TWENTY YEARS IN ROUMANIA
TWENTY YEARS
IN ROUMANIA
BY
MAUDE PARKINSON
[Illustration: Publisher’s colophon]
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, LTD.
RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1
_First published in 1921_
PREFACE
Now that I have set down in black and white these random impressions
and recollections of a country in which I spent many of the happiest
years of my life, a slight feeling of doubt assails me. Might my
Roumanian friends possibly find cause for offence in the freedom which
I have allowed myself? Then I remember that they have a sense of
humour, and the doubt vanishes.
If I deal frankly with some of the methods and customs of the country,
it is because I hope to give English readers an insight into the
character of the people, and enable them to find there, as I have
found, a very great deal to love.
When, after my long absence from England, I compare our own methods
and ways of thought with those which have become so familiar to me in
Roumania, the latter do not always suffer in the comparison. Indeed, if
I wrote about some of the things which have especially struck me since
my return, I might arouse a good deal of resentment.
Some of the best friends I have in the world are Roumanians. The
kindness and sympathy they showed me during a time of great sorrow
in my life must be an enduring memory. Rather than be suspected of
repaying such kindness by holding up my friends to ridicule, I would
tear up these pages which I--a tyro in the art of letters--have
written with so much labour, but also, I must add, with so much
pleasure.
After completing my education in Germany, I spent some time very
happily in Vienna with friends who were well acquainted with Roumania.
I became fascinated by their descriptions of life in a country which
for me had something of the glamour of the Orient, and so, armed with
letters of introduction, I proceeded to Bucarest and soon established
myself as a teacher of languages. For the twenty-two following years of
my life I lived in Roumania; but for the war I should probably be there
now.
My relations with my pupils, members of the best-known families in
the country, were always of the pleasantest, and as Roumanians have a
natural aptitude for languages, there was no drudgery in the teaching.
Since I left the country Roumania has come through a time of terrible
trial.
My heart has often been wrung by the accounts of the sufferings of my
friends; but even during the darkest days of the war I was sustained
by the knowledge that they never once lost courage. They displayed a
spirit as indomitable as our own, and now I rejoice that their fiery
trial is over, and that the dawn of a glorious day has arrived.
MAUDE REA PARKINSON.
ARMAGH, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGES
CHAPTER I 17-23
A real enterprise--The glamour of the _Arabian
Nights_--Off to an unknown country--Light on the
way--A friend at court--I figure as a Nihilist--The
Hungarian “express”--Wild men in sheep-skins--An
intruder routed--Bucarest, a dreadful town--Adventures
by flood and street--A warm reception.
CHAPTER II 24-33
Hazy ideas about Roumania--“Bucarest, Turkey”--A letter
for Sinaia goes to Simla--The physical features of
the country--Its mineral wealth--The chief towns--The
Cernavoda Bridge--The railways and the scenery through
which they pass--The mighty Danube--The Iron Gates.
CHAPTER III 34-42
The Government of Roumania--The Parliament--Lively
elections--The batiusi and their big sticks--Military
picnics at election times--“General Post” after
an election--Party handwriting--Natural selection
circumscribed for postal officials--The army--A
soldier’s life not always a happy one--Military
marketers, nurses, and spring-cleaners--The accession
celebrations--On parade--The opposition goes into
mourning and enjoys a happy day--Threatening
demonstrations which end happily--A gallant army--If
stiff on parade, the Roumanian soldier is “one of the
best.”
CHAPTER IV 43-52
The religion of Roumania--The head of the Church must
be a monk, and therefore a celibate--The priests
are of the peasant class, unlearned and little
respected--A priest’s monthly rounds--Prayers for
a girl’s marriage--St Demetre the patron saint of
Bucarest--His vocation as a rain-maker--He is brought
out when the priests see the rain coming--Roumanian
churches--The legend of Curtea d’Argesh--The well of
Manole’s wife’s tears--Easter customs--The Roumanian
monasteries: dens for lazy people--A wonderful
grotto--The convents--Princess Marie as a nun.
CHAPTER V 53-58
Roumania’s capital--A garden city--Modesty on the
trams--“A town of one street, one church, and one
idea”--The Calea Victorie--Two hundred churches--The
church of Doamna Balash--English customs gaining
headway--The houses of Bucarest--Afternoon calls and
refreshments--The fortifications.
