urg
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
Bekescsaba, 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
chateaux along the Loire which I studied last spring.

I was carefully unpacked again under a splendid porte-cochere 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.

My bedroom is perfectly huge and has two ante-rooms--for the personal
servants whom I do not possess. We dined