EXTENT AND POPULATION—MANNERS OF THE WALACHIANS—THE GIPSIES—COSTUMES.

The grand principality of Transylvania, about one-sixth of the extent of Hungary, contains a population of about a million and a half. It presents as great a diversity of nations and religions as Hungary, being inhabited by Hungarians, Germans, Walachians, Greeks, Servians, Armenians, Bulgarians, Poles, Slowaks, Jews, and Gipsies, and containing, besides the four religions established by law, namely, those of the Catholics, Reformed Lutherans, and Unitarians, also disunited Greek Christians and Jews. The Armenians and united Greeks are numbered among the Catholics. It may naturally be supposed that the variety of nations may be perceived in the variety of their peculiar costumes, of which we shall present some specimens.

The Walachians, a great number of whom are spread throughout the Hungarian counties, are the most numerous race of the inhabitants of Transylvania. They may be divided into three classes. To some of them all the rights of nobility have been granted by different kings and princes of the country. They are ranked with the noble Hungarian landholders and enjoy the same rights; and among them are found several families of importance. Others belong to the class of knights who, on account of certain military services entrusted to them at different times, have obtained limited privileges of nobility: but by far the greater part of the Walachians are, like other peasants, bound to the service of the owner of the estate on which they live. Besides these, there are two Walachian frontier regiments, and a third part of the Szekler hussars is formed from this nation.

The Walachians are considered as one of those races which are tolerated in Transylvania, and according to the laws of that country cannot possess the rights of free citizens: but the free families are reckoned among the number of that established nation in whose territory they reside. Their religion is the Greek church, either united or not united, the former being in the proportion of about two to nine of the latter.

The total number of Walachians in the Austrian dominions is calculated at 1,600,000: of whom 900,000 inhabit Transylvania, 550,000 Hungary, 150,000 the Bukowina. The latter are, more correctly speaking, Moldavians, but they differ little in language and manners from the genuine Walachians.

The Walachian is short in stature, but of a compact muscular frame of body. The savage mode of life to which he is accustomed from his earliest infancy enables him to bear hardships with fortitude. Heat and cold, hunger and thirst, make no impression upon him. His features are strong and expressive, his hair dark and bushy. His countenance on the whole is not disagreeable, and both men and women, as well as girls of great beauty, are often seen among these people. They arrive early at maturity, yet frequently live to an advanced age. At seventeen or eighteen the Walachian marries a wife who is seldom above thirteen; before he is thirty he is a grandfather, so that the race multiplies rapidly, and the Walachians are already more numerous than all the other inhabitants of Transylvania.

In regard to character the Walachians are sly, reserved, cunning, revengeful and indolent. With the appearance of the greatest simplicity they well know how to profit by every opportunity of overreaching their neighbours. Indolence is a failing of the men rather than of the women, who perform all the labour of the house, make clothes for the whole family, and frequently afford their husbands much assistance in agriculture: whereas the men, after performing the most indispensable operations of the field and vineyard, pass the remainder of their time in idleness. The natural indolence of the Walachians receives much encouragement from the frequent holidays of the Greek church, which they usually spend in prayer, drinking and sloth. To work on such days would be criminal.

They are much addicted to drink, and the Walachian will frequently consume in wine and brandy in a few hours the produce of the labour of a week. If he is fortunate enough to find a pipe or violin, in addition to a full pitcher, he seldom ceases from revelry till he is quite intoxicated, and is carried home senseless. It rarely happens that many Walachians are assembled under such circumstances without fighting, for they are very quarrelsome when drunk.

The idleness of their disposition is naturally connected with an inclination to plunder; and if the Walachians are not such professed thieves as the gipsies, they never suffer a favourable opportunity to pass, and are particularly dexterous at stealing cattle; so that many laws passed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are directed against them by name, and at the present time the inhabitants of the countries in which they reside take strong precautions to prevent their depredations. When they leave their homes, for fear of punishment or to avoid military service, they often retire to the forests and mountains, where, singly, or in bands, they become the terror of the country. Perfectly acquainted with every hiding-place and every by-path, they are always ready to fall upon passing travellers, or to plunder lonely houses and villages, exercising the most inhuman cruelties: and in spite of the greatest precaution on the part both of the civil and military power, it is generally long before the depredators can be secured or expelled from their haunts, especially as the inhabitants are prevented by fear of a cruel revenge from affording effective assistance.

