pletely devastated during the war but has been rebuilt now as an anthro- pological, sociological and historical museum. The hotel here is also an Intercontinental and very classy. Only complaints being the rate of food service in the dining rooms. Trying to get ice water all over Europe is a major activity at any meal. If you don't care for beer or wine with meals you are stuck with “mineral water" which is carbonated but otherwise tasteless or the ubiquitous "coke", but lukewarm cokes are not the greatest refreshment.

In the evening we went out to a famous restaurant for a real Hungar- ian meal which was delicious but the occasion was jazzed up consider- ably by the four piece orchestra. One man played the "cymbalium” which we never hear or see over here. It is played with small cloth- covered mallets like a xylophone or marimba but rather than bars of wood or metal it simply has a series of three piano wires per note going from left to right and raised on frets at either side so that alternate three string series are up and down. This makes it possible to hit one note without striking the strings of the next higher note. It is played with incredible rapidity and dexterity and makes a kind of a harpsichord- like sound. Fascinating to watch.

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WEDNESDAY A city tour by bus to the usual monuments and build- ings and the large sports stadium. The afternoon was free so we went "out on the town". Here as in all the cities I went into a bookstore to find and read the opening chapter in a book about the city to learn something of its history. One of the interesting observations in all the cities I visited was the large number of bookstores, the large variety of translated western authors in science, economics, history, novelists, etc. and the large number of people in bookstores buying books. All these people are much more avid for information and knowledge than we are.

I am afraid that this will have its significant consequences in the days to come. In spite of the fact that the west tends to look down on the socialist countries, because of our own anti-socialist propaganda, bolstered by the admitted fact that they don't have all the material things we are accustomed to, I think most of these peoples are relatively con- tent in comparison with what they used to have when they were mon- archies or under some foreign domination. When you combine that with the fact that they KNOW that they are building their own society materially in repairing the ravage of war and building new apart- ments, factories, etc., but also psychologically and philosophically, there is a feeling present that you don't find in the west. In Europe and

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