MA

A PEEP INTO THE

ASHALLAH!' quoth the Turk, lifting his eyes to heaven, and stroking a long grizzled beard (it was a fortnight after the brilliant success of the Tchernaya)- Mashallah!' and forthwith he betook himself once more to his chibouque, as though victory were the constant handmaiden of the Crescent, and the hard nut at Sebastopol were already cracked by the allies of the children of Osman. It was lovely summer weather; not very hot, at least for Turkey, and after a sixand-thirty hours' ride through Bulgaria, and a moonlight bivouac, we were nearing Roustchouk, and watching for our first glimpse of the mighty Danube.

There are worse ways of travelling than riding post through Turkey. Your horses, though small and shabby-looking animals, are possessed of pluck and endurance, best appreciated at the end of a forty-mile stage; your chouridje,' or guide, is invariably a good fellow, and beguiles the way with many a chant and ditty, all upon three notes, in a minor key. The Turk, like the Greek, has not the remotest notion of music, as we Franks understand the word; and when you dismount under some spreading acacia, to dine upon black bread and sweet melon, you cease to regret express trains and Wolverton luncheons ; nor would you exchange your wellworn saddle for the softest aircushion that ever encumbered a coupe.

One word for the Turkish horse. On mounting for his first stage, an Englishman's general impression is one of utter hopelessness that he can ever reach his destination. No

matter what weight he may ride, no matter what may be his previous prejudices as to fourteen-stone hunters and cobs that could carry a castle, he is offered a wretched under-sized, small-legged, worn-out VOL. LIV. NO. CCCXX.

PRINCIPALITIES.

looking animal, without a single good point about it, save extraordinary length of quarter, and a lean, handsome head. If he is a discreet Englishman, he has brought his own English saddle with him, the native article, though protecting the horse from that worst of equine ills, a sore back,' is productive of sad abrasion in the human frame, and he hoists himself into his well-known 'Kidd and Wilkinson' with much the same sensation as a man experiences when he gets upon a child's rocking-horse, and finds his feet almost touching the ground. For the first mile he thinks he never rode such a brute in his life. The guide persists in travelling at a dislocating pace, too fast for a walk, and too slow for a trot, and the Englishman resigns himself hopelessly to his hard fate, and an inevitable stitch' in the side; another mile or two, down-hill, over the deepest of ruts and the largest of stones, on a hard-baked soil, prove to him that his mount' is at least a safe one, and he musters up sufficient Turkish to hint at 'back-sheesh,' and to represent that he would like to go a little faster. The guide grins, but takes no further notice, and still they proceed at the tiresome backbreaking 'jog' with which they started. Presently, with no obvious reason, and without the slightest warning, the guide gives vent to a succession of discordant shouts, and sets off at score. Up goes the little horse's head, and away starts the heavy Englishman in the wake of his conductor, without the slightest control over the animal he bestrides, and with lively misgivings that every next step must be his last. After a few miles of this hand-gallop, he begins to think it might be as well to stop and give a little breathingtime to the overweighted pony he is riding. Not a bit of it; on they go, mile after mile, till the next

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post-house appears on the horizon, when the guide redoubles his vociferations, and the horses seem to gather renewed mettle from its proximity. Now does our Englishman begin to see the merits of the Turkish horse. He is probably on the very worst specimen of the kind, yet he finds the animal neither blown nor distressed by a gallop that would make his favourite shooting. pony at home look very and foolish ; he can conceive of what efforts that blood, so near akin to the Arab, is capable, when properly fed and taken care of. Keep the Turkish horse out of deep ground, and he will go for ever; but we are obliged to confess that his want of size and muscular power render him utterly powerless in dirt.' It is worth remarking that the best horses in Turkey are, with scarcely an exception, the greys; and I have heard the same colour is the favourite one in the Desert.

