MOLDAVIA. 
795 
18 degrees of Reaumur. The country was every where too 
wintry, to give any inducement for stopping ; therefore pressing 
forward with no inconsiderable impatience to reach our comfort¬ 
able bourn, we halted neither day nor night, till we arrived at 
Yassy at 10 o’clock on the third morning after leaving Boucharest. 
February 13th. — I drove directly to the house of Mons. de 
Raab the Austrian Consul-general, who instantly gave me 
quarters, there being no inn in this capital. Boucharest had 
been equally wanting in that convenience. Yassi is a fine town ; 
standing on uneven ground, part on the side of a hill, and 
the rest along the valley. The surrounding country is beauti¬ 
fully undulating, wooded, and towards the vicinity of the town 
enriched with gardens and vineyards. Of course, from the season 
of the year, I only saw the skeleton of all this beauty ; which, 
when revived by the Spring, and clothed again with the green leaf 
and the blossom, must equal any vernal scene on this shore of 
the Euxine. 
Until within these hundred years, the voivodes, or governors, 
of these two provinces were elected from their native princes ; 
but about the same time the Porte found an opportunity of chang¬ 
ing that part of their constitution, by a double act of tyranny, 
which took place on the following occasion. Valachia had been 
made tributary to the Turks, so far back as the middle of the 
fifteenth century, by the conquering arms of Mahomed II. But 
it was not till a hundred years afterwards that Moldavia allowed 
any interference of the Porte in its concerns, and that was during 
the reign of Solyman I., to whom the boyars made a merit of 
necessity, and sought his protection by way of avoiding his 
attacks. Both countries, however, continued under their native 
lords, till the close of the seventeenth century, when Sultan 
Ahmed shewed symptoms of suspecting the fidelity of Constan- 
5 i 2 
