The crescent-shaped portion of the kingdom lying between the Danube and Pruth and the Carpathians is tolerably uniform in its physical features. The southern part of the area is a plain continuous with that of southern Russia. Towards the interior the surface rises gradually but slowly until we come to the spurs of the Caqiathians. The Roumanian frontier on this side runs for the most part along the very crest of the mountains, which have peaks rising to from 6000 to 8000 feet and upwards. The lowest part of this plain is that which stretches along the left bank of the Danube, and this also is the dreariest and least productive. Large tracts of it are marshy and subject to inundation, and even beyond the marshy districts the aspect of the country remains extremely uninviting. Agriculture is neglected; coarse grasses occupy large areas; and the most conspicuous feature in the landscape is probably a rude well, such as is seen in tho pusstas of Hungary and some parts of southern Russia, where the general aspect of the country is so like what we find here. Farther inland, however, the appearance of the surface improves: agriculture becomes more general, trees (willows, alders, and poplars) more abundant; on the still higher ground nearer the Carpathians the outward signs of comfort and prosperity become more and more apparent; the vine clothes the hill slopes; plums, peaches, and southern fruits are grown in profusion; large forests of oak, beech, and elm reach to the hill tops, and various minerals form an important addition to the present and prospective resources of the country. At elevations too high for the foliage trees just mentioned these are succeeded by pines and firs, birches and larches, which ∙ crown the mountains to a height of 5000 or 6000 feet. Extensive as the plains of Roumania are, 40 per cent, of the entire surface is more than a thousand feet above sea-level, while the greater part of the northern (or Moldavian) half of the crescent varies from 300 to 1000 feet, almost all the rest of Moldavia being still more elevated.

The superficial geology of Roumania, so far as it is known, is extremely simple, at least on the left bank of the Danube. Quaternary deposits are spread over all the plains. Among these the most important is the yellow loess, which covers such large areas in Hungary also, and which in Roumania attains in places a depth of 150 to 300 feet. In certain parts the black soil of southern Russia extends into Roumania, and is important on account of its richness, though its depth is nowhere above 3 feet. Advancing inland one meets next with Miocene and Eocene deposits, until, in ascending the slopes of the Carpathians, Secondary, Primary, and crystalline rocks are seen to crop out in succession. The desolate plateau of the Dobrudja contrasts with the region on the left of the Danube in its geology as in other respects. Its basis consists of crystalline rocks, but these are covered with sedimentary formations of various ages. On the north this plateau, which is hilly and even mountainous, sinks down rather abruptly to the delta of the Danube, a congeries of alluvial marshes occupied chiefly by aquatic and marsh-loving birds.

Of the rivers of Roumania by far the most important is the Danube, which is navigable for large vessels throughout its Roumanian reach, the first obstruction to navigation, the celebrated Iron Gates, Occurringjust where it enters Roumanian territory. The breadth of the river is of some consequence in view of the fact that it is a frontier stream, and the marshes on the left bank have at least this advantage that they enable it to serve all the more effectually as a natural boundary. The plains on the left are traversed by numerous winding tributaries of the Danube, but of these the only one of importance as a means of communication is the Pruth, which is navigable for small grain-carrying vessels. The others—the Sereth, Jalomitza, Dambovitza, Olta—are sluggish streams, often half-dry, but yet at certain seasons subject to inundations, which unfortunately occur at a time when the crops are so far advanced as to be liable to be much damaged. In consequence of this the Government has bestowed much pains on the regulation of these streams, and the works for this purpose are rendered further serviceable by the fact that the Roumanian rivers can be turned to account for irrigation.

The climate of Roumania is one of extremes as regards temperature. Winter and summer are almost equally trying. In the former season the thermometer may sink to - 15° Fahr., while in the latter it may rise to from 90° to 95°. The mean temperature of spring at Bucharest is 53°, summer 72∣ β , autumn 65°, winter 27∣°. Spring, however, scarcely exists except in name, the interval between the cold winter and hot summer being very short. The autumn, on the other hand, is long and is the most genial season of the year. It lasts to the end of November. Being continuous with the Russian plain, Roumania is exposed to the bitterly cold wind from the north-east by which southern Russia is also scourged. In Roumania this wind, known as crwets, blows on an average 155 days in the year, while a west or south-west wind, called the austru, equally disagreeable for its scorching heat, blows on an average 126 days. The rainfall is not excessive. The number of rainy days in the year is about 74, or only about two-fifths of the number round London. The summer months are those in which the rains are most abundant. Snow is unfrequent (12 days in the year). As regards salubrity the low-lying plains near the Danube are the worst part of the kingdom. Marsh fever is there prevalent, and the tendency to suffer from disease is increased by the miserable character of the dwellings occupied by the peasantry of that district. The houses are mere pits dug out in the ground and covered over with sloping roofs formed of branches and twigs.

