CHAPTER XII. Back at Mehadia--Troubles about a carriage--An unexpected night on the road--Return to Karansebes--On horseback through the Iron Gate Pass--Varhely, the ancient capital of Dacia--Roman remains--Beauty of the Hatszeg Valley.

After a week of such weather as we had had in the mountains, a water-tight roof over one's head was in itself a luxury; so we were not inclined to quarrel with our quarters at the hotel at Mehadia, had they been even less good than they were.

F—— and I wished the next day to get back to Karansebes; he had left his carriage, and I my Servian horse. A Hungarian gentleman, one of the late expedition, said he would arrange to have a vorspann, if we would join him, as he also wanted to go there. This well-understood plan insures to the traveller relays of horses, and we were only too glad to acquiesce in the prospect of making the journey pleasantly and quickly.

The driver who was to take us the first stage came in and asked for a florin to get some oats for his horses. Very foolishly I gave him the money, nothing doubting; and off he went to spend it on slivovitz, the result being that he was soon drunk and incapable. If we had realised the fact at once it might have been better, but we waited and waited, not knowing for a long time what had happened. This upset all our vorspann arrangements, and to our great disgust the best part of the day was wasted in seeking another vehicle and horses to take us to Karansebes. At last we succeeded in obtaining a lumbering sort of covered conveyance, whose speed we doubted from the first; but the owner, who was to drive us, declared he would get us to our journey's end in an incredibly short space of time.

We took care to give no pourboire in advance; but what with the inevitable dilatoriness of the people down in these parts, it was after seven o'clock before we left the Hercules-Bad, and we had fifty miles to drive.

Not even the ten hours of undisturbed consecutive repose in the downy bed at the Mehadia hotel had made up the deficiency of sleep during the foregoing week, and drowsiness overcame us. I think we must have had a couple of hours of monotonous jog-trot on the fairly level road when I fell asleep, and I suppose my companions did the same.

I must have slept long and profoundly, for when I woke, pulling myself together with some difficulty, having slept in the form of a doubled-up zigzag, I found it was daylight. I was surprised that we were not moving; I rubbed my eyes, and looked out at the back of the cart, and there I saw a round tower on a slight eminence, encircled by a belt of fir-wood, the very counterpart of a pretty bit of scenery I had noticed in the twilight. I looked again, and sure enough it was just the tower itself and no other, and the very same belt of wood. The explanation was not far to seek. I was the first to wake up in our "fast coach." Every mortal soul—and there were five of us, besides the four horses—had, it seems, gone to sleep much about the same time that I did. The magic sleep of eld must have fallen upon us. The simple fact was, we had passed the night in the middle of the highroad. Was there ever anything so ridiculous?

We were about seven miles from Mehadia; I knew the country perfectly well. Of course we made a confounded row with the idiot of a driver, who certainly had been hired—not to go to sleep. I have known these Wallacks drive for miles in a state of somnolency, the horses generally keeping in the "safe middle course" of their own accord. As there were some awkward turns not far ahead of us, it was perhaps just as well that the horses stopped on this occasion.

Well, we jogged on all that day, reaching Karansebes between one and two o'clock. We had been some eighteen hours on the road!

Here F—— and I parted, my friend returning to Uibanya, while I pursued my way to Transylvania.

I slept the night at Karansebes, rising very early; indeed I started soon after four o'clock. I was again on my little Servian horse, who was quite fresh after his long rest, and I saw no reason why I should not reach Hatszeg the same evening, as the distance is not more than forty-five miles. About two miles from Karansebes I passed a hill crowned with a picturesque ruin, locally called Ovid's Tower. Tradition fondly believes that Ovid spent the last years of his banishment, not on the shores of the stormy Euxine, but in the tranquillity of these lovely valleys. Certain it is that the name and fame of many of the great Romans are still known to the Wallacks; and the story is told by Mr Boner, that they have a catechism which teaches the children to say that they have Ovid and Virgil for their ancestors, and that they are descended from demigods!

On my way I passed the villages of Ohaba, Marga, and Bukova. On arriving at Varhely, or Gradischtie, as it is called in Wallack language, I found that it was worth while to stay the night, for the sake of having the afternoon to examine the Roman remains scattered about the neighbourhood.

The Wallack villages I had passed through were very miserable-looking places: they are generally in the south of Transylvania. The houses are mostly mere wattled wigwams, without chimneys; a patch of garden, rudely hurdled in, with the addition of a high stockaded enclosure for cattle. Some of the women are extremely pretty, and, as I have said before, the costume can be very picturesque; but they are often seen extremely dirty, in which case the filthy fringe garment gives them the appearance of savages.

