a proud and brave community love to
recite to the stranger the valorous deeds of their ancestors. It is
the centre from which have spread out most of the modern revolutionary
movements in Roumania. "Little Wallachia," in which Slatina stands, is
rich in well-tilled fields and uplands covered with fat cattle: it is
as fertile as Kansas, and its people seemed to me more agreeable and
energetic than those in and around Bucharest.

He who clings to the steamers plying up and down the Danube sees much
romantic scenery and many curious types, but he loses all the real
charm of travel in these regions. The future tourist on his way to or
from Bulgaria and the battle-fields of the "new crusade" will be wise
if he journeys leisurely by farm-wagon--he will not be likely to find
a carriage--along the Hungarian bank of the stream. I made the journey
in April, when in that gentle southward climate the wayside was
already radiant with flowers and the mellow sunshine was unbroken by
cloud or rain. There were discomfort and dust, but there was a rare
pleasure in the arrival at a quaint inn whose exterior front, boldly
asserting itself in the bolder row of house-fronts in a long village
street, was uninviting enough, but the interior of which was charming.
In such a hostelry I always found the wharfmaster, in green coat and
cap, asleep in an arm-chair, with the burgomaster and one or two idle
landed proprietors sitting near him at a card-table, enveloped in such
a cloud of smoke that one could scarcely see the long-necked flasks of
white wine which they were rapidly emptying. The host was a massive
man with bulbous nose and sleepy eyes: he responded to all questions
with a stare and the statement that he did not know, and seemed
anxious to leave everything in doubt until the latest moment possible.
His daughter, who was brighter and less dubious in her responses than
her father, was a slight girl with lustrous black eyes, wistful lips,
a perfect form, and black hair covered with a linen cloth that the
dust might not come near its glossy threads. When she made her
appearance, flashing out of a huge dark room which was stone paved and
arched overhead, and in which peasants sat drinking sour beer, she
seemed like a ray of sunshine in the middle of night. But there was
more dignity about her than is to be found in most sunbeams: she was
modest and civil in answer, but understood no compliments. There was
something of the princess-reduced-i