Harper's New Monthly Magazine

E passed a week very pleasantly at Bucharest, watching the many-colored tide of life which flows through its broad streets. At first we could hardly persuade ourselves that we were not in Paris or Vienna. The French, if the worst colonists, are the best pioneers of civilization in the world. Farewell to the still life of the Orient when its territories are invaded by Parisian cooks and modistes. French modes, French manners, and above all, the French language, saluted us every where. But the old customs and forms have not surrendered without a struggle; they still manifest themselves in picturesque contrast with their successors. In one corner of a splendid saloon fitted up like a Parisian drawing-room grave bearded old Boyards, in long fur pelisses, recline, calmly smoking the pipe of tranquillity; while the centre is occupied with gay groups attired in Parisian modes hardly three months old, whirling in the waltz, the polka, or the schottische, or chatting of those infinite nothings of society, for which the French language is the only vehicle. Servants in the rich half-oriental Albanian costume bear about perfumed waters to bathe the hands of the visitors; or with native grace replenish the bubbling narguilles of the sedate smokers. But every where it is evident that the new modes are gaining ground on the old. With the present generation the race of the old Wallach Boyards will become extinct. This transition is undoubtedly for the best, although VOL. IX.-No. 49.-A

attended with manifold evils. Weeds are of more rapid growth than corn, and the vices of a new form of life make themselves apparent earlier than its virtues. Bucharest has justly acquired the reputation of being the most licentious city in Europe. Gambling, in particular, is carried to an enormous extent.

Few things strike one at first more than the profusion of equipages. No person of any pretensions ever walks. One must have a carriage to cross the street. The fashion has partly arisen from the cheapness with which an equipage can be maintained, and partly from the condition of the streets, which are always knee deep in mud, or choked with dust. The few where any attempt at paving has been made, are merely floored over with logs and planks; they go by the name of ponti, or "bridges," and are in reality uneven bridges floating on rivers of filth. The public promenade, where the world of Bucharest shows itself most religiously every evening, is a drive through a street, alternately choked with dust and buried in mud. "Ici," said a Frenchman to me, "les jambes sont du luxe; les voitures, au contraire, sont le nécessaire." It is quite true; nobody can afford to walk. One may lodge where he will, but he must ride.

The census shows a Jewish population of but about five thousand. We should have supposed there were five times as many. They are omnipresent. Go where you will, you are met by the broad-brimmed hat, rusty gabardine, and flowing beard of the Israelite, which announce to you

and before you have gone twenty paces you see his tall figure on your track, or starting up from some nook in your front. You form a wish, and he stands before you ready to execute it. If by any chance you have employed him for the slightest service, you have bound yourself to him during your stay.

the presence of one who is ready to be your serv-trusively or importunately, but insinuatingly, perant. He is your slave waiting for orders; or sistently. You descend to your carriage, and he rather he is the slave of your purse. The pias-is at the door; you turn the corner of a street, ters in your pocket are a magnet, a charm, which binds him to you. You can scarcely touch one, even unconsciously, without bringing before you some of these haunting spirits, as the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp summoned its subject genii. A most serviceable spirit is the Israelite at Bucharest. He can speak to you in half a dozen languages, so that you must be as ignorant of all tongues, other than your own vernacular, as are the ministers whom we send to represent us at foreign courts, if he can not find some medium of communication with you. Of English he is very likely ignorant; but he speaks German and French as a matter of course, and very likely Spanish and Italian, besides the dialects spoken in the city. He knows every body, every place, and every thing-and all that he has and is stands at your disposal, for a very moderate sum-and he will receive any amount of anger and contempt that you feel disposed to inflict, into the bargain. If you feel disposed to add blows, he will avoid them indeed if he can; but he does not dream of resenting them, or of ceasing to proffer his services.

If he is yours you are none the less his, and sooner or later he is sure to come into possession of his own. The sooner you surrender the better for you. He haunts you like a shadow-not ob

We luckily fell into the hands of old Mordecai, who had pointed out to us the entrance to the baths on our arrival. When we emerged from the cavernous entrance, we saw him standing within a few paces, his tall figure bent forward in an attitude of humility, which yet somehow seemed free from servility. Heaven knows whether he had loitered there all the while we were passing through the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso of a Turkish bath. He had wisely waited for his fee till after we had bathed, and had become comfortable and benevolent. In the beatitude of the moment we of course could not avoid crossing his withered palm with a few paras. He followed us all that day and the next, as noiselessly and unobtrusively as our shadows, never addressing us, but still contriving to let us know that he was at our service. He seemed to have an instinctive premonition whither we were going. We found him awaiting us at the Cathedral gate, at the entrance of the Hall of Assem

bly, by the foot of the ruined tower of Coltza, | Israelite, who sat chinking his coin in a dingy which commemorates the occupation of the spot by the mad Swede, Charles XII. For two whole days we resisted the mute offers of his services; but he waited his time, and on the third morning it came.

little shop. For a certain per centage he speedily transmuted our good honest silver into the brassy-looking small change of the place. A couple of piasters placed in his palm speedily set honest Mordecai's eyes rolling with an expression of benediction, as though he were imploring upon us the good offices of all his forefathers, down to the time of the princely Abraham.

"Major," said I to my companion, "I must get two or three dollars' worth of piasters and paras." We had both assumed the military rank which we had attained in the militia at home; and per- For the remaining four days of our stay at Buhaps we had brevetted ourselves to two or three charest we yielded ourselves wholly to his direcgrades above those that strictly belonged to us-tion; and to do him justice, he proved himself a a wise precaution in Russia, where all rank is most unexceptionable cicerone. Under his guidmilitary.

"Ya, wohl, Oberst," replied Brown, who was fond of airing his German vocabulary, which was no very protracted operation.

Scarcely had the words passed his lips when I heard a guttural voice at my elbow, in broken yet quite intelligible Teutonic:

"Erlauben mir, Ihro Ex'ln'sch, gefäll'gscht, Ihro an ein'n Wechschl'r weisch'n ?"-which in corresponding English might run something thus: "Vill his Exshelensh pleash let me show him to an Exshanger?"

"Ya, wohl-Very well," replied Brown, proud of having made himself understood by a foreigner, as I nodded assent; and our bearded friend took possession of us. He led us to a brother

ance we ventured to discard our carriage, and to penetrate the muddy suburbs where the poor Wallachs who go on foot, and do not wear Parisian coats, eat their Indian porridge and drink their fiery plum brandy, as their forefathers had done before them. We peered into the squalid huts where generations of keen-eyed gipsies herd together, in rags and filth, under which not unfrequently were disguised forms and features of wonderful beauty, with those delicate hands which speak of their Hindoo origin.

Among the most characteristic sights presented in the suburbs was the manner in which the destruction of the superabundance of the lean and wolfish dogs common to all the East is effected. A stout gipsy drags along behind him the carcass

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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 9