Not long ago the Rumanians, deprived of all education except that supplied by their _doinas_, or ancient songs, were lost almost in mediæval darkness. Even now some of the ancient customs of their ancestors survive in the rural districts. Funerals are attended by hired weeping women, whose shrieks accompany the farewell of relatives. Into the coffin they place a stick upon which to rest when crossing the Jordan, a piece of cloth to serve as a garment, and a coin as a bribe to St. Peter for opening the gate of heaven. Nor are wine and bread forgotten for the journey. Red-haired people are suspected of returning to earth in the guise of a dog, a frog, or a flea, and to penetrate into houses in order to suck the blood of good-looking young girls. In their case it is as well to close the coffin-lid tightly, or, still better, to pierce the throat of the defunct with a stick. The peasantry will doubtless no longer be haunted by these hallucinations, for the {167} moral and intellectual progress of the nation has kept pace with its material prosperity since the peasant has cultivated his own land. Officially made a freeman in 1856, but held for several years afterwards in a kind of limited bondage, the peasant now owns at least a portion of the land. By a law passed in 1862, each head of a family is entitled to a plot of land from seven to sixty-seven acres in extent, and ever since that time the peasants have gained immensely in self-respect. His land, though still cultivated with the ancient Roman plough, and deprived of manure, produces immense quantities of cereals, the sale of which brings wealth into the country and encourages progress. Rumania is now one of the great corn-exporting countries of Europe, and in favourable years, when the crops are neither eaten up by locusts nor destroyed by frosts, its exports exceed those of Hungary. In less than ten years the export of wheat, maize, barley, and oats has doubled, and the sum annually realised varies between £4,000,000 and £8,000,000 sterling.