Roumania Past and Present | Page 5

or another along the greater part of the river, both by land and water, and from the bank at Giurgevo to the frontier in the mountains, a brief account of his impressions and observations may be found more interesting than a mere dry geographical description of the different zones.[8]
[Footnote 3: The mode in which we ascertained these measurements was by comparing four, independently made. One was by Mr. Weller, the artist of our maps; the second by the author, being the average of four or five maps; the third by an English official friend in Roumania, who has all the best maps at his disposal; and the fourth from Baedeker. Designating these respectively as a, b, c, and d, we obtained the following very approximate results:--
From Verciorova to the Sulina From Predeal to boundary S. of mouth. Mangalia.
a 355 miles a 185 miles b 356 " b 188 " c 358 " c 189 " d 360 " d 190 "
From Fife-Cookson's map, in his work With the Armies of the Balkans, the measurements respectively are 355 and 186 miles.]
[Footnote 4: The area is obtained by a somewhat similar process to the linear measurements, excepting that here we have been obliged to employ figures from various works (notably that of M. Aurelian and the Reports of Consul Vivian and of the Roumanian Geographical Society), and to take into consideration the exchange of Bessarabia for the Dobrudscha, which has not been done by Roumanian writers since that alteration was made. The Gotha Almanack of 1881 gives the area as 129,947 square kilos.]
[Footnote 5: There has been no census in Roumania since 1859-60, when the population is said to have been 4,424,961; now it is set down as above, and efforts have been made to analyse this estimate and to classify the population according to nationalities and religion. It is, however, quite impossible to do so with accuracy; indeed the census of Galatz taken last year shows that the whole can hardly be regarded as approximate. What we know is that about 4,600,000 of the population are Roumanians and of the Orthodox Greek faith; probably 400,000 are Jews, 200,000 gipsies, and the rest Germans, Szeklers, Servians and Bulgarians, Hungarians, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, Turks, French, English, Swiss, &c.]
[Footnote 6: Prince Jon Ghika says 87 mètres.]
[Footnote 7: According to various works and maps, the heights of the mountain summits differ. In his work, Terra Nostra, edition of 1880, M. Aurelian gives the height of Pionul as 2,720.1 mètres, or about 8,934 English feet, and that of Cara?man as 2,650.2 mètres, or 8,705 feet; but some of the maps give measurements differing from these.]
[Footnote 8: Fuller details concerning the soil and agricultural productions will be found in the chapter devoted to those subjects.]
II.
The appearance of the plain on leaving the flat monotonous banks of the Danube is anything but prepossessing. Although the land begins to rise almost immediately, the surrounding scenery is flat and arid. The soil, which is black or dark grey, is chiefly argillo-siliceous, and the plain is overrun with coarse grass, weeds, and stunted shrubs, diversified by fields of maize, patches of yellow gourds, and kitchen vegetables. Here and there the railway runs through or skirts plantations. The chief plants in this region (and this applies to the plains generally) are willows, alders, poplars, and tamarinds, but chiefly willows and poplars amongst the trees and larger plants; maize, wheat, millet, and other cereals, and a variety of fruits and vegetables which will be spoken of in connection with the more elevated regions. The first impression which is made upon the traveller coming from our own beautiful hedgerows and pastures, or from the richly cultivated plains of Transylvania, is that agriculture is slovenly and neglected, and that impression is never wholly lost in whatever direction he may travel; although, as we shall see presently, the higher zones are much more carefully cultivated.[9]
[Illustration: ROUMANIAN PEASANTS IN WORKING DRESS.]
The peasantry at work in the fields present a novel and interesting appearance to the stranger, and still more striking are some of their habitations. The men generally wear a long white coarse linen blouse with trousers of the same material. The blouse is drawn in at the waist by a coil of cords or by a belt, and frequently sandals are worn, in which case the cords fastening them are wound some distance up the leg. Hats of common felt, cheap cloth, or high cylindrical caps of sheepskin, complete the external attire. In winter sheepskins take the place of the coarse linen tunic. There are two types of face to be met with amongst them, both of which are here depicted. The one has long moustaches and shaven face; the other type, which is said to resemble the Dacians of Trajan's Column, has the hair growing