fashion maintains a despotic rule. I understand black hair is the thing
at present, so every Wallack maiden dyes her hair to the regulation
colour, though Nature, who never makes a mistake, may have matched her
complexion with auburn locks.

The costume is very pretty and peculiar; it consists of a loose chemise,
a short skirt of homespun, with a double apron front and back, formed of
a very deep thick fringe of various colours. This peculiar garment is
called an _obreska_; I think it has no counterpart in female fashions
elsewhere. When the under-garment is white and fresh the effect is very
good; but in the case of the very poor, if there are but scanty rags
beneath, then, to speak mildly, the fringe is an inefficient covering.
But to-day every damsel is in her best; and how jauntily she wears the
coloured scarf twisted round her head, which falls in graceful folds!
The Wallacks generally have their bare feet covered, not with boots, but
with thongs of leather, something in the form of a sandal. The Servian
women dress quite differently, wear tight-fitting garments, richly
embroidered when their means permit. The men also figure largely in
embroidery.

In the evening the peasants had a dance on the open space in front of
the _czarda_, or village inn. Of course we were there to look on. I
should observe that we had arranged to stay the night at Moldova, for
the afternoon had been taken up in visiting a large manufactory for
sulphuric acid in the neighbourhood. The dance which wound up the day's
amusements can be easily described. "Many a youth and many a maid" form
a wide circle with arms interlaced, they move round and round in a
marzurka step to the sound of music. It appeared to me rather slow and
monotonous. I do not know whether the figure breaks up, leaving each
couple more to their own devices; but we left them still revolving in a