Nestled among the hills, twenty-two villages may be counted from its summit, with the Aranyos River winding this way and that among them, like a ribbon of silver, until it empties into another tortuous stream which carries its waters to the Maros.

But on the opposite side, toward the northwest, in striking contrast with this picture of happy human industry, a boundless waste of rugged, forest-clad mountain peaks meets the eye, with no sign of house or hamlet.
From the side toward Toroczko, which lay smiling in the valley, its fruit-trees in full bloom, its fields looking like so many squares of green carpet, and its church-spire rising conspicuous above the foliage, one could hear, like the throbbing of a giant's heart, the heavy beating of steam hammers.

There the scythe and the ploughshare were being fashioned, and all the implements wherewith the hand of man subdued to his use those rugged hillsides.
"If I could only paint that picture!" sighed Manasseh.
"You succeeded with the Colosseum," was Blanka's encouraging rejoinder.
"That was Rome, this is Toroczko.

I could hit my sweetheart's likeness; my mother's is beyond me." Nevertheless he was determined to try his hand; so the others left him at work and went on to view the curiosities of the Szekler Stone.
"Take good care of my wife," Manasseh called to his brother, "and don't let her fall over any precipice." "Never fear," Aaron shouted back.

"The whole Szekler Stone shall fall first." "Promise not to take Blanka and Anna up Hidas Peak." "I promise." "On your honour as a Szekler and a Unitarian ?" "On my honour as a Szekler and a Unitarian." With that Manasseh let them go their way.