the high road to the east—roumania and the carpathian mountains—thracians and dacians, and how the latter had dealings with emperor trajan—the roumanians, their origin, story, and present condition—the “tsigani”—tales of hunyadi janos, knjes lazar, michael the brave, and others—the story of ghika the cats’-meat man—roumania and the balkan conflict—a morning in the carpathian forests—bucharest—the roumanian army.
it was with strangely mingled feelings that i left london one saturday evening, left the capital of one great empire supposed to rest on firm foundations, considered strong in the council of nations, to visit the heart of yet another empire once considered mighty and of weighty influence in europe, now tottering to its fall with alarming rapidity, under the staggering blows of four small peoples, young and purposeful, unspoilt by wealth and power.
the lights of dover gleamed steadily in a black sky, the dark waters gave back broken reflections from a brilliantly lit liner making her stately way down channel, as the throbbing turbines carried our little ship towards the east. a grey morning rose over the dutch landscape, shrouded trees reflected heavily in the sullen waters of dykes and canals. a grey sky hung heavily over the teeming life{18} of industrial westphalia, and broke into heavy drops of rain over the wide plains of hanover, and poured in torrents into the well-lit streets of berlin, the “ville lumière” of europe since paris relinquished the splendour of an imperial court.
from berlin my road turned to south-east, past prosperous cities such as frankfort-on-the-oder, breslau, towards that corner of europe where three empires meet on what was once part of the picturesque kingdom of poland, long since forced into the realm of things forgotten by those three powers that meet here. it is a gloomy country, black and ungainly in its tense industrial existence.
as it were, subconsciously, i felt like one hurrying to the death-bed of a friend; strange, for i have no reason to consider the turk my friend. indeed, though i like the individual turks i have met, i cannot summon up a really friendly feeling for a power which has deliberately mis-governed its varied subjects, has times out of number countenanced, even encouraged, acts the remembrance of which makes the heart sick. yet in spite of reasoning, that feeling of hurrying to the death-bed of a friend never left me, but it had in it something of the antagonism which, as psychologists declare, is an ingredient of the love of a man for a woman. no doubt pity was mingled with this feeling, pity for a mighty race of conquerors now humbled to the dust, however much those ruling them be to blame; again there was anxiety as to the fate of the beautiful city, the city of constantine, my destination; fear, a nameless fear, filled me, the son of a great empire, as i thought over the fate of another empire found unprepared to uphold a position it insisted upon, and therefore rudely awakened and thrust aside by young, strong nations whose sons know not how to shirk responsibility, neither do the men{19} and women of those peoples shun any sacrifice to gain what they whole-heartedly desire.
this strange feeling that obsessed me became stronger as i left well-ordered germany behind, and felt the subtle influence of the east on entering austrian territory. in the first place the traveller’s comfort is affected, for german orderliness makes way to austrian laisser-aller, resulting in a want of cleanliness in the railway carriages. apologists say that this state is due to the many polish jews who freely use their cheap season tickets; this might account for the dirty condition of third-class carriages when packed with worthies in greasy gaberdines, with ringlets dangling down from either temple; it is no pleasure to pass through a third-class carriage on your way to the dining-car. however well this excuse may serve, i found no attempted cleanliness in any other class while travelling through austrian territory, and it seemed that the roumanian railway authorities do not set much store by the god-like virtue either, at least as far as the accommodation of travellers is concerned.
throughout my travels i have found that romance and picturesqueness are seldom separated from dirt, and, fortunately, the former may often outbalance the latter. the world of romance became gently insistent as the railroad left the teeming coalfields of prussian poland behind and passed on to places famous in the history of the kingdom of poland—cracow, still a centre of the refined and gracious intellectuality which characterizes polish nobility. then, again, there is przemysl (hopeless the effort to pronounce it), yet it is the name of a mighty dynasty which reigned over bohemia from here for at least a century in those days when the christian world was moving eastward as crusaders, under frederick barbarossa, and for a short time ousted the greek{20} emperors from the seat of constantine in favour of the latin emperors, baldwin and his successors. here, again, empires have gone under and their lands have been divided among younger races. we hurry on ever to south-east, and shortly enter a land which was formerly a portion of the empire now on its death-bed—moldavia, a province of roumania.
