_Bucurest_ is a large stragling town of a very peculiar make, the outward parts very mean, consisting of houses, the greater part of which is under ground like our cellars, and covered over at the top with straw or bark of trees. The better sort of houses are about the palace of the Prince, which are covered with handsome wooden tiles, the walls built of substantial stone, and the yards and gardens always very wide[114], enclosed with intire trunks of oaks set as near as possible to each other. The streets appear like a continued bridge, being floored from side to side with massy planks of ten yards long, and as many inches thick; which work, however expensive it may seem, is continued thro all the buildings of the place for the extent of some miles together. The sight of the whole is agreable at a distance, by reason of the several houses of the nobility, the palace of the Prince, and the number of churches and convents. These last are all of one form, regularly built, and rising with cupolas, wherein bells are often hung; which I mention, as being the first I had heard since my arrival in Turkey. The whole province is luxuriantly rich, abounding with woods and pastures, but thinly inhabited, and that in caves and huts rather than houses. Its chief income proceeds from wax, honey, hides, horses, the mines of salt, and custom on some places of the _Danube_. By these it is able to maintain its prince and barons splendidly, besides paying a yearly tribute to the Turk, that is settled at three hundred and twenty purses, which are equal to thirty two thousand pounds sterling, besides three times that sum extorted beyond the compact. The lands of the province are intirely in the hands of the Prince and barons; the rest, who are rustics, being all either slaves or servants, whose persons or service are at the disposal of the several nobles, on whom they depend. April xxviii. We proceed this morning from _Bucurest_, and after five hours travel take up our lodging at a small village, called _Chrytshulest_. In the way we stop a little towards the right hand to visit a gentile palace, which is building by the Prince for his second son, situated on a pleasant lake. And the day following, in seven hours from _Chrytshulest_, we pitch our tents, and lodge near a small river, called _Ilsós_. April xxx.