beneath which strands of grey hair hung in dishevelled disorder over
their eyes. Generally a white-clay pipe was stuck in the corner
of their mouths, for both the men and women smoke; in fact, smoke
pervades the atmosphere about them, fumes of tobacco mixing with the
more pungent smell of the fires lighted all over the camp.
[Illustration: "THESE SHAGGY GARMENTS GIVE THEM A WILD APPEARANCE" (p.
47).]
[Illustration: "THEIR ONLY REFUGES ARE DUG-OUTS" (p. 47).]
[Illustration: "EVEN TINY BOYS WEAR THESE EXTRAORDINARY COATS" (p. 47).]
[Illustration: "HERE, IN COMPANY WITH THEIR DOGS, THEY SPEND THE LONG
SUMMER MONTHS" (p. 47).]
[Illustration: "ON JUICY PASTURES NEAR CLEAR-FLOWING STREAM" (p. 48).]
[Illustration: "SILENT WATCHERS LEANING ON THEIR STAFFS" (p. 46).]
[Illustration: "WHEREVER I HAVE MET THEM, BE IT ON THE MOUNTAINS OR
IN THE PLAINS, ... THESE SILENT SHEPHERDS HAVE SEEMED TO ME THE VERY
PERSONIFICATION OF SOLITUDE" (p. 50).]
These old crones are the respected members of the tribes. Their loud
curses call order to the young ones, throw a certain awe amongst the
rowdy quarrelling children, who run about almost naked clamouring for
alms, turning summersaults in the dust, tumbling about between one's
feet. A sore trial to one's patience are these scamps, but at the same
time a source of infinite delight to the eye, for extraordinarily
beautiful are some of these grinning, screeching little savages, one
with the colour of the earth; small bronze statues with curly, tousled
heads, large eyes bordered by indescribable lashes, sometimes so long
and curling that they appear to be black feathers at their lids.
Occasionally a torn shirt barely covers them, or their arms have been
thrust into coats much too large, the sleeves dangling limply over
their hands, giving them the appearance of small scarecrows come to
life. Never more enchanting are they than when gambolling about as God
made them, for all attire a string of bright beads round their necks!
These earth-coloured little waifs will run for miles beside one's
carriage or horse, begging for coins with extended palms, whining over
and over again the same complaint.
Most beautiful of all are the young girls: upright, well grown, with
narrow hips and delicate hands and feet. Whatever rag they twist about
their graceful limbs turns into a becoming apparel. They will deck
themselves with any discarded finery they may pick up by the way.
Sometimes valuable old pieces of embroidery will end their days upon
the bodies of these attractive creatures, enhancing their charm, giving
them the air of beggared queens. Bright girdles wound round hips and
waist keep all these rags in place, giving the wearer the look of
Egyptians such as we see painted on the frescoes of temple-walls.
Beneath the gaudy scarves which they tie on their heads plaits of hair
hang down on both sides of their faces--plaits that are decorated with
every sort of coin, with little splinters of coloured glass or metal,
or strange-shaped charms or holy medals that jingle as they move about.
Round their necks hang long strings of gaudy beads that shine and
glisten on their bronze-tinted skins.
Little modesty do these maidens show. They are loud and forward,
shameless beggars, quite indifferent if their torn shirts leave neck
and bosom half naked to the rays of the sun.
With flashing white teeth they will smile at you, arms akimbo, head
thrown back, a white pipe impudently stuck at the corner of their
mouths.
Indescribably graceful are these girls coming back to the camp at
evening, carrying large wooden water-pots on their heads. Over the
distance they advance, upright, with swinging stride, whilst the water
splashes in large drops over their cheeks. The sinking sun behind them
gives them the appearance of shadows coming from very far out of the
desert where the paths have neither beginning nor end....
The men are no less picturesque than the women; they are covered with
filthy rags, and are mostly barefooted. But tribes have I encountered
less sordid, where the men wore high boots, baggy trousers, and shirts
with wide-hanging sleeves. These belonged to more prosperous clans, the
men particularly good-looking, with long curling hair hanging on both
sides of their faces. Evil-looking creatures no doubt, but uncannily
handsome nevertheless.
Most gipsies are tinkers by profession, by instinct they are thieves.
Leaving their women-folk to look after the tents, the men will set out
towards the villages, there to patch up pots and pans; often one meets
them several in file carrying bright copper vessels on their backs.
They grin at you, and never forget to stretch out a begging hand.
Others have studied the gipsies' habits, morals, and ways; I have only
looked upon them with an artist's eye, and in that way they are an
unending source of joy.
