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filter her way into the country, and gain a permanent footing there by appropriating as many public establishments, such as railroads, banks, and lines of fluvial navigation, as she can get into her hands. The more suspicious see in these projects a hope and design of ultimate annexation; but this must be so remote a prospect, that it is more reasonable to attribute them to the expectation of present profit.

I was informed, on landing at Giurgevo, that a little old gentleman, of imperious air, and with a full white beard, who seemed to be keeping everybody in motion for his own special service, was one of the great est boyards in Moldavia. This was the first oportunity I had had of observing a boyard on his own dunghill, and I thought I ought to have felt more impressed upon the occasion. I confess I should have taken him for an old Jew, possibly for a dealer in cast-off raiment. I now learned that the beard was the distinguishing mark of the boyard, and of this I had further proof as I proceeded towards Bucharest. That city was the destination of three or four of my fellow-travellers from Galatz, and we at once informed ourselves as to the best means of getting there. A diligence would start immediately, we were told, so we hastily devoured a bad breakfast, and were in readiness to start; not so the diligence, which was shown to us standing near the inn, and looking as unlike a move as if it had merely been placed there to ornament the neighbourhood. Occasionally a Tartar-looking personage, fantastically clothed in sackcloth, emerged from a tumbledown shed, approached the vehicle, gazed at it admiringly, and then again disappeared. After this had been repeated at intervals for about an hour and a half, eight horses, or rather ponies, entangled in a quantity of rope-work, were brought into the yard and attached to the diligence, which was evidently an old German carriage, deemed past work in its own country, but still good enough for the Danubian Principalities; still there were no signs of loading our luggage, but presently appeared a cart, in which we were informed it

was to be transported. In most countries, but especially in the East, imprudent is the traveller who suffers himself to be separated from his kit, and we protested accordingly, but in vain. The diligence had its full complement of passengers, and that it should also carry their baggage, and reach Bucharest that night, or without a breakdown, was entirely out of the question; so, after stipulating that the cart should keep up with the diligence, we were fain to submit to the unsatisfactory arrangement.

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It is but forty-two miles from Giurgevo to Bucharest, and as we started before eleven o'clock, and were told that we should change horses twice on the road, we thought ourselves justified in believing the assurance given us that we should reach the latter place by five in the afternoon. Our team was not a very promising one. The eight horses, of all sizes, and in most diversified harness, some of the leaders being without bits, were driven by two wildlooking postilions in sheepskin caps, and started off at a good pace. But all sign of a road disappeared almost as soon as we got out of Giurgevo. There was a mere wheel-track across the plain. For some distance our course lay through pastures, where grazing is allowed on payment of about a zwanziger, or eightpence English, per head of cattle, for six months. When we got off the level and upon an undulating surface, our way was through little copses, and the track was frequently so narrow that the oak saplings almost brushed into the carriage as we passed. The road was nowhere very picturesque, but here and there it was pretty enough, and the woods were thickly fringed with wildflowers; not, however, in the profusion that existed when I again travelled along the same track at the beginning of July, when we drove literally through fields of blossom, marigolds, and hollyhocks, and purple flowers growing like lavender, and feathery grey flowers, and beds of pinks. Then, however, I journeyed through the densest clouds of that insidious white dust which is one of the plagues of Bucharest and its environs. Now, a shower the night before had soaked

the soil, which is there of a sticky tenacious nature, so entirely without admixture of stones and pebbles that I do not believe you could gather a bushel of these on the whole road from Giurgevo to Bucharest. In winter the ground is so deep that there is almost an end to travelling, except in light carriages with many horses, and the transport of merchandise and produce is nearly suspended; this is owing to the want of roads, of which but very few miles have been made in Wallachia during the whole period of Prince Stirbey's hospodarship, although large sums have annually been set aside for the purpose. In winter, tracks, passable enough in summer, become quagmires. This was not the case on the day of our journey, but still there was mud enough to retard our progress, and we got on but slowly, looking anxiously out for a relay. At last we ascertained that we should change horses but once, instead of twice or three times, and glad were we when, after crossing a bridge over a shallow stream, we pulled up at a road-side inn. We looked for fresh posters, but none appeared; we were invited to alight, and presently the truth transpired, which was that we were to go right through to Bucharest with the same eight weary garrons, and, to enable them to perform this feat, we were to halt for a time where we now were. This was a nuisance, but grumbling was useless. I was amused, and perfectly astonished, at the plan adopted to invigorate our cattle for their second long stage. After they had devoured a copious feed of corn, they were freed from all harness, and driven like so many oxen into the river. After unlimited drink and much splashing and soaking, a mounted man rode into the river on the other side, and drove them out, and they came scampering, capering, and kicking up to the diligence, and submitted themselves to be rubbed down and harnessed with the usual docility of Moldo-Wallachian horses.