The Walachians are in the highest degree superstitious, but make no scruple of employing shocking oaths on every trifling occasion. The stupidity and avarice of the greater part of the clergy, who find a rich source of profit in the ignorance of the common people, tend to encourage the failings and depravity of their flock. The ignorance and want of cultivation in the inferior Walachian clergy exceeds all belief; and there can be no doubt that the first step towards an improvement in the morals of the people must be a reform in that order.

The habitations of the Walachians are small and confined; their towns are generally built of mud and timber, very seldom of stone. The houses have seldom more than one room, besides which there are a small kitchen and an oven. The stable and other buildings belonging to a peasant’s yard, are universally ill built, low and dirty. They keep their grain in pits; and some sorts, particularly maize, in wicker baskets, suspended on a pole some feet above the ground, and protected by a lid of the same material, covered with straw. They pay little attention to gardening, and besides a few vegetables irregularly planted, nothing is to be found in their gardens but fruit-trees, which are left entirely to the care of nature.

The internal arrangements of their houses are extremely simple. The furniture consists of the family-bed, formed of straw, sacks and coverlets, or according to the circumstances of the possessor, of feather-beds and bolsters, with covers ornamented with coloured stitch-work, which are objects of extraordinary luxury. Besides these articles they have commonly a rude table, benches arranged round the room, and one or two wooden chests, adorned with rudely painted flowers, in which they keep their clothes and other valuables. Pitchers, plates and dishes are ranged or hung against the wall, together with pictures of Greek saints, before which lamps of coloured glass are sometimes suspended. The windows are very small, and the light is usually admitted through a piece of bladder instead of glass.

Of all rural employments, the Walachians are most attached to the rearing of cattle. Their natural indolence causes them to prefer this to all other occupations. All the changes of weather, and all the privations to which the life of a herdsman is subject, in distant and uninhabited countries, which he is forced to explore in order to find good pasture for his cattle, are easily borne by the Walachian, whose bodily frame has been hardened from his childhood; and the exemption from labour, which he enjoys as he follows his herd, renders the difficulties he has to encounter still less irksome.

The Walachian cultivates the field or the vineyard only when the climate or other circumstances prevent him from attending to the breeding of cattle. The grain chiefly grown by him is maize, a principal article of diet in Hungary, because it is more productive than any other kind of corn. Still the produce of the fields and vineyard seldom exceeds his immediate wants; while on the other hand, the Walachian cattle-breeders amass property. They have but little inclination for handicraft-business and the trades which are carried on in towns; probably because in former times they were not suffered to become members of any of the companies or guilds. This disability was removed in 1802, and much benefit is expected to result from this measure.

The women spin and make the greater part of their own clothing and that of their families. A stranger, seeing a Walachian woman going to market with a basket of goods upon her head, and spinning with her distaff as she trudges along, would be apt to conceive a favourable idea of the industry of these people, which, however, is soon lost on a nearer acquaintance, particularly as it respects the men.

The clothing of the Walachians varies in many points according to the district in which they reside; but may generally be described as follows:—The summer dress of the men consists of a short coarse shirt with wide open sleeves, which reach partly over the thighs and hang outside of the trowsers.

The latter, of coarse white woollen cloth, or in summer sometimes of linen, are very large and descend to the ankles. Round their feet they wrap rags, and over them put a piece of raw hide, bound on with thongs and thus fastened to the foot and leg above the ankle. Instead of these sandals, the more wealthy wear short boots reaching to the calf of the leg. Round the waist the shirt is bound by a leathern girdle, generally ornamented with brass buttons, in which they carry a knife, a flint and steel, and a tobacco-pipe. Over the shirt is sometimes thrown a jacket of coarse brown woollen cloth. They wear the hair short, suffering it to hang down a little way in the natural curls. None but old men, or such as from their situation or office are particularly entitled to respect, suffer the beard to grow. Among the common people this usually takes place after the age of forty, and such persons are distinguished by the appellation of moschule, grandfather. The head is generally covered with a woollen or white cloth cap, or a low round hat; but while the Walachian is in mourning he always goes bare-headed, be the weather what it may. He carries a knapsack, containing provisions and necessaries, slung across the shoulders, and a strong stick in his hand.

