LA DUS AND BISTRA.
This first taste of the delights of a Transylvanian mountain excursion
had but stimulated our desire for more enjoyment of the same kind.
After revelling so unrestrainedly in the pure mountain air, it was not
possible to settle down at once to the monotony of every-day life.
Some touch of the restless, roving spirit of the gypsies had come over
me, and I began to understand that the life they lead might have a
fascination nowhere else to be found. I positively hungered for more
air, more sunshine, for deeper draughts of the pine wood fragrance,
further revelations of the mountain wonders. I could not afford to
waste the very last days of this glorious summer weather cooped up
within narrow streets; and as one or two of my late companions were of
the same way of thinking, another expedition was speedily resolved upon.
It was, however, not without difficulty that we organized this second
excursion, which could not possibly be attempted by two ladies without
at least an equal number of gentlemen. Especially if there were going
to be any more fainting-fits, a second protector was an imperative
necessity; and who could tell (women being proverbially incalculable in
their doings) whether we might not both select the self-same moment for
swooning away? As yet only one of the stronger sex had been secured,
and a second seemed to be nowhere forthcoming. As I before remarked,
it is no easy matter to find a person with exactly the requisite
qualifications for a mountaineering companion, and I am inclined to
believe that Diogenes must have been contemplating some such ascent
when he ran about the streets of Athens with a lantern. We had gone
over the list of our dearest friends, and had rejected most of them,
feeling convinced that we should get to detest them in the course
of the first forty-eight hours. Of those few who remained some were
unwell and others unwilling; some had no time and others no boots; the
cavalry officers rarely cared to walk at all, and infantry officers
were of opinion that they had quite enough walking already in their
usual routine of military duty; and it is mournful to have to record
that out of a population of about twenty-two thousand inhabitants, not
another man could be found both willing and able to walk up a hill with
a couple of ladies.
Our plan, therefore, seemed doomed to dire disappointment, when a
bright thought struck me—the very brightest I ever had. Besides the
population of 13,000 Germans, 3737 Roumanians, 2018 Magyars, 238 Jews
and Armenian gypsies, and 443 infants, shown by the latest statistical
return of the town, Hermanstadt could boast of something else—namely,
one Englishman; and on this one solitary countryman all my hopes were
accordingly fixed.
The gentleman in question, who had made his appearance here some months
previously along with his wife and child, had long been a source of
deep and perplexing interest to the inhabitants of Hermanstadt. None
of them knew his name, and no name was required, “Der Engländer” being
sufficient to describe the fabulous stranger who had found his way
to these remote regions. No one spoke of him in any other way, and
his bills and parcels were sent to him invariably addressed to “Der
Engländer.” His wife and his hat, his umbrella and his stockings, his
boots and his baby, were as many sources of puzzling conjecture to
these worthy people, who regarded him with all the deeper suspicion
just because the life he led was so apparently harmless.
What had brought him to this out-of-the-way corner of Europe? was
the question which troubled many a Saxon mind; and more than one was
of opinion that he was a British spy sent by Mr. Gladstone for the
express purpose of studying the military resources of the country
and corrupting the population. No one would, I think, have been much
surprised if some dark crime had been brought home to him, or if a
supply of nitro-glycerine had been found concealed in the baby’s
perambulator—the two most suspicious circumstances about him being,
that he had occasionally been seen looking on at the military parade,
and had an uncanny habit of taking long walks in the country. It
was, however, precisely this last ominous symptom which had directed
my thoughts to him on this occasion; and having formed a slight
acquaintance with Mr. P—— and his wife, I felt sure that he would
prove equal to the occasion.
A deep analysis of international character has led me to the conclusion
that, in a contingency like the present, one Englishman may be fairly
balanced against a trifling majority of some twenty thousand other
mixed races; so I put forward my candidate, expressing a conviction
that my countryman would in no way fall short of the national standard
which demands that every Englishman shall do his duty.
“Very well,” said my friend, half reluctantly, “let us ask ‘Der
Engländer,’ if you really think it safe.” So after I had pledged my
honor that the country’s security would in nowise be imperilled, I
secured the valuable and agreeable companionship of Mr. P——, and we
set out once more, a small party of four people, with the requisite
number of guides and baggage-horses.
