THE MIKALAI CSARDA From Hidvar to Gyula Fehervar is a good day's journey, even with the best horses and in the best weather; in the rainy season the mountain streams make the journey still longer.

Fortunately, exactly half-way lies the Mikalai _csarda_, in which dwells a good honest Wallachian gentleman who also follows the profession of innkeeper.

In these mining regions there are no Jews, all the inns and _csardas_ are in the hands of the Armenians and Wallachs: the people are content with them and the Hungarian gentry like them.
Young Makkabesku had built up his den in a most picturesque situation beside a stream gushing down from among the mountains and forming a waterfall close to the very house.

This stream possessed the peculiar property of turning to stone every leaf and twig which fell into it, even the branches of the trees hanging over it were turned into pretty white petrifactions so far as the water was able to reach them.
Domnul Makkabesku did not carry on the business of inn-keeper for the sake of gain (he would not have been able to make a living out of it if he had tried), but from sheer goodheartedness and good-fellowship.

His charges therefore were extremely moderate.