We were visited at the palisades by the British and Austrian Consuls; and by a Prussian gentleman, who, on our arrival at Constantinople, had been in the service of the Sultan, which he had now exchanged for that of the Hospodar of Moldavia. We had made his acquaintance at the Military College, and he had been long on the look-out for us at Galatz.
He appeared perfectly satisfied with his new speculation, and talked much of his enjoyment of the liberty of this new locality; a liberty in which we were unfortunately not permitted to share. And such being the case, we bade adieu to our friends on the town side of the fence; and, after having ascertained that the Pannonia steamer, which should have been on the spot ready to receive us, would not reach Galatz until late at night, we determined on rowing across to the opposite shore of Silistria, in order to relieve our ennui.
Bread and wine having been provided, we accordingly prepared for our excursion; the captain’s gig was lowered; and I had the honour of being rowed across the Danube by the most aristocratic boat’s crew that had probably ever “caught crabs” in its muddy waters; all the seamen belonging to the vessel being employed in lading and unlading merchandize.
Nothing could exceed the wretchedness of the little hamlet that was seated along the edge of a creek, into which we passed when we had gained the Silistrian side of the river. The low hovels, rudely built of mud, and roofed with reeds, were lighted by windows of oiled lambskin; the floors were of earth; and nothing more cheerful than twilight could penetrate into the single apartment which served for “kitchen, and parlour, and hall.” Not the slightest attempt at a garden was visible, though the village stood upon the verge of an extensive wild, stretching away far as the eye could reach, and covered with redundant, although stunted, vegetation. The ground-ash, the caper-tree, the gum-cistus, the wild hollyhock, the flag-reed, and the water-willow were abundant; while patches of white clover and vetches were scattered about in every direction.
As the Baron E—— was lame, and unable to undertake a long walk, he with some difficulty procured a horse that had just been released from a waggon, the ragged peasant to whom it belonged not being proof against the sight of a purse, which was shook before him as the most efficient language that could be employed to enforce the demand: and, when the laughing German had mounted the packsaddle, armed with his meerschaum and cane, and grasped the knotted rope that served as a substitute for a bridle, he was by no means the least picturesque of the party.
We had not long pursued the path leading to the village whither we were bound, when we heard the salute fired at mid-day by the Ferdinand, in honour of His Highness the Hospodar of Moldavia, who chanced to be residing temporarily at Galatz; and to whom, as he was particularly solicitous to facilitate by every means in his power the local arrangements of the steam-company, they were careful to pay all due honour; and indeed somewhat more, as they gave him a salute of one-and-twenty guns, that came booming along the wild through which we were wandering, and echoing over the waters of the little stream that bordered it; startling the birds by which the river-willows were tenanted, and dispelling momently the deep silence of the wide solitude.
When, after a walk of considerable length, we reached the hamlet that was the object of our excursion, we excited universal attention and astonishment among the women and children who crowded the cottage doors, and who were universally clad in coarse white linen; the females wearing huge silver earrings, round bracelets of coloured glass, and rings of every dimension. All were barefooted; and the children, who huddled together in groups to gaze upon the passing strangers, were wretched-looking little mortals, with their light hair hanging in elf-locks about their ears, and their rags fluttering in the breeze. The hovels were universally built of mud, and roofed with reeds and the long leaves of the Indian-corn; with chimneys of basket-work. In short, I never beheld a more thorough demonstration of the fact that human necessities actually exceed but little those of the inferior animals, and that the thousand wants which grow up around civilization are merely factitious. These isolated individuals were scantly and coarsely clothed; fed almost entirely upon vegetables and the black wheaten bread, of which the grain was grown in their own gardens; Indian corn that supplied them at once with food, fuel, and bedding; lodged in hovels better suited to cattle than to human beings: and yet they were not merely healthful and happy, but, as I have already noticed, they had their innocent vanities, and indulged in all the glories of coloured glass trinkets.
The only men whom we saw in the hamlet were engaged in packing water-melons into the wicker bullock-cars destined to convey them to the market at Galatz; and of some of these we immediately possessed ourselves. A shawl flung over the tall stems of some flag-reeds, and propped by a rake, was soon converted into an awning for me, and we made a most primitive and delicious meal, seated on the fresh grass among the wild flowers. As we sauntered quietly back to the river-side, we collected some of the shells that had been driven up the creek by the river tide; and captured a fine tortoise that was sunning itself on the turf, which we carried on board; where we returned tolerably fatigued with our ramble in the wilds of Silistria.
We were amusing ourselves on deck after dinner by watching the passage of the canoes which the natives impel by a wooden paddle precisely after the manner of the Indians, when we observed half a dozen men rushing down upon a little wooden pier immediately under the stern of the Ferdinand, where we had previously remarked two gaudy-looking boats, painted in immense stripes of red and blue. Nor were the group who sprang into the largest of them less remarkable than the boats themselves; and we had some difficulty in persuading ourselves that they were the boatmen of the Prince, and not a party of Tyrolean ballet-dancers. They wore broad flapped hats, bound by a ribbon of red and blue, hanging in long ends upon their shoulders, and ornamented in front by a large M, worked in gold: their shirts and trowsers were of white, with braces and garters of red and blue; while wide scarlet sashes, fringed at the extremities, completed their costume. The Moldavian banner was hastily affixed to the stern of the boat; and then a party of servants thronged the pier, who were succeeded by a couple of aides-de-camp, and a grave elderly gentleman in an oriental dress; and lastly arrived the Princess, a middle-aged, plain-looking person, attended by three ladies, who were duly cloaked and shawled by the obsequious aides-de-camp.
During this process the guns of the Ferdinand were once more prepared; and the fantastically-clad boatmen had not dipped their oars thrice into the stream, and Her Highness the Hospodaress was yet under the stern of the ship, when bang went the first gun, with a flash and a peal that somewhat discomposed her nerves; and she raised her arm deprecatingly towards the Captain, who stood bare-headed near the wheel; but the gesture was unheeded.