CHAPTER VI 59-66
The land system--The Dominele or squirearchy--The simple
life of the peasants--The beginning of a revolt--A
premature outbreak--The countryside in flames--King
Carol’s new guns first used on his subjects--A
village population exterminated--Terror in the
town--I go to church and am relieved to see Princess
Marie there--The tale of a sufferer--The priests
and schoolmasters the instigators--The peasants’
subterranean dwellings.
CHAPTER VII 67-71
Village scenes--National dances--The picturesque peasant
costumes--Peasant girls who powder and paint--An
idyllic scene--A country wedding--Peasant simplicity.
CHAPTER VIII 72-81
Trade and commerce--The only strictly Roumanian shops
belong to Princes--No English shops, though they would
be welcomed--English catalogues unintelligible--An
English firm and its “standard” colour--A successful
English factory--The labour question, saints’
days and names-days--German factories--Beer
taxed in the interests of wine--Sugar and cheese
factories--Sheep-milking--Petroleum wells in
Roumania--An influx of Americans--Rockefeller’s
agent, Mr Chamberlain, and his family--How a
man of gipsy origin “struck oil” and became a
millionaire--Paper-mills and coal-mines.
CHAPTER IX 82-88
Severe restrictions on Jews--The Jews as traders--Their
vigorous methods--They exploit the peasants of the
countryside as wine-shopkeepers and moneylenders--The
Jews as tenants of estates sublet at rack rents--The
original proprietor cannot see that he has any share
of responsibility for the grinding down of the
peasants--An anti-Jewish riot in the Lipscani--A
family of Paris Jews make a large fortune in a
fashionable shop in a few years--A Jewish wedding
which is a double one.
CHAPTER X 89-96
The educational system--Long hours of study and no
fresh air or exercise--Take Jonescu, as Minister of
Education, introduces the bath-tub to the schools
and provides for walking exercise--School fare is
never good--A water famine--Examinations and show
questions--English poetry translated literally--German
literature taught in _French_, the pupils being
examined in _Roumanian_--Lack of books in the
Roumanian language--The school fêtes--Convents and
proselytising--A girl who despised all the pleasures
of the world and ran away to become a nun.
CHAPTER XI 97-102
Take Jonescu, an enlightened Minister of Education--“La
bouche d’or”--His personality--A true Roumanian in his
almost Oriental love of luxury--His town and country
houses--Madame Jonescu an as authoress--Her menagerie
of pets--The love-story of Take Jonescu--The meeting
of the law student and the English girl--A trip to
England follows--Obstacles are overcome and a happy
marriage follows.
CHAPTER XII 103-111
The National Theatre--The students’ riot on behalf of
the national language--Racing as a fashionable
amusement--English jockeys and trainers--The Battle of
Flowers--The devotees of the card-table--Rafting on
the Bistritza; a glorious sport.
CHAPTER XIII 112-115
The blessing of the waters: a picturesque ceremony--Diving
for the cross--Baptising the Jew--The child
rain-makers; a charming custom--How I watered the
human plants--The peasants celebrate the sowing of the
seed.
CHAPTER XIV 116-120
Festivals--A cruel christening--Marriage-making--The
fiancé a bore--The bride’s moral references--Anonymous
letters--The bridal dress--The marriage ceremony--A
floral departure--Hired jewellery as wedding
presents--Child brides--Tempted to the altar with a
doll!
CHAPTER XV 121-128
Pretty Roumanian women--Adventitious aids to beauty--Paris
toilets--Childish extravagances--Men with London
tailors--A dandy in blue boots--Some quaint
superstitions--Warding off the evil eye--The efficacy
of hot coals and a cup of water--The Marțisoara, or
March token--A wife’s indiscretion punished: story
of poetic justice--The Marțisoara as a temperamental
barometer.
CHAPTER XVI 129-133
English nurses introduce the bath-tub--Matutinal ablutions
in a country house--Abstinence from ablutions a proof
of holiness--The funeral of a Metropolitan; dead
prelate in the procession--Afternoon tea’s equivalent
in a tomb.
CHAPTER XVII 134-143
The servant question not so acute as in
England--Establishments of thirty servants--Five or
six for professional people--Terms and duties of
service--An unwilling bather--A highly recommended
maid who waited at table barefooted--The reference
books of servants--The servants’ quarters--A strange
privilege; female servants may have their husbands
or putative husbands and their families to live with
them--Costly marriage fees are prohibitive--“Madam”
and “Madame”--Linguistic pitfalls; a “master” or a
“cake”?--When a bald-headed cook is wanted--Leaving
cards on names-days--An omnibus round.
