Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. BISHOP STROSSMAYER. One of my objects in travelling was to study anew the curious forms of primitive ownership, the family communities or zadrugas which are preserved among the Southern Slavs, and of which I have given a detailed account in my book on 'Primitive Property.' I visited them carefully fifteen years ago, but I am told that they are rapidly disappearing, and that those who desire to see this interesting form of the ancient family constitution which was once universal, and lasted in France until the eighteenth century, must set about it at once. Having accepted the kind invitation of Bishop Stross mayer to visit the zadrugas upon his estate, I went straight from Vienna to Essek. When I got out of the train I saw a young priest coming towards me, followed by a magnificent pandour dressed in brown pantaloons and jacket covered with red and black braid. The Abbe is a secretary of Bishop Strossmayer, from whom he brought a letter of welcome. This priest, accompanied by his hussars, is a picture of Hungary in the olden time, when the magnates kept a whole army of servants, who waited upon them in time of peace, and followed them to the battle field in time of war. These were the famous hussars who saved the crown of Maria Theresa (Moriamur pro rege nostro), andwho, in 1848, would have dethroned her descendants but for the intervention of Eussia. A light open victoria was waiting for us outside the station, drawn by four dappled greys of the breed of Lipit9a, the Imperial stud, which is situated near Trieste in the Karst, that strange region where the great scattered rocks resemble the ruins of some Cyclopean edifice. English blood is mixed with Arab in order to give size; the dry air they breathe which becomes very keen when the north wind blows...
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