eople for many
years. Water in itself was always worshiped by the Hungarians in the
earliest ages, and they have found out through experience for which
ailment the different waters may be used. There are numbers of small
watering-places in the most primitive state, which are visited by the
peasants from far and wide, more especially those that are good for
rheumatism.

Like all people that work much in the open, the Hungarian in old age
feels the aching of his limbs. The Carpathians are full of such baths,
some of them quite primitive; others are used more as summer resorts,
where the well-to-do town people build their villas; others, again,
like Tatra Fuered, Tatra Lomnicz, Csorba, and many others, have every
accommodation and are visited by people from all over Europe. In former
times Germans and Poles were the chief visitors, but now people come
from all parts to look at the wonderful ice-caves (where one can skate
in the hottest summer), the waterfalls, and the great pine forests, and
make walking, driving, and riding tours right up to the snow-capped
mountains, preferring the comparative quiet of this Alpine district to
that of Switzerland. Almost every place has some special mineral water,
and among the greatest wonders of Hungary are the hot mud-baths of
Poestyen.

This place is situated at the foot of the lesser Carpathians, and is
easily reached from the main line of the railway. The scenery is lovely
and the air healthy, but this is nothing compared to the wondrous waters
and hot mire which oozes out of the earth in the vicinity of the river
Vag. Hot sulfuric water, which contains radium, bubbles up in all parts
of Poestyen, and even the bed of the cold river is full of steaming
hot mud. As far back as 1551 we know of the existence of Poestyen as a
natural cure, and Sir Spencer Wells, the great English doctor, wrote
about these waters in 1888. They are chiefly good for rheumatism, gout,
neuralgia, the strengthening of broken bones, strains, and also for
scrofula.

On the premises there is a quaint museum with crutches and all sort of
sticks and invalid chairs left there by their former owners in grateful
acknowledgment of the wonderful waters and mire that had healed them. Of
late there has been much comfort added; great new baths have been built,
villas and new hotels added, so that there is accommodation for rich
and poor alike. The natural heat of the mire is 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
Plenty of amusements