This second expedition was to be conducted on a somewhat different
principle from the first; for, instead of taking up our quarters at one
given point, we proposed wandering over the mountains in true gypsy
fashion, sleeping wherever we happened to find shelter in shepherds’
huts or foresters’ lodges, or, in the absence of these, camping under a
sail-cloth tent we carried with us. It had been planned that we were to
remain out fully ten days, returning by a different route, and making a
short excursion into Roumania.
We drove to the foot of the hills, and then commenced our ascent from
a Roumanian village, where the white-veiled women plying the distaff
in front of their doors sent us courteous salutations as we passed.
The weather was radiantly beautiful, the atmosphere of a faultless
transparency, without a breath of air to hasten the falling leaves, or
a cloud to mar the effect of the deep-blue vault. There were still wild
flowers enough—campanulas, gentians, and wild carnations—growing on
the steep grassy slopes, to make us fancy ourselves in midsummer; and
the gaudy insects disporting themselves thereon—butterflies blue and
purple, gold and scarlet grasshoppers, and shining bronze beetles—were
as many brilliant impostors luring us on to the belief that winter was
still far away.
But the furry caterpillars scuttling across our path at headlong speed,
in their haste to wrap themselves up in their warm winter cocoons, knew
better; and so did the ring-doves and martens, which, with other tribes
of migrating birds, were all winging it swiftly towards the south,
making dark streaks in the blue sky overhead.
For our part, we felt it almost too hot to walk uphill in the sun, and
were thankful when, after an hour’s ascent, we gained the shade of the
dense pine forests which, without admixture of beech, clothe all this
part of the country.
There is no sense of monotony in these beautiful pine woods, though
one may walk in them for many days without reaching the end of the
forest, for no two parts of it are alike, and surprises await us at
every turn. Thus one region is distinguished by a profusion of coral
ornaments, the huge red toadstools, sprouting everywhere on the
emerald moss, looking like monster sugar-plums which have fallen from
these gigantic Christmas-trees; then suddenly a new transformation
takes place, and we are walking in a mermaid’s grove far beneath the
sea—for are not the trees here adorned with tremulous hangings of
palest green sea-weed? Yet this is no other than a lichen, the _Usnea
barbata_, or bearded moss, also called Rübezahl’s hair, which with such
strange perversity will sometimes seize upon a whole forest district,
thus fantastically decking it out in this long, wavy fluff, hanging
from each twig and branch in fringes and bunches like a profusion of
gray-green icicles; while elsewhere, under apparently the self-same
conditions of soil and vegetation, we may seek for it in vain.
Farther on we come upon a scene still more weird and suggestive, as
we seem to have stepped unawares into a land of ghosts. Hundreds of
dead fir-trees, bleached and dry, are standing here upright and stark.
Untouched by the storm, and unbroken by old age, with every branch
and twig intact, they have been stricken to the heart’s core by a
treacherous enemy, the _Borkenkäfer_ (_Bostrichus typographus_), a
small but baneful insect, which for years past has been plying its
deadly craft, and, vampire-like, sapping their life away. It is a
relief to quit this death-like region, and return to the exuberant life
expressed in every line of those gorgeous trees, growing scarce fifty
paces ahead of their stricken brethren, whose lower branches, weighed
down beneath the burden of their own magnificence, have sunk to the
ground, where they lie voluptuously embedded in the rank luxuriance of
the moss-woven grass. Yet here, too, the deadly insect will come, in
scarce half a dozen years, to turn those emerald giants into staring
white ghosts. Day by day it is creeping nearer, and though they know it
not, those deluded trees, their days are already counted. Let us pass
on; life is not blither than death after all!
Our first halt was made at La Dus, a small group of huts tenanted in
summer by Hungarian gendarmes, there stationed for the purpose of
keeping a lookout on smugglers and possible military deserters, who may
hope to evade service by concealing themselves among the shepherds, or
going over the frontier into Roumania. The immediate surroundings of
this little establishment are somewhat bleak and desolate, the forest
having been of late much cleared out at this spot. A tiny cemetery
behind the houses seems to act the part of pleasure-ground as well;
for right in its centre, separating the seven or eight graves into two
rows, is a primitive skittle-ground—which curious arrangement can only
be explained by the supposition that here the skittles had the right of
priority, the dead men being but dissipated interlopers, who, having
loved to play at skittles during their lifetime, desired to be united
to them even in death. The remains of a camp-fire I observed in one
corner was another sign of the peculiar way the defunct are treated in
this obscure church-yard, the ashes on closer investigation showing the
charred wrecks of some of the crosses and railings missing from more
than one grave.