It was a Sunday, a hot and beautiful day, and the inhabitants of the straggling village were making the most of the holiday. The inn, 8 mere road-side wine-house and

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baiting place, which a few weeks later was sacked and partly destroyed by a detachment of Austrian soldiers that was marching through, was full of peasants eating and drinking. The sound of music and festivity, a short distance off, attracted us, and we soon came upon a wedding-party, dancing and making merry outside the dwelling of the bride's family. The dance that seemed most in favour was neither graceful diversified in its figures; the dancers formed a circle, holding hands, and alternately closed in and spread out, increasing or diminishing the circumference. This seemed the whole of the dance, which, however, was nearly broken up by such an event as the approach of four or five strangers, one of them an officer in uniform, and another having a rather luxuriant beard, which immediately caused him to be taken for a boyard of the first feather. The woman seemed bashful-they were certainly shy and not pretty, and it struck me that some of them would have been the better for soap and water. Their dress, which was that common amongst their class in Wallachia, consisted of a shirt, fastened round the neck and completely covering the upper part of their persons. From the waist downwards they were dressed like the women of nearly all countries—that is to say, they wore a lot of petticoats-but, above the waist, the chemise was their only covering. This costume has rather a striking effect, until one gets used to it. To very well made women, who do not require the support of the corsetand many such are to be found amongst the Wallachian peasantryit is far from unbecoming, since it displays the contour and graces of the form far better than any artificial tightening; but in the case of women past a certain age, and who have been addicted to child-bearing, stays are missed, and the coup d'ail is by no means satisfactory. The shirt is sometimes of a material which, without being indecently transparent, allows a slight flesh tint to transpire; but these shirts are usually thickly sprinkled with stars or other devices worked in gold or silver, and this is, I believe, considered the strict

The undulating nature of the ground on which Bucharest is built renders it difficult to obtain from any point of the environs a full view of the city. One of the best I have seen is a lithograph published at Vienna, taken from the river bank, and having the metropolitan church, which stands on an eminence, in the centre of the picture. After passing the barrier, one proceeds for a considerable distance over open ground, diversified with gardens, but sparingly sprinkled with houses, and giving little the idea of a town. Indeed, except in the very heart of the place, in the great principal street, the Mogosoe, in the Leipsick street and a few other shop streets, the Wallachian capital has much more the look of a large straggling village than of a city. It seems as if pains had been taken to avoid the compactness which, as economising distances, is generally held desirable in a large town. It is full of gardens and enclosures, and of open spaces of waste ground. Every house of any size and pretensions has a garden, and usually a large one. The effect produced is very rural and pleasing: the masses of brick and mortar are few, foliage and flowers are everywhere. Earthquakes being of no unfrequent occurrence here (although some years have elapsed since one occurred sufficiently violent to do much damage), few houses are built more than one story high. Thus it is easy to understand that Bucharest, with a population of 100,000, or according to the highest estimate

