Roumania Past and Present by James Samuelson (lightweight ebook reader .TXT) 📖

mediæval art and valuable historical record may not again be allowed to fall into decay, but may long remain what it is at present, undoubtedly the gem of Roumania.[47]

[Footnote 41: An excellent monograph, beautifully illustrated, of this cathedral was published by Ludwig Reissenberger (Braumüller, Vienna, 1860), to which we refer the reader for further details concerning it. Our two woodcuts showing the tracery are copied from that work, but the autotype plate is from a photograph by Duschek.]

[Footnote 42: Reissenberger calls it 'Grobkalk.' Similar stone is found in the neighbourhood.]

[Footnote 43: There are several versions of the legend. In some the prince is called Negru Voda, in others Negoije Voda, and in others again Radu Negru. The poem has been translated by Hon. H. Stanley, Roumanian Anthology , p. 215 (Hertford: Stephen Austin), an expensive and beautifully illuminated drawing-room book, containing some Roumanian poems in the vernacular, and others translated into English.]

[Footnote 44: The date on the tablet is 7209. This is Anno Mundi, according to the chronology of at least a section of the Byzantine Church, Christ having been born, after that reckoning, 5509 years after the creation of the world. (See Brown's Vulgar Errors and Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible .) Engel says Neagu reigned from 1511 to 1520. Vaillant says he died in 1518.]

[Footnote 45: 7035 (A.M.) is the date on the tablet.]

[Footnote 46: Vineyard?]

[Footnote 47: As reference has been made from time to time to Roumanian ecclesiastics, the following brief particulars may not be uninteresting. Christianity was introduced into the provinces bordering on the Danube at a very early date. According to A. de Gerando ( Siebenbürgen und seine Einwohner , p. 211, Lorck, Leipzig, 1845), a MS. was found in Hungary, bearing a cross and the date 274 A.D.; and in 325 A.D. a Bishop Theophilus was spoken of amongst the Goths. In 370 A.D. Athanaric, the Gothic king, persecuted and put many Christians to death. In 527 A.D. the Christian churches of Roumania (as then constituted) were taken in charge by the metropolitan of the Greek Church. But it was not until 865 A.D. that the Bulgarians and the native population associated with them were actually converted to Christianity (Lauriani, p. 29). About that time intrigues existed between the heads of the Eastern and Western Churches for the possession of the headship in these countries, but the influence of the former predominated. About 860 A.D. a Slavonian liturgy was introduced into the churches, and, notwithstanding the denunciations and embassies of the Roman Pontiff, a separation occurred about 880 A.D., and the Roumanians joined the Orthodox Greek Church. Of the negotiations between Innocent III. and Johannitz, King of the Second Wallacho-Bulgarian monarchy, we shall speak hereafter, and although after that time the Papal power was in the ascendant in Wallachia and Moldavia amongst the princes and nobles, the people always leaned to the Greek rite, and at length, in 1440, the metropolitan of Moldavia succeeded (Romish writers say by a religious coup d'état ) in making the Greek Church dominant. In the middle of the seventeenth century the most important Roman Catholic bishopries were suppressed, and down to the present time the Greek Church has been the state religion, and it is professed by nearly the whole nation; even the King, who was formerly a Roman Catholic, now conforms to the faith. Of the secularisation of the monasteries and other religious movements we shall speak in Part II, and it is only necessary to add that at present there are two metropolitans or archbishops, six bishops with dioceses and several without; in 1876 there were 9,800 secular priests, 1,700 monks and 2,270 nuns, 6,550 churches and 173 monasteries and nunneries. The priests or 'popes' marry and follow secular occupations in the country; in the towns they are 'non-productive' so far as labour is concerned. The services of the Greek Church are not impressive; but although much has been written concerning their superstition, the Roumanians do not differ greatly from the people of other Catholic countries in that respect. There is great indifference to religion, if not absolute atheism, amongst the higher classes, which no doubt results from the great ignorance of the priesthood. The thing most to be regretted, however, is that whilst there are thousands of 'religieuses,' as they are called, in the country, all the nurses in its excellent hospitals should be paid servants, and the Church does nothing whatever towards maintaining the efficiency of those institutions.]


CHAPTER V.

TOPOGRAPHICAL--COMMERCIAL.

