CHAPTER XLIV. The author is astonished at the cleanliness of Craiova. The fame of Lord Brougham has penetrated even to that remote city. The author describes his breakfast with feeling and earnestness. He divines thereby that his host is a married man. The latter confesses his honours with a wry smile. Purity of the governing classes at Craiova. The author unexpectedly displays his aristocratic consideration of money, and reveals, in a pleasing manner, that he is better than other people. CRAIOVA is a nice, fresh, clean, pretty little town, situated on a gently rising ground, a rare thing in this country. The place had a pleasant air of wealth and comfort about it, and its appearance was quite a relief after the sad spectacle of the Wallachian villages on our way. The director of the post received me with the most kindly hospitality in a room that would have looked well even in the Faubourg St. Germain, with its wealth of annuals and gilded books, its prints and air of elegant good taste. He drove me also in a dashing Vienna brougham, drawn by two high-stepping Hungarian horses, to visit the Austrian General in command of the six thousand troops that are stationed here. When we have seen him and had a short talk, we are again whisked away in the smart brougham; and my host, for such he has obligingly constituted himself, drives me round the town to get a general idea of it. I am bound to say that idea was highly satisfactory. It seemed as thriving, bustling a little place as needs be. The director pointed out a new hotel to me, constructed on the same principle as the "Stadt London," at Bucarest. I was grateful for his hospitality, however, nevertheless, and I had reason to be so, for on returning home we found a breakfast which would have done honour to the Café de Paris. There was a Julienne soup, such as one only gets from cunning country cooks who have plenty of fresh garden dainties. There was some hure de sanglier, some cold tongue in jelly, a beef-steak, of which the like is not often seen, and some preserved peaches of exquisite delicacy. "You must be married, Herr Director," said I, surprised by so many good things. "I am," he replied, smiling, a bachelor never had such cheer as this." I stayed long enough at Craiova to learn that here also there were great complaints against the Austrians. "What have we done,” cried one Wallachian gentleman, to whom I spoke, “what have we done to be made a political plaything, and cursed with such eternal misrule as this? We are a good people, believe it, but they will not let us be good; they are driving us mad or brutifying us with oppression." And on counting my money, I found that posting had cost me thirteen-and-a-half ducats for twelve horses to Craiova, and I had to pay nine-and-a-half more on to Orsova. The postillions cost a zwanziger each every stage. I need hardly add with such hosts as the Herr Director, wherever I stopped Joe's turkey and ham sausages were quite unnecessary; but then I travelled under peculiar advantages, so that it is still my opinion that any private gentleman posting over the same ground will do well to take his larder with him. CHAPTER XLV. In praise of the Wallachian post. The author claims public esteem by making light of the dangers of his journey, but points them out with imaginative vivacity. Politeness of a pair of Austrian moustaches. Opinions of an Austrian postmaster on the war. show which way the wind blows. Straws DECIDEDLY the Wallachian post is excellent. In spite of my dawdling at Craiova, I was only forty hours in going from Bucarest to Orsova. The road from Craiova, however, appeared dangerous, for I noticed two mounted guards rode after the carriage at the second stage, and followed us through a great part of the night. They never spoke nor saluted, but I could hear the muffled gallop of their horses on the snow, and their weird picturesque figures looming in the misty moonlight, and the light of my reading-lamp flashed upon a shining pistol-barrel or sword-bilt when we were detained a moment at the barriers. Before we came to Orsova, our drag-chain grew suddenly useful, for we had to go down some very steep hills, with deep precipices on each side; it was dangerous work, and it looked like it, for we went down them full gallop in spite of the drag-chain, and the heavy Viennese chariot was swayed to and fro in a manner that was anything but encouraging. We had no sooner passed the frontier when a singularly long pair of moustaches, surmounted by a cap with the imperial royal apostolic crown of Hapsburg Lorraine upon it, was thrust into the carriage window. "Who are you? said the moustaches; and this was the first and last time that the question was put to me in Austria. "Who are you ?" After a bad breakfast, and being moreover made to suffer considerably in the exchange of some ducats, I wait on the postmaster, cap in hand. "Herr postmeister, will you oblige me with horses on to Szegedin, immediately?" Postmaster: "I have but five horses; and they—and they wait awhile." "I am an English officer, carrying despatches from the seat of war, my lord postmaster. If detained, I must report myself, and state why." Postmaster: "The war is nothing to us; it is your war, not ours." "Oh !" Postmaster "But if you were the devil himself, you should not go until the postboy had had a comfortable breakfast." So I go to the military authority, a pleasant old major, and he at once sends an orderly to force the postmaster's hand. Orsova is a miserable straggling town, though its situation is pretty. On leaving it, I found the German post was a very different affair to the Wallachian. It is excessively dear, and about as badly organized as can be. CHAPTER XLVI. The author expresses a generous delight at his return to Austria, and comments agreeably on the great zeal and liveliness of the Germans. A postmaster prepares for the road with ingenuity and discretion. The author incurs the hospitable censure of a neighbourhood. Coolness of a bumpkin. A wrangle. A fair maid of the village advocates the author's cause with vigour and efficacy. AND so I am in dear lazy Austria again! The postmaster at the first stage from Orsova kept me an hour and a half before I could prevail on him to harness the five horses, which he thought proper to allot me, after looking at my carriage. Then he thought he should like to drive himself, and was obliged to have his spectacles mended to do so. Then he took a solemn leave of his wife and family, and a parting cup with some friends. Then the horses were to be fed, then watered. Then a man with a long gun, belonging to one of the frontier regiments, came to inspect my passport, to satisfy the curiosity of some petty local authority, but not being able to read it, he took it away with him, and time sped on! Then the neighbourhood collected to examine me, and there was a good deal of rather dull cross-questioning. Then the postmaster, with spectacles on nose, a long whip under one arm and a pipe under the other, his woollen gloves usurping for the nonce its legitimate place in his mouth, began to expatiate on the merits of the horse he had bought last week. He could not find it in his heart to start till he had told me the whole history. Then his wife came to call him back to say good-bye again, and also to give him a spenser to put over his legs. At last we got off; but slowly, and with a due regard for the new purchase. I thought also that the neigbourhood seemed to consider me rather wanting in courtesy, for starting so abruptly. They would have liked to give me their blessing and good wishes in due form, with some black puddings, for my journey. Yet a stage farther on, and I was obliged to take four oxen and five horses. Their united strength, however, could hardly pull my carriage through the deep snow drifts, and over the endless hills. Two of the oxen, after a short trial, refused to draw at all, and were obliged to be taken off. The driver of the other two then proposed to abandon us in the very worst and wildest part of the road. If he had done so, we must certainly have come to grief; but your bumpkin is a marvellously cool hand at that kind of thing. He was at last persuaded to remain, on receiving four times the sum he had originally agreed to take; I consented to give it, and it seems I did so too easily, for before we got a hundred yards he came to a dead stop again. I persuaded him to go on, however, and of course at the end of the stage we came to a wrangle. I was willing to pay him four times the sum for which he had first bargained, but not more. This made him violent. The posthouse was at a lonely village, with nobody but the postmaster's daughter to be seen. She, however, took my part with such vigour and efficacy, that the dishonest lout retired at last discomfited. The postillion also, a good-natured serious little fellow, put in his word on the side of good faith, and I was glad of it. THE MAID OF DORVEA. Sweet maid of the village, when first I beheld thee, Yet they say, The diamond hid in the dull earth lies. |