The Walachian women, like those of Croatia, being obliged to perform the operations of agriculture as well as to attend to the domestic concerns, lose at an early age all traces of beauty. Those of the pleasant valley of Saska, are distinguished by more polished manners, a more healthy look, and superior cleanliness and neatness in dress, from the inhabitants of the plains. In the mountains contiguous to this valley are coppermines wrought by German settlers, the example of whose industry and consequent comforts has not been wholly lost on their Walachian neighbours. The head-dress, somewhat resembling a soldier’s cap, and the two aprons, one before and the other behind, distinguish the matron from the unmarried female. In addition to all her other occupations, the wife is obliged to take her infant children with her wherever she goes, whether to her work in the fields, to church, or to visit a neighbour. The infant is laid in a low open box, to which are attached cords, by means of which it is slung over the shoulder of the mother. If a tree happens to be near, the box is suspended from it by the cords, and the infant swings as in a hammock, while the mother does her work in the fields. The house, built of wood and earth, affords but scanty room for the family of the Walachian and the young cattle which lodge under the same roof. He was formerly an utter stranger to stables, barns, and granaries. Like the Tartar, when his old situation no longer suited him, he drove his cattle farther, packed up his habitation and his furniture and utensils, and fixed his abode in another place. Pains were long taken to excite in him a taste for more solid and spacious dwellings, in the hope of habituating him to a permanent residence and its advantages; and they have not been unsuccessful. In the upper valley of the Nera and of the Almasch, on the woody hills bordering which the Walachian long roved about for the sake of the pasturage they afforded, are now to be seen regular villages, with houses of masonry, barns and stables. The cultivation of corn and the breeding of cattle are almost the only resources of their inhabitants. The people of the Almasch, however, pursue another occupation of a peculiar kind, that is, the feeding of snails, which they collect in the woods in spring, keeping them in particular spots in their gardens surrounded with ditches till winter, and then selling them. They are known far and near by the name of Caransebes snails. Dr. Bright saw at Keszthely a pen for snails, which are in request in Hungary as well as in Germany, as an article of food. This pen was formed by boards two feet high, the upper edge of which was spiked with nails an inch long and half an inch asunder. This barrier the animals never attempt to pass. The snail, the _helix pomatia_, is in great demand at Vienna, where sacks of them are regularly exposed in the market for sale. CHAPTER XIV. GALICIA, OR AUSTRIAN POLAND.