Varhely is conspicuous for its dirt even among Wallachian villages, yet once it was a royal town. It is built on the site of the famous Sarmisegethusa, the capital of ancient Dacia. In Trajan's second expedition against Decebalus, King of the Dacians, he came from Orsova on the Danube by the same route that forms the highroad of this day—the same I had traversed in my way hither. It is curious to reflect how nation succeeding nation tread in each other's footsteps, through the self-same valley, beneath the shadow of the old hills. Here they have trudged, old Dacian gold-seekers, returning from the daily labours of washing the auriferous sands of the mountain streams; here, too, have tramped victorious Roman soldiers—Avars, Tartars, Turks, and other intruders. A long and motley cavalcade has history marshalled along this route for two thousand years and more!

The old Dacians were strong enough we know to exact a yearly tribute from Domitian: it was for this insult that Trajan marched upon Dacia, defeating Decebalus at Klausenburg, in the heart of Transylvania, which was at the time their greatest strong-hold. It was after this that the Dacian king retreated upon Sarmisegethusa, and there Trajan came down upon them through the Iron Gate Pass. Unable to defend themselves, the Dacians set fire to their royal city and fled to the mountains. On these ruins the Romans, ever ready to appropriate a good site, erected the city of Ulpia Trajana, connecting it by good roads with the existing Roman colonies at Karlsburg and Klausenburg.

Unless the traveller had brought historic facts with him to Gradischtie, he would hardly be induced to search for tesselated pavements and relics of royalty amongst the piggeries of this dirty Wallack village. It is a literal fact that a very fine specimen of Roman pavement exists here in an unsavoury outhouse, not unknown to pigs and their congeners.

This Hatszeg Valley, in the county of Hunyad, has long been celebrated for the richness of its Dacian and Roman antiquities. These treasures have unfortunately been dispersed about amongst various general collections of antiquity, instead of being well kept together as illustrative of local facts and history. The archÆologist must seek for these remains specially in the Ambras collection of the ArchÆological Museum at Vienna, the National Museum at Buda Pest, in the Bruckenthal Museum at Herrmannstadt, also in the Klausenburg Museum. Dr H. FinÁly, Professor of ArchÆology at the University of Klausenburg, is the great living authority on this interesting subject. To him I am indebted for some information, conveyed in a letter to a private friend.[12] The professor alludes to the fact of the treasures being all carried away, adding that on the spot very little is to be found except the remains of Roman encampments (castra stativa), Roman military roads, together with the foundations of buildings, the materials of which however are usually carried away by the peasants. Nor are the records of former interesting discoveries to be found in one volume, but are dispersed about in the various publications of learned societies, such as the 'ArchÆlogiÆi KÖzlemÉnyek' of the Hungarian Academy, the 'Year-Book of the Transylvanian Museum,' and 'Verhandlungen und Mittheilungen' of the Verein fur SiebenbÜrgische Landeskunde of Herrmannstadt.

That the materials of the old Roman buildings are now used for baser purposes, one has abundant proof; even in my hurried inspection I saw many a sculptured stone and fragment of fluted column doing duty as the support of a wretched Wallack shanty. Another evidence of the Roman occupation of the country occurs in the case of certain plants now found growing wild, which are exotic to the soil. This, I am told, occurs in a marked manner at Thorda, which was known to be a Roman colony. The plants, it may be presumed, were brought thither by the Roman legionaries. The most picturesque bit of Roman antiquity is the Temple at Demsus, within a short drive of Varhely. It is on a small eminence overlooking a cluster of Wallack dwellings, and has long been used as a church by these people.

The Hatszeg Valley, which comprehends the district I am now describing, is the pride of Transylvania, not less for its fertility than for its beauty. It has the appearance of having been filled in former geological ages by the waters of a widespread lake.

It was a lovely afternoon, but very hot, when I rode into the little town of Hatszeg. Everywhere is to be seen evidence of the careful cultivation of the maize and other crops. Numerous villages dot the plain and cluster amidst the thickly-wooded hillsides. And now we come upon the railway system again, which has stretched out its feelers into the wilds of the Southern Carpathians. The railroad enters Transylvania by two routes. The main line is from Buda-Pest to Grosswardein, and so on by Klausenburg—the Magyar capital—to the present terminus of Kronstadt, one of the chief towns of the Saxon immigrants. This includes a branch to Maros VÁsÁrhely. It is proposed to carry this line over a pass in the Carpathians to Bucharest. The second line of railway entering Transylvania starts from Arad, and terminates at Herrmannstadt, the Saxon capital, having a branch to the mineral district of PetrosÈny.

It will be seen from the above that this "odd corner of Europe," as Transylvania has been called, is fairly well off for iron roads; and considering how short a time some portions of them have been opened, they have already borne good fruit in developing the resources of the country.

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