They are a handsome, not very tall, but robust and muscular race of men, inured to all sorts of privations, and enduring them with the greatest ease, owing to the small number of their wants. These are almost confined to bread, bacon and tobacco, which is with them a necessary of life. If to these the Csikos can add a pudding of maize-flour and a bit of fresh pork, he has nothing more than a pint of wine to wish for.
The dress of these men is as simple as their fare. A wide shirt and loose trowsers of coarse linen, a high felt cap, and convenient boots of horse hide, a leathern girdle, a curiously worked tobacco-pouch of sheep-leather, with its accompaniments, are all that they need, besides a sheep-skin with the wool on, which serves both for garment, tent and bed. The linen garments become extremely dirty from long wearing, for when once on they are never taken off till they drop to pieces and are replaced by new ones. The reader will not be surprized at this, when he knows that these men are obliged to pass three-fourths of the year on the moors, without any other shelter than the firmament of heaven, and therefore cannot possibly be provided with a wardrobe.
Their dexterity and strength, and the courage which they display in their vocation are truly astonishing. In order to be able duly to appreciate these qualities, it is necessary to have witnessed the scene which takes place, when the owner of a herd of wild horses orders some of them to be caught. The animals are first driven very adroitly into a large inclosure. Here the owner or purchaser points out which of them he wishes to have caught, on which some of the Csikoses go with long ropes having nooses at the end, among the horses, and endeavour to fling the nooses over their heads. In this attempt the Csikos generally succeeds at the first trial. He then throws the animal upon the ground, where he is held down by his comrades, and in this state a bridle is quickly put on him. The conqueror places it between his legs; the rope is loosed, the horse springs like lightning from the ground, with the Csikos on his bare back, and holding by the mane. The furious beast darts off at full speed: the undaunted rider lets him run and even applies his whip from time to time, till his steed, weary with the length of his course, slackens his pace. The Csikos then begins to exert himself and to make use of the bridle. Man and horse return home exhausted with hunger, thirst and fatigue; the latter is conducted for the first time into a stable, where the operations of breaking commence while the former relates to his comrades over the smoking board the adventures of his hazardous journey, on the steed winged by rage and terror.