In the Banat, which is the granary
of the Austrian empire, trees grow well for fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five years, and then die away. The cause of this is, that the
earth, although rich, is only from three to six feet thick, with sand
or cold clay below; thus as soon as the roots descend to the
substrata, in which they find no nourishment, rottenness appears on
the top branches, and gradually descends.
At Kruahevitza, not very far from Pasharevatz, is a cave, which is, I
am told, entered with difficulty, into the basin of which water
gradually flows at intervals, and then disappears, as the doctor of
the place (a Saxon) told me, with an extraordinary noise resembling
the molar rumble of railway travelling. This spring is called
Potainitza, or the mysterious waters.
Posharevatz, miscalled Passarowitz, is historically remarkable, as the
place where Prince Eugene, in 1718, after his brilliant victories of
the previous year, including the capture of Belgrade, signed, with the
Turks, the treaty which gave back to the house of Austria not only the
whole of Hungary, but added great part of Servia and Little Wallachia,
as far as the Aluta.
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