CHAPTER LIV. 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{389} 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 Engl?nder” 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 Engl?nder.” 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{390} 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 Engl?nder,’ 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,{391} 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 Borkenk?fer (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{392} 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 chalet 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.