[6] The extent of Hungary, including Transylvania, is above 125,000 square miles; that of Great Britain and Ireland is 122,000, and that of Prussia about 116,000. The population of Hungary, according to the best authorities, is nearly fourteen millions; that of England (in 1841) was nearly fifteen millions; that of Prussia about sixteen millions. "The reader would certainly laugh, as I have often done since, did I tell him one half of the foolish tales the good Viennese told us of the country we were about to visit--no roads! no inns! no police! We must sleep on the ground, eat where we could, and be ready to defend our purses and our lives at every moment. In full credence of these reports, we provided ourselves most plentifully with arms, which were carefully loaded, and placed ready for immediate use.... It may, however, ease the reader's mind to know, that no occasion to shoot anything more formidable than a partridge or a hare presented itself, and that we finished our journey with the full conviction, that travelling in Hungary was just as safe as travelling in England. Why, or wherefore, I know not, but nothing can exceed the horror with which a true Austrian regards both Hungary and its inhabitants. I have sometimes suspected that the bugbear with which a Vienna mother frightens her squaller to sleep must be an Hungarian bugbear; for in no other way can I account for the inbred and absurd fear which they entertain for such near neighbours. It is true, the Hungarians do sometimes talk about liberty, constitutional rights, and other such terrible things, to which no well-disposed ears should be open, and to which the ears of the Viennese are religiously closed."