red by a narrow path along the riverside and through a cleft
in the rocks. The northern side of this narrow ravine, being in some
measure exposed to the southern sun, is clothed with woods; the
southern is a great wall of bare rock rising in terraces, or giant
steps, that might well suggest the dreariness and desolation of a
landscape in the moon. This barren expanse of naked rock is called the
Szekler Stone, and was formerly surmounted by the castle of a Hungarian
vice-voivode. Its ruins are still to be seen there. The lower slopes of
this mountainside are cultivated now, and the ploughshare is gradually
forcing one terrace after another to yield sustenance to the farmer.
Thus it is that by these cultivated terraces the centuries of the town's
history can be numbered. For there is a village there, deep down in the
rocky ravine, as if on the floor of a volcano's crater, and in that
village live the happiest people in all the world. Do not think me
unduly prejudiced by the fact that I am one of them. No, I am not
prejudiced. Strangers also find no terms of praise too high for those
happy and industrious people. Noted English and German travellers have
visited my native valley and afterward written books about it, as other
travellers have about Japan or Circassia. Indeed, those two countries
have something in common with my own. My people have developed and
perfected industries peculiar to themselves, as have the Japanese, and
they also are proud of their handsome women, as are the
Circassians--except that the girls of Toroczko are not for sale, nor,
for that matter, are they to be had by foreigners, even for love. Their
charms bloom only for their own countrymen, and by them they are
jealously guarded. They never work in the fields, and so their fair
faces are never tanned or freckled. The young maidens keep their rooms,
and spin, weave, and embroider for their own adornment. When Sunday
comes and they all go to church, they fill six benches and form a
veritable 'book of beauties,' of various types, both blond and brunette,
which, however, one cannot so easily distinguish, owing to the richly
worked kerchiefs under which their hair is hidden. Their entire costume
is snow-white, even to the fine sheepskin bodice worn by each."

"Ah, your young women think of nothing but dress, I fear," remarked
Blanka.

"By no means," protested Manasseh; "on the contrary, their childhood and
youth are largely devoted to education. The pe