Inconceivable is the bustle and noise when a camp breaks up. The
tent-poles are pulled out of the ground, the miserable horses that
have been seeking scarce nourishment from the withered wayside grass
are caught by the screeching children, who have easy work, as the
unfortunate creatures are hobbled and cannot escape. Resignedly they
let themselves be attached to the carts, the tent-poles, carpets, pots
and pans are once more transferred from the ground to the vehicles that
will transport them to another place, and thus onwards ... without
end....
The old crones are stowed away beneath all this baggage, and with them
the children too small to walk, the feeble old men, the invalids, and
those too foot-sore to tramp the weary way.
A delightful picture did I once perceive. Upon the back of a patient
donkey numerous tent-poles had been tied; how so small a beast could
carry them remains a mystery. Between these poles several small naked
babies had been fastened, their black eyes staring at me from beneath
mops of tousled, unkempt curls.
The donkey moved from place to place, grazing, the heavy poles bobbed
about, one or the other touching the ground, raising little clouds of
dust like smoke.
No concern was to be read on the faces of the babies; this mode of
transport was no doubt the usual thing. They looked like little brown
monkeys brought from warmer climes....
[Illustration: "ON THE BURNING PLAINS OF THE DOBRUDJA WHERE FOR MILES
AROUND NO TREE IS TO BE SEEN" (p. 48).]
[Illustration: "STIFLED BY THE OVERWHELMING TEMPERATURE, THEY HAD
MASSED THEMSELVES TOGETHER" (p. 50).]
I have often met old couples wandering together--men and women bent
with age, weary, dusty, covered with rags, with pipes in their mouths;
wretched vagrants, but always perfectly picturesque. No doubt they were
going to tinker in some villages, for the men carried on their backs
the inevitable copper pots, whilst the old hags had heavy sacks slung
over their shoulders, a thick staff in their hands. Along the sides
of their earth-coloured checks grey plaits of hair hung limply down,
swinging as they went. It was to me as though I had often met them
before; I seemed to recognise their eyes, their weary look, even the
shell, sign of the fortune-teller, that the women wore hanging from a
string at their girdles; yet no doubt they were but samples of the many
wanderers among this people who, homeless and foot-sore, are for ever
roaming over the earth....
* * * * *
One art above all others belongs to the gipsies. They are born
musicians, and the violin is their instrument; even the smallest boy
will be able to make it sing. Some are musicians by profession. In
groups of three and four they will wander from village to village,
always where music is needed, patiently, tirelessly playing for hours
and hours, in sun or rain, night or day, at marriages, funerals, or on
feast-days.
When in bands these wandering minstrels have other instruments besides
violins. Strange-shaped lutes, well known in Rumanian literature as the
"cobsa," and a flute composed of several reeds, the classical flute
used in ages past by old father Pan.
Mostly they are bronze-coloured old vagrants with melancholy eyes
and bent backs, who are accustomed to cringe, and whose lean brown
hands are accustomed to beg. Discarding their picturesque rags, these
wandering minstrels have adopted hideous old clothes that others have
cast off. Infinitely more mean-looking are they in this accoutrement;
they have lost that indefinite charm that generally surrounds them;
they are naught but sad old men clothed in ugly tatters, and are no
more a delight to the eyes. Welcome they are, nevertheless, for their
music is both sweet and melancholy, strident and weird; there is a
strange longing in every note, and the gayer the tunes become the more
is one inclined to weep!
An inexplicable cry of yearning lies in their every melody--is it a
remembrance of far-off lands that once were theirs, and that they have
never seen? Or is it only an expression of the eternal nostalgia that
drives them restlessly from place to place?
One summer's evening I met a gipsy youth, coming towards me from out of
the dust of the road. Seated with bare, dangling legs on the back of
a donkey, his violin under his chin, regardless of all else, he was
playing ... playing to the sky above, to the stars that were coming out
one by one, peeping down with pale wonder upon this lonely vagabond to
whom all the road belonged.... Playing because it was his nature to
play ... playing to his heart that had not yet awakened ... playing to
his soul that he could not fathom.
* * * * *
In towns the gipsies are used as masons. One finds them in groups
wherever a house is being built, men, women, and children bringing with
them their nameless disorder and their picturesque filth.
Of an evening, the work being done, they will prepare their supper,
when, seated round the steaming pot, their many-coloured rags become
radiant beneath the rays of the setting sun.
Often a mangy donkey is attached not far off, and in a basket, amidst
a medley of metal pots of all sizes and shapes, lies a sleeping infant
wrapped in a torn cloth.
