Unless the traveller had brought historic facts with him to Gradischtie, he would hardly be induced to search for tesselated pavements and relics of royalty amongst the piggeries of this dirty Wallack village. It is a literal fact that a very fine specimen of Roman pavement exists here in an unsavoury outhouse, not unknown to pigs and their congeners.
This Hatszeg Valley, in the county of Hunyad, has long been celebrated for the richness of its Dacian and Roman antiquities. These treasures have unfortunately been dispersed about amongst various general collections of antiquity, instead of being well kept together as illustrative of local facts and history. The archæologist must seek for these remains specially in the Ambras collection of the Archæological Museum at Vienna, the National Museum at Buda Pest, in the Bruckenthal Museum at Herrmannstadt, also in the Klausenburg Museum. Dr H. Finály, Professor of Archæology at the University of Klausenburg, is the great living authority on this interesting subject. To him I am indebted for some information, conveyed in a letter to a private friend.[12] The professor alludes to the fact of the treasures being all carried away, adding that on the spot very little is to be found except the remains of Roman encampments (castra stativa), Roman military roads, together with the foundations of buildings, the materials of which however are usually carried away by the peasants. Nor are the records of former interesting discoveries to be found in one volume, but are dispersed about in the various publications of learned societies, such as the 'Archælogiæi Közlemények' of the Hungarian Academy, the 'Year-Book of the Transylvanian Museum,' and 'Verhandlungen und Mittheilungen' of the Verein fur Siebenbürgische Landeskunde of Herrmannstadt.
That the materials of the old Roman buildings are now used for baser purposes, one has abundant proof; even in my hurried inspection I saw many a sculptured stone and fragment of fluted column doing duty as the support of a wretched Wallack shanty. Another evidence of the Roman occupation of the country occurs in the case of certain plants now found growing wild, which are exotic to the soil. This, I am told, occurs in a marked manner at Thorda, which was known to be a Roman colony. The plants, it may be presumed, were brought thither by the Roman legionaries. The most picturesque bit of Roman antiquity is the Temple at Demsus, within a short drive of Varhely. It is on a small eminence overlooking a cluster of Wallack dwellings, and has long been used as a church by these people.
The Hatszeg Valley, which comprehends the district I am now describing, is the pride of Transylvania, not less for its fertility than for its beauty. It has the appearance of having been filled in former geological ages by the waters of a widespread lake.
It was a lovely afternoon, but very hot, when I rode into the little town of Hatszeg. Everywhere is to be seen evidence of the careful cultivation of the maize and other crops. Numerous villages dot the plain and cluster amidst the thickly-wooded hillsides. And now we come upon the railway system again, which has stretched out its feelers into the wilds of the Southern Carpathians. The railroad enters Transylvania by two routes. The main line is from Buda-Pest to Grosswardein, and so on by Klausenburg—the Magyar capital—to the present terminus of Kronstadt, one of the chief towns of the Saxon immigrants. This includes a branch to Maros Vásárhely. It is proposed to carry this line over a pass in the Carpathians to Bucharest. The second line of railway entering Transylvania starts from Arad, and terminates at Herrmannstadt, the Saxon capital, having a branch to the mineral district of Petrosèny.
It will be seen from the above that this "odd corner of Europe," as Transylvania has been called, is fairly well off for iron roads; and considering how short a time some portions of them have been opened, they have already borne good fruit in developing the resources of the country.