More than one error has doubtless crept unawares into this work; so in order to place myself quite on the safe side with regard to stern critics, I had better hasten to say that I decline to pledge my word for the veracity of anything contained in these pages. I only lay claim to having used my eyes and ears to the best of my ability; and where I have failed to see or hear aright, the fault must be set down to some inherent color-blindness, or radical defect in my tympanum. Nor do I pretend to have seen everything, even in a small country like Transylvania, and every spot I have failed to visit, from lack of time or opportunity, is not only to me a source of poignant regret, but likewise a chapter missing from this book. CHAPTER II. HISTORICAL. Transylvania is interesting not only on account of its geographical position, but likewise with regard to the several races which inhabit it, and the peculiar conditions under which part of these have obtained possession of the soil. Situated between 45° 16’ and 48° 42’ latitude, and 40° to 44° of longitude (Ferro), the land covers a space of 54,000 square kilometres, which are inhabited by a population of some 2,170,000 heads. Of these the proportion of different races may be assumed to be pretty nearly as follows: Roumanians 1,200,400 Hungarians 652,221 Saxons 211,490 Gypsies 79,000 Jews 24,848 Armenians 8,430 Some one has rather aptly defined Transylvania as a vast storehouse of different nationalities; and in order to account for the _raison d’être_ of so many different races living side by side in one small country, a few words of explanation are absolutely necessary to render intelligible the circumstances of daily life in Transylvania, since it is to be presumed that to many English readers the country is still virtually a “land beyond the forest.” Not being, however, of that ferocious disposition which loves to inflict needless information upon an unoffending public, I pass over in considerate silence such very superfluous races as the Agathyrsi, the Gepidæ, the Getæ, and yet others who successively inhabited these regions. Let it suffice to say that in the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era the land belonged to the Dacians, who were in course of time subjugated by Trajan, Transylvania becoming a Roman province in the year 105 A.D. It remained under the Roman eagle for something over a century and a half; but about the year 274 the Emperor Aurelian was compelled to remove his legions from the countries over the Danube and abandon the land to the all-ravaging Goths.