Tramways in Bucarest--Other efforts at improvement--Galatz--Its
position on the Danube--Quays, streets, buildings, &c.--Importance
as a seaport--Languages requisite for trading there--Almost entire
absence of English firms--Reports of the Consul-General, Mr. Percy
Sanderson--The quality of British manufactures--(Note: The author's
experience)--Causes of preference for foreign over British
manufactures--Commercial treaties--Austrian pressure to the
detriment of Great Britain--Statistics of our import and export
trade with Roumania--Infancy of her manufacturing
industries--Difficulties hitherto existing--War and uncertainty of
investments--The new port of Constanta (Kustendjie)--Other
Roumanian towns--Jassy--Its position and institutions--(Note:
Conflicting estimates of its population)--Ibrail, Craiova,
Ploiesti, &c.


If many of the streets of Bucarest are badly paved and the city imperfectly sewered, it is at least striving hard to keep pace with other European towns in regard to modern conveniences. Its main streets are well lighted with gas, and it boasts a good line of tramways round and through various parts of the city. But when we come to consider what is now the second town of importance in Roumania, Galatz, we have to step back a few decades before we can realise its condition. It is situated on the left bank of the Danube about ninety miles from the Sulina mouth, and to the east of it is Lake Bratish, which is only separated from the great river by a strip of marshy land. On the whole it is more regularly built than Bucarest, and for about a mile along the river's bank the business portion extends, with its quays for ships discharging, ships loading, foreign agencies, timber yards, and railway loading and discharging berths. In the town itself there is nothing of interest to strangers. The streets are in a condition alternating between mud over your knees and dust over your ankles, imperfectly if at all drained, and lighted with oil lamps, of which one in every three is usually put into requisition. There are some good-sized public buildings, including the Prefecture, some hospitals, two of which, one called St. Spiridion, and another built during the Russo-Turkish war, were a great boon to the wounded of all the armies. There is also a cathedral, such as it is, and several Greek churches, one of which is said to contain the remains of Mazeppa; a synagogue or two, and a few other places of worship. Then there is a 'park' and a garden, and altogether Galatz resembles Bucarest on a small scale, and without its improvements. The chief boast of the place seems to be a constant water-supply, which is, however, so regulated that whilst one householder is watering his garden his neighbour cannot perform the same operation, but must wait patiently until he has finished; and finally there are, as a matter of course, a good many brick houses, some of one story and some of two, in which dwell a very kindly and hospitable set of inmates.

The importance of Galatz as a seaport is, however, quite another matter. Although this country transacts a very considerable trade with it, there are very few English houses or agencies there, the chief business being carried on by German, Italian, Greek, and French firms; and not only those languages, but also Turkish and Bulgarian, are requisite for trading purposes.

The chief commodities exported to England are, as already stated, maize and barley, and the chief importations from this country are cotton yarn, cottons, woollens, machinery, hardware, cutlery, dry stuffs, spices, tea and sugar, but besides those there is hardly an article used by a civilised community which is not supplied to Roumania from this country. In two admirable reports published in 1877 and 1878, our Consul-General in Roumania, Mr. Percy Sanderson, has reviewed the trade between the two nations, and he gives some rather significant hints to 'fair traders,' that is to say not in the refined sense in which the term has been recently employed, but in its good old-fashioned signification of honest dealers. 'It cannot be said,' he remarks, 'that the bulk of the goods imported from Great Britain forms by any means a fair sample of its produce and manufactures,' and 'there is already a tendency amongst the well-to-do classes to purchase French or Austrian manufactures when they are prepared to pay a high price for a really good article, although the same goods might possibly be furnished them from Great Britain at a lower rate.'[48] But Consul Sanderson gives another reason for the preference shown for foreign as distinguished from English manufactures. It is that the local trade is chiefly carried on by natives of those countries from which the articles preferred are imported, 'whilst there is not a single shop in Galatz kept by an Englishman--it seems doubtful whether there be one in the whole of Roumania.' And there is still a third reason, to which he only refers incidentally, but we question whether it is not the most cogent of all. Whilst continental states, and especially Austria, have shown little delicacy in exacting favourable treaties of commerce from the Roumanian Government, England has been at a disadvantage in that respect. We may be told that we are placed on the most favoured nation footing, but we were informed at Bucarest by persons occupying high positions, and whose statements may be trusted implicitly, that, although this is apparently and nominally the case, it is not so in reality, as the commercial treaties have been initiated by Austria, and so framed as to give a preference to her manufactures.[49]

Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, our exports to Roumania are on the whole increasing, as witness the following statistics (Board of Trade, 1881), although there has been a slight falling off in cotton stuffs on which the tariff is high, and in manufactured iron.


Total Exports from Great Britain to Roumania.

+----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ | | 1878. | 1879. | 1880. | +----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ | | | | | |British manufactures | £887,488 | £997,078 |£1,112,761| |Foreign and colonial produce| 112,987 | 100,354 | 86,501| | and manufactures | | | | +----------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ |Total