CHAPTER XVIII 144-150
Convict life in the salt mines--A Roumanian Jack
Sheppard--The trick that laid him low--Procedure in
murder cases--The reconstruction of the crime--Scant
justice for servants; no Habeas Corpus Act in
Roumania--A man whose face was the only evidence
against him--Gipsies and the building trade; the
men act as masons and bricklayers, the women as
their labourers--Exhibition of new clothes when a
roof is put on--Fiddling ragamuffins--Gipsies as
musicians--Guarding against gipsies in the Carpathians.
CHAPTER XIX 151-158
King Carol as a diplomat--Lichnowsky as a Secretary of
Legation--The scandal about his chief’s (Prince
von Bülow) wife--I see something at Bad Hall--A
great ladies’ man; he goes too far at length and is
“promoted” to another sphere--Kiderlein-Wächter,
genial and popular--An unfortunate dinner-party over
which his housekeeper presided--Prince Gulochowski
and his wife--Some British ambassadors: Sir Frank
Lascelles and Sir Charles (now Lord) Hardinge--How
the latter rendered me a great service--Sir Henry
Drummond Wolff--Sir John Kennedy and Lady Kennedy and
their family--Better times for the British colony--The
British colony--Its religious interests--Bishop
Collins and his visits to Bucarest--His tragic end
deeply regretted--Since the war Bucarest has many more
British visitors--A British Chamber of Commerce, and a
projected club.
CHAPTER XX 159-166
The French colony--An outspoken abbé--The German
colony--Its schools, churches, and hospitals--A split
in the camp of deaconesses--Teaching or nursing?--A
well-conducted hospital--Roumanian hospitals--An
eminent surgeon, Dr Thomas Jonescu--An erratic
American dentist--His exclusive practice--Leaves a
Prince waiting with open mouth whilst he goes on a
trip to Sinaia.
CHAPTER XXI 167-171
The coming of King Carol--Roumanians dislike the
Germans and _hate_ the Hungarians--King Carol a
reticent, self-contained, lonely man--His only
public appearances--A ball for the _hoi polloi_--King
Carol’s father his sole adviser--His desire to
abdicate--Roumania owes much to the late King.
CHAPTER XXII 172-180
Queen Elizabeth (Carmen Sylva)--An early dilemma: no
divorcees, no court--A quaint divorce story--The true
story of the meeting of Carol and Elizabeth--Did
she love the country or its King?--Her dead child’s
tomb--The Queen as a writer--Her passion for
music--Pity the poor professional!--Cold soup for the
King--The Queen’s personal appearance--Her asylum for
the blind, and the German manager who failed--“My
sixtieth birthday,” and how it was spent--The Queen
and the _enfants terribles_--The orphans of the “Asyle
Hélène”--Cotroceni and its unlucky palace.
CHAPTER XXIII 181-184
Ferdinand of Sigmaringen becomes heir to the throne--He is
a good soldier and a favourite with his officers--The
friend of the Allies--His marriage with Princess
Marie--The Princess’s home-coming: a lonely
stranger--A gala performance--The Prince’s mission to
Germany--Roumanian officers meet half a dozen Herr
“Mahlzeits.”
CHAPTER XXIV 185-190
The Princess in a merry mood--How Prince Ferdinand
deluged the tablecloth--A curtain lecture for
Princess Marie?--The royal children--Elizabeth
a beauty--Mignonne (Marie) “a beautiful little
snow-maiden,” yet piquant and merry--Ileana of
the china-blue eyes has a great idea of her own
importance--Prince Carol, a fine fellow, learns
politeness--He and Elizabeth eat raw carrots in the
Minister’s garden--A war game with Pat Kennedy, when
neither would be a Boer--Pretty Prince Nicolas, “a
little terror”--Nicolas as a sailor--His watch on deck
and his sea-strut--An adventure at Piræus--A sailor
valet--Nicolas’s first communion and his struggle with
the bread--The royal governesses--A little story about
the Queen of Holland.
