gari--Their origin and that of the
Slavonians--Their cruelty--Warlike habits--Severe punishment of
criminals--Superstitions--Their 'Chagan,' or chief
rider--Conversion to Christianity--Their chieftains--Improved
habits--Curious superstitions--Career of the Bulgari--Invasion of
the Eastern Empire and defeat by Belisarius--Supreme in Dacia,
Moesia, and Servia--Vicissitudes--Story of Krumus--Daco-Roman
princes--The Bulgarian territories annexed by Basilius to the Greek
Empire--The Ungri, or Hungarians--Their supposed origin--Their
cruelty and ferocity--Hallam's description of them--German account
of their savage mode of warfare--Ravage Europe--Settle in Hungary
and found a kingdom--Are driven over the Carpathians by the
Bulgari--(Note: Story of their contests with the chiefs Gellius,
Gladius, Mariotus, &c,--The anonymous notary of King Bela)--The
Patzinakitai--Scanty records concerning them--The
Wallachs--Controversy regarding their origin--Daco-Roman
descendants--Mediaeval accounts of their origin and character--Anna
Comnena--Bonfinius--AEneas Sylvius--M. Opitz--Their career in the
Danubian territories--Revolt in alliance with the
Bulgari--Foundation of the Wallacho-Bulgarian Empire by Peter,
Asan, and John--The historical _soufflet_--Recognition of the new
empire--Its duration--The Kumani--Their domination--The Teutonic
Knights and Knights of St. John--Interesting correspondence between
King Joannitz and Pope Innocent III.--Temporary conversion of the
Bulgarians to Rome--Downfall of the Wallacho-Bulgarian
Empire--Irruptions and retirement of the Tartars--End of the
barbarian age.

I.

If the reader will imagine a country somewhat larger than the United
Kingdom situated in a part of the European continent which renders it
accessible from almost every side, and can conceive of eight or nine
great hordes of armed savages tens or hundreds of thousands strong, with
many smaller ones, pouring intermittently, and even simultaneously in
some instances, into that devoted territory, and there alternately
burning and plundering or making slaves of each other or of the original
settlers, during a continuous period of more than a thousand years, then
he will have formed some idea of poor Roumania (or perhaps it would be
more correct to say of the territories north and south of the lower
Danube) as it