possess in Hungary immense herds of wild horses. These herds range
over a tract of many German square miles, for the most part some level
plain, with wood, marsh, heath, and moorland; they rove about where
they please, multiply, and enjoy freedom of existence. Nevertheless,
it is a common error to imagine that these horses, like a pack of
wolves in the mountains, are left to themselves and nature, without
any care or thought of man. Wild horses, in the proper sense of the
term, are in Europe at the present day only met with in Bessarabia;
whereas the so-called wild herds in Hungary may rather be compared
to the animals ranging in our large parks, which are attended to and
watched. The deer are left to the illusion that they enjoy the most
unbounded freedom; and the deer-stalker, when in pursuit of his game,
readily gives in to the same illusion. Or, to take another simile, the
reader has only to picture to himself a well-constituted free state,
whether a republic or a monarchy is all one.

"The Csikos has the difficult task of keeping a watchful eye upon
these herds. He knows their strength, their habits, the spots they
frequent; he knows the birthday of every foal, and when the animal,
fit for training, should be taken out of the herd. He has then a hard
task upon his hands, compared with which a Grand-Ducal wild-boar hunt
is child's play; for the horse has not only to be taken alive from the
midst of the herd, but of course safe and sound in wind and limb. For
this purpose, the celebrated whip of the Csikos serves him; probably
at some future time a few splendid specimens of this instrument will
be exhibited in the Imperial Arsenal at Vienna, beside the sword of
Scanderberg and the Swiss 'morning-stars.'

"This whip has a stout handle from one and a half to two feet long,
and a cord which measures not less than from eighteen to twenty-four