CHAPTER XXV 191-197
Winter in Roumania--Fêtes on the ice--An “escaped
bear” causes a sensation, till he loses his
head--Prince Carol establishes the bob-sleigh as
a society craze--An unlucky accident to Princess
Elizabeth--An end to bob-sleighing--Sleighs and winter
costumes--Christmas--New Year’s Eve.
CHAPTER XXVI 198-205
Sinaia and its summer Court--Gay life in the
Carpathians--Court ladies in national costume--Sinaia
at various seasons--The monastery and the Queen’s room
there; she decorates it with caricatures of society
ladies--A fête at the monastery--King Edward at
Sinaia--Lord Roberts a guest there--The Crown Prince’s
residence--Princess Marie’s “cuib” or “Crusoe”
amongst the trees--Her sister, the Grand Duchess of
Hesse--Little Princess Ella--A merry party in the
woods--A tragedy recalled.
CHAPTER XXVII 206-212
Franz d’Este and his morganatic wife at Sinaia--My
recollection of him at Vienna--Society girls with cold
feet--The German Crown Prince popular at Bucarest--But
he was only there a fortnight--The King and his
“shadowers”--Predeal--The leap over the frontier--A
little smuggling--A beautiful and historic road.
CHAPTER XXVIII 213-221
A delightful equestrian excursion--We leave Sinaia in
order to witness the sunrise from Omul--Midnight
in the forest, and the ghostly hours before the
dawn--Gathering edelweiss whilst we await the
sunrise--A glorious spectacle--The coveted province
spread out before our eyes--An equestrian quadrille
on the summit of Omul--The guest-house of the
monastery--On the homeward way--We descend the Jeppi
on foot, and meet with unexpected difficulties--Danger
follows upon danger--A dreadful night on a mountain
peak--Excitement at Sinaia--Triumphant return of the
“heroes” and “heroines.”
CHAPTER XXIX 222-227
Cholera in Russia--I hurry back to Roumania--I am
put in quarantine on the frontier, and liberally
disinfected--The soldier guard aims his gun at me--My
Jewish room-mate and her obtrusive husband--She plays
“patience” whilst he prays and expectorates--I get my
release and send a military expedition in search of
a mirror--Miss R. tries to escape from Russia--Her
companion, a German engineer, develops cholera--The
terrified peasants place them together in an empty
cottage--The German dies--She finds when, after a
terrifying experience, she reaches Bucarest her hair
is snow white.
CHAPTER XXX 228-238
The beggars of Bucarest--A plan that failed--Was it
inspired by Count Rumford’s Munich scheme?--Where
the beggars spend their holidays--No lack of
charity--Footless, and yet wanted boots--Influence
of priests and beggars on the currency--A stroll
through the market--Serbians as market gardeners--An
exhibition in Bucarest--Princess Marie and the
water-chute--Excessive gambling--The Moși--English
“stupidity”--Nothing to buy in London--Bucarest to
London _via_ the North Sea and Edinburgh--Jefferson
Bricks in Bucarest.
CHAPTER XXXI 239-245
Roumania’s early history--Michael the Brave--Stephen the
Great--A Spartan mother--Brancovan’s noble efforts
bring about his end--Oppression promotes union--Greek
extortion--Russia and Turkey--The westernising
of Roumania--The Treaty of Paris--The European
Commission--The new State of Roumania--Prince Cuza and
his fall--The siege of Plevna--Roumania’s present aims.
CHAPTER XXXII 246-250
Turkish influence on Roumanian mind and manners--The
origin of the people--Clearly descended from the
Romans of Trajan’s day--Collateral evidence of Latin
origin in the language--Pride of race--Transylvania
and the Hungarian tyrants--A Roumanian National party.
CHAPTER XXXIII 251-255
Roumania’s object in the war--Hungary’s attempt
to Magyarise Transylvania--Sympathy of the
Motherland--“Awake, Roumania!”--The new boundaries
of Roumania--Room for her people--The Little
Entente--Safeguarding the peace of Europe.
TWENTY YEARS IN ROUMANIA
CHAPTER I
A real enterprise--The glamour of the _Arabian Nights_--Off to an
unknown country--Light on the way--A friend at Court--I figure as
a Nihilist--The Hungarian “express”--Wild men in sheep-skins--An
intruder routed--Bucarest, a dreadful town--Adventures by flood
and street--A warm reception.
