Lippincotts Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 | Page 8

his carriage, would not kick a dog out
of his way, and would manifest the utmost tenderness for his horses.
[Illustration: Orsova.]
Much as the Hungarian inhabitants of the Banat hate the Roumanians,
they do not fail to appreciate the commercial advantages which will
follow on the union of the two countries by rail. Pretty Orsova may in
due time become a bustling town filled with grain- and coal-dépôts and
with small manufactories. The railway from Verciorova on the frontier
runs through the large towns Pitesti and Craiova on its way to
Bucharest. It is a marvellous railroad: it climbs hills, descends into
deep gullies, and has as little of the air-line about it as a great river has,
for the contractors built it on the principle of "keeping near the
surface," and they much preferred climbing ten high mountains to
cutting one tunnel. Craiova takes its name, according to a somewhat
misty legend, from John Assan, who was one of the Romano-Bulgarian
kings, Craiova being a corruption of Crai Ivan ("King John"). This
John was the same who drank his wine from a cup made out of the
skull of the unlucky emperor Baldwin I. The old bans of Craiova gave
their title to the Roumanian silver pieces now known as bañi. Slatina,
farther down the line, on the river Altu (the Aluta of the ancients), is a
pretty town, where a proud and brave community love to recite to the
stranger the valorous deeds of their ancestors. It is the centre from
which have spread out most of the modern revolutionary movements in
Roumania. "Little Wallachia," in which Slatina stands, is rich in
well-tilled fields and uplands covered with fat cattle: it is as fertile as
Kansas, and its people seemed to me more agreeable and energetic than
those in and around Bucharest.
He who clings to the steamers plying up and down the Danube sees
much romantic scenery and many curious types, but he loses all the real
charm of travel in these regions. The future tourist on his way to or
from Bulgaria and the battle-fields of the "new crusade" will be wise if
he journeys leisurely by farm-wagon--he will not be likely to find a
carriage--along the Hungarian bank of the stream. I made the journey in

April, when in that gentle southward climate the wayside was already
radiant with flowers and the mellow sunshine was unbroken by cloud
or rain. There were discomfort and dust, but there was a rare pleasure in
the arrival at a quaint inn whose exterior front, boldly asserting itself in
the bolder row of house-fronts in a long village street, was uninviting
enough, but the interior of which was charming. In such a hostelry I
always found the wharfmaster, in green coat and cap, asleep in an
arm-chair, with the burgomaster and one or two idle landed proprietors
sitting near him at a card-table, enveloped in such a cloud of smoke that
one could scarcely see the long-necked flasks of white wine which they
were rapidly emptying. The host was a massive man with bulbous nose
and sleepy eyes: he responded to all questions with a stare and the
statement that he did not know, and seemed anxious to leave everything
in doubt until the latest moment possible. His daughter, who was
brighter and less dubious in her responses than her father, was a slight
girl with lustrous black eyes, wistful lips, a perfect form, and black hair
covered with a linen cloth that the dust might not come near its glossy
threads. When she made her appearance, flashing out of a huge dark
room which was stone paved and arched overhead, and in which
peasants sat drinking sour beer, she seemed like a ray of sunshine in the
middle of night. But there was more dignity about her than is to be
found in most sunbeams: she was modest and civil in answer, but
understood no compliments. There was something of the
princess-reduced-in-circumstances in her demeanor. A royal supper
could she serve, and the linen which she spread on the small wooden
table in the back courtyard smelled of lavender. I took my dinners, after
the long days' rides, in inns which commanded delicious views of the
Danube--points where willows overhung the rushing stream, or where
crags towered above it, or where it flowed in smooth yet resistless
might through plains in which hundreds of peasants were toiling, their
red-and-white costumes contrasting sharply with the brilliant blue of
the sky and the tender green of the foliage.
[Illustration: BELGRADE, FROM SEMLIN.]
If the inns were uniformly cleanly and agreeable, as much could not be
said for the villages, which were sometimes decidedly dirty. The

cottages of the peasants--that is, of the agricultural laborers--were
windowless to a degree which led me