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There is an old-world look about Herrmannstadt that gives one the sensation of being landed in another age; it is a case of Rip Van Winkle, only "t'other way round," as the saying is: one has awakened from the sleep in the hills to walk down into a mediæval town, finding the speech and fashions of old Germany Luther's Germany! The Saxon immigrants in Hungary number nearly two millions.
The archæologist must seek for these remains specially in the Ambras collection of the Archæological Museum at Vienna, the National Museum at Buda Pest, in the Bruckenthal Museum at Herrmannstadt, also in the Klausenburg Museum. Dr H. Finály, Professor of Archæology at the University of Klausenburg, is the great living authority on this interesting subject.
Returning to the itinerary of my route, I left Herrmannstadt very early one morning, getting to Fogaras by four o'clock; it was about forty-seven miles of good road. This little town is celebrated for the cultivation of tobacco. There is a large inn here, which looked promising from the outside, but that was all; it had no inside to speak of no food, no stable-boy, nothing.
The burghers of Herrmannstadt hereupon obliged the men of Heltau to sign a bond, saying that "they were but humble villagers," and promising to treat their haughty neighbours with all due "honour, fear, and friendship." From Heltau I went on to Michaelsburg, an extremely curious place. In the centre of a lovely valley rises a conical rock of gneiss, protruding to the height of 200 feet or more.
The wealth of Herrmannstadt is a thing of the past; the place has now the appearance of a dead level of competence, where riches and poverty are equally absent. There were no new houses building to supply an increasing population, nor, I should say, had any been built for many years.
Magyar intolerance of the German Patriotic revival of the Magyar language Ride from Herrmannstadt to Kronstadt The village of Zeiden Curious scene in church Reformation in Transylvania Political bitterness between Saxons and Magyars in 1848. My horse being all right again, I thought it high time to push on to Kronstadt, which is nearly ninety miles from Herrmannstadt by road.
There is railway communication, but not direct; you have to get on the main line at the junction of Klein Köpisch in Hungarian, Kis Kapus and hence to Kronstadt, called Brasso by the non-Germans. This confusion of names is very difficult for a foreigner when consulting the railway tables. I have often seen the names of stations put up in three languages. Herrmannstadt is Nagy Szeben.
It is proposed to carry this line over a pass in the Carpathians to Bucharest. The second line of railway entering Transylvania starts from Arad, and terminates at Herrmannstadt, the Saxon capital, having a branch to the mineral district of Petrosèny.
Herrmannstadt is the seat of the Protestant Bishop of Transylvania, and there is a fine old church, which, however, has suffered severely in the process of restoration. The interior of the church is in that unhappy condition which bespeaks the churchwarden's period whitewash plastered over everything, obliterating lights and shades and rare carvings beneath a glare of uncouth cleanliness.
They had succeeded in collecting a vast amount of booty, including many fair young maidens and tender youths, and were returning in long cavalcade through the Red Tower Pass. Here, however, they fell into an ambuscade arranged by the men of Herrmannstadt, headed by their burgomaster, the brave George Hecht.
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