A deep analysis of international character has led me to the conclusion that, in a contingency like the present, one Englishman may be fairly balanced against a trifling majority of some twenty thousand other mixed races; so I put forward my candidate, expressing a conviction that my countryman would in no way fall short of the national standard which demands that every Englishman shall do his duty.
“Very well,” said my friend, half reluctantly, “let us ask ‘Der Engländer,’ if you really think it safe.” So after I had pledged my honor that the country’s security would in nowise be imperilled, I secured the valuable and agreeable companionship of Mr. P——, and we set out once more, a small party of four people, with the requisite number of guides and baggage-horses.
This second expedition was to be conducted on a somewhat different principle from the first; for, instead of taking up our quarters at one given point, we proposed wandering over the mountains in true gypsy fashion, sleeping wherever we happened to find shelter in shepherds’ huts or foresters’ lodges, or, in the absence of these, camping under a sail-cloth tent we carried with us. It had been planned that we were to remain out fully ten days, returning by a different route, and making a short excursion into Roumania.
We drove to the foot of the hills, and then commenced our ascent from a Roumanian village, where the white-veiled women plying the distaff in front of their doors sent us courteous salutations as we passed. The weather was radiantly beautiful, the atmosphere of a faultless transparency, without a breath of air to hasten the falling leaves, or a cloud to mar the effect of the deep-blue vault. There were still wild flowers enough—campanulas, gentians, and wild carnations—growing on the steep grassy slopes, to make us fancy ourselves in midsummer; and the gaudy insects disporting themselves thereon—butterflies blue and purple, gold and scarlet grasshoppers, and shining bronze beetles—were as many brilliant impostors luring us on to the belief that winter was still far away.
But the furry caterpillars scuttling across our path at headlong speed, in their haste to wrap themselves up in their warm winter cocoons, knew better; and so did the ring-doves and martens, which, with other tribes of migrating birds, were all winging it swiftly towards the south, making dark streaks in the blue sky overhead.
For our part, we felt it almost too hot to walk uphill in the sun, and were thankful when, after an hour’s ascent, we gained the shade of the dense pine forests which, without admixture of beech, clothe all this part of the country.
There is no sense of monotony in these beautiful pine woods, though one may walk in them for many days without reaching the end of the forest, for no two parts of it are alike, and surprises await us at every turn. Thus one region is distinguished by a profusion of coral ornaments, the huge red toadstools, sprouting everywhere on the emerald moss, looking like monster sugar-plums which have fallen from these gigantic Christmas-trees; then suddenly a new transformation takes place, and we are walking in a mermaid’s grove far beneath the sea—for are not the trees here adorned with tremulous hangings of palest green sea-weed? Yet this is no other than a lichen, the Usnea barbata, or bearded moss, also called Rübezahl’s hair, which with such strange perversity will sometimes seize upon a whole forest district, thus fantastically decking it out in this long, wavy fluff, hanging from each twig and branch in fringes and bunches like a profusion of gray-green icicles; while elsewhere, under apparently the self-same conditions of soil and vegetation, we may seek for it in vain.
Farther on we come upon a scene still more weird and suggestive, as we seem to have stepped unawares into a land of ghosts. Hundreds of dead fir-trees, bleached and dry, are standing here upright and stark. Untouched by the storm, and unbroken by old age, with every branch and twig intact, they have been stricken to the heart’s core by a treacherous enemy, the Borkenkäfer (Bostrichus typographus), a small but baneful insect, which for years past has been plying its deadly craft, and, vampire-like, sapping their life away. It is a relief to quit this death-like region, and return to the exuberant life expressed in every line of those gorgeous trees, growing scarce fifty paces ahead of their stricken brethren, whose lower branches, weighed down beneath the burden of their own magnificence, have sunk to the ground, where they lie voluptuously embedded in the rank luxuriance of the moss-woven grass. Yet here, too, the deadly insect will come, in scarce half a dozen years, to turn those emerald giants into staring white ghosts. Day by day it is creeping nearer, and though they know it not, those deluded trees, their days are already counted. Let us pass on; life is not blither than death after all!
Our first halt was made at La Dus, a small group of huts tenanted in summer by Hungarian gendarmes, there stationed for the purpose of keeping a lookout on smugglers and possible military deserters, who may hope to evade service by concealing themselves among the shepherds, or going over the frontier into Roumania. The immediate surroundings of this little establishment are somewhat bleak and desolate, the forest having been of late much cleared out at this spot. A tiny cemetery behind the houses seems to act the part of pleasure-ground as well; for right in its centre, separating the seven or eight graves into two rows, is a primitive skittle-ground—which curious arrangement can only be explained by the supposition that here the skittles had the right of priority, the dead men being but dissipated interlopers, who, having loved to play at skittles during their lifetime, desired to be united to them even in death. The remains of a camp-fire I observed in one corner was another sign of the peculiar way the defunct are treated in this obscure church-yard, the ashes on closer investigation showing the charred wrecks of some of the crosses and railings missing from more than one grave.
In a wooden châlet reserved for the occasional visits of inspection of a head forester we obtained night-quarters, proceeding next morning on our way, which again took us through similar pine woods, reaching this time a comfortable shooting-lodge lying deep in the forest of Bistra, where we were made welcome by a hospitable Roumanian game-keeper and four or five remarkably amiable pointers, which threatened to stifle us with their affectionate demonstrations.