When I announced my intention of going to Roumania, I occasioned real
consternation amongst my friends. “Why, you must be quite mad to think
of going so far away to a country of which nobody knows anything at
all!” was one of the mildest criticisms of my project.
The year was 1889--more than thirty years ago; and thirty years is
not only a long period in the life of an individual, but it may make
momentous changes in the story of a nation or of a country.
I will confess that it did seem a rash undertaking for a girl to
venture so far afield into the unknown; but the enterprise had no
terrors for me. I was already an accomplished traveller. I had
“finished” at Magdeburg, visited Paris and Brussels, and spent more
than a year in Vienna. I had been used to speaking French and German
rather than English for several years; and, for the rest, I was an
Irish girl, and timidity is not a fault which I have ever heard charged
against the people of my country. Then, again, I did know something
about Roumania, if my friends did not. It was very little indeed,
I grant, but it was enough to make me anxious to learn more. Some
Viennese acquaintances of mine had visited Bucarest, and from them I
had gained an alluring impression of a wonderful race of people, rich
in the primitive virtues, dwelling in a charming country and amidst
scenes of Oriental luxury. I will frankly admit that the glamour of the
_Arabian Nights_ was over all my thoughts and ideas about Roumania.
Perhaps I was not so very far astray.
My intention was to establish myself in Bucarest in an independent
way as a teacher of languages. I felt that I was pretty well equipped
for the work, and I had been told that there was ample scope for my
endeavour, and that I would find the remuneration far more liberal than
nearer home.
This was all very encouraging, but with the canniness becoming an
Ulsterwoman I determined to secure a definite engagement, so that I
might find a footing in the country. I was at this time at home in
Ireland, and I wrote to the best-known agencies in London. None of
them could help me. They all seemed to have the haziest kind of ideas
about Roumania. One agent wrote to say that they only covered Europe in
their work! Even at that time it was against my will that I was obliged
to apply to Germany, but in the event it was a Dresden agency which
procured for me an appointment at a private school in Bucarest.
It was necessary for me to proceed to Dresden in order to conclude
the agreement, and I was astonished to find that I could obtain no
information there as to how I should get to Roumania. Even at the
hotel I was informed that there was no train communication with the
remote place, and that I should be obliged to journey down the Danube.
Indeed, the information given me was so vague and contradictory
that I began to feel just a trifle nervous. Once started, however,
nothing short of some convulsion of nature on my line of route (when
discovered) could have deterred me. Besides, I looked for help in
Vienna, whither I was bound in response to an invitation from a family
with whom I had resided for some time as governess. The family--that
of Colonel von Walzel--remained my lifelong friends, and many long and
happy visits have I paid them during the years that have passed since
then. Let me just say here that Austrians are _not_ Germans; I shall
offer evidence of this further on. Colonel von Walzel was an important
official of the Court Chamberlain’s Department under Prince Hohenlohe,
and I may remark in passing that on my innumerable journeys to and fro
during these long years, I have never paid a halfpenny for railway
fare when passing through Austrian territory. That is an advantage of
having--as I very literally had--a friend at Court, for Colonel von
Walzel always provided me with a first-class pass. I had many other
privileges in Vienna, not the least of which was a box at the opera
whenever I wanted one. It has nothing to do with my present story, but
perhaps it might be well for me to refer here to a matter which might,
conceivably, sometime occasion a misunderstanding. Colonel von Walzel’s
brother is a well-known playwright, and was always a very good friend
of mine. In one of his dramas, popular quite recently, there figures a
Russian Nihilist Princess who desires to pass as an Englishwoman. The
author may have meant to pay me a compliment or he may simply have had
little acquaintance with English nomenclature, but at any rate he made
his Princess call herself “Maude Parkinson,” and I have been told that
my poor name has become quite familiar amongst the play-loving Viennese
as typifying a certain kind of feminine subtlety which I cannot claim
to possess.
Furnished with full instructions (and a free pass to the confines of
Austro-Hungarian territory), I resumed my journey eastward. Travelling
through Hungary is never very pleasant or interesting, and I soon grew
tired of it, though my pass procured for me great deference everywhere.
It became very monotonous on that long journey, gazing out of a window
at a never-changing panorama of maize flats, with here and there a
field of other grain. The wayside stations brought some relief, for
here there were crowds of wild-looking unkempt natives dancing and
singing to the invariable accompaniment of a mouth organ! These rude
scenes led me to think that I was in truth leaving civilisation behind.