national costume. The usual orna- the barrier of Bucharest the wellments of the women of the lower beloved. classes are gold and silver coins, and even the mixed metal piastres. They are pierced and strung, and worn as necklaces, and also in the form of a sort of cap or broad circlet over the bair. In full dress, a Wallachian peasant girl thus usually carries her dowry on her person. The temp tation of these rosaries of ducats and dollars sometimes proved too strong for the virtue of the Austrian occupants of the Principalities, and many stories did I hear, too many of them well authenticated, of poor girls being stripped of their little fortune by the rude hand of a brutal Kaiserlich. To judge from the quantity of coin, chiefly Turkish and Austrian, displayed by the ladies of the weddingparty, they were rather well-to-do people of their class. The bride wore several of the large gold Turkish coins, as big as Spanish ounces, to say nothing of a quantity of smaller money. She was brought up to be shown to us, quite as a matter of course, and kissed the hand of our bearded companion, who, admonished by some little murmur of Backshish! that reached his ears, had to requite the compliment in specie. Backshish is quite as much in favour in the Christian provinces on the Danube as in any other part of Turkey. I must say that, even if the bride's kiss had been on his lips instead of his hand, it would hardly have been worth the money, for she was an ordinary-looking damsel, much surpassed in beauty by many of her bridesmaids and companions. Doubtless she was lovely in the eyes of the bridegroom, a 120,000 souls, includes within its sheepish but good-tempered-looking young fellow, who seemed immensely gratified by the honour of our visit, and especially by the condescension of the pseudo- boyard. We were given to drink, and for aught I know, so rapidly did our popularity increase, we should have been invited to supper, had not much whip-cracking, and jingling, and shouting, warned us that our carriage was ready and our time up. Our horses had had an hour and a half's rest, thanks to which they managed to perform the rest of the journey, and brought us, soon after eight of the clock, to

barriers an area said to be equal to two-thirds of that of Paris. Were it a commercial place, the distances would be extremely inconvenient; as it is, and for the mere purposes of social intercourse, the inhabitants spend a very large portion of their time in carriages, the more so as it can hardly be said that there is any particular quarter prescribed by fashion as the residence of the upper classes, who are scattered in very opposite directions. If it be true, as Sam Slick says, that the way to estimate a capital is by its private carriages, Bucharest should rank pretty high,

for there, more than anywhere else, require an enormous paving rate to is a carriage almost a necessary of be levied on its comparatively scanty life; and as the expense of keeping it population. Moreover, in Wallachia, is not great, forage being abundant and especially under its recent ruler, and horses cheap, most families in money levied for useful public objects easy circumstances have at least two has but too often been diverted from vehicles-one for the husband, the its original destination, and scandalother for the wife. When there is ously misapplied, sometimes to puronly one the lady generally takes it, poses of political corruption. And and the husband contents himself even where public works have been with a hired birja-a light calèche, executed, it has been at an exaggerdrawn by two horses, which you en- ated cost, explicable only by a system gage by the day or hour. In most of robbery unparalleled elsewhere places this mode of engagement would than in the East. Thus the very imply a very moderate rate of speed; handsome opera-house, quite worthy but the birja-drivers, most of whom of a first-rate European capital, filled are Russians, spurred by the hopes the pockets of architects and conof a backshish, go at an astonishing tractors, and government officials, rate, and a foreigner is more aptuntil he becomes aware of their skill in driving and of the unfrequency of accidents-to check their speed than to urge them to increased haste over the broken pavement and many holes and round the sharp corners of the streets of Bucharest.

One sees few old buildings in Bucharest, the last bad earthquake having upset nearly all the lofty and ancient fabrics. There are many large handsome houses, but the style of building is generally plain. The eye with difficulty gets accustomed to the strange contrasts met with at every step. Hard by spacious mansions, the residence of wealthy boyards, one almost literally stumbles over low Bulgarian huts, constructed half above and half under the ground. There are generally large courts in front of the better class of houses, and down one side of them frequently extends a range of low mean buildings, used as stables and offices, which shock the eye by their juxtaposition to the principal and handsome edifice. The streets are of extraordinary irregularity, and a stranger is long in learning his way about the town; the more 80 as he rarely walks, the mud in winter, and the dust, heat, and distances in summer, putting that mode of locomotion nearly out of the question. The badness of the pavement, and its total absence from a great portion of the streets, is accounted for by the size of the town, which would

and might have been erected three
or four times over for the sums
that were embezzled and swallowed
up in its construction.
The ex-
hospodar Stirbey, in the sort of
justification he has recently pub-
lished, boasts of this theatre as one
of the benefits conferred on Buchar-
est during his reign. As far as the
fact of its erection goes, there it
stands to speak for itself, an ex-
tremely handsome house, luxuriously
fitted up, with lobbies, staircases,
and saloons on a magnificent scale,
and whose only fault is that, in their
anxiety for an imposing effect, the
designers have made the boxes so
lofty that it never looks well filled.
But touching the cost, Prince Stirbey
is mute, although it is well known
in Wallachia how monstrous it was,
and how large a portion of it was
absorbed by the most barefaced pecu-
lation.

