However, in visiting some large home farms under their owners' supervision, like that of Maratchesti, which belongs to M. Negroponte, we see what success can be achieved in this country, blessed of heaven, as to its animal and vegetable productions, splendid corn, English sheep, as happy and fat as if they were at home, pretty Hungarian horses, fruits of all kinds. Ah ! if only the proprietors wished it, this country would become a paradise; but there is a terrible obstacle—absenteeism, a worse scourge than even the Turks.
It is unfortunately too easily explained, for it must be confessed that the country has been rendered uninhabitable to a cultured man.
Nothing can be more melancholy than this vast expanse of cornfield in Lower Roumania—no verdure, no meadow, no trees. In the summer the steppe, intersected with dusty roads, is quite yellow from the powdery clouds raised by the traveller's carriage on the slightest breeze; in winter, it is an immense deserted snow-field. The villages give the economist, philanthropist, and artist the heartache: the one sees that nothing is managed for the production of wealth; no capital is accumulated; there are no farm buildings; a few agricultural implements, but of the worst kind; very few stores, and not even firewood. The philanthropist sees that these dwellings offer a picture of complete destitution, the consequence of hereditary enslavement and excessive pressure by the strong upon the weak; the hut is of mud coated with clay; sometimes it is half hidden in the ground, and then it is at least warm in winter and cool in summer. After the square part which is to serve as a lodging has been hollowed out, like a kind of cave, a great fire is made of straw, the clay bakes almost into brick, and forms a hard and dry coating; the hole is roofed in with a slight timber framework, covered with thatch and reeds. There is hardly any furniture, only a few stools, but always a large chest to hold the dresses for festivals; generally there is no chimney, and the smoke escapes as it can through the chinks in the roof; this is considered healthy, and it
