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Government, by coolly appropriat- from countries like Moldavia, where ing the whole £12,000 a-year, and they possess large tracts of counstill advancing him his own salary, try. saved him all further trouble. Out of the revenue thus acquired by Prince Couza, an annual grant of £900 is made to the support of the Monastery of Bistritza. Judging by the specimens of priesthood we saw there, this sum is ample. The only objection which the public take to this act of spoliation is that Prince Couza will no more say what he does with the yearly revenue he has pocketed than the Patriarch. There must be something fascinating in the touch of this saered gold, so closely does it stick to the fingers of all who handle it. However, Prince Couza can't last for ever; and even if he is not more honest than a priest, he has at least the merit of having broken down a system of robbery and plunder on the part of the Church, and of keeping Moldavian money in the country. Under the old system, adventurers or needy boyards used to plot with the dishonest Igoumens, who gave them recommendations to the Patriarch at Constantinople. They thus procured from this dignitary land at absurdly low leases, the representations of the Igoumen being that they were of small value. They would then sublet these lands at an enormous advance, grind the peasantry down to the last farthing, and share the profits with the respectable IgouDen. Better, say the peasantry, have to trust to the tender mercies of the Government than to those of priests of Dedicated monasteries. So they are not averse to Prince Couza's measure of confiscation.

Some idea of the enormous sums obtained by the Greek Church, by means of monasteries dedicated to it, from the countries in which they are situated, may be gained by the fact that in the Monastery at Sinai there are only eighteen monks, with a revenue of £60,000 a-year. As it is quite clear that they cannot derive this sum from the barren sides of Horeb, or from any number of Wadies," it can only come

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It is only natural that the Igoumens, who are scarcely ever natives of the country to which they are sent as rent-takers, should look upon the whole thing as a question of plunder. Our friend at Bistritza told us that he was a native of Constantinople, but had been appointed to his present post by the Bishop of Jerusalem. will be seen, from the conditions under which the Dedicated monasteries of the Principalities exist, that Turkey has really a very indirect interest in them. It is more a question of principle than of interest, but the traditional instincts of the Porte lead the Government to hold with tenacity to its right upon matters which are really of no importance. Moreover, it is subject to a very strong Fanariot pressure at Constantinople, which the Sultan finds it difficult to resist. The connection of Turkey with these provinces is a distinct source of weakness to her, yet there nothing upon which the Government at Constantinople is more sensitive than about its rights in the Principalities. If we are to support these claims, it would be wise to do it upon some subject which would be more comprehensible to the British public than the Dedicated monasteries. The Power which has enabled Prince Couza to effect this wholesale measure with impunity has been France; and Russia, although interested in the Church which has been despoiled, and having many good reasons which might have induced her to oppose a measure which really bas deprived her of funds which used to be employed in intrigue, was at the time so much committed to a French policy that she has found it difficult latterly to take a more consistent and independent line. However, this question has been merged in others of greater importance arising out of the policy recently adopted by Prince Couza, and which we may con-ider in a future article. Meantime we may

take a final leave of ecclesiastical establishments, Cenobitic and Dedicated, of villages of nuns packed together in hundreds, and of gaunt buildings inhabited by solitary ronks; and, traversing once more the vast plains of these provinces, examine a little at their capitals the effect of a religion which has this peculiar development upon sciety at large.

A six hours' drive down the valley of the Bistritza took us to Bakou: our road, not much traversed, followed the river, and here and there the scenery was soft and pretty; but as we approached our destination, the gentle undulations which gave a variety to the landscape gradually subsided, and we found our selves at nightfall in the dusty plain. Bakou is a town on the main road from Jassy to Bucharest, containing about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and at the time of our visit it was honoured by the presence of no less a person than the Prime Minister. This gentleman had been upon a canvassing tour through the country, arranging matters for the elections. By a judicious admixture of threats and bribes, it is not difficult in these provinces to insure matters going the right way. The only other country where politics as a trade are so profitable, where the men who engage in it are so unscrupulous, and where the people are so thoroughly victimised by the form of government they may by a figure of speech be said to “enjoy," is Federal America. I was amused to observe the manner in which the Prime Minister treated the different gentlemen who were presented to Lim while I was in his company, the contemptuous indifference manifested to some, the urbanity displayed to others, the servility shown by nearly all, except by one man who seemed to have a presentiment of the disgrace which was impending over the Premier, and did not think it worth while to be civil.

