SOME EXPERIENCES IN HUNGARY
In the Palace of Prince and Princess K——
By Mina MacDonald, English Companion to the Two Daughters of a Hungarian Magnate
These experiences of an English girl throw a new light on the character of the Hungarian noble families. At the outbreak of the War, she was companion to the two daughters of a Hungarian Prince who resided in the vicinity of Pressburg. This gave her an opportunity of gauging the sentiments of those connected with the House of Hapsburg. They discussed the War with frankness in her presence. The family treated her precisely as one of their own and at no time considered her as an "enemy alien." In the preface to her narrative, Miss MacDonald says: "If other British subjects in Austria proper were treated more rigorously, they must lay the blame on instructions received from Berlin. My own experiences in the Hungarian family during the throes of a World War may, perchance, induce British (and American) readers to think more highly of the gallant Magyar race." Selections from her narrative are here presented by courtesy of her publishers, Longmans, Green and Company.
[5] I—THE CASTLE IN THE CARPATHIANS
The village of K—— stands in a pleasant mountain valley among the White Carpathians on the borders of Moravia.... It cannot even lay claim to the various dissensions of its neighbouring town S—— where representatives of every race, religion, and political party to be found in Austria and Hungary, keep the town like a boiling pot. It is far otherwise in K—— which is solidly and frankly Clovak, Catholic, and anti-Austrian. The peasants who, with the exception of the priest, the schoolmaster and the inn-keeper, constitute the population of village, are all dirty, drunken, hard-working, and intelligent.