After this explanation we cannot be surprised to learn that a marked feature in the character of the Hungarian peasant is indolence. This observation applies particularly to those of the counties around the Platten Lake. The equality and the savage life to which the people are here accustomed when pasturing their cattle in the forests are probably the chief causes of the frequent robberies that occur. Though robbers by profession, subsisting entirely on the fruits of their depredations abroad, still far the greater number are cattle-keepers under the various names of Tsikos, Gulyas, Juhasz, or Kanasz. The latter are particularly notorious, and scarcely one person worthy of trust is to be found among them. The herdsmen are usually mere thieves, stealing cattle when they can, and plundering travellers when good opportunities present themselves. Those on the contrary who have no other occupation than to seek booty, and live constantly in the forest, steal cattle only when driven by necessity; the plunder of the traveller, whom they frequently murder, being their principal object. Jews and butchers are more particularly exposed to their attacks: the officers of the crown and the nobles are safe from a dread of the inquiry which in such cases would not fail to be instituted. They generally hail a carriage with a demand of money, styling themselves _szegeny legeny_, or poor fellows. The little solitary public houses suffer much from them, for when they can obtain nothing elsewhere they enter them and eat and drink without paying. Such houses are in consequence extremely unsafe, and the more so because the innkeepers are frequently connected with the robbers either as receivers or accomplices. In order to put a stop to this evil, pursuits are often instituted by the county, when some of the offenders are generally taken, but the extent of the county and the insufficient strength of the police prevent their total extermination.