_Sunday, January 3d._ I have managed to get in a good deal of reading on boats, trains, and at odd moments since I left Paris, and it has enlarged my comprehension of this war. I have carefully studied every book on the war and subjects related to it. I have read several times each the books of Bernhardi, Nietzsche, and Steed's "Hapsburg Monarchy." * * * * * _Monday, January 4th._ In Hungary there are few princes or dukes; the highest nobles are counts, whose titles retain something of the old significance of hereditary rulers of a "county." The serfs have only recently been liberated and to all intents and purposes the feudal system still exists, in spirit if not in form. Among the counts in Hungary, several stand out conspicuously above the rest; among them are the Karolyis, the Apponyis, the Hunyadis, and the Wenkheims, all of whom are interconnected by marriage and close social relations. These people maintain themselves on their vast estates like rulers of small principalities. At the request of the Countess X. I had written to her mother, the Countess W., before leaving Vienna, and found her answer awaiting me at the Consul's office when I arrived in Budapest. I learn that she also communicated with Count Berchtold, the Prime Minister of the Empire, with Count Szecsen, ex-Ambassador to France, and with the Hungarian Premier, so that in case I missed her letters (she sent me one to Vienna and one to Budapest) these gentlemen would see to it that I went to visit her, as she wished to thank me personally for what I had been able to do for her daughter, and also to hear direct news of her grandchildren. I left Budapest early this afternoon and arrived after dark at Békéscsaba, which is about half-way to Belgrade. I was met by a majordomo who appropriated my luggage and led me to a private car on a private railroad belonging to the Countess. We started immediately and ran in about twenty minutes to the gate of the estate where she usually resides. Here I was carefully transferred into a waiting carriage and was tenderly tucked into numerous fur rugs by two or three strong men. The two splendid horses turned through the gates for a ten-minute drive across a beautiful park to the castle--and such a castle! It is equal in size and charm to some of the famous French châteaux along the Loire which I studied last spring. I was carefully unpacked again under a splendid porte-cochère and ushered by numerous flunkies into the presence of the Countess. She received me in a tremendous room with a lofty ceiling, and in a preliminary talk of an hour she took off the first keen edge of her appetite for news.