The women wear a long shirt reaching to the knees, and ornamented at the bosom and sleeves with coloured stitches. From a small girdle are suspended two aprons, one before and the other behind. These are somewhat shorter than the shirt, and are made of striped woollen cloth, bordered below with fringe. Over the shirt the bosom is often covered with a stomacher of cloth or leather. They also wear, particularly in winter, under their shirts, long wide drawers; and in the mountain districts cover their feet with the sandals already described, but commonly wear boots in the plain. The girls have no covering on the head, but their hair is plaited in braids, which are disposed cross-wise on the head, and fastened with pins. Married women wear head-dresses of white linen, and the richer part of them of muslin.

The Walachian women are very fond of ornament. They paint their cheeks red, and this addition is deemed even by the poorest essential to beauty. They often colour the eyebrows black, and wear ear-rings of different kinds: but the chief ornament of the rich consists of several necklaces of silver or sometimes gold coins, instead of which the poor use base coins and glass beads, strung on threads and hung round the neck and breast. Their number is indefinite, and they frequently reach quite to the girdle. The embroidery also upon their shirts and their many coloured aprons is esteemed by them an indispensable part of ornamental attire.

Children of both sexes wear in summer nothing but a long shirt reaching to the ankles. In winter they are seldom better clothed, and may be seen playing and leaping about in their shirts in the snow. At the age of six or seven years, they begin to dress like men and women.

In winter the Walachian provides himself with a sheep-skin cloak with the wool turned inward, and having a fur cap instead of a hood; or he throws over him a white or brown cloth mantle, which descends to the knees, and has a large hood to put over the head in bad weather. Under this cloak he wears his usual dress. The women likewise wear sheep-skin cloaks with sleeves; lined inside with wool and adorned outside with coloured patches and coarse embroidery, and held together in front by laces and buttons.

The gipsy tribe is also very numerous in Transylvania. They may be divided into two classes, the itinerant and the stationary. The former having no fixed habitations, wander in summer and winter from one place to another. In summer they generally live in tents; in winter in wretched huts of clay, or in holes which they excavate to the depth of a few feet in the declivity of the hills, and cover with branches, moss and turf, to protect themselves from the weather. It is easy to conceive how miserable the inside of one of these dwellings must appear. Air and light are almost wholly excluded; and the only apartment is a cave, in the centre of which is a fire serving at the same time for warmth and cooking. Household and culinary utensils are scarcely to be expected. The inmates sit, eat and sleep on the bare ground, or at best lie on a heap of rags. On a fine winter day they open their cavern for a few hours to the sun; but if the weather is cloudy they keep themselves shut up, nestle round the fire, cook and divide the food which chance or theft has placed at their disposal, and pass the remainder of the day in chatting and smoking, for the latter of which they have a particular predilection. Men, women and even children know no greater happiness than to smoke tobacco out of a short pipe, or to chew a piece of the wooden pipe when it has been well impregnated with the essential oil of tobacco.

Their furniture seldom consists of more than an earthen pot, an iron pan, a spoon, a water-jug, a knife and sometimes a dish. If the father is a smith, which is most frequently the case, he has a pair of small hand-bellows, a stone anvil, a pair of pincers and a couple of hammers. Add to this a knapsack, a few rags for clothing, a tattered tent, formed of a piece of coarse woollen cloth, and this is a complete inventory. But if he is so fortunate as to possess besides these an old foundered horse, he puts the whole establishment on its back, and thus rambles from place to place.