Well, we had dismounted to dine, and our host, an old-fashioned Turk, albeit nothing but an innkeeper, treated us with all the high-bred courtesy that is so conspicuous in his nation. We endeavoured to explain to him in our very meagre Turkish, and with much pantomime, how theMoscov' had been defeated at the Tchernaya; how he had lost his thousands; how the 'bono Johnnies' had gained a great victory, and how we were all fine fellows and fast friends; to all of which news, though had we not chanced to pass he would probably not have heard it for months, he only vouchsafed to reply, Mashallah!' (God be praised), looking devoutly up to heaven, and stroking his beard with one hand while he caressed his long chibouque with the other. Nothing ever astonishes a Turk. He refers all the events of life at once to the great First Cause, and washes his own hands completely of the result. This it is that makes him so excellent a soldier, and so incapable a leader; this it is that renders his country essentially the land of routine, and utter want of progress; and this disregard of consequences, we may venture to predict will, at no distant period, cause his nation to be absorbed by more energetic races, and the place

One of the ablest men that ever made himself familiar with Eastern

habits and Eastern affairs, used to affirm that there were but two foes of whom Turkey need be afraid, but that those two would eventually sweep the Osmanli from the face of the earth. Their names are 'kismet' (destiny), and bakaloum' (we shall see). Ask a Turk why he has not sown his land or planted his vineyard, and he replies, kismet.' Had it been his destiny to sow and plant, he would have reaped and gathered. Tell him that after to-day it will be too late to sow or plant, and that if done at all, his work must be done immediately, and he says 'bakaloum' (we shall see), but takes no further steps in consequence. He has fortitude, he has perseverance; he has even skill and mechanical ingenuity, but energy he does not possess, and therefore is he going rapidly to the wall.' But we are approaching Roustchouk, that most Turkish of Turkish towns. The Danube is spread out before us, blushing in the evening sun. The Turkish guard are leaning and lounging about their posts in the ill-paved streets. Our tired horses clatter along through the quiet bazaar, so unlike the mart of any Western community, scarcely attracting a glance from the veiled women, who hardly deign to disarrange a fold of their 'yashmaks' for a look at the giaour. We ride to the inhospitable khan, where we deliver up our horses, and part, not without regret, from our guide. The lazy river plashes against the beach; our bargain is soon made with the Turkish boatman; our sail is hoisted on the Danube. We bid farewell to Asia; in half-an-hour we shall be in Europe.

Yes, so it is. The Turks themselves call it going to Europe; yet despite of maps, and all such geographical demarcations, we stoutly maintain that Turkey in Europe is as Asiatic as Turkey in Asia. Nowhere is the difference between the two continents so striking as in crossing the Danube from Roustchouk to Giurgevo. There is but a mile and a half of water between the two, yet hardly could Trebizond and Vienna be more unlike than

these adjacent towns. At Roustchouk you are, as it were, in the heart of Asia. Streets paved with conical stones, points uppermost; houses without windows, and inhospitable doors that look as if they could only open to the possessor of the domestic latch-key; bazaars with counters on which seem to be sold no articles that any mortal can possibly want, save an occasional water-melon or tempting bunch of grapes, but rich in masses of flabby, chalk-like paste, and bowls of sour cream, not forgetting the eternal little black plums that look like damsons and taste like pickles. Dogs, indigenous scavengers of Eastern filth, lie basking in the sun, or snarling over their foul banquet; ugly customers they are, too, with their lean misshapen bodies, usually crippled in a limb, their rough yellow coats, and long white fangs. Little pot-bellied children thorough going pachas in miniature-totter about on their bandy legs, and open their fine black eyes in grave astonishment. Women waddle to and fro with the slippered gait peculiar to the Turkish female, drawing, with henna-tinted fingers, the thin white veil over their handsome features-for handsome, in a sort of sleepy, unmeaning style, they certainly are. Solemn old Turks sit smoking in moveless apathy on their counters, apparently regardless of sale or barter, and conscious only of the eternal chibouque. All is listless, dreamy, dirty, and oriental. But the breeze blows freshly down the river, and in twenty minutes we are in Germany.

Yes, Wallachia is as German as Hanover itself. No sooner are we arrived in Giurgevo, than the very atmosphere seems changed around us. Now we are once more in the land of chairs and tables, cups and saucers, bonnets and flounces, aye, and of glances that are not withdrawn as soon as darted. The Wallachian ladies are very handsome, and have no objection to be thought so. The town has a pavement-actually a smooth pavement and lamps-nay, luxury of luxuries, there is a real christian-like hotel, with a German landlord and Hungarian waiters, refugees, of course, and the delighted traveller, who, whilst in Turkey, has

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rejoiced in no more dignified title than that of Johnny'-the generic term for an Englishman in the East since the war-now rises into all the pomp of German civility, and becomes a high-born sir,' an honourable mister,' or a love-worthy cavalier.' Supper is ready at the table d'hôte:' no more eating with your fingers, squatting on your hams like an ape, but a decent meal, with a tablecloth and a waiter-neither of them over clean, it is true; and a series of dishes in which the eternal 'schnissel' predominates, and consisting, we are constrained to admit, of the greasiest efforts of the German

school.