It is not only as regards the build-
ings composing it, but in a thousand
other respects, that Bucharest is par
excellence the city of contrasts. Some
of the most striking of these are
vividly summed up in a few lines by
the late French Consul-general at
Bucharest, M. Poujade, in one of
his interesting contributions to the
Revue des Deux Mondes.*
sees," he says, palaces, or at least
handsome hotels, and frightful hov-
els; carriages from the workshops of
Binder or Clochez, drawn by coach-
men in sumptuous livery, and enor-
mous Transylvanian carts, enclosing

* 1st September 1856.

"One

You have just passed an elegant carriage with a pair of spanking bays; a most correct coachman on the box; a strapping chasseur, bearded, befeathered, and sword-bearing, in the rumble; within, a couple of princesses (the Wallachians freely translate their native titles into the highest current in Western Europe) attired in the last fashions from Longchamps: the whole turn-out would be perfectly in place in Hyde Park or the Bois de Boulogne. From the door of a shop full of cravats, perfumery, and other "nouveautés de Paris," the mere sight of which trausports you to Regent Street or the Boulevards, a couple of dandies with well-waxed mustaches have just waved to you a yellow-kid salutation, Twenty paces further, in a shallow recess of the street, you come to a bronze pump, under and around which are collected a group of gypsy urchins, nearly of the same colour as the metal, with thin legs, prominent abdomens, and monkey features, and all as naked as they were born. It is hard to believe that any more exact link than this will ever be found between man and the baboon. The creatures are in a state of perfect animal enjoyment. The thermometer is at 100° in the shade at the very least, and they are rushing in and out of the gush of bright cold water from the fountain, their dingy bodies sparkling in the sun, their monkey features grinning like chimney-piece ornaments. Their bath over, they will run naked through the streets to where their mothers' kettle boils, and lie down to sleep in the dust, in the shadow of a tombstone. One is tempted to think that, in that climate, a cool pump, a shady nook, and the absence of raiment, constitute the perfection of human happiness.

a population like that of Noah's Ark, and drawn by eight, ten, twenty horses or mares, with their colts playing around them at full liberty; fiery high-bred Russian and Hungarian horses, and huge red-eyed buffaloes; elegant men and women dressed according to the latest Parisian fashion, and peasants in much the same costume as the Dacians wore two thousand years ago; dirty Albanians perambulating the streets selling braga (a fermented drink), and shops in which are displayed the bonbons of Boissier, and the gastronomical delicacies of Potel and Chabot; monks smoking their pipes at the winehouse, and on the tombs, in the cemetries that exist in the very heart of the town, side-by-side with gypsies, and with itinerant musicians (laoutari) dressed in long flowing cloaks, the violin, mandoline, or pandeanpipes suspended to their girdle, ready to sell their services at a baptism, a marriage, or a burial. Oriental life, which is departing, and European life, which replaces it, are here associated, and succeed each other as in a panorama." This is a very well dashed-off glimpse of Bucharest, with true and lifelike tints, like one of Preziosi's capital aquarelles of Constantinople streets. Such contrasts and details might be multiplied almost infinitely; for the physiog nomy of Bucharest has a thousand different faces, both by day and by night. The gypsies alluded to by M. Poujade are a singular feature of the sketch, tawny wild figures dwelling by preference like ghouls in the graveyards, housing themselves also under ragged canvass on those desert plots of ground which abound in Bucharest, or taking up temporary quarters in the shells of unfinished houses. A stranger, unacquainted with their dialect, can gain but little insight into their usages and customs. Borrow I believe that every foreigner should go amongst them; he would who visits Bucharest in the fine find a rich field for observation. They season carries away with him a work, many of them, as bricklayers; most agreeable impression of the the women hang about, tawny dishev- place. In winter, when the snow elled creatures, with infants tugging lies deep, and the streets are sloughs, at their yellow breasts. The chil- and the wolves prowl hungrily in the dren, when a little older, are almost fields around the town, and occasionlike the young of animals. You are ally risk themselves in the suburbs driving down the busiest street of and carry off a stray child, the attracBucharest on a sultry summer noon. tion may be less, even though that is

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