Roumania Past and Present | Page 6

all over the face. The latter appeared to the author to resemble the generality of Russian peasants, and this view was confirmed by one or two lending observers in the country.[10]
[Illustration: PEASANTS AT A WELL.]
The women, as in many other continental countries, are the chief workers in the fields, and they are said to be much more industrious than the men. They are not alone engaged in agricultural pursuits, but perform the work of navvies, making roads, and along with the men digging railway embankments. They usually wear a kerchief rather gracefully folded over the head and under the chin; the upper part of the body is clothed in a loose-fitting jacket or bodice, sometimes white, but often of very bright showy material, and the lower limbs are covered with a skirt which is usually of a darker colour than the jacket; but this is also frequently made of a bright-coloured fabric. This is their every-day dress, and thus habited the men work with square-bladed spades resembling our own, whilst those of the women have handles as long as a broomstick and bent spade-or heart-shaped blades. The gala or holiday dresses of the peasantry are very handsome, each district having its own peculiar costume, but of these we will say a few words hereafter. Sometimes, as one walks or drives through the country, he may see the peasants gossiping at the well, which is a hole dug in the ground and fenced in with planks, the bucket being raised and lowered by means of a very primitive contrivance. This consists of a horizontal tree-trunk swinging upon another tall vertical one forked at the top; a chain depends from one end of the horizontal beam or bar, to which the bucket is attached, whilst the other end is counterpoised by means of stones. Some of the wells are worked with a windlass and fly-wheel, but the one just described frequently attracts the traveller's notice.
More primitive even than the wells are some of the peasants' houses in the plains, if the hovels which serve as habitations can be so dignified. A large hole, somewhat resembling in shape an old-fashioned saw-pit, but of course of greater dimensions, is dug deep into the ground. This is lined with clay, if necessary, and from the ground or immediately above it a roof is formed of branches and twigs, in the centre of which a hole is left for the issue of smoke. Sometimes a primitive doorway forms the entrance, and the people descend either by steps or an inclined plane, whilst at the opposite end a window is inserted. Occasionally, but not always, a small drain is cut round these semi-subterranean dwellings, which, as already stated, are chiefly to be found on the plains, for the purpose of carrying off surface water. It is hardly necessary to say that in these underground cells men, women, and children live together higgledy-piggledy, and that the result of such an existence is widespread disease. Marsh fever is one of the most prevalent and malignant maladies of the plains; there is hardly a family (and the families of the peasantry are very numerous) in which one or more children have not been carried off by this fever. Still there are those who maintain that the subterranean houses are not unhealthy, and they are not necessarily an indication of poverty. Such hovels, it is said, were first constructed in order that they might escape the observation of those bands of marauders, first of one nation, then of another, who have at various times overrun and pillaged the fair Danubian territory; that they were originally surrounded by trees which have been cut down for firewood; and that the spirit of conservatism, causes many peasants, otherwise well-to-do, to prefer these underground dwellings to the cottages of modern construction which constitute the villages of the higher lands. This seems a plausible explanation of their presence; but in a country which is largely cultivated, as we shall hear, by a peasant proprietary, such a primitive mode of existence, worthy of the days when the barbarians ravaged Roumanian territory, is not likely long to continue.
[Illustration: SUBTERRANEAN DWELLINGS WITH PEASANTS.]
So far as the peasantry are concerned, they are a fine healthy body of men and women, and we shall have an opportunity further on of enquiring into their habits and condition.
After travelling inland in imagination for the best part of a day--for a Roumanian railway train does not emulate the 'Flying Dutchman' in rapidity, although it is a considerable advance upon the old mode of progression when a dozen horses were often requisite to drag a single carriage along the muddy roads--and having left the city of Bucarest with its many cupolas and spires behind us for the present, we approach the second, more elevated tract