We did not trouble his Excellency very long, but djourned to an inn where a number of young men Were supping, wth whom it was

rather amusing to enter into conversation, for they were more unsophisticated than those wretched specimens of "Young Moldav a" who are to be found in its capita', and whose manners have been acquired at the "Mabille" in Paris. The youths of Bakou spoke with a certain appearance at least of patriotic fervour. They had aspirations for their country never heard in the polite society of Jassy or Bucharest, and were quite delighted to show us, by the eagerness with which they entered upon politics, that they were qualifying themselves for self-government. The more enthusiastic talked widely about a Roumania which should embrace Transylvania, the Buckovine, the Banat, and Bessarabia, besides the Principalities, amounting altogether to a population of about ten millions, as they maintain-of people all having the same national sentiments, and possessing within themselves the elements of cohesion. The nationality idea, as applied to Roumania, is the most absurd expression of it which has yet cropped up under the auspices of the Emperor Louis Napoleon. Imagine the whole of Italy in a considerably more degraded state than either Naples or Sicily, without a Piedmont to rally round, and you have Roumania. However, it was useless to argue with our Bakou audience; they believed in their nationality, and called themselves Daco-Roumains The more moderate, it is true, were inclined to begin with the Principalities alone, without a protectorate.

These five nurses, who are always quarrelling among theinselves over this very sickly baby, do not improve the temper of the infant, and in the end will prove fatal to its existence. This conviction leads those who are not in government employ, and can therefore afford to be patriotic under certain restrictions, to advocate the abolition of the protectorate. They maintain that they would thereby be thrown upon their own resources, and have any fine qualities which they may perchance possess led

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out. These fine qualities not being apparent to the traveller, their absence is charged upon the five protecting Powers, who, it is contended, sacrifice the interests of the country to their own selfish purposes, and enable those in power to keep themselves there against the will of the Country by mere intrigue. It is indeed an open question whether we should not have better consulted our own interests as well as those of the Principalities, if, instead of agreeing to place them under the protection of five Powers all jealous of each other, we had left them to their own devices. Upon a future occasion, in a conversation which I bad with Prince Couza, he graphically described the liberty he enjoyed under the present system. There was no violation of the stipulations which he did not daringly commit under the protecting ægis of one or other Power. However illegal or arbitrary his acts, however much in defiance of treaty-right, he was always sure to have one Power on his side sometimes France, times Russia, generally both if his policy was directed against Turkey. If, instead of joining in an agreement with other Powers which obliges us as a point of honour to intertere whenever an unscrupulous ruer breaks the constitution, we had confined ourselves to a treaty prohibiting any Power under any pretence whatever from interfering in the internal administration of these Principalities, we should bave save ourselves from those diffienities which are likely soon to arise and embarrass our policy as seriously as the Schleswig-Hostein complications have done. The pretensions of Turkey, unfortunately, were those which we thought it necessary to support, not preceiving that in diplomatic as in military strategy you increase the strength of your position exactly in proportion as you retract your lines. At this moment the vulnerable point of Turkey is her suzerainty over the Principalities; she bas got this "tabia" of diplomacy lying outside all her fortifications.

It is of no earthly use to her-a source of weakness rather than of strength, and sure to be attacked before long. When it is attacked, she need no more calculate upon England coming to her rescue, than to that of Poland, Denmark, or any of the other numerous countries and causes which we abandon and betray the moment it suits us. Far better let her make a merit of necessity, and at a time when there is no pressure at work, no coercion used, cede what will otherwise prove her ruin, and obtain in return rights which will strengthen ber Danubian frontier. The reason that Russia and France may have a cause of quarrel with us upon this question at any moment they choose, is simply because Turkey has rights in it which we are bound to protect. Up to this moment it has not suited either Power to open the Eastern Question. The insurrection in Poland for a time divided the interests of France and Russia, and a skilful diplomacy on our part at that time might have pushed matters to the point of an open breach. This would have given a coup-de-grace to the Franco-Russian policy in the East. It was one of the indirect advantages which would have accrued from the gratification of the sentimentalism of the English in the matter of Poland. There has probably never been a question in which the interests of diplomacy. could have been so well served by the unreasoning impulses of the masses as in this matter of Poland. Never could the oppressed nationality twaddle have been made more available to the far-seeing statesman. Το the ignorant it would have been a matter of sentiment; to the initiated, one of profound diplomacy. While the Emperor was in an agony lest we should have pushed him on to an open rupture with Russia, he was deluding his own people into the idea that there was nothing he wished for more than a war for Poland, which we prevented. It would, indeed, have been well worth our while to have brought this

about. The first principle of diplomacy is to keep on good terms with foreign Powers one's self; the second, to foster dissensions between those who, if united, would be dangerous to you. It is this latter principle which Prince Couza works to such great advantage. We seem carefully to reverse this order; and the result of our recent diplomacy has been to quarrel with every European Power and to unite them against us. Thus we are quite as much detested as a nation in the Principalities as in Germany or Denmark; and being about to lure the Turks to their destruction, we shall end by being execrated by the only people which still in its simplicity clings to our alliance, and believes in its efficacy. At the same time, while the Roumains, like the Greeks, hate and abuse us, I have little doubt that, like them, if they were called on to elect a prince by popular vote, they would unite in favour of an English one. However much we are despised as a friend or disliked as an enemy, we are immense ly respected by virtue of our internal institutions, and of our individual independence of character. While the English Government is universally unpopular, the Englishman abroad is usually perferred to any other foreigner, and to a great extent redeems or extenuates the faults of his administration in the eyes of those with whom he is staying. The wonder to every foreigner is, that the national policy should be the result of the national character. As individuals, Englishmen have the credit of being the most scrupulously truthful and honour able of men; as a nation we are "perfide;" and so far from the latest efforts of our diplomacy having tended to remove this impressiou, we have achieved a higher reputation for perfidy during the last two or three years than we ever enjoyed before. Individually, the Englishman is admitted to be brave; politically, the name of England is a by word for cowardice. Individually he is regarded as absurdly open-handed-his generosity is pro

