This custom of the maiden helping the young man to bring in his oats, and thereby signifying her willingness to marry him, is prevalent only in a certain district to the north of Transylvania called the _Haferland_, or country of oats—a broad expanse of country covered at harvest-time by a billowy sea of golden grain, the whole fortune of the land-owners. In other parts various other betrothal customs are prevalent, as for instance in Neppendorf, a large village close to Hermanstadt, inhabited partly by Saxons, partly by Austrians, or Ländlers, as they call themselves. This latter race is of far more recent introduction in the country than the Saxons, having only come hither (last century) in the time of Maria Theresa, who had summoned them to replenish some of the Saxon colonies in danger of becoming extinct. If it is strange to note how rigidly the Saxons have kept themselves from mingling with the surrounding Magyars and Roumanians, it is yet more curious to see how these two German races have existed side by side for over a hundred years without amalgamating; and this for no sort of antagonistic reason, for they live together in perfect harmony, attending the same church, and conforming to the same regulations, but each people preserving its own individual costume and customs. The Saxons and the Ländlers have each their different parts of the church assigned to them; no Saxon woman would ever think of donning the fur cap of a Ländler matron, while as little would the latter exchange her tight-fitting fur coat for the wide hanging mantle worn by the other. [Illustration: SAXON BETROTHED COUPLE.] Until quite lately unions have very seldom taken place between members of these different races. Only within the last twenty years or so have some of the Saxon youths awoke to the consciousness that the Austrian girls make better and more active housewives than their own phlegmatic countrywomen, and have consequently sought them in marriage. Even then, when both parties are willing, many a projected union makes shipwreck upon the stiff-neckedness of the two _paterfamilias_, who neither of them will concede anything to the other. Thus, for instance, when the Saxon father of the bridegroom demands that his future daughter-in-law should adopt Saxon attire when she becomes the wife of his son, the Ländler father will probably take offence and withdraw his consent at the last moment; not a cap nor a jacket, not even a pin or an inch of ribbon, will either of the two concede to the wishes of the young people. Thus many hopeful alliances are nipped in the bud, and those which have been accomplished are almost invariably based on the understanding that each party retains its own attire, and that the daughters born of such union follow the mother, the sons the father, in the matter of costume.