that indescribable line, so agreeable to the eye, and which alone belongs to the East. Also the colours they choose are always harmonious; besides, they are toned down to their surroundings by sun and dust. They wear strange dull blues and mauves—even their blacks are not really black, but have taken rusty tints that mingle pleasingly with the mud-coloured environment in which they dwell.

When attired for longer excursions, their garb is generally black, with a snow-white cloth on their heads, wrapped in such manner that it conceals the entire face, except the eyes.

Indescribably picturesque and mysterious are these dusky figures when they come towards one, grazing the walls, generally carrying a heavy staff in their hands; there is something biblical about them, something that takes one back to far-away times!

On this hot summer's morn of which I am relating, I managed to escape for a moment from my over-amiable assailants, so as to steal into a tiny hut of which the door stood wide open.

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"A CONVENT ... WHITE AND LONELY, HIDDEN AWAY IN WOODED REGIONS GREENER AND SWEETER THAN ANY OTHER IN THE LAND" (p. 25).

Irresistibly attracted by its mysterious shade, I penetrated into the mud-made hovel, finding myself in almost complete darkness. At the farther end a wee window let in a small ray of light.

Groping my way, I came upon a pallet of rags, and upon that couch of misery I discovered an old, old woman—so old, so old, that she might have existed in the time of fairies and witches, times no more in touch with the bustle and noise of to-day.

Bending over her, I gazed into her shrunken face, and all the legends of my youth seemed to rise up before me, all the stories that as a child, entranced, I had listened to, stories one never forgets....

Above her, hanging from a rusty nail within reach of her hand, was a curiously shaped black earthenware pot. Everything around this old hag was the colour of the earth: her face, her dwelling, the rags that covered her, the floor on which I stood. The only touch of light in this hovel was a white lamb, crouching quite undisturbed at the foot of her bed.

Pressing some money between her crooked bony fingers, I left this strange old mortal to her snowy companion, and, stepping back into the sunshine, I had the sensation that for an instant it had been given me to stray through unnumbered ages into the days of yore.

From the beginning of time Rumania was a land subjected to invasions. One tyrannical master after another laid heavy hands upon its people; it was accustomed to be dominated, crushed, maltreated. Seldom was it allowed to affirm itself, to raise its head, to be independent, happy, or free; nevertheless, in spite of struggles and slavery, it was not a people destined to disappear. It overcame every hardship, stood every misery, endured every subjugation, could not be crushed out of being; but the result is that the Rumanian folk are not gay.

Their songs are sad, their dances slow, their amusements are seldom boisterous, rarely are their voices loud. On festive days they don their gayest apparel and, crowded together in the dust of the road, they will dance in groups or in wide circles, tirelessly, for many an hour; but even then they are not often joyful or loud, they are solemn and dignified, seeming to take their amusement demurely, without passion, without haste.

Their love-songs are long complaints; the tunes they play on their flutes wail out endlessly their longing and desire that appear to remain eternally unsatisfied, to contain no hope, no fulfilment.

For the same reason few very old houses exist; there is hardly a castle or a great monument remaining from out the past. What was the use of building fine habitations if any day the enemy might sweep over the country and burn everything to the ground?

One or two strange old constructions have been preserved from those times of invasion: square, high buildings with an open gallery round the top formed by stout short columns, and here and there, in the immense thickness of the walls, tiny windows as look-outs. Primitive strongholds, half tower, half peasant-house, they generally stand somewhat isolated and resemble nothing I have seen in other lands.

I have lived in one of these strange houses. The gallery, that once was a buttress, had been turned into a balcony, and from between the squat pillars a lovely view was to be had over hill and plain. The rooms beneath were small, low, irregular, behind great thick walls; a wooded staircase as steep as a ladder led to these chambers.

Both outside and inside the building was whitewashed, and so primitive was its construction, that it had kept the delightful appearance of having been modelled by a potter's thumb. There were no sharp angles, but something rounded and uneven about its corners that no modern dwelling can possess. The whole was crowned by a broad roof of shingle, grey, with silver lights.

But it is the old convents and monasteries of this country that have above all guarded treasure from out the past.

From the very first these secluded spots of beauty attracted me more than anything else; indescribable is the spell that they throw over me, almost inexplicable the delight with which they fill my soul!

As in many other countries, the Rumanian monks and nuns knew how to select the most enchanting places for their homes of peace.

I have wandered from one to another, discovering many a hidden treasure, visiting the richest and the poorest, those easy of access and those hidden away in mountain valleys, where the traveller's foot but rarely strays.

Some I was only able to reach on horseback, having climbed over hill and dale, up or down stony passes, followed by troops of white-clad peasants, mounted on shaggy, dishevelled ponies, sure-footed as mountain-goats.

Once at dusk, after a whole day's riding over the mountains, I came quite suddenly upon one of these far-away sanctuaries, whitewashed, strangely picturesque, half-hidden amongst pines and venerable beech-trees with trunks like giants turned suddenly to stone—giants that in their last agony are twisting their arms in useless despair.

On my approach the bells began ringing—their clear and strident voices proclaiming their joy to the skies.

I rode through the covered portal into the walled-in court. Before I could dismount I was surrounded by a dark swarm of nuns making humble gestures of greeting, crossing themselves, falling to their knees, and pressing their foreheads against the stones on the ground, catching hold of my hands or part of my garment, which they kissed, whilst they cried and murmured, mumbling many a prayer.

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