CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WITH THE WALLACHS.

H

EIGH-ho! Pretty little Wallach girl tripping along so gingerly over the muddy thoroughfares on thy way to the fountain opposite, and stooping to kiss-shall I say it-the dirty hand of the Popa, who just at this moment passes in his long black toga. Why does he linger so long speaking to thee, and why is thy head bent low, and thy sweet face, which until this moment was suffused with smiles, so downcast, whilst he addresses thee gravely in an undertone? Hast thou been remiss in thy observance of the thousand and one fasts of the Greek Church? Ah, no! The Popa points to the fountain, where, sitting in my projecting room, as in a martin's nest, I have often seen thee talking with a handsome "Saxon" lad, as he filled thy classical-shaped pitcher for thee and lingered in the doing

of it as though he loved thy company; and here thou art again at the trysting place.

Steel thy heart, little Wallach, against that handsome "Saxon" lad, for thy spiritual father hath marked you both, and will not let thee wed a "Saxon" unbeliever. Think not harshly of him, for he means kindly. It is not well or customary for the Wallachs to intermarry with the "Saxon" folk; thy people are not their people, nor thy ways their ways. Forget this little bit of romance, and wait till some swain from amongst thine own people bestows his love upon thee.

How I feel for that pretty little maiden as the tears roll down her cheeks, and her full round lips tremble as she struggles with her sobs! What a pity there are hearts to break! for, love him as she may, she must not marry him. That a "Saxon" youth should wed even with a lass of the same kith from another village is regarded with the greatest disapprobation, and woe to the girl who is brought into one that is not hers by right of birth, for the whole femalo population rise up in dudgeon against the interloper. But a Wallach!

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"Mean, dirty, shabby, idle Wallachs!" are epithets often hurled at their unhappy heads-" A Wallach to intermarry with decent Saxon-folk,' who has scarce anything to her back, and washes her house-linen every week-Bah!”

In "Saxon-land," as in many parts of Germany, a bride's trousseau of under-linen is so enormous that the family washing is of scarcely more than annual occurrence, or at the very most quarterly; and as in England the respectability of a family is estimated according to the amount of its butcher's bill, so public opinion in "Saxon-land" is

principally governed by the number of "washes" a family may have in the course of a year. The Wallach women, therefore, muddling in their weekly wash-tub, are held in great contempt by the thrifty "Saxon" dames, who possess clothes in their lockers they have never even worn. And, although tolerated as common citizens, the Wallachs are considered quite outside the pale of "Saxon" society. In fact there is no love lost between the two races. The Wallachs regard their "Saxon" neighbours as a "canny folk," prone to get rich too fast and sometimes by practices that are scarcely within the bounds of honesty; whilst the "Saxons" look down upon their Wallach brethren as idle, thriftless loons, possessing lax notions as to the respective merits of meum and tuum, and the exclusiveness of individual property.

During the war of Hungarian Independence, however, the canny "Saxons" curried favour with the Wallachs, and induced them to unite with them in siding with Austria against the Magyars. And fearful were the atrocities committed by the Wallachs on the defenceless Magyar residents and "Nobles" of Transylvania, many of whose children were carried round the villages spiked on the top of the Wallachs' bayonets, whilst women were cruelly tortured, and by a refinement of cruelty some of the men were buried up to their necks, and then mown down.

In this once exclusive "Saxon "-land there are at present large villages almost wholly inhabited by Wallachs, some of which contain a population of several thousand souls. The approach to these villages may invariably be recognised by the number of way-side crosses and little temples met with along the road; the latter crowded with statues and paint

ings in fresco, there being, as in Gallicia, no limit to the construction of saints, which are of every colour and material. These Wallach villages are far less clean, but they are more picturesque, than

those of the "Saxons."

Instead of stone, the houses are almost entirely built of wood, and their gables are surmounted by a cross. The streets are long and narrow; while

each house has its own courtyard enclosed behind high wooden palings carved roughly but in beauti

ful designs, entered by a doorway covered with a small wooden roof.

The Wallach churches are very singular, and are often painted on the outside from top to bottom with grotesque figures. Inside they are invariably dark and gloomy, the walls being painted in sombre colours interspersed with gold. The small lancet windows begrimed with dust admit but little light, for the Wallachs, unlike the Magyars, indulge in the "dim religious" to such an extent that their churches resemble Buddhist temples far more than edifices dedicated to the worship of Christ. The roofs are domeshaped, and the naves, which are paved with black marble, empty. There are no seats of any kind, and the people during the service either stand or kneel.

In these villages one sees no rags nor even mended garments, and if an "idle," the Wallachs would nevertheless seem to be a very thriving, people. Like the "gentle Slovaks," they have their cow, their poultry and little plot of land which their women sow with seed and hoe and cultivate, whilst the men guide the plough, or more frequently stay at home and look after the children. The Wallach woman is a most industrious creature, and much maligned by her "Saxon" sister, and if she does not possess a great store of ready-made linen in her locker, and washes. once a week, she has at any rate large rolls of unbleached home-spun on her shelves. In the autumn she begins spinning vigorously for the winter's weaving, after which she makes the material into garments for her numerous progeny. Too much, however, cannot be said concerning the indolence of the male Wallach, whose prosperity is generally due to his wife's industry rather than to his own. More slow even than the Magyar, he works as though it were a matter of the most sublime indifference whether the occupation in which he is engaged be ever finished, and if he goes to market with farm-produce other than his own, he usually lies in the waggon fast asleep, and arrives at his destination just when the "Saxon-folk" are returning home.

He is in truth but too often a poor, feeble, and effeminate creature, greatly fallen from the courage and valour of his first estate. The form of Christianity taught him by the ignorant Popas, doubtless does much to foster this indolence and effeminacy, for the teaching of the Greek Church in these secluded villages is almost exclusively confined to the observance of its fasts.

"If God," so argues the Wallach peasant, "clothes the