CROATIA-SLAVONIA is mountainous in the west, lowland in the east. The greater part of the mountainous region falls within the Karst country, which has already been described ; but in the north, the uplands are somewhat more fertile. In the lowlands, where climatic conditions and soil are similar to those of the plains of Hungary, cereals, especially maize, are grown. The vine yards, which are numerous, suffered severely from the phylloxera, as elsewhere, but are beginning to recover. Plums are grown every where, and are either distilled for brandy or dried for prunes.
Horse-breeding, pig-raising, and bee-keeping are all important pursuits. These varied occupations give employment to the mass of the people, but agricultural methods, although they have made considerable progress within recent years, are still somewhat back ward, and the land does not yield what it might under more favourable conditions.
The manufactures which exist are chiefly concerned with working up the agricultural produce of the country; distilleries and breweries, flour mills, and silk and tobacco factories are widely distributed. Agram, Esseg, and Semlin are among the most important industrial towns.
COMMUNICATIONS.—The navigable waterways of Austria-Hungary belong mainly to the Danubian system. The Danube itself, since its course has been regularised and the obstructions at the Iron Gates removed, is the most frequented of these waterways, but its importance is lessened by the fact that it leads, not directly to the open ocean, but to a sea of relatively little commercial importance. As there is considerable trade, however, between the industrial regions of Austria and the agricultural regions of Hungary, the river is much used by both countries. Of its tributaries, the Drave and the Save open up routes from the Danube to the Adriatic, and Esseg on the former and Sissek on the latter are large river ports. The Theiss, having been canalised in places and brought under a certain amount of control, is navigable for the greater part of its course. The rivers of the Alpine region are floatable rather than navigable, but considerable quantities of wood are brought to the lowlands by them. The Moldau-Elbe is the great waterway of Bohemia, and is of special value for trade with Germany. At present it is only open to steamboats as far as Melnik, but the improvement of the Moldau to permit steam navigation as far as Prague is being rapidly pushed forward. Among other schemes
under consideration for improving the Austrian waterways are projects for connecting the Danube with the Elbe, the Oder, and the Vistula by a series of canals.
Austria has 14,000 miles of railway, and Hungary 13,000, and their respective capitals are the two most important railway centres in Austria-Hungary. The Orient Express route traverses the Monarchy from Linz to Semlin, following in general the course of the Danube and passing through Vienna, Pressburg, Budapest, and Peterwardein. From Vienna a line runs to Prague, which is the meeting place of routes from Southern Germany by the Gate of Furth, from Central Germany by the passes round the Fichtel gebirge, and from Northern Germany by the valley of the Elbe between the Erzgebirge and the Riesengebirge. Another line from Vienna follows the course of the March, and, after entering the valley of the Oder, passes through the Moravian Gate between the Sudetes and the Carpathians ; it then goes, by Cracow and Lemberg, through Galicia and Bukovina, finally terminating at most important route from Vienna to the Adriatic runs south-west from the Austrian capital, crosses the Semmering pass, follows the Miirz-thal to Bruck, then the Mur-thal to Unzmarkt, passes into the valley of the Drave near Villach, and, after tunnelling through the Karawanken and Julian Alps, descends the Isonzo to Trieste. Two important railways follow the longitudinal valleys of the Alps—one, branching off near Bruck from the Semmering route, utilises the valleys of the Enns, the Saizach, and the Inn, and some of their tributaries to reach Innsbruck, and, after passing through the Arlberg in a tunnel over six miles in length, arrives in Switzerland ; the other runs from Villach along the Drave-thal and the Puster-thal, and joins the route from Innsbruck to Verona by way of the Wipp-thal, the Brenner pass, and the valleys of the Eisak and the Etsch. These two longitudinal lines have now been joined by a railway which passes by a tunnel over five miles long through the Hohe Tauern, and forms part of the shortest route from Salzburg and south-west Germany to Trieste.