The donkey patiently bears his burden, flicking away the flies with his
meagre tail.
In the month of lilies handsome gipsy-girls will wander through the
streets, carrying wooden vessels filled with snow-white flowers, the
purity of the lilies strangely in contrast with their sun-tanned faces.
In long, fragrant bunches they sell these flowers to the passers-by.
At every corner one meets them, either crouching in picturesque
attitudes on the pavement or standing upright beneath the shadowy angle
of a roof, beautiful creatures with dark faces readily breaking into
smiles that make their black eyes glisten and their white teeth flash.
Figures full of unconscious pride, visages at which one must look and
always look again ... for they contain all the mystery of the many
roads their feet have left behind!
* * * * *
It is the season of harvest that shows Rumania in all her glory, that
season when the labour of man meets its reward, when, the earth having
given her utmost, man, woman, and child go forth to gather in the
wealth that makes this country what it is.
Sometimes, indeed, it is an hour of disappointment, for rain, hail, or
drought ofttimes undoes man's weary work. Sometimes the earth has not
responded to his dearest hopes, has not been able to bring forth her
fruit.
[Illustration: "MOTHERS AND CHILDREN, AND OLD GRANNIES" (p. 53).]
[Illustration: "SMALL BRONZE STATUES WITH CURLY, TOUSLED HEADS" (p.
55).]
[Illustration: "OCCASIONALLY A TORN SHIRT BARELY COVERS THEM" (p. 55).]
[Illustration: "MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL ARE THE YOUNG GIRLS" (p. 55).]
[Illustration: "INCONCEIVABLY PICTURESQUE" (p. 54).]
[Illustration: "THESE ARE THE RESPECTED MEMBERS OF THE TRIBES" (p. 55).]
[Illustration: "I HAVE OFTEN MET OLD COUPLES WANDERING TOGETHER" (p.
58).]
Years have I known when, for months at a time, no drop of rain has
fallen, when, like the people of old, we watched the sky in the ardent
hope that the cloud as large as a man's hand would spread and burst
into the showerso sorely needed--but the cloud passed and gave not the
rain it promised; years when all that had been confided to the bosom of
the earth withered and dried away because from April to September no
drop had fallen, so that numbers of wretched cattle died for want of
pasturage upon which to graze.
Terrible months of straining anxiety, of hopeless waiting that seemed
to dry up the blood in one's veins, as the earth was parched from the
want of rain.
The rivers had no more water; the land of plenty becomes a land of
sighs, the dust covering all things as with a shroud of failure....
But grand indeed are the years of plenty, when man's effort bears fruit.
In oceans of ripe gold the corn lies beneath the immense face of the
sun, proud of its plenty, a glorious hope fulfilled!
And, from that vast plain of fertility, man's hand it is that reaps
the ripe ears, that binds the sheaves, that gathers in the grain. Ever
again and again must I marvel at the patience of man's labour, marvel
at his extraordinary conquest over the earth.
In groups the peasants work from early dawn to sunset, unaffected by
the pulsing heat beating down upon their heads. The men's snowy shirts
contrast with the women's coloured aprons that stain the tawny plain
with vivid spots of blue, red, or orange, for at the season of harvest
no one remains idle--the very old and the disabled alone are left
behind to guard the house.
From hour to hour ceaselessly they toil, till midday gathers them
round their carts for frugal repast of polenta and onions. Pictures
of labour, of healthy effort, of simple content! How often have I
contemplated them with emotion, realising how dear this country had
grown to my heart.
Watchful dogs guard the carts and those of the children too small to
work; beneath the shade of these vehicles the labourers take a short
hour's rest, alongside of their grey bullocks that in placid content
lie chewing the cud, their enormous horns sending back the rays of the
sun. Lazily they swish their tails from side to side, keeping off the
too busy flies that gather on their lean flanks and round their large,
dreamy eyes. With slow turns of their heads they follow their masters'
movements, well aware that their own effort must be taken up again at
the hour of sunset when the labourers go home.
Only on rich estates is machinery used, and then mostly for threshing
the corn; nearly all the cutting is done by hand. Small gatherings of
busy labourers crowd around the iron monster, whose humming voice can
be heard from afar, and always rises the heap of grain till it stands,
a burnished pyramid of gold, beneath the great blue sky.
At sunset the peasants return home, their scythes over their
shoulders, walking beside their carts heaped up with bright yellow
straw. Along the road they crawl, those carts, in a haze of dust. On
wind-still evenings the dust remains suspended in the air, covering
the world with a silvery gauze, enveloping the dying day in a haze of
mystery that floats over man and beast, wiping out the horizon, toning
down all colours, softening every outline.