In a wooden _châlet_ reserved for the occasional visits of inspection
of a head forester we obtained night-quarters, proceeding next
morning on our way, which again took us through similar pine woods,
reaching this time a comfortable shooting-lodge lying deep in the
forest of Bistra, where we were made welcome by a hospitable Roumanian
game-keeper and four or five remarkably amiable pointers, which
threatened to stifle us with their affectionate demonstrations.
The weather had now begun to change, and a small drizzling rain had
already surprised us on the way. Reluctantly we acknowledged that the
caterpillars were by no means so devoid of sense as had appeared at
first sight; and those migrating winged families, which had seemed
so unreasonably anxious to start for Italy, were now slowly rising
in our estimation, and as we were very comfortably installed at the
game-keeper’s lodge, we resolved to stay there two nights in order to
give the weather time to improve before venturing on to higher ground.
This intervening day of rest was spent pleasantly enough in walking
about and sketching, despite occasional showers of rain; while the
gentlemen proceeded to shoot _haselhühner_ in the forest. For the
benefit of those unacquainted with these delicious little birds, I
must here mention that they are about the size of a partridge, but
of far superior flavor. They are mostly to be found in pine forests,
where they feed on the delicate young pine-shoots, along with
juniper-berries, sloes, and heather-nibs, which gives to them (in a
fainter degree) something of the sharp aromatic taste of the grouse.
Close to the game-keeper’s lodge there was a dashing mountain torrent
of considerable volume, and this point had been selected for the
construction of a _klause_ (literally cloister)—or to put it more
clearly, a monster dam—across the torrent-bed, with movable sluices.
By means of the body of water obtained in this way, the wood of the
forest is conveyed to the lower world. The river-banks are here
enlarged till they form a small lake, and the dam, built up securely
of massive bowlder-stones, is, for greater preservation against wind
and weather, walled and roofed in with wooden planking, which gives
to it the appearance of a roomy habitation. In connection with this
lake are numerous wooden slides or troughs, which, slanting down from
the adjacent hills, deposit whole trunks at the water’s edge, there
to be hewn up into convenient logs and thrown into the water. When a
sufficient quantity of wood has been thus collected the sluices are
opened, and with thunder-like noise the cataract breaks forth, easily
sweeping its wooden burden along.
Even greater loads sometimes reach the lower world by this watery road,
and occasionally twenty to twenty-five stems, roughly shaped into beams
for building purposes, are fastened together so as to form a sort of
raft, firmly connected at one end by cross-beams and wooden bands,
but left loose at the opposite side to admit of the beams separating
fan-like, according to the exigencies of the encountered obstacles, as
they are whirled along. Two men furnished with lengthy poles act as
steersmen, and it requires no little skill to guide this unwieldy craft
successfully through the labyrinth of rocks and whirlpools which beset
the river’s bed. The perils of such a cruise are considerable, and used
to be greater still before some of the worst rocks were blasted out of
the way. Sometimes the whole craft goes to pieces, dashed against the
bowlders, or else a fallen tree-stem across the river may crush the
sailors as they are swept beneath. From this fate the navigators may
sometimes barely escape by throwing themselves prostrate on the raft,
or by leaping over the barrier at the critical moment; or else, when
the obstacle is not otherwise to be evaded, and seems too formidable
to surmount, they find it necessary to make voluntary shipwreck by
steering on to the nearest rock. The thunder-like noise of the cataract
renders speech unavailing, so it is only by signs that the men can
communicate with each other.
This particular klause is not in use at present, as there are similar
ones in neighboring valleys; so the little colony of log-huts built
for the accommodation of workmen is standing empty, and single huts can
be rented at a moderate price by any one who wishes to enjoy some weeks
of a delightful solitude in the midst of fragrant pine forests.