Roumania Author:Winifred Gordon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ROUMANIA YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY CHAPTER I A LAND OF BEAUTY The region, nor bright nor sombre wholly, But mingled up ; a gleaming melancholy. A dusky em... more »pire and its diadems ; One faint eternal eventide of gems. Keats. RiUMANIA ! what scenes of beauty the soft Latin name conveys ! A land of vast horizons, winding rivers, mountains, and valleys rich in the luxuriant verdure of oak, beech and fir ; plains carrying on their broad bosom grain in overflowing measure—nature's priceless gift to man. Under the splendour of an Eastern sun, such as we in the little grey Isle of the West but rarely see, broods a calm, a tranquillity that lies like a caress on a land, fair and prosperous now, but drenched through centuries in blood and tears. Was it but yesterday that Roumania was at peace ? Yesteryear the great peaks of the Carpathians fronting the realms of their implacable and savage neighbour Hungary, were silhouetted against an azure sky ; thestillness of the mountains held no menace, no warning of the bloody massacre and devastation to come. High in the blue dome overhead the eagles wheel and circle. With regal strokes they swoop " on pinions strong," then swiftly rising, disappear into the dazzling radiance of the sun. Above us, among these rocky spurs which rise so sheerly from the green mantle of pine and beech woods that clothe their feet, are the thrones where the king of birds shares his solitude with the wolf, the bear and the chamois. Tiny shepherds' huts—little dug-outs made of earth with roofs of turf—cling to the lesser heights, and big fierce dogs rush out and bay fiercely as we pass. All over the slopes, the black, brown and white sheep are lazily browsing in the warm golden light. The bees are droning drowsily as they gather their harvest of hone...« less