From all these conjectures, however, this conclusion can be drawn,—that as long as the principalities remain under Turkish influence, their mineralogic riches will be buried in obscurity and oblivion. The rivers Dimbovitza and Argis, taking their sources in the Carpathians, and crossing Wallachia to fall into the Danube, carry along a considerable quantity of grains of gold. The gypsies that belong to government are employed in picking them out of the sand when the waters are low; and they are allowed to pay their tribute partly from the fruits of this labour.
The trade of Wallachia and Moldavia, notwithstanding that it labours under a variety of restrictions and partial prohibitions, is one of their most important sources of opulence. Its details are little known, and less noticed beyond the neighbouring countries, although they are by no means deserving of inattention.
Of the common productions of the soil, the most abundant is wheat, of which the two principalities are supposed to give an annual return of ten millions of killows,[[24]] although hardly one-sixth part of their extensive and fertile plains is cultivated, and that a certain space of this is sown by Indian corn, barley, and hemp.
The other productions, proportionably important in a commercial point of view, are the bees-wax, honey, butter, cheese, hides, timber, staves, and ship-masts of all sizes and descriptions; and an annual supply of five hundred thousand hare-skins, six hundred thousand okes[[25]] of yellow-berries, and forty thousand kintals[[26]] of sheep’s wool.
The three last-mentioned articles are alone perfectly free of exportation; the remainder are kept at the disposal of the Turkish government; and it is only in times of abundance, after the usual supplies have been fixed upon for the granaries and arsenal of Constantinople, that leave can be obtained to employ in foreign trade any portion of them. The exportation of wheat alone is considered as under a permanent prohibition; it is not in the power of the Hospodars to suffer any of it to be taken out of the country on private speculation; they must be authorised so to do by Ferman, a permit which is never granted to Rayahs, and very seldom to other Europeans, as the foreign ministers accredited at the Porte, aware of the difficulty of obtaining it, and the value that the Ottoman government would set in the gift of it, prefer abstaining altogether from applications on the subject, more especially as their success would only be profitable to some individuals, without being productive of any permanent good to the trade at large.
The quality of the Wallachian wheat is inferior, but it is far from being bad; that of Moldavia is better, and not differing much from the Polish wheat. Their ordinary price stands between 2 and 2½ piasters per killow. As an article of general trade, the charges upon it from the Danube to Constantinople, would hardly amount to one piaster more. The Turkish government send their own ships every year to transport their share of it, which is each time fixed at 1,500,000 killows, as well as the other articles necessary to their use, the quantity of which is not fixed, though generally very considerable.
The Moldavian timber is far better than that of Wallachia; it is of the finest oak, and perfectly well calculated for the construction of vessels. A great number of ships in the Turkish fleet are built of it, and fitted out with masts and ropes of Moldavian growth and origin. In the two provinces, these articles are sold at the lowest possible prices, and indeed the same thing may be said of all the prohibited articles; which, restricted as they are, from the monopoly arrogated by the Porte, have but little demand, except for the local consumption.
The hare-skins commonly stand at 35 paras[[27]] each, in large purchases, and the yellow-berries may be had at 40 or 45 paras per oke. The usual method of securing any quantity of these two articles at the lowest prices, is by bespeaking them at the different villages, and paying something in advance; the villagers engaged in such contracts never fail to fulfil them in proper time.
The hare-skins are of the first quality, but the yellow-berries are inferior to those of Smyrna, and only demanded when the crops in Asia Minor have proved deficient.
The sheep’s wool is considered to be very good: cleaned and washed, it is sold at about 60 paras per oke, or 66 piasters per kintal, when in its original state, it is offered at 35 to 40 paras.