Since the war, it is needless to inform the gentlemen of Englandwho certainly in these times do not 'sit at home at ease'-that there are few sensations more delightful than that of going to bed.' What with the gallant hearts who have bivouacked night after night in the trenches at Sebastopol (how many, alas! have made their beds there for ever), and the adventurous spirits who, under the title of T. G.'s (or travelling gents), have overrun the whole of the East for the last two years, every second man you meet in London has made himself personally familiar with the seat of the late war; and young gentlemen talk of witnessing thego-in,' as they profanely term the assault and capture of the Russian stronghold, in the same tone with which they yawn out an account of the fireworks at Cremorne, and mention dodging a Cossack as they would talk of missing a woodcock. They have all of them known the discomfort of what is termed roughing it,' an expression that invariably infers an uncomfortable sleeping-place, and they will consequently sympathise with the traveller, T. G. or otherwise, who finds himself, for the first time after many months, stretching his limbs between sheets at Giurgevo, and awaking-as we presume every man does awake in a German bedhaving kicked every atom of his covering out into the middle of the floor. The landlord has a stupendous head of hair, a look of stolid content on his countenance, and an enormous seal-ring on his forefinger. His manner to his guests is that of

a solicitous and indulgent parent. 'Will the gracious sirs travel to-day as far as Bucharest?' he asks, in apparent anxiety; 'even now are their passports at the Sir Consul's; would it not be pleasing yet this night here to remain, so could one travel away to-morrow in the dawn?' But the honourable sirs have business of importance at Bucharest, and after a tiresome delay about their passports, the great curse of all wayfarers in Central Europe, they resolve to start at once, and to arrive at their destination in the most expeditious and uncomfortable manner, by what is termed the 'poste-wagen.'

If ever there was a fat, fertile, rich, and prosperous country, it surely is Wallachia-those parts of Norfolk which touch upon the Fens, perhaps give an Englishman the clearest idea of the flat expanse which stretches around the traveller journeying from Giurgevo to Bucharest. The soil consists chiefly of a fine black loam, and though culti vated shamefully, appears to produce in profusion all the necessaries of life-rich pastures stretch away miles and miles till lost in the summer haze-fields of Indian corn wave lazily in the breeze-herds of fat cattle ruminate contentedly in the sun. Shade there is but little, for solitary trees there are none, and the woods are few and far between. Everything betokens ease, repose, and a kind of rude plenty. Even the peasantry, though coarsely clad in rough brown frieze, with the invariable sheep-skin cap, are healthy, hardy-looking race. Both men and women are tall, broad, and well-proportioned, with rich brown complexions, dark waving hair, and beautiful eyes and teeth. Old Rome got her swordsmen from the Principalities. Who does not remember the dying gladiator, yearning with his last gasp for the land

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Where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play,

There was their Dacian mother?

The type does not seem much altered: even now the coarse clothing of the Wallachian herdsman covers many a form that might well have stood in godlike attitude, waiting the award that bid him strike

his death-thrust to the heart of a prostrate antagonist, so to satiate the lust for blood of the most polished people upon earth, crowding into their polluted circus-who were the barbarians then? With such a soil and such a peasantry, why is not Wallachia the most prosperous country in Europe? Her Turkish yoke sits, indeed, very lightly upon her. We hardly believe she would herself be willing to change it. The suzerainty of the Porte has never much distressed its vassals: the Turk is a kind easy master enough. With soil, climate, people, and produce, with a country adapted beyond all others for the construction of railways, and with the Danube at her very door, as a high-road to the sea, what might not Wallachia, what might not her sister, Moldavia, become? All the Principalities require is a government, but so long as the Hospodar, or chief magistrate of the State, is chosen every seven years, so long must the hand that holds the reins be rendered utterly powerless by the constant machinations of those who are intriguing for the succession.