verbial; but the national policy is held up as the type of all that is sordid, cold-blooded, and selfish. Everything, in fact, that the Englishman is, the English Government is not; and it requires no little patience and temper in the present day to travel, and venture upon political discussions with foreigners. Nor does the secret conviction that they are right tend to increase one's serenity.

In this little out-of-the-way Moldavian town, the vices of England were crammed down our throats. We were accused of egotism, of being mercenary, of impeding the development of these provinces for our own selfish ends, of intrigues so black that even a Moldavian imagination shuddered to contemplate them, and of designs so elaborate and far-seeing that the only way it was possible to convince people that they did not exist, was by explaining the phenomenon of extremes meeting. Thus a sublime degree of folly and simplicity may at last be mistaken for a wisdom and a subtlety not appreciable by the masses.

English travellers are so rare in Moldavia that even in Jassy one is looked upon rather as a curiosity; and the ignorance of society with reference to England is as great as that usually displayed by British members of Parliament when they are discussing our relations with China. Perhaps when one considers the superior opportunities which such a man as Mr Cobden enjoys of obtaining information, there is less excuse for him than for a Jassy politician. In general, the few ideas upon any subject which the Moldavian men they derive from the women. Nothing was more striking than the invariable rule which insured your hearing from the men in the morning what had been propounded to you by the old women the night before. As is usually the case in communities in a low state of European civilisation, the female portion of society is immeasurably superior to the male; indeed, in would be difficult to find anything in Europe

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inferior to a Moldavian male, except, perhaps, a Wallachian. With the men, therefore, it was rarely possible to discuss politics, or any other subject. They scarcely ever open a book; they only engage in pelitics because they offer such plendid opportunities for looting the public money; they only travel to pick up the vices of civilisation; they only marry because the facilities for divorce are so great that marriage ceases to be a tie. That there are rare exceptions to the general rule is only to be expected; but with every desire to do justice to a country where, at all events, the rites of hospitality are thoroughly understood, it is impossible to be blind to its faults. If the traveller never ventured upon s general and impartial criticism of the people of a country because he happened to be well received in it, there would be little use in his travelling; nor are the Moldavians or Wallachians likely to cure their faults unless they hear what those who would willingly extenuate then, were it possible, find reprehensible. One of the peculiarities of the race is a great sensitiveness to criticism by a stranger; and it made one uncomfortable to feel that any chance remark was likely to be twisted into an uncomplimentary sense, whether one meant it or not. It is true, this only applies to superficials. It is so generally admitted among themselves that nobody can be trasted, that it is the habit never to play cards except with the stakes on the table. Nor do they care for being charged with moral defects. What hurts their pride is an unfav. ourable contrast between a Moldavian and a French made dish, or a cynical expression of countenance on entering a salon, as though you were comparing the furniture with that of a handsome Paris appartement. They have the most

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preme admiration for all the worst points in the French character; they go to Paris expressly to pick them up, and are very indignant if you do not praise them for having them. They dress after the French, play

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soldiers after them, take universalsuffrage votes after them, cook after them, furnish after them, dance, flirt, gamble after them, and anxiously watch for the impression which this admirable imitation of everything French makes upon the stranger. Far more particular about the polish of their boots than the purity of their honour, a Roumain gentleman would prefer you to compliment him on his French accent rather than on his integrity. deed, I am bound to say that nothing that I have said of them here is half so severe as what I have heard them say of one another. It was quite disheartening at last, when, on making some new acquaintance, and hearing him give vent to fervent patriotic sentiments, and lofty aspirations for himself and his country, I was always told, when I described to one of his friends my pleasure at having at last found an honest man, "What! that man honest? Of all the unprincipled scoundrels in the Principalities he is chief." In the end one is obliged, from sheer despair, to abandon one sex for the other. Were it not for the men, the women would be nicer than they are; but as it is, they do what they can to redeem their country. They have nobler aspirations, higher intelligences, and more force of character. They are so glad to see a stranger, that, if he is the least presentable, he is sure of an entrée into society; and as, more especially since the seat of government has been moved to Bucharest, the number of firstclass boyard families now resident in Jassy is considerably diminished, he will soon know every one. town itself is not a particularly agreeable place of residence, apart from its society. It is neither one thing nor the other. It has neither the repose and languor of the East, nor the stir and vivacity of the West. The streets are irregular ani ill-paved; the shops are poor, and there is no great thoroughfare where it is amusing to fláner. Indeed, in the absence of a trottoir, nobody dreains of walking. The hack car

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