The wandering gipsy is generally clothed in rags, and the women are more remarkable, if possible, for their want of cleanliness than the men. Wrapped in their tattered garments, which scarcely suffice for decency, carrying their infants in a piece of cloth suspended from their shoulders, and driving before them the elder children, naked, or at most covered with a torn shirt, they visit in all their filth, particularly during fairs, the towns and villages, to dispose of the paltry produce of their labour, or rather under that pretext to exercise their skill in pilfering. Their stations are generally by the road side, where the naked children lie and beg; or by following travellers, by tumbling and by locking the wheels of carriages, they obtain a trifle or seize an opportunity of purloining something. Their usual occupation is making coarse iron articles. Some cut spoons, shovels and little troughs out of wood; others make brooms of twigs, weave baskets, and gather herbs, rushes, or juniper-berries. In this manner they contrive to gain a scanty subsistence, and if, after providing absolute necessaries, there is any surplus, it is expended in brandy of which they are very fond.

The settled gipsies, who are termed Neubauern, or new peasants, live much better than their wandering brethren. They reside in the outskirts of suburbs and villages, where they herd together, and their habitations contain a greater variety of conveniences than the dens described above. Their occupations are in general those of the wandering tribe. The greater part are smiths, and in spite of their imperfect apparatus they perform their work well. They visit also the neighbouring towns and villages to mend iron and copper utensils: others make a profession of music, and pass in companies from place to place. Some of them are tolerable performers, and collect large contributions from parties which amuse themselves with dancing and other festivities: others are engaged in mending shoes and in working in wood, or assist in agricultural occupations, in which, however, they are seldom industrious. They are usually employed as executioners, and in the business of flaying animals which have died a natural death. The women mostly trade in old clothes, in which the men assist them; or they levy a tax on the superstition of the peasantry by fortune-telling and pretensions to magic. Another occupation in which they are much engaged in Transylvania is gold-washing, in the many rivulets of the country which yield that metal.

UNMARRIED FEMALE OF THOROCZKO.

Thoroczko, pronounced Torotzko, is a village in the county of Thorda, with an iron mine which is not wrought by means of regular shafts, but by passages cut in the side of the mountain. The inhabitants are Germans from Styria, who have settled here to work in the mine, but have ceased to speak their native language; and Hungarians belonging to the Unitarian church.

The females of this place are distinguished from their neighbours by their head-dress, by the singular and tasteful embroidery on their chemises and corsets, by the red sash which encircles the waist, and by the peculiar manner in which they plait their petticoats. They wear occasionally a blue cloak, without arm-holes, plaited like the petticoat.

UNMARRIED FEMALE OF OBERASCHA.

The head-dress of the young female of Oberascha, or more correctly Obrasa, is composed of variegated ribbons, which are fastened round the head, and the ends of which hang loose over the bosom and shoulders. Above each ear are generally fixed a couple of peacock’s feathers. Round the neck she wears a fine sort of net-work to which are hung pieces of silver coin. The gown is adorned with embroidery on the shoulders. To the red sash which holds the black apron are attached several rings, probably tokens of love. Red boots complete her costume, the general appearance of which proclaims her a Walachian.

A PEASANT OF OBERASCHA.

The inhabitants of Oberascha and the environs, are distinguished from other Walachians by the custom of wearing their hair tied in a club on the right side, and also by their tight pantaloons, and half-boots turned down at the top. The shirt, which the Walachians wear over the pantaloons, is fastened on holidays round the waist by a variegated scarf and a leathern belt, decorated with a profusion of metal studs, from which are suspended the tobacco-pouch, flint and steel.

AN ARMED PLAJASH, OR GUARD OF THE FRONTIERS.

In Transylvania, as well as throughout all Hungary, proper precautions are taken for the security of travellers against the attacks of banditti. The guards employed to patrole the roads for this purpose are called by different names in different parts of the kingdom. In Transylvania they are styled Plajashes, from the Walachian word Plaja, a foot-path, or road. The duty of these Plajashes is to escort travellers and goods over the mountains, which are frequently very unsafe: hence they always appear completely armed. Their weapons consist of a musket, two large sharp knives or daggers, and the national buzogany, or mace. They carry their ammunition, tobacco, materials for striking a light and other articles attached to their belt. In other respects their dress resembles that of the Walachians, to whom they indeed belong.

Upon the whole, there is scarcely any country in which travelling is safer than in Transylvania, because the inhabitants of every place are responsible for all the losses and injuries which travellers may sustain in its territory.