Three-fourths of the population are dependent upon agriculture. The plains covered by loess and black soil are admirably adapted for the growth of cereals, and of these the most important are maize, wheat, and barley. The methods of cultivation are to a large extent primitive and imperfect, but great improvements are taking place through the application of foreign capital to the development of the native resources. Improved agricultural implements of all kinds have been introduced of late years in great numbers. The old plough, which has a share resembling a lance head, which enters the ground horizontally and thus merely scratches the surface, is being rapidly superseded by ploughs of English and Austrian manufacture. These improvements, which have been greatly stimulated by the alteration in the status of the Roumanian peasantry brought about by the law of 1864, and likewise by the introduction of railways, have resulted in an enormous increase in the amount of the production of cereals. Roumania is one of the principal grain-exporting countries in Europe, and the increase in the production just alluded to is sufficiently well indicated by the figures given below relative to the exports of grain to the United Kingdom. The great variations in these figures, though obviously due in part to political causes, likewise serve to illustrate the chief drawback under which Roumanian agriculture labours— namely, the liability to drought.

Besides forming a valuable article of export maize furnishes the chief food of the people. The great body of Roumanians seldom eat meat except on feast days, and the favourite food is a dish called mamaliga, made by boiling maize-meal and flavouring it with a little salt. It thus resembles the hominy of the Americans. In addition to cereals many kinds of vegetables, including garlic, melons, and cucumbers, are grown. Hemp and colza are also important products, and tobacco furnished a considerable article of export until it was made a monopoly of the state in 1872. As already mentioned, wine and numerous fruits are produced on the foot-hills of the Carpathians, but owing to neglect the products are greatly inferior to what they ought to be. Nothing, it is said, but care in the cultivation of the vine and the preparation and preservation of the wine is necessary to make Roumania a winegrowing country of the first rank. As it is, vines are estimated to cover only about 250,000 acres, or about ,⅜-,∙ of the entire surface. From plums the Roumanians extract a strong spirit known as tsuica, and it is chiefly for this that the plum-tree is cultivated.

The rearing of domestic animals is likewise an important industry, but it has not advanced so much of late years as the growth of cereals. The exports of cattle are almost stationary. Oxen are of much more importance than horses, being chiefly used in field labours. Buffaloes also are reared for the purpose, and are much valued for their strength. Sheep and cattle rearing forms the chief occupation of the sparse population of the Dobrudja.

About one-sixth of the total surface of Roumania is estimated to be covered with forests producing valuable timber trees. Oaks, firs, and beeches are said to be met with having a diameter of more than 8 feet at the height of 33 feet above the ground. The warm summers and cold winters are favourable to the quality of the wood, which is hard and lasting. Unfortunately there is a good deal of recklessness in the way in which the forests are utilized, and they are said to be fast disappearing; but it is to be hoped that the influence of the College of Agriculture and Sylviculture at Eerestreu, 2 miles from Bucharest, will help to put a check upon this improvidence, as it is without doubt contributing greatly to the promotion of Roumanian agriculture.

The mineral wealth on the Roumanian side of the Carpathians is considerable, but at present there are only three minerals that have any great industrial importance. These are rock-salt, petroleum, and lignite. The salt mines are a state monopoly, and two of them, at Ocna-Mare and Telega, are partly worked by convicts. The depth from which the salt is extracted nowhere exceeds 300 feet. The average quantity of salt sold annually is about 62,000 tons. Lignite is important inasmuch as it is used along with wood on the railways, as well as in.brick and lime kilns. Coal is also found, in some places even at the surface, but, though one or two mines have boen opened, the total production is insignificant. Ozocerite, or fossil wax, is frequently found in association with lignite, but is used only in small quantity by the peasantry. Among other minerals are anthracite, iron, gold, copper, lead, sulphur, cobalt, and arsenic; and there is little doubt that some of these at least might be made economically valuable if the resources of the country were adequately developed.

