Morning journal and courier., 1892-04-16

lives and affairs. Upon these roads every form of traffic, threading to and from q
 score of countries and sharply de6ned peoples, is seen From them every yaris-
 tion in outdoor daily life, aspect of quaint husbandry, ceremonial between oias,es.
 and hint and tint of peculiarity and color | in national fact and feeling. comes close and clear to the traveller upon his leos. And have nowhere else In Europe seen
 such @ variety and wealth of roadside | shrines.
 should think that in the two or three thousand miles of the great stone roads of Galicia 6 huge wooden or stone crucifx, or | @ tiny brick or stone shrine, might be | found on the average at the distance of every half an English mile. Most of the crucidxes are of wood hewn out of beech | or osken logs. Whether of wood or stone, ss if from some great burden, every one leans, and this very leaning lends 6 strange ly suggestive sadness and loneliness to the landscape.
 They are most frequent in districts near est the Carpathians which form the Hun garian boundary. The Ruthenian peas- ants being of Russian stock are all Greek Catholics, and the Polish Galacians are without exception Roman Catholics. They
 
 crucihx or shrine without witnessing a group of both in rapt devotion, many of whom are groveling prostrate upon the earth before the sacred reminders of Cal vary. At Whitsuntide one will see crowds of these simple and pious devotees crawl ing upon all fours, while trailing huge wooden crosses from their nesks and shoul- ders, around every roadside shrine in all Galicia- .k- made the acquaintance of a youth of twenty who had tired of Tatrss peasant life, and had come to the great city to seek his fortune as kellner or servitor. He had led the dogs life of the city inn long enough to pine for his old mountain home with an unutterable longing. I bought his freedom of his landlord master for eighty marks, and thus secured the most devoted guide traveller ever knew to the shepard hut homes of the wild and al- most untraversed Tatrs mountains. These comprise & western spur of the Carpathian range where the latter. be- tween Galicisssnd Hungary, are broken by the great panoramic valley of Arva, and reappear beyond in lesser ranges such as the Liptau and Neutra mountains and the Little Carpsthian range. The entire re- zion reminds one strikingly of the wilder and grander portions of the English Lake district where the lordly Helvellyn rears his crsggy, mist-crowned crest above the shadowy vale of St. John; only that the elevations are vastly higher; the glens and valleys more dark and shadowy; the cas- cades more impressive and sublime; and the forests more deep, vast and impenetrs- ble to all save those who know their secret ways; while the splendid olden sturdy Umbrian peasantry of English Weetmore- land and Cumberland, who are both shep- herds and sgriculturists, have here their congeners in purely shepherd peasantry whose lives and ways have been changeless for more than a thousand years.
 We went by rail to the little village of Jordanow and crossed 6 northern spur of the Tatra, thus coming directly into the
 valley of the Arva and the great highway from Cracow to Buda-Pesth. Along this road we tramped for a day in company with every manner of picturesque fellow traveller; lodged at Arva Varallya; and the next morning set our faces towards the east and the Tatra heights.
 The glories of this mountain journey were unrivalled. Wild, rugged, grand na ture, unchanged from creation by the hand of man, was mine for complete en- joyment. This, too, was entrancingly va- ried by occasional simultaneous views of a marvellous character. Our way led mainly along ths southern or Hungarian slopes. But now and then my guide, Ludwig, who seemed to move straight as the flight of @ mountain bird to his own eerie, brought me to the very peaks of the dividing heights.
 To the north the country sloped across | Galicia along the great Polish plain into l Russian Poland. Winter still held all this | land of terror and famine in its steely grasp. Only in Galicia. and especially in | some of the sheltered southern valleys be- IL kt ! gladness of spring beginning to be mani fest. To the south another cline; indeed another world. Hungary, land of wine | and dance and song, encircled by its | mighty wreath of mountains, and, visible as far as Buds- -Pesth, lay spread before our gaze disk of throbbing green and bloom. That night we came to Ludvigs people. The reunion was touching and joyful Between two and three hundred souls com | prised this one mountain side band. Per haps there are one hundred thousand folk of the same sort in the Tstra range. They are all shepherds, principally goatherds, and the number of animals they care for must reach millions. For about four months of the winter they retire to such towns as Niedzwiec, Jablonka, Neumarkt, Thurdorin, Dunajec, Mdgurs, Repisco and Kriwan-although many, remain in their | huts upon the mountains proiting by
 woodcraft in trapping and snaring ami
 mals and birds-so filling up and over
 orowding the villages that they become | winter cities.
 | They call themselves Podhalians. Their | language is mixture or dialect of the an
 cient Magyar and the Germanic tongue.
 Their food is simply oats, either boiled in-
 to thick porridge or made into thin
 bread of oatmeal and salt, baked before
 the coals like the Scotch "bsnnock," goat
 milk whey, the wild mountain fruits and
 such small game as they can secure in the
 mountain forests They neither have nor
 wish any other. Unlike the Galicisn
 peasant, who is a slave to brandy. and the
 Hungarian peasant, who loves and can se-
 cure good and cheap wine, they drink no
 liquor of any sort whatever, and are huge
 in frame, handsome in face and physique,
 robust and powerful, and live to an extra
 ordinary old age.
 The band which I visited was a fair eI-
 ample of them sll It had just come upon
 the southern slopes of the mountains from
 the valleys with its herds, but its members
 had already built 6 mountain village of
 thirty huts. These were of tree limbs,
 bark and leaves, large and comfortable,
 but all opening to the south. All the
 band, including women, were dressed in
 the untanned skins of the goat, with hoods
 and sandals of the same materials. They
 do not remain long in these sylvan huts,
 but, as the summer advances, leave them,
 never to return to the same structures, for
 the higher grazing lands, where new homes
 are built with each change of location.
 Each band really comprises one immense
 family, patriarchal in system, and, as near
 ly as I could judge, to 8 great extent com
 munal in regard to their little gainings.
 By nature they are full of sentiment, and
 are rude poets and artists of no mean
 quality. The mountain glens around them
 constantly re-echo their wild and endless
 vocal melodies, and the exultant notes of
 the cziganuk and the splendid enthusiasm
 of their movements thrill one when of an
 evening they engage in the czardas, as , only these strong-legged mountaineers can
 whirl and leap in this weird Hungarian ] national dance. They are Arcad:ans pure
 and simple; simple, good and pure.
 | EDGAp T., WAvrMAy