Round About the Carpathians

by Andrew F. Crosse

Not even the ten hours of undisturbed consecutive repose in the downy bed at the Mehadia hotel had made up the deficiency of sleep during the foregoing week, and drowsiness overcame us. I think we must have had a couple of hours of monotonous jog-trot on the fairly level road when I fell asleep, and I suppose my companions did the same.

I must have slept long and profoundly, for when I woke, pulling myself together with some difficulty, having slept in the form of a doubled-up zigzag, I found it was daylight. I was surprised that we were not moving; I rubbed my eyes, and looked out at the back of the cart, and there I saw a round tower on a slight eminence, encircled by a belt of fir-wood, the very counterpart of a pretty bit of scenery I had noticed in the twilight. I looked again, and sure enough it was just the tower itself and no other, and the very same belt of wood. The explanation was not far to seek. I was the first to wake up in our "fast coach." Every mortal soul—and there were five of us, besides the four horses—had, it seems, gone to sleep much about the same time that I did. The magic sleep of eld must have fallen upon us. The simple fact was, we had passed the night in the middle of the highroad. Was there ever anything so ridiculous?

We were about seven miles from Mehadia; I knew the country perfectly well. Of course we made a confounded row with the idiot of a driver, who certainly had been hired—not to go to sleep. I have known these Wallacks drive for miles in a state of somnolency, the horses generally keeping in the "safe middle course" of their own accord. As there were some awkward turns not far ahead of us, it was perhaps just as well that the horses stopped on this occasion.

Well, we jogged on all that day, reaching Karansebes between one and two o'clock. We had been some eighteen hours on the road!

Here F—— and I parted, my friend returning to Uibanya, while I pursued my way to Transylvania.

I slept the night at Karansebes, rising very early; indeed I started soon after four o'clock. I was again on my little Servian horse, who was quite fresh after his long rest, and I saw no reason why I should not reach Hatszeg the same evening, as the distance is not more than forty-five miles. About two miles from Karansebes I passed a hill crowned with a picturesque ruin, locally called Ovid's Tower. Tradition fondly believes that Ovid spent the last years of his banishment, not on the shores of the stormy Euxine, but in the tranquillity of these lovely valleys. Certain it is that the name and fame of many of the great Romans are still known to the Wallacks; and the story is told by Mr Boner, that they have a catechism which teaches the children to say that they have Ovid and Virgil for their ancestors, and that they are descended from demigods!

On my way I passed the villages of Ohaba, Marga, and Bukova. On arriving at Varhely, or Gradischtie, as it is called in Wallack language, I found that it was worth while to stay the night, for the sake of having the afternoon to examine the Roman remains scattered about the neighbourhood.

The Wallack villages I had passed through were very miserable-looking places: they are generally in the south of Transylvania. The houses are mostly mere wattled wigwams, without chimneys; a patch of garden, rudely hurdled in, with the addition of a high stockaded enclosure for cattle. Some of the women are extremely pretty, and, as I have said before, the costume can be very picturesque; but they are often seen extremely dirty, in which case the filthy fringe garment gives them the appearance of savages.

Varhely is conspicuous for its dirt even among Wallachian villages, yet once it was a royal town. It is built on the site of the famous Sarmisegethusa, the capital of ancient Dacia. In Trajan's second expedition against Decebalus, King of the Dacians, he came from Orsova on the Danube by the same route that forms the highroad of this day—the same I had traversed in my way hither. It is curious to reflect how nation succeeding nation tread in each other's footsteps, through the self-same valley, beneath the shadow of the old hills. Here they have trudged, old Dacian gold-seekers, returning from the daily labours of washing the auriferous sands of the mountain streams; here, too, have tramped victorious Roman soldiers—Avars, Tartars, Turks, and other intruders. A long and motley cavalcade has history marshalled along this route for two thousand years and more!

The old Dacians were strong enough we know to exact a yearly tribute from Domitian: it was for this insult that Trajan marched upon Dacia, defeating Decebalus at Klausenburg, in the heart of Transylvania, which was at the time their greatest strong-hold. It was after this that the Dacian king retreated upon Sarmisegethusa, and there Trajan came down upon them through the Iron Gate Pass. Unable to defend themselves, the Dacians set fire to their royal city and fled to the mountains. On these ruins the Romans, ever ready to appropriate a good site, erected the city of Ulpia Trajana, connecting it by good roads with the existing Roman colonies at Karlsburg and Klausenburg.