ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
"The thatched roofs are replaced by roofs of shingle that shine like silver in the sun"	6
"Very different are the mountain villages from those of the plain. The cottages are less miserable"	6
"Many a hearty welcome has been given me in these little villages"	7
"Square, high buildings with an open gallery round the top"	7
"It is especially in the Dobrudja that these different nationalities jostle together"	10
"It had kept the delightful appearance of having been modelled by a potter's thumb"	14
"Primitive strongholds, half tower, half peasant-house"	14
"Richer and more varied are the peasants' costumes"	14
"With an open gallery round the top formed by stout short columns"	15
"Composed of a double colonnade.... Behind these colonnades are the nuns' small cells: tiny domes, little chambers"	15
"A convent ... white and lonely, hidden away in wooded regions greener and sweeter than any other in the land"	18
"This porch is decorated all over with frescoes"	22
"Some were so old, so bent, that they could no more raise their heads to look up at the sky above"	23
"Strange old monks inhabited it"	23
"Silent recluses, buried away from the world"	23
"An indescribable harmony makes its lines beautiful"	26
"A lonely little cemetery, filled with crosses of wood"	30
"On lonely mountain-sides"	30
"Guarded by a few hoary old monks"	30
"There lies a tiny wee church"	30
"Tall and upright, with the pale, ascetic face of a saint"	30
"Creatures so old and decrepit that they seem to have gathered moss like stones lying for ever in the same place"	30
"When found in such numbers they are mostly hewn out of wood"	31
"These strange old crosses ... they stand by the wayside"	31
"Mostly they stand beside wells"	34
"Quaint of shape, they attract the eye from far"	38
"Sometimes they are of quaintly carved stone"	38
"Strange old crosses that on all roads I have come upon"	38
"Their forms and sizes are varied"	38
"None of the greater buildings attract me so strongly as those little village churches"	39
"The altar is shut off from the rest of the building by a carved and painted screen"	39
"The roofs are always of shingle"	42
"Varied indeed are the shapes of these peasant churches"	46
"Their principal feature being the stout columns that support the porch in front"	46
"But with some the belfry stands by itself"	47
"The columns have beautiful carved capitals of rarest design ... whitewashed like the rest of the church"	47
"Quaint indeed are the buildings that some simple-hearted artist has painted"	47
"These lonely mountain-dwellers"	50
"These shaggy garments give them a wild appearance"	54
"Their only refuges are dug-outs"	54
"Even tiny boys wear these extraordinary coats"	54
"Here, in company with their dogs, they spend the long summer months"	54
"On juicy pastures near clear-flowing stream"	55
"Silent watchers leaning on their staffs"	55
"Wherever I have met them, be it on the mountains or in the plains, ... these silent shepherds have seemed to me the very personification of solitude"	55
"On the burning plains of the Dobrudja where for miles around no tree is to be seen"	58
"Stifled by the overwhelming temperature, they had massed themselves together"	58
"Mothers and children, and old grannies"	62
"Small bronze statues with curly, tousled heads"	62
"Occasionally a torn shirt barely covers them"	62
"Most beautiful of all are the young girls"	63
"Inconceivably picturesque"	63
"These are the respected members of the tribes"	63
"I have often met old couples wandering together"	63
"A bare field where the soldiers exercised"	66

---

MY COUNTRY

The Queen of a small Country!

Those who are accustomed to see rulers of greater lands can little understand what it means.

It means work and anxiety and hope, and great toiling for small results. But the field is large, and, if the heart be willing, great is the work.

When young I thought it all work, uphill work; but the passing years brought another knowledge, a blessed knowledge, and now I know.

This is a small country, a new country, but it is a country I love. I want others to love it also; therefore listen to a few words about it. Let me paint a few pictures, draw a few sketches as I have seen them, first with my eyes, then with my heart.

*
*—*

Once I was a stranger to this people; now I am one of them, and, because I came from so far, better was I able to see them with their good qualities and with their defects.

Their country is a fruitful country, a country of vast plains, of waving corn, of deep forests, of rocky mountains, of rivers that in spring-time are turbulent with foaming waters, that in summer are but sluggish streams lost amongst stones. A country where peasants toil 'neath scorching suns, a country untouched by the squalor of manufactories, a country of extremes where the winters are icy and the summers burning hot.

A link between East and West.

At first it was an alien country, its roads too dusty, too endless its plains. I had to learn to see its beauties—to feel its needs with my heart.

Little by little the stranger became one of them, and now she would like the country of her birth to see this other country through the eyes of its Queen.

Yes, little by little I learnt to understand this people, and little by little it learned to understand me.

Now we trust each other, and so, if God wills, together we shall go towards a greater future!

My love of freedom and vast horizons, my love of open air and unexplored paths led to many a discovery. Alone I would ride for hours to reach a forlorn village, to see a crumbling church standing amongst its rustic crosses at a river's edge, or to be at a certain spot at sunset when sky and earth would be drenched with flaming red.

Oh! the Rumanian sunsets, how wondrous they are!

6A

6B

7A

7B

Once I was riding slowly homewards.

The day had been torrid, the air was heavy with dust. In oceans of burnished gold the corn-fields spread before me. No breath of wind stirred their ripeness; they seemed waiting for the hour of harvest, proud of being the wealth of the land.

As far as my eye could reach, corn-fields, corn-fields, dwindling away towards the horizon in a vapoury line. A blue haze lay over the world, and with it a smell of dew and ripening seed was slowly rising out of the ground.

At the end of the road stood a well, its long pole like a giant finger pointing eternally to the sky. Beside it an old stone cross leaning on one side as though tired, a cross erected with the well in remembrance of some one who was dead....

Peace enveloped me—my horse made no movement, it also was under the evening spell.

From afar a herd of buffaloes came slowly towards me over the long straight road: an ungainly procession of beasts that might have belonged to antediluvian times.

One by one they advanced—mud-covered, patient, swinging their ugly bodies, carrying stiffly their heavily-horned heads, their vacant eyes staring at nothing, though here and there with raised faces they seemed to be seeking something from the skies.

From under their hoofs rose clouds of dust accompanying their every stride. The sinking sun caught hold of it, turning it into fiery smoke. It was as a veil of light spread over these beasts of burden, a glorious radiance advancing with them towards their rest.

I stood quite still and looked upon them as they passed me one by one.... And that evening a curtain seemed to have been drawn away from many a mystery. I had understood the meaning of the vast and fertile plain.

*
*—*

Twenty-three years have I now spent in this country, each day bringing its joy or its sorrow, its light or its shade; with each year my interests widened, my understanding deepened; I knew where I was needed to help.

I am not going to talk of my country's institutions, of its politics, of names known to the world. Others have done this more cleverly than I ever could. I want only to speak of its soul, of its atmosphere, of its peasants and soldiers, of things that made me love this country, that made my heart beat with its heart.

I have moved amongst the most humble. I have entered their cottages, asked them questions, taken their new-born in my arms.