roumania is a very interesting country, and i must own to a kind of spell which its past history and its present prosperity cast upon me. the former is stirring indeed. memories of histories i had read came crowding in upon me as i travelled through moldavia, the country separated from russia by the pruth, watered by the sereth and its tributaries, moldava, bistritza, and others that come down from the carpathian mountains into the fertile plain. the carpathians, snow-tipped, densely wooded on their lower slopes, accompanied me in the blue distance, until about the latitude of galatz they turned away to westward, curving round in their southern range until they meet the danube at orsova, and force it to narrow down to a third of its stately width in order to pass through the iron gates. i thought of all those hordes of wandering barbarians whose course was deflected by the carpathians, showing again how nature’s barriers form the destinies of men. streams of savages poured into this valley from the plains of western russia. who were the first inhabitants is matter of conjecture: scythians probably occupied the eastern districts, thracians and dacians were found by trajan in the western part. trajan conquered the dacians in his campaign of 101-106 a.d., and founded a colony called dacia trajana. the column to this emperor’s honour, in rome, sets forth the story of his conquest. the dacians were by no means easy people to deal with, and rome—imperial rome—had much trouble with{21} decebal, their king, who was finally vanquished, and committed suicide in order to escape from the disgrace of following the conqueror’s triumphal chariot through the roman forum.
among the roman remains scattered about the western parts of roumania are the bridge-heads at turn severin and the ruined tower of severus in the public gardens of that thriving township. it is supposed by the roumanians themselves that they are descended from the roman colonists of dacia trajana, and they point to their language in evidence. theirs is indeed a latin tongue, but language is often a false guide in the difficult and intricate paths of ethnology. it seems to me open to doubt that rome of the second century could have afforded a sufficiently large supply of emigrants to people a large colony; and that the whole roumanian nation should be descended from the roman legionaries seems unlikely, for in the first instance it does not follow that the legionaries were all romans, or even latins, and again, if they had been, there would have been only a small proportion of them who would be permitted to bring wives and families with them. moreover, the roman tenure of the land was short, only about a century and a half, as in 270 the goths streamed in from the north-east, obliging emperor aurelian to withdraw his troops into the province of moesia, subsequently called dacia aureliana. the goths were not inclined to settle anywhere in those days; they simply plundered and murdered as they went along, and probably left no definite impression on the races they were pleased to visit. we shall meet them again nearer constantinople.
huns and gepidi probably left stronger traces in the population of the former roman province of dacia trajana when they swarmed through it in the middle of the fifth{22} century, and i am inclined to think that in the middle of the next century the invading avari made a deeper impression. slavs and bulgars forced their way here, and of the former many traces have been found, leading to the supposition that they enter largely into the composition of the roumanian people. the hungarians may have contributed something towards building up the present people of roumania, when they marched through in 830, and subsequent slav races, such as the petschenegs in 900 and the kumani, tartars, in 1050, probably added their quota. at any rate german influence had vanished, and slavs and finns (bulgars), with detachments of other wandering races united, blended into one, and it is thus that the roumanian nation of to-day may be said to have originated. dacia of roman days extended well into hungary of the present day, transylvania, and the banat, with the present divisions of roumania, being a number of duchies still called dacia in those days, though imperial rome had long abandoned the part of “weltmacht.” in the tenth and eleventh centuries, no doubt owing to the intervening carpathians, transylvania and the banat became subject to hungary, while the duchies of wallachia and moldavia crystallized into political entities, and were found to be sufficiently powerful to keep out the kumani and check the tartars in the fourteenth century.
