I'lioto by Iredenck Moore 



PEASANT MOTHERS, OI.D AND YOUNG 



The peasants marry very early in Rumania, and the ceremonies accompanying a country 

 wedding still preserve the tradition of marriage by capture. In some districts a flower is 

 painted on the walls of the cottage which is the home of a girl of marriageable age. Note 

 how curiously the babies are bundled. 



affairs of state for their conquerors, the 

 Turks being indifferent and incapable ad- 

 ministrators. The Greeks obtained many 

 of the civil offices in which profits were 

 to be made, and early in the i8th cen- 

 tury, by one of the many strange systems 

 adopted by the Turks, they were ap- 

 pointed princes (called hospodars) of the 

 trans-Danubian provinces of Moldavia 

 and Wallachia, which now form the 

 kingdom of Rumania. 



These hospodars obtained their places 

 by purchase from the Sultan. Enormous 

 sums had to be paid for the posts, and 

 the Greeks who bought them and became 

 princes for a time had to recover their 

 outlay quickly, for they could hardly get 

 to Jassy and Bucharest before the pal- 

 aces of those respective capitals were 

 again put up for sale to other Greeks in 

 Constantinople. In the pressure put by 

 the hospodars on the people of Moldavia 



and Wallachia the first seeds of Ruma- 

 nian dislike of the Greeks were planted. 



In the early part of the i8th century 

 the pressure of Russia, the Colossus of 

 the North, began to be felt seriously 

 throughout Europe and especially in the 

 Balkan Peninsula. That pressure has 

 never ceased to exist, although it has 

 always been held back successfully by the 

 other European powers. 



In order to be rid of the Turkish domi- 

 nation, the provinces that were later to 

 unite under the Rumanian flag accepted 

 the protection and military assistance of 

 the Russian czars. On many occasions, 

 indeed, they sought it — in the name of 

 the cross — for Holy Russia was of their 

 own Christian faith, that of the (Greek) 

 Orthodox Church. 



Nine times in all the armies of Russia 

 traversed Moldavia and Wallachia in 

 marches arainst the Turks, and almost or 



1065 



