But of all the sensations of delight produced by the beauties of nature, none can surpass that which is raised by the aspect of the more interior parts of this country. Romantic hills and dales, rivulets and streams, fields adorned with verdure and flowers, present themselves in a successive variety of beauty during the fine season, particularly within twenty or thirty miles of the Carpathians, from the Pruth to the Danube at Orsova. The inner parts of those mountains themselves offer the most magnificent scenery; and their summits, the most beautiful and extensive views. Those who have seen the romantic parts of the Alps, cannot help recalling them here to their remembrance; the impressions of the moment are such that they feel at a loss to decide which deserve the preference. Whilst the impatient courier, going over the rough roads through the Carpathians, bestows curses on the dangers that slacken his pace, and impede his progress, the voluntary traveller and lover of nature stands lost in admiration, and finally quits with reluctance and regret scenes which nature has formed in her most romantic mood.
The aspect of the Carpathians is very different in winter: all the heights are covered with snow, and the narrow roads with mud and large stones, rolled in the midst of them by the torrents, so as to render them almost impassable; mostly situated on the brinks of dreadful precipices, at the bottom of which rivers or torrents have formed their passage, one false step of the passenger is immediate death.
The Hospodars purposely neglect to repair these roads; the fear of creating suspicions at the Porte that they wish to facilitate the passage of foreign troops into the principalities, induces them to abstain from an undertaking, which in other respects has become so imperiously necessary: they do not even venture the slightest representation to the Porte on the subject.
Few peasants inhabit this part of the country; during the summer they cut down wood, and supply with it the inhabitants of the plains, who burn nothing else. The most stationary are attached to the post-houses, situated here and there for the purpose of assisting the necessary communications between the Austrian and Ottoman states. Their long residence in this neighbourhood is generally marked by the glandular accretion, common to the inhabitants of the Alps. It grows sometimes to an immense size; its appearance is then most disgusting, and it absorbs almost all the faculties, moral and physical, of the unfortunate beings afflicted with it. The natives believe the cause of this evil to proceed from the qualities of the snow-water always drunk by those who inhabit the mountains.
Every village throughout the country has a small church or chapel belonging to it, and one or more priests who act as curates. The ecclesiastics of this order are chosen amongst the ordinary peasants, from whom they are only distinguished in appearance by a long beard. They lead the same life, and follow the same avocations when not engaged in the exercise of their clerical functions; but they are exempted from the public imposts, and pay nothing more than their annual tribute of fifteen piasters to the metropolitan. The generality of them can neither read nor write; they learn the formule of the service by heart; and if a book is seen in their chapels, it is very seldom for use. The priests of this order are, in each district, dependent on the Archimandrites, or Vicars, of the parishes nearest to their abode.
That class of the human species comprehended under the general appellation of gypsies, seems to be, like the Jews, spread in most parts of Europe, and in many other parts of the world; like them having no admissible claims to any country as exclusively their own, and distinguished from the other races of men by physical and moral qualities peculiar to themselves. The different gradations of climate, and the state of civilisation of the countries in which they are born and brought up, do not seem to affect them in the same manner as the other classes of human nature, and in many respects they appear little superior to the brute creation.
Wallachia and Moldavia contain about one hundred and fifty thousand gypsies, and make a more profitable use of them than other countries do, by keeping them in a state of regular slavery. The period of their first coming there is not exactly ascertained; but there is every reason to believe it dates with the irruption of the gypsies from Germany in the fifteenth century; and they are mentioned in some manuscripts, possessed by Wallachian and Moldavian convents, evidently written towards that period.
They are remarkable, as every where else, for their brown complexion; their bodily constitution is strong, and they are so hardened from constant exposure to all the rigours of the weather, that they appear fit for any labour and fatigue; but their natural aversion to a life of industry is in general so great, that they prefer all the miseries of indigence, to the enjoyment of comforts that are to be reaped by persevering exertion. The propensity to stealing seems inherent in them, but they do not become thieves with the view of enriching themselves; their thefts never extend beyond trifles.
The women have the same complexion, with fine and regular features. They are very well shaped before they become mothers; but soon after they begin to have children, and they are generally very fruitful, their beauty gives way to a disgusting ugliness.