There are many coachmakers, both at Bukorest and at Yassi; but the carriages sent from Vienna are preferred to theirs, and much higher prices are paid for them. The Boyars are indifferent as to their solidity, and buy any old vehicle that is made up to deceive the eye, and is offered as new; fine ornaments being the only quality in estimation, every twelve or eighteen months they are obliged to purchase a new carriage. On another hand, their own inattention, and the lazy, slovenly, and careless habits of their coachmen, render this annual expense indispensable.
No coaches of any kind are to be hired, so that travellers, and other non-residents, must submit to the necessity of going on foot. Private lodgings are also seldom to be had, and it was but very lately that a public hotel was set up at Bukorest, which, being well furnished, and provided with every requisite commodity, has become very useful to travellers. A German is the proprietor and director of it.
The mode of travelling in the two principalities is so expeditious, that in this respect it is not equalled in any other country. Their post establishments are well organized; there are post-houses in all directions, and they are abundantly provided with horses. Every idea of comfort must, however, be set aside by those who are willing to conform themselves to the common method of riding post. A kind of a vehicle is given, which is not unlike a very small crate for earthenware, fastened to four small wheels, by the means of wooden pegs, and altogether not higher than a common wheel-barrow. It is filled with straw, and the traveller sits in the middle of it, keeping the upper part of his body in an erect posture, and finding great difficulty to cram his legs within. Four horses are attached to it by cords, which form the whole harness; and, driven by one postilion on horseback, they set off at full speed, and neither stop nor slacken their pace, until they reach the next post-house. Within the distance of half a mile from it, the postilion gives warning of his approach by a repeated and great cracking of his whip, so that, by the time of arrival, another cart is got ready to receive the traveller.
The Boyars, and other people of respectability in the country, travel in their own carriages, and at their own pace. In winter, as the snow lies about two months on the ground, sledges are generally used, as well in town as in the country.
The Wallachian breed of horses is of a peculiar kind. Their stature is very small, and they have no spirit; but they are strong, active, and capable of enduring great fatigue. Those of Moldavia differ only in being a little larger in size. Some of the richest people have their horses sent them from Russia and Hungary; but they are merely meant for their coaches, as, from an aversion to every exercise that occasions the least fatigue, hardly any of them ride on horseback. Handsome saddle-horses, consequently, are seldom seen in the country; the prince is the only person who keeps any; but they are chiefly used by his Albanians, or body-guard.
CHAPTER VI.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE GREEKS IN GENERAL.—THEIR INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPALITIES.—THEIR POLITICAL SYSTEM.—CAUSE OF THE DECLARATION OF WAR BETWEEN TURKEY, RUSSIA, AND ENGLAND IN 1806.—THOSE WHICH OCCASIONED THE FAILURE OF THE ENGLISH EXPEDITION TO CONSTANTINOPLE.—SUBSEQUENT CHANGES OF POLICY OF THE OTTOMAN GOVERNMENT.—PEACE WITH ENGLAND.—PEACE WITH RUSSIA, AND CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH MOSTLY CONTRIBUTED TO IT.—HOSPODARS CALLIMACKI AND CARADJA.—PRINCE DEMETRIUS MOUROUSI’S DEATH.—CARADJA’S FLIGHT FROM WALLACHIA.—REFLECTIONS ON THE CONDUCT OF THE PORTE RELATIVE TO THE TWO PRINCIPALITIES.
None of the events that had influenced the political existence, and undermined the public spirit of the Wallachian and Moldavian nations, proved more ruinous to them than the system of policy introduced by the Greeks of the Fannar[[28]], when they were placed at the head of the principalities.
Humiliated, degraded, and oppressed as the Greeks were, since they had ceased to be a nation, civilisation degenerated among them, in proportion to the weight and barbarism of the yoke that had been imposed on them, and they had insensibly contracted those habits of corruption, and servile obedience, which must be inseparable from a state of slavery similar to theirs. Dissimulation and falsehood became the most prominent features of their character; and, in short, the force of the causes which acted upon them incessantly, familiarised them, by degrees, to every thing that could be degrading and humiliating to man.
The ambition of certain Greeks, leading an obscure life at Constantinople, was, however roused, when the office of state-interpreter at the Porte, assumed an important appearance under the direction of their countryman, Alexander Mavrocordato, who, from a petty merchant at the island of Scio, rose by degrees to that station, and was sent in the quality of Ottoman plenipotentiary to the congress of Carlowitz, where he distinguished himself as an able negotiator. He caused his son Nicholas to be raised to the governments of Moldavia and Wallachia, and he suggested to the Porte a new mode of appointment to those principalities, after the elective right had been entirely set aside. The Ottoman court thenceforward appropriated those two dignities to individuals who had once served in the quality of state-interpreter to its satisfaction, not so much as a reward for their services, as on account of the knowledge obtained of their personal character and extent of abilities.
On another hand, the repeated demonstrations of servitude on the part of the Greeks, and the apparent impossibility of their ever becoming a nation again, seemed to render them the fittest tools of the Porte’s new system of government in the principalities; for, although it could not trample upon the whole of their privileges at once, yet, in giving them princes who should be entirely devoted to its interests, and slaves to its will, the existence of those privileges was rendered nugatory.