EASTERN CARPATHIANS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 October 1924, Page 9

EASTERN CARPATHIANS.

HUMOURS OF A MOTOR TOUR. (London Times.) The Rumanians, it is said, like to be considered the direct descendants of the Romans. ±*ut they are no roadmakers; Ploesti, one of the largest towns in Rumania, possesses, 'ior example, hut on© properly paved “boulevard,” and this is only about a kilometre in length. .Otliei wise, - the devious and dirty streets of this centre of the great Rumanian oil industry consist of an irregular but continous series of ruts, potholes, loose stones, dust, and pools of water. . British motor-vehicle manufacturers, if they wish to do. business in this part of the world, cannot hear .in mind too carefully that the roads are most destructive to springs and tyres, and will subject both chassis and bodywork to the severest strains.. The motorist himself will need no reminder. He will have been impressed—sorely impressed—with the fkct, even in the best-sprung and upholstered car. Yet an automobile tour from Ploesti to the •Eastern Carpathians offers a wealth of attractive scenery which compensates for every jolt. Even in their squalor, the villages, with their peculiar characteristics, blended of East and West, geese, and turkeys—even pigs—wander unconcernedly to and fro across the roads, bent on committing suicide, and saved only by the skill 0 f the driver and the effectiveness of the brakes. The towns are great poultry markets. The tradei is in live birds, and an animated, traffic it is. If a noisy, crowded, and violent altercation is taking place in the Piaca, or at the street corner, there is no need for alarm. It is probably only an argument about the price of a couple of squeaking chickens. Practically no dead birds are sold, except those" that have mistaken the speed and direction of the car. Of the oilfields, whose derricks dot the hillsides, all that need be said here is that they add nothing to the attractiveness of the scenery; The English tourist misses the hedges and open fences, the front gardens, creepercovered cottages and porches that are such a-refreshing feature, of liis homeland. Instead, he finds that the village dwellings, which are shaped rather like Noah’s ark, are, for the tit* 5 ™ se t on to. the road. Walls or closely built fences and gates effectively bar the main door of the houses from the public gaze, and make an : almost continuous boundary walk along each side of the road. The smaller houses are very primitive in design, being for the most part, constructed of light .tree trunks, laid horizontally over .ya. foundation' of boulders. . The . cracks are filled in with mud; and the whole is finally covered with plaster. The outer walls are decorated with panels and medallions of varied design, and afterwards painted with distemper in. different shades of blue, green and grey. Th© road ascends past the boulderstrewn beds of streams, and the cool green heights of Sinaia-, the resort of court and fashion, are soon gained. Then the pass of Tomos is reached. Here there are still shell-shattered houses that have been awaiting repair these eight years. Here, also, is that, other, sad memory of a futile struggle, of wooden crosses on the hillside by the trees, near the old Hungarian', frontier. The car drops down into Brasov, once a thriving industrial town, and now slowiy recovering its activity It attracts many visitors from . the sun-baked plains to its invigorating mountain air and' wooded terraces. . The! next objective is the famous Bran pass, and so to Campu-Lung. ihe map shows that the road to which wemow; turn is not “first class.” Buddeniy we are brought to a standstill amidst heaps of boulders mounds of loose i earth, and piles of stones. Ihe road seems to have vanished But m answer to requests for directions’ the peasants continue to point to what, they evidently consider to be the track. They do not regard it as lost, or even mislaid. And so we drive on through th© loose earth, then st?ea g m ■ res€mbles the. bed of a stream, w e cross something . like a farmyard, encircle- a few trees, and finally emerge upon the highway again U is an easy day’s run to the sulphur springs, of Calimanesti, through flower-strewn va leys, gay with wild violas, , campanula, giant fox-gloves, and snapdragon. Then, leaving the valley of the Oltu, Sibiu, tormX known as Hermannstadt, o r >< a Tv Szeben, lies ahead. . " a^ ro , ad _ almost due west through Fagaras Jeads again to Brasov, whence a highly attractive hut adventurou* thrnnCTii n +i!' V je odow ed southward passes of Mount Cheia and Mount Suzana—B,oooft. to 10 000 ft. above sea level. Her© the narrow Z±™ d u e ' ltls sa j d - h y the Germans ■£w g -„ th ° "-Ti hugs the mountain sides m a giddy, serpentine course, hair -P ln b ends being negotiated m a rise or drop of 3,000 ft. Not far from the summit wild raspberries are to bo found, lame and luscious. A few pairs of hands succeeded m picking about olb in half an hour. Below the car winds its way downwards^ through pi ne and beech, larch and birch, to the safer, haven of the valley, and so back through valem to Ploesti.