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The Goth and the Hun; or, Transylvania, Debreczin, Pesth, and Vienna, in 1850
by A.A. Paton. (London): Richard Bentley, 1851. First edition. Hardcover. with decorated boards. 416pp. 8vo
A rare text on the Austrian and Ottoman Empires, and in particular "Magyar, Daco-Roman, German and Slovack nations of Hungary, in consequence of the immense revolution which followed the close of the war". Based upon 4 previous tours of Hungary, as well as extensive travels around the Austrian empire, this book gives a broad study of history, politics, customs and people of central and eastern Europe. It look st such varied topics as the Russian army, including the Cossacks, the judicial corruption he found in Maros-Vasarhely, the origins and history of the Slovacks, the Austrian aristocracy, the ne organisation of Hungary into provinces, the Szekler National Assembly and the races of the Banat. An interesting area for study, not least of the Russian army on the verge of the Crimean War.
The text below is from the book and deals with the Banat:
CHAPTER
VI.
THE BANAT—ITS PHYSICAL
GEOGRAPHY—MINERAL WEALTH
—THE RACES OF THE
BANAT—GREATER CIVILISATION OF THE BANAT.
THE Banat* is the cornucopia, not only of Hungary, but of the whole of
the Austrian empire ;—even Lombardy, highly favoured as it is by
nature, must yield precedence to the Banat of Temesvar; and one must go
to the Delta of the Nile to find a similar soil. This may be easily
understood, when we reflect that the lower parts of rivers, having
large alluvial deposits, are necessarily the richest; and, on referring
to the map, it will be seen, that, by a very peculiar geographical
configuration, the Banat has the best part of the alluvial washings of
the Theiss, the Maros, the Save, and the Danube. As nearly square as
geographical forms usually approach to geometrical figures, its
eastern boundary is the conclusion of the Carpathian chain, with
the commencement of which we made some acquaintance at Presburg. Its
northern boundary is the Maros, where it flows at right angles into the
Theiss, bringing with it the alluvial washings of Transylvania.
The Theiss, the western boundary of the Banat, brings with it the humus
of Northern Hungary; and the southern boundary of the Banat being the
Danube, just before it is contracted by the natural dams at the iron
gates, this part of the Banat is formed of the alluvion from the Save,
with all its Bosniac tributaries, from the very ridges that
overlook the Adriatic. In the case of most parts of a Continent the
rivers are centrifugal, but here, by a peculiar combination they are
centripetal, without forming a sea or lake; the iron gates being deep
enough and narrow enough to be a retaining sieve to the basin of the
Danube. a dam to precipitate the kumus, and a drain to the water that
cover the face of the earth. Intersected by the forty-fifth degree of
latitude, and thus midway between the equator and the pole, the Banat
is for all these reasons the granary of the Austrian empire, and
produces wheat of a quality nowhere else to be found in the imperial
states. But the eastern part being hilly, is rather fitted for wine
culture, which is of a very p1easant quality, its white sorts
resembling Moselle and Rhine Wines.
· “Ban” is Duke
(Dux), and “Banat” is Duchy.
The
territory east of the Carpathians is the
Banat of Severin, and that of the west, the Banat of Termesvar.
 
 
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