The train--which was an express from Vienna--slackened its pace so
much after leaving Budapest that I mortally offended the guard by
asking him in all good faith if it were a slow train. He replied in
a very dignified manner, “Why, of _course_ it is an express; we have
travelled--so many--kilometres since leaving Budapest.” I was not
convinced of the speed of the train, as it is a well-known fact that
Hungarian trains are the slowest in Europe. I have heard that a line
running out of London contests this claim, but I have not sufficient
information on the subject to institute a comparison.
When we reached the Roumanian frontier I really became a little alarmed
for the first time. It was in the early hours of the morning, when
one’s courage is at zero, and the crowds of strange-looking beings,
clad in woolly sheep-skins, which thronged the station, appeared to me
like denizens of another or an earlier world. Nevertheless, I was at
once reminded of the old Irish jingle about Bryan O’Lynn, who’d “no
breeches to wear, so he bought a sheep’s skin to make him a pair.”
Our luggage was examined here, and afterwards I returned to the ladies’
compartment in which I had been travelling, and which I shared with
another. I fell asleep again, but just before dawn some slight noise
disturbed me, and I opened my eyes to find a man seated in a corner
of the carriage and calmly regarding us. I opened my mouth almost as
soon as my eyes, and indignantly informed him in English, French, and
German that he was in a ladies’ carriage, and had better get out of it
as quickly as ever he could. Which language it was that frightened him
I cannot tell; it may have been the tone of my address, but at any rate
he fairly bolted.
We entered Bucarest by Verciorova, and my first impressions were
disheartening. There was nothing about the surrounding country to
prepossess me in its favour. It was flat and uninteresting, just like
Hungary. The peasants who swarmed about were wild-looking and very
dirty. My fellow-passenger had strongly advised me to go straight to
the British Minister and present my credentials, and I had a good mind
to follow her advice. However, I did not immediately do so.
There had been some mistake about the hour of my arrival, and so no one
met me at the station. I procured a carriage, and handed the address to
the driver.
“What a dreadful town!” I thought, as I was driven at a speed
reminiscent of the Dublin jarvey through narrow, atrociously paved
streets, filled--both as to road and footway--with half-melted snow.
The month was February, and when I arrived the climatic conditions were
at their worst, which was pretty bad in Bucarest. Some of the streets
were quite unpaved; few, apparently, had any system of drainage, for
extensive floods frequently rendered the roadway impassable for foot
passengers.
Later on I heard the story of an adventure which befell an English
lady--also a teacher--just before my arrival. She had been giving
lessons in a Jewish family who were reluctant payers, and had been
obliged to demand her money with some firmness. Out of spite they
paid her the amount--a considerable sum--in copper coins! which taxed
the resources of an unusually large bag. Confronted with a street in
flood, and hampered by her unwieldy wealth, she found herself at a
twilight hour in an awkward predicament. Not a carriage was in sight.
She appealed to a sturdy youth who was passing, and offered him a
reward if he would carry her across the street. The boy promptly picked
her up (she was a little woman), bag and all, but in mid-stream--or
street--she attempted to change her bag from one hand to the other.
The swinging weight robbed the boy of his centre of gravity, and he
and his fair burden fell floundering in the flood. He fished her out
again and carried her ashore before searching for the treasure. This,
however, he was fortunate enough to recover, and honest enough to
return, receiving an ample reward for his pains.
My first impression of the school was not such as to cure me of the
slight feeling of homesickness which I had now begun to experience. My
arrival did not coincide with any meal-time--it was about 11 a.m.; and,
as they have no idea of providing a decent repast at any unscheduled
hour, I was shown into a workhouse-looking apartment with white bare
walls and regaled with shocking bad coffee and a hunk of dry bread.
There was no lack of warmth, however, in Madame ----’s reception of me.
She embraced me most effusively, and kissed me on both cheeks. Indeed,
I may say at once that no matter what causes for complaint I may later
on have found at this school, I always met with great kindness from
the principal. This, however, was only in accordance with all my later
experiences, as she was a native of Roumania.
The school was a large one, of about four hundred pupils, and there was
a large staff of teachers of all nationalities. I refer to some of my
experiences in a later chapter of this book.
Such was the manner of my coming to Bucarest; and how little I imagined
then that I should grow to love the country and its people, and to make
my home amongst them for so many years of my life!