BISMARCK AMONGST THE BRIGANDS.

Kumara Times, Issue 810, 6 May 1879, Page 4

BISMARCK AMONGST THE BRIGANDS.

[prince bismarck’s letters ]

Ketskemet is a village which, if one sees none of the inhabitants, remind one of the narrow end of Schoenhausem, only it has 45,000 inhabitants, unpaved streets, lon houses closed against the sun in Oriental fashion, and large cattle yards. A foreign ambassador was such an nncommon appearance there, and my Magyar servant rattled the excellency about so loudly, that he gave me a guard of honor on the spot; the authorities paid their, respects, and fresh horses were requisitioned. I spent the evening with a very pleasant set of officers, who insisted upon my taking an escort, and who also related the addition of a lot of tales about robbers. The very worst robber has his haunts just exactly in that district to which I was journeying,; on the Theiss, where the swamps and large plaits made extirpation of the horde almost impossible. They are excellently mounted and armed, these Betyars; they attack travellers and farms in bands of 15 to 20 men, and the following day they are 100 miles away. They are polite to decent people. 1 had left the greatest part of my ready money „ with Prince W., and only look some linen with me. I was tickled at this idea of making a nearer acquaintance of these mounted robbers. Wrapped in furs, with double-barrelled guns in their hands, and pistols in their belts, their leaders wear black masks, and at times belong to the smaller country aristocracy. Some days since several gendarmes were killed in a skirmish with them, but on ■ the other hand two of the robbers were caught and shot by court-martial in Ketskemet. One does not go through this sort of thing in our dull part of the world. About the time when you awoke this morning you little thought that just at that moment I and Hildebrand were flyitg at full speed across the steppe in Gamama, an amiable sun-tanned lancer officer beside me, both of us having our loaded pistols before us in the hay, and a detachment of lancers, cocked carbines in band, galloping at our heels. Three speedy little horses drew us. Two of these have the standard names of Rosa and Csillag (star), and the one trotting alongside Betyar (vagabond) : they are invariably addressed by these names, and in beseeching tones, by the coachmen, until, holding the whip square across his forehead, he shouts out “ Mega, mega ” (“ More, more ”), when the gallop changes to headlong speed—a very pleasant sensation. The robbers did not show because, as my nutty-brown lieutenant said, they would have already known before the dawn that I was travelling with an escort, but that to a certainty some of them were amongst those worthy, imposing-looking peasants who stared at us at the different stations from their embroidered sheep-skin, sleeveless cloaks reaching to the ground, and who greeted us with a frank and straightforward “ Istem adiamek ” (“God be praised”).