clearing for sheep-pastures. It is impossible to travel twenty miles in
the Southern Carpathians without encountering the terrible ravages
committed by these people in the beautiful woods that adorn the sides of
the mountains.

"The Wallacks find it too much trouble to fell the trees," says Mr
Boner. "They destroy systematically: one year the bark is stripped off,
the wood dries, and the year after it is fired.... In 1862, near
Toplitza, 23,000 _joch_ of forest were burned by the peasantry."

Judging from what I saw during my travels in Hungary in 1875-76, I
should say the evil described by Mr Boner ten years before has in no way
abated. The Wallacks pursue their ruthless destruction of the forests,
and the law seems powerless to arrest the mischief. At present there is
wood and enough, but the time will come when the country at large must
suffer from this reckless waste. There are about twenty-three million
acres of forest in Hungary, including almost the only oak-woods left in
Europe. The great proportion of the forest-land belongs to the State,
hence the supervision is less keen, and the depredations more readily
winked at. Riding one day with a Hungarian friend, I asked what would be
the probable cost of a wooden house then building on the verge of the
forest. My friend replied, laughing, "That depends on whether the
builder stole the wood himself, or only bought it of some one else who
had stolen it; he might possibly have purchased the wood from the real
owner, but that is not very probable. So you see I really cannot tell
you what the house will cost."

Incendiary fires are very common in Hungary. Here, again, the Wallacks
do their share of mischief. If they have a grudge against an active
magistrate or a thriving neighbour, his farmstead is set on fire, not