A few miles below Mohács is the upper mouth of the Franzens Canal which joins the Danube with the Theiss, giving an easy outlet for the produce of the great fertile plain, facilitating the transportation of grain and lumber from the interior to the chief water highway. The construction of the canal dates from the last century, and, in all probability, it was projected even as early as the Roman occupation. It is only within a few years, however, that, by the aid of English capital, it has been finished and put in active operation. The wonderfully rich farming country through which it passes has attracted, since earliest times, settlers from all surrounding regions, and of all the Hungarian kingdom it has the most varied and heterogeneous population. Almost anywhere within the narrow limits of the low horizon may be counted between the Danube and the Theiss a dozen villages, sheltering representatives of as many different races, and a more attractive field for the philologist or for the artist cannot be found between the Black Sea and the Baltic. The traveller who rushes down the Danube in a steamer, or yawns at the monotonous plain from the window of a Pullman-car on the Orient Express, gets no more idea of the people than if he saw them from a balloon. Even studied intimately and at leisure, this unique mixture of races is confusing and perplexing, and only those who have long been familiar with them can thoroughly [Illustration: FROM BUDAPEST TO BELGRADE] understand the conditions of their existence. In all Hungary the Magyar, or pure Hungarian, does not number over four out of the fifteen millions of inhabitants. They are the dominant race intellectually and physically, and, of course, the governing race. But frugal, industrious immigrants have on all sides taken possession of the land, have established manufactories and built up trade, and have often left to the Magyar little beside that pride of race to which even the lowest among them cling as their most precious birthright. It is this pride which has bound the nation together all through the dark centuries of constant warfare with an implacable enemy, and it is this pride which is the Magyar’s best support in his present struggle for a place in the foremost rank of civilized nations. There can be no question of his intellectual superiority over the races who crowd him on the east, the south, and the west. That he is not yet in the same plane of civilization as the nations in the west of Europe is due to the fact that while the west was civilizing, the Magyar was keeping the frontier against advancing Mahometanism; and it is only now, after many centuries of discouragement and oppression, that he is in a position to advance along the road of peaceful development and culture. To such a nature as his all is possible, and his marvellous progress during the past twenty years is gratifying proof that he is making the best of his present possibilities.