The women are clothed from the neck to the ancles with a long gown of thick cotton stuff of a light colour, made tight at the waist in such a manner as to render the whole shape visible. They generally go barefooted, and they cover their heads with a common handkerchief, merely meant to keep up the hair. On holidays they add to their common shift a coloured gown of a better sort: they button it up from the waist to the neck, round which they wear as ornament, one or more strings of beads, or paras, pierced through for the purpose.
Since their emancipation, the peasants have not been fixed to particular parts of the country, and they are at full liberty to change their habitations at the end of their engagements with the landholders. But those of a more respectable kind seldom quit the spots where chance has once placed them, unless they are driven by imperious circumstances.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate position of this people, by no means enviable to their neighbours, the miseries of famine in Transylvania sometimes cause considerable emigrations of peasants from that vast province into Wallachia and Moldavia. All the best lands in Transylvania being in the hands of Hungarians, Szecklers, and Saxons, the others who form the bulk of the population are driven into hilly and barren situations, where at all times they subsist with difficulty; and of late years the more than ordinary scarcity that prevailed has driven about twenty thousand peasants, subjects of the emperor, into the dominions of the Hospodars, where the great disproportion between the number of agricultural hands and the extent of arable land, renders such emigrations extremely useful. They are placed on the same footing as the native peasants with regard to tribute.
The changes of residence that sometimes take place among the peasantry are not detrimental to the collection of the imposts, as it is the business of the Ispravniks of each district to ascertain, every six months, the number and means of the individuals living within the limits of their Ispravnicates, and amenable to taxation. The deficiency of any particular district being made up by the increase in another, no loss accrues to the treasury.
There is no regular system exercised with respect to the arrangements of the landholders and peasants. In general, however, the latter are allowed a share of the produce in kind, with an understanding that the burthen of the taxes and impositions falls upon them; not that the former would be averse to taking upon themselves the payment of their tenants’ contributions, but because government is decidedly against the introduction of a similar regulation, the amount and nature of the imposts being nominally fixed, but always exceeding the regular rates.
As the Boyars proprietors of land in Wallachia never cultivate the estates for their own account, but merely rent them to those who can make the greatest offer of ready money, the less valuable are sometimes given to the whole body of peasants, residing in them when the advances are made by them. The richest estates give an income of fifty or sixty thousand piasters: but they are divided and subdivided for marriage-portions for the proprietors’ daughters; and if the custom continue for a few generations longer, a system, something similar to the agrarian law, must be the future consequence.
The manner of tilling the ground does not materially differ from that of other countries in Europe; oxen are employed instead of horses.
The wheat is sown during the Autumn; the barley and Indian corn in Spring. The harvest of the two first generally takes place in the month of July; that of the latter at the beginning of September; and as this article is required for the nourishment of so great a portion of the population as the peasantry, the quantity of it sown and reaped every year is equal to that of wheat. Barley being only made use of for feeding cattle and poultry, it is sown in a much smaller proportion.
The vine is always planted on the sloping of hills, and in situations where it can receive some protection against any sudden severities of the weather; the grape is seldom gathered before the end of September; and as it does not come to a perfect state of maturity, it makes but indifferent wine, of a light and sourish taste. All other kinds of fruit, common to Europe, come here in great abundance at their usual seasons.
The great waste of land left in both principalities in a state of nature, and the universal custom of not cultivating the immediate vicinity of the high roads, give to the country, in many parts, an appearance of desolation; and a traveller, who only judges by the scenery within his view, is apt sometimes to think himself in a wilderness; he meets with few habitations on his way, except those attached to the post-houses, and hardly perceives any other population.