So far the manufacturing industries of Roumania are hardly worthy of mention. There are petroleum refineries, one or two sugar refineries," numerous steam-mills for grinding flour, besides large numbers of floating maize-mills on the Danube; but in addition to these there are only a few manufactories at Galatz.

From the account just given of the products of Roumania it follows that the exports of the kingdom consist chiefly of raw produce, and above all of cereals, while the imports are mainly composed of manufactured articles. The countries with which the trade is chiefly carried on are Austria (with about 40 per cent, of the whole trade in 1883), Great Britain (about 30 per cent.), France (about 10 per cent.), Germany (about 8 per cent.), Turkey, and Russia. The foreign commerce of Roumania is centred in Galatz, which is situated at the bend of the Danube where the river once more turns eastward on reaching the northern extremity of the Dobrudja plateau. From this centre there is one line of railway leading into Russia, while others pass through the interior of Roumania and connect with the Austrian lines in the north and south of Hungary. The first Roumanian railway was that from Giurgevo to Bucharest, opened in 1869. In 1884 there were about 1000 miles of railway in the kingdom. The internal trade of Roumania is almost entirely in the hands of the Jews. It is greatly hampered by the existence of the octroi in all the large towns, almost all the necessaries of life as well as luxuries being taxed when introduced within the municipal boundaries.

See Samuelson, Rournania, Past and Present (London, 1882); Ozanne, Three Years in Roumania (London, 1878); Kanitz, Ronau-Ruigarien und der Raihan (Ί8751: and R. Roesler. Romanische Studien. CG. G. C.l

L

The annual yield of cereals of all kinds is roughly estimated at 15,000,000 quarters. The number of horned cattle in the country is about 3,000,000.

In 1883 the following were the values of the principal articles of import and export :—

The total imports of British home produce, mostly cotton goods, &c., and iron, into Roumaniain 18S3 amounted to £1,344,619, and the total exports, mostly barley and maize, of Ronmania to Great Britain to £3,516,442. .

There were in 1884 about ICOO miles of railway complete in the kingdom, and 3000 miles of telegraph lines.

The estimated population of the country is 5,376,000, including about 400,000 Jews and 200,000 Gipsies. About four and a half millions of the population belong to the Roumanian branch of the Orthodox Greek Church, and there are 114,000 Roman Catholics and 13,800 Protestants.

An official analysis of the occupations of the people gives the following results (the figures representing heads of families) :—

Agriculturists........................................ 684,168

Artisans and labourers............................. 83,061

Traders................................................ 30,417

Officials.............................................. 22,811

Professorsandtcachers............................ 6,066

Medical and legal professions and druggists.. 995

Artists, musicians, and publicists.... ......... 2,156

Priests, monks, and nuns......................... 18,452

Various................................................ 125,815

Total.............................. 973,941

Of the larger cities Bucharest (Bucurest) numbered in 1876 221,805 inhabitants, Jassy 90,125, and Galatz 80,763.

In 1883 there were 2742 primary schools with 124,130 pupils, 8 normal schools with 830 pupils, and 54 high schools with 7993 pupils, besides the two universities of Bucharest and Jassy, containing 97 professors and readers and 705 students. It is estimated that about 1000 young men receive their university education abroad, mostly at Paris. There is also a ladies’ college, called the Asyle Hélène from its founder in its present form, the Princess Helena Cuza, and accommodating 230 girls, many of whom are orphans. Amongst learned institutions the Roumanian Academy claims the first place, and excellent contributions on subjects of national and scientific interest will be found amongst its proceedings [Analele Aeademiei Romane, 1878 sq.). The academy building at Bucharest contains the national library of over 30,000 volumes and a fine archaeological museum containing many Old Dacian antiquities.

The peace strength of the permanent army consists of 1200 officers and 18,532 men, with 180 guns. Besides this, there are the territorial army, consisting of 120,000 men and 84 guns; the militia, consisting of thirty-two regiments of infantry; and finally the levée en masse. Every Roumanian, from his twenty-first to his forty-sixth year, is obliged to serve his time in one of the above categories. The total of the Roumanian forces, exclusive of the levée en masse, amounts to about 150,000 men and 288 guns.