towards the end of the fourteenth century yet another race came into dacia from out of the east, driven from their homes in india by tamerlane. they are known by various names, and are spread all over europe. we call them gipsies, the germans “zigeuner,” from “tsigani,” the name by which they are known in eastern europe. they call themselves romanies, probably because they made roumania their home, and here they are to be found in great numbers. their language is roumanian, though{23} they have acquired many others in the course of their wanderings. wherever they go they bring music with them, grand epics, love-songs, quaint little popular ditties, which they sing to the accompaniment of string instruments. it is these tsigani who have been instrumental in keeping alive the traditions of a great past among the peoples of the balkan countries. together with religion, their songs have helped to preserve the national identity of roumanians and serbs, have fostered racial ambitions, and inspired heroes to fight for freedom. they sing in soul-stirring epics of stephan dushan, of great voivods who led men to battle, of hunyadi janos and his paladins, of ill-fated knjes lazar, whose army of crusaders went under in a sea of blood before the sword of othman on the amselfeld at kossovo, since recaptured by the serbs. their songs tell of great men rulers of the independent principalities of wallachia and moldavia; of michael the brave, who lived when henri iv was king of france. michael showed the osmanli that it is vain to attempt the suppression of a strong race and its religion. no doubt the attempt seemed successful for a while; cantomir of moldavia and brancovan of wallachia, allied to peter the great of russia, suffered defeat at the hands of the turks on the banks of the pruth, and had to submit to the rule of greek hospodars, placed in power by the porte, for a period of fifty-eight years.
the duchies, like greater powers in eastern europe, were unable for long to withstand the influence of the latest race to come from out of the east, and became subject to the osmanli. during troubled centuries of turkish suzerainty the roumanian people preserved their faith, their national characteristics, and this enabled them to rise as a young, strong race when the hour of deliverance came. they had absorbed from their conquerors a number of able{24} men, whose descendants have since identified themselves with the ambitions of roumania, whose names are writ large on the tablets of fame among those who helped to make roumania free. of one of these the following story is told. there lived in stamboul a gentle, business-like armenian, by trade a cats’-meat man. among his customers he noticed an elderly, dejected individual who was very particular in his choice of the daily morsel of meat, choosing liver as a rule. now it struck the armenian that possibly this daily purchase might be meant for human consumption, instead of for the delectation of a pet cat; careful inquiries led to the following discovery. his customer was an old servant, the only one who had remained true to his master, and that master, once grand vizier, had fallen from his high estate on very evil times. the armenian cats’-meat man thereupon thought fit to be charitable, provided his customer with better wares, and suggested that payment might be deferred until a brighter day. by one of those turns of the wheel not unusual in oriental countries, the former grand vizier rose from poverty and rags to power again, and decided to reward the armenian. considering that one candidate for the vacant post of vali of moldavia was likely to be as bad as another, he decided to thus endow the cats’-meat man, who possibly developed unsuspected talent in his new line of business. at any rate, he is the putative ancestor of one of roumania’s greatest princely houses, the ghika family. there are descendants of yet more ancient families still to be found in roumania, amongst them some cantacuzene, of byzantine fame.
roumania followed greece and servia in wresting its freedom from the turk, and the convention of paris in 1856 assured the autonomous rights of the principalities, their union into one state, and constitutional government. a native magnate, colonel alexander cusa, ruled as prince{25} alexander john i for ten years, and although his election to that position was not in exact accordance with the treaty of paris, was nevertheless sanctioned by the powers. this prince resigned in 1866, and as a count of flanders, younger brother of the king of the belgians, declined the invitation to succeed him, prince charles of hohenzollern sigmaringen accepted it as carol i. in 1877 roumania declared herself completely independent of turkey, much against russia’s wishes, and ceased to pay tribute to the porte. this precipitated the war against turkey, and three divisions of roumanian troops, some 35,000 men, with 108 guns, led by their prince, joined the russian forces. prince charles himself fired the first shot at vidin, and his gallant troops followed him on to victory. they particularly distinguished themselves by spirited bayonet attacks at plevna, and it was to the roumanian troops that osman pasha surrendered. roumania was not called to the conference at s. stefano, and had to trust to russia’s good offices in order to get her independence fully recognized. for this kindness russia annexed fruitful bessarabia, leaving to roumania the swamps of the dobrutsha. on the 22nd (10th) of may, 1881, the hohenzollern prince was crowned king of roumania, having been duly proclaimed by both chambers of the country’s parliament. he rules still, and wisely, over a prosperous country of 50,702 square miles, with a population of six to seven millions.