It is needless to dwell on the vast political importance of the Principalities; the subject is already worn threadbare. Did they consist of the most sterile tracts that ever starved a horde of migratory barbarians, their situation alone would render them a constant source of anxiety to the preservers of the 'balance of power' in Europe; and with the capabilities they possess, they become indeed a primary consideration to those who wield the destinies of nations. When Moldavia and Wallachia become amalgamated into one state, independent in all but the name, and when that state is placed under the jurisdiction of a ruler for life-a transitory phase which will eventually, in all probability, merge into a dynasty-Europe may expect to see the long-coveted Principalities, everybody's bone of contention, grow rapidly into a great and flourishing nation. In the mean time, the law is worse than useless. The great boyards, or country gentlemen, do exactly what they please, and the unfortunate peasantry are the sufferers. In Moldavia, the 'good old plan,' 'that they should

take who have the power, and they should keep who can,' seems to form the whole legal code of the district. Robberies are committed day by day with impunity, and if an example ever chances to be made, twenty to one but the sufferer is not the culprit, although, as Prince Ghika quaintly observed on one occasion, when the wrong man was put to death, if he had lived another twelve months he would have been sure to deserve it.'

To give an instance of Moldavian justice, we may state a case that came under our own observation, and which actually took place at Jassy, the seat of the government. An Englishman, who had been residing for some years in the Principalities, and who, in addition to his business as a horse-breeder, was endeavouring to introduce the most modern improvements in agriculture, a man, too, whose profession brought him much in contact with the chief nobility of the country, was owed a large sum of money, due for horses, threshing-machines, subsoil ploughs, &c., by one of the principal boyards of Moldavia. The money was not forthcoming, it was inconvenient for the boyard to pay; the Englishman had sunk a good deal of capital, it was inconvenient for him to wait. Perhaps he was a little clamorous for his rights-perhaps he forgot he was a good way east of Temple-Bar, and allowed his tongue a freedom which that member is supposed to possess in Great Britain only. One evening he was arrested in his own house, taken from his wife and family, and put into close confinement in a madhouse. In vain he protested, in vain he threatened and vowed vengeance; there he remained for five weeks, at the end of which period he was released in as unceremonious a manner as had been observed in his confinement, receiving at the same time a hint that he was fortunate to get off so cheap. Redress there was none; and to this day he has neither obtained compensation for the injury, nor been paid one farthing of the debt which was the original cause of the outrage. True enough, such an act of injustice to a British subject could not have been perpetrated in Wallachia: we have a

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consul at Bucharest, who is as distinguished for his firmness and decision of character, as for the tact and courtesy which his very peculiar position demands; but Jassy is a long way from Bucharest, and although, if justice be ever done to the sufferer, it will be due to the exertions of the gentleman to whom we allude, we believe the loser is hopelessly resigned to a transaction that has entailed ruin upon himself and his family. Why, the Austrian yoke, with all its cumbrous machinery of police and spies, and registers and passports, would be preferable to such a state of things as this, although we question much whether the Wallachians and Moldavians themselves would assent to such a proposition.

Doubtless it would be a very perfect thing to have the Principalities added to the Kaisar-land,' and the whole empire, so to speak, in a ringfence; doubtless the policy of Austria ought never to lose sight of such a valuable acquisition, and the tenacity of purpose which has been displayed by her imperial neighbour as regards Turkey would not be inappropriate to the successor of the Cæsars, in reference to the Dacia of antiquity. It was last year a common topic of conversation amongst foreigners, gravely to discuss the dismemberment of Europe, totally irrespective of meum and tuum, in the following proportions: Why should not France have Turkey in Europe; England, Syria and the whole of Asiatic Turkey; Austria, the Principalities? and Russia?-oh, you will give Russia back the Crimea, when you have taken it-then make Constantinople a Hanseatic town under the protection of the Great Powers. Nothing could be easier, mon cher, was the French view of the transaction: 'you get up an émeute, a revolt, against the Sultan ; you march out a column of infantry and a couple of nine-pounders to put it down, and to place the Sultan in safety, under our protection, in one of his palaces on the Bosphorus. We assume the reins of government, fusiller all the insurgents whom we had excited to rebel, and who consequently tell no tales; et voilà l'affaire finie. It wants only the opportunity and the man.' Such is