Mediaeval and Modern History of Walachia and Moldavia.

Roumania is the name officially adopted by the united kingdom that comprises the former principalities of Walachia and JIoldavia. Inits native form it appears simply as “Romania,” representing the claim to Roman descent put forward by its inhabitants. These call themselves “Romani” or “Rumeni,” but by their neighbours, Slavonic, Greek, Magyar, and German, they are universally known by one or other form of the word “Vlach.” As, however, this Vlach or Rouman race occupies a far wider area than that included in the present Roumanian kingdom, it may be convenient to postpone the vexed questions connected with its origin, migrations, and distribution for more general treatment under the heading Vlachs, and to confine ourselves on this occasion to Roumania proper—the country between the Carpathians, the Lower Danube, and the Black Sea. It may be sufficient here to observe that, according to the concurrent accounts from various sources, the great plains of the later Walachian and Moldavian principalities were first occupied by an immigrant Rouman population coming from the Carpathian lands and the present Transylvania in the early Middle Ages. According to the Russian Nestor and the earliest Hungarian chroniclers, the Carpathian region, including tracts of eastern Hungary, were occupied by a Rouman (“Roman ”) population at the time of the Magyar invasion in the 9th century. On the other hand, the meagre annals of the plains that lie on the left bank of the Lower Danube are exclusively occupied till at least the Ilth century with Slovenes, Petchenegs, Cumans, and Bulgarians. Whatever title the Carpathian Roumans may have to be considered the descendants in situ of the Romanized provincials of Trajan’s Dacia, it seems fairly ascertained that the present extension of this easternmost branch of the Latin peoples over the Walachian and JIoldavian plains is due to a colonizing movement from the Alpine regions to the west, effected for the most part in the 12th and succeeding centuries.

Walaehia.— For the early history of the Walachian (Valachian, or Wallachian) principality the native sources are late and untrustworthy. These sources really reduce themselves to a single chronicle, a part of which appears to have been drawn up in the 16th century in Bulgaro-Slovene, and of which two Rouman translations have seen the light. This “History of the Rouman land since the arrival of the Roumans” [Istoria tierei Romanesei de cândii au desealicata Rornanii) gives a precise account of the founding of the Walachian state by Radul Negru, voivode of the Roumans of Fogaras in Transylvania, who in 1290 descended with a numerous people into the Transalpine plain and established his capital first at Cimpulungu and then at Argish. Radul dies in 1314 and is succeeded by a series of voivodes whose names and dates are duly given; but this early chapter of Walachian history has been rudely handled by Roesler in his essay on the oldest history of the Walachian voivodeship [Romanische Studien, p. 261 sq. ). The so-called “Chronicle of Hurul” is a modern forgery, and our only real authorities for the beginnings of Roumanianhistoryare Hungarian, Polish, and Byzantine.

In 1330 the voivode Alexander Bazarad or Bassaraba succeeded in inflicting a crushing defeat on his suzerain King Charles of Hungary, and for fourteen years Wallachia enjoyed complete independence. Louis the Great succeeded for a while in restoring the Hungarian supremacy, but in 1367 the voivode Vlad or Vladislav inflicted another severe defeat on the Hungarians, and succeeded for a time in ousting the JIagyar ban of Severin and thus incorporating Little Walachia, the country west of the Aluta, in his dominions. Subsequently, in order to retain a hold on the loyalty of the Walachian voivode, the king of Hungary invested him with the title of duke of Fogaras and Omlas, Rouman districts situate in Transylvania, and this investiture seems to have left its impress on the traditional account of Radul Negru.

Under the voivode JIircea (1383-1419), whose prowess is still celebrated in the national folk-songs, Walachia played for a while a more ambitious part. This prince, during the earlier part of his reign, sought a counterpoise to Hungarian influence in the close alliance with King Vladislav Jagieflo of Poland. He added to his other titles that of “count of Severin, despot of the Dobrudja, and lord of Silistria,” and both Widin and Sistov appear in his possession. A Walachian contingent, apparently Jlircea’s, aided the Servian Kniaz...