Often the sinking sun sets this haze aflame; then the atmosphere
becomes strangely luminous, as though a tremendous fire were burning
somewhere behind fumes of smoke. Indescribable is that hour; full
of beauty, full of peace, full of the infinite satisfaction of work
faithfully accomplished, the hour when all feet are turned homewards,
turned towards rest.
In never-ending file the carts follow each other, drawn by those
grey-white oxen with the wondrous horns--along the road they come as
though moving in a dream, that slowly passes in a cloud of dust and
is gone; ... but the dust remains suspended like a veil drawn over a
vision that is no more....
The maize-harvest comes later in the year, much later; sometimes in
October the peasants are still gathering the ripe fruit. The days are
short, and in the evening dampness rises out of the vast plain, and
hovers like smoke beneath the glowing sky. An indescribable melancholy
floats over the world, the melancholy of things come to an end. A
great effort seems completed, and now the year has no more to do but to
fall slowly to sleep.... Yet nothing is more glorious than the Rumanian
autumn; Nature desires to deck herself in a last mantle of beauty
before confessing herself vanquished by the advancing of the winter
season.
The sky becomes intensely blue; all that stands up against it appears
to acquire a new value. The trees dress themselves in wondrous colours,
sometimes golden, sometimes russet, sometimes flaming red. Amongst the
man-high maize-plants, giant sunflowers stand bending their heads,
heavy with the weight of the seeded centres; like prodigious stars
their saffron petals shine against the azure vault.
Whole fields have I seen of these giant plants, real armies of
sun-shaped flowers, triumphantly yellow beneath the rays of the great
light they so bravely mimic. But often it seems to me that ashamedly
they turn their faces away, sadly aware that they are but a sorry
imitation of the one whose name they bear. Oil is made out of the seeds
of these flowers; therefore do the peasants cultivate them in such
numbers.
Often beneath the shade of those giant plants have I seen peasants
seated in circles round piles of maize, separating the fruit from the
leaves. In dwarf pyramids of orange, the ripe cobs lie scattered about
the wilting fields, their glorious colour attracting the eye from afar;
often the women's kerchiefs are of the very same tint.
[Illustration: "A BARE FIELD WHERE THE SOLDIERS EXERCISED"]
I love these flaming touches of colour amongst the arid immensities of
reaped fields--lovingly the eye of the artist lingers to look at them,
only unwillingly turning away.
A pretty sight is also that of the peasant meetings, either in large
barns or courtyards, to unsheathe the grain of maize from its cob.
These are occasions of great rejoicing, when the young folk flock
together, when laughter and work mingle joyously, when long yarns are
told and love-songs are sung. The old crones sit around spinning or
weaving, their heads nodding together over delectable gossip, one eye
upon the youths and maidens, who, dressed in their brightest, with a
flaring flower stuck behind the ear, ogle each other, and joke and kiss
and are happy.
The old gipsy "Lautar," or wander-minstrel, is never absent from these
meetings. From somewhere he is sure to come limping along, shabby,
disreputable, a sordid figure with his violin or his "cobsa" under his
arm; but his music is wonderful, making all hearts laugh, or dance, or
weep.
* * * * *
Too many pictures would I evoke, too many visions rise before my
brain--both time and talent fail me--so grudgingly must I turn away and
leave these simple people to their work and their play, to their joys
and their pains, their hopes and their fears. I leave them to their
peaceful homes--a veil of dust lying over.
THE END
POSTSCRIPT
Rumania, like the other small nations, is paying a bloody price for her
vindication of the principles of Right--the bedrock of the Allied cause.
Her plucky intervention in the Great War, notwithstanding what had
befallen Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro; the implicit faith of her
people in the righteousness of the Allied cause; and the gallantry of
her troops excite the admiration of all the Free Races.
The British Red Cross Society and Order of St. John has rendered great
assistance on the battlefields of Rumania with hospitals well staffed
and medical supplies.
We owe a debt to Rumania. Every copy of MY COUNTRY sold adds
to _The Times_ Fund for Sick and Wounded, for which purpose this
tribute by Queen Marie to the little-known natural and architectural
beauties of her country is published. Should any reader, as a result of
this book, desire to send a further contribution, this may be addressed
to the publishers, Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, St. Paul's House,
Warwick Square, London, E.C., _marked_ MY COUNTRY, and will be
duly acknowledged in the columns of _The Times_.
_December 1916._
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE
-Plain print and punctuation errors fixed.