-houses merelyto mark this imaginary sort of proprietorship wouldequally fulfil the purpose. The town is said to be unhealthy, and the mor-tality amongst children very great. This is attrib-uted to the impurity of the drinking water, severalof the springs which feed the town-wells runningthrough the churchyard, which lies on a hill. To our left, about an hour after leaving Klausen-burg, we catch sight of the Thorda Cleft or Sjialt,—one of the most remarkable natural phenomenawhich the county presents. It is nothing else but. The Tlwrda Sfatf. [To face p. 34. ARRIVAL IN TRANSYLVANIA. 35 a gaping unexpected rift, of three or four Englishmiles in length, right through the limestone rocks,which rise about 1200 feet at the highest and gloomy caverns, formerly the abode ofrobbers, honeycomb these rocky walls, and a wildmountain-torrent fills up the space between them,completing a weirdly beautiful scene; but on ourfirst view of it from the railway-carriage it re-sembled nothing; so much as a magnified loaf ofbread severed in two by the cut of a gigantic knife. I do not know how g-eologists account for theformation of the Thorda Cleft, but the people ex-plain it in their own fashion by a legend :— The Hungarian King Ladislaus, surnamed theSaint, defeated and pursued by his bitterestenemies, the Kumanes, sought refuge in the moun-tains. He was already hard pressed for his life,and close on his heels followed the pagans. Then,in t
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublisheredinb, bookyear1888
