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English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil
eye.

This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place
to meet an unknown man. But everyone seemed so kind-hearted, and so
sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched.

I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn yard and
its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they
stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of
oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the
yard.

Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of
the boxseat,--"gotza" they call them--cracked his big whip over his
four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey.

I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of
the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or
rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might
not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green
sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep
hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank
gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of
fruit blossom--apple, plum, pear, cherry. And as we drove by I could
see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals.
In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the
"Mittel Land" ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy
curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which
here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road
was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste.
I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was
evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told
that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet
been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is
different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is
an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of
old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think
that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the
war which was always really at loading point.

Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes
of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right
and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon
them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful
range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and
brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of
jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the
distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed
mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to
sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of
my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and

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