the majority of the people of roumania belong to the orthodox greek church, have so far lived in peace with their neighbours, and are happy and prosperous. but they have not remained unaffected by the desperate events which brought such an upheaval to the other balkan states. there is among the younger generation considerable discontent at the supposed subservience of{26} roumania’s foreign policy to the dictates of her mighty friend, austria. it is argued that if austria had not vetoed roumania’s mobilization on the outbreak of the balkan war, that war might have been stopped. as matters stand at present, many roumanians think that they have missed an opportunity of getting some useful trifle of territory for themselves, or that they have been deprived of opportunity, and are consequently very sore about it. so here, too, threatening clouds obscure the political horizon.
it would be a ghastly sequel to the indecision of the great powers if this plucky little kingdom were called upon to face an invader, if grim-visaged war were to cast its shadow over the fair fields and fertile plains of roumania. the rich soil produces abundance of wheat, maize, and other cereals, and would produce more but for the summer droughts. i have seen the rich yellow maize being garnered, and have watched the golden wealth of corn shipped into boats and barges on the danube, to be taken down to braila, galatz, and thence onward to feed other countries less bountifully supplied. then there are vast forests, another source of wealth. it is only a few weeks ago that i was tramping over crisp snow in the shade of close-standing forest trees. a friend had asked me to go out with him after wild boar. it was a glorious day; cool greys and purples in the forest, with here and there a patch of rich brown soil, and through the trees the sun, in a clear blue sky, drew radiance from the snow, and showed up on a background of dark green firs the golden glory of larches, the red and russet leaves of wild cherry, and other trees, on which the foliage still lingered ere the winter storms set in. winter is very severe in this country, and wolves come down from the mountains to the villages in the plains in search of their prey. there is other game in plenty; bear may be found in the depths of the carpathian{27} forests, and the wild cat, in thick black and grey striped coat, steals through the undergrowth like his larger kinsmen of the jungle.
bucharest, the capital of roumania, is a town for which i have a sincere liking. it is not a large place, only some 300,000, but it is a well-planned town, gay, just a little wicked, and above all, the inhabitants insist on the best of music, and get it at such places as the continental hotel, where you can dine well to the strains of an excellent gipsy orchestra.
roumania occupies a position of some danger in the complex polity of south-east europe. to eastward, across the pruth, looms the massive strength of russia, never yet put to a severe test, so that its power is still an unknown quantity. to southward across the danube live the bulgarians, a strong, ambitious people, and, as far as i can ascertain, not on the friendliest terms with roumania. but behind roumania is the empire of kaiser franz josef, and austrian influence is strong, especially in the industrial life of roumania. it would be piteous to carry war into this happy country, with its flourishing agriculture, its prosperous oil-fields, at bustenari, campi?a, etc. but roumania has taken due precautions; a navy of some seventy-five small but well-appointed vessels guards roumanian interests on the black sea coast; they may be seen occasionally on the lower reaches of the danube, by the huge bridge that carries the railway over to constanza, the brighton of the black sea littoral, or perhaps trouville is a more apt comparison. here also ends the wall which trajan built from the danube across the narrowest part of the dobrutsha.
then, again, the roumanian army is well able to hold its own. the war establishment of the regular army, well trained and well equipped, numbers 175,000 troops, more{28} by three-quarters than great britain’s expeditionary force. to this should be added a territorial force of excellent quality of about equal numbers, altogether a formidable obstacle to any one who wishes to interfere with roumania’s position in the world. for this adequate defence roumania pays somewhat less than two and a half millions.
as i wrote this the political horizon of roumania was dark with heavy storm-clouds, for her eastern neighbour is like to be drawn into the strife which is altering the state of southern europe, the onslaught of the southern slav nations on their old oppressors at constantinople. the southern frontier of roumania at least was safe, for the bulgarians were hammering now at the gates of constantinople, pouring out their blood like water by the lines of chatalja.
