“The Aluta and other rivers bring down nuggets of gold, which are collected by the Bohemians, or Ziguans, and which indicate the presence of mines as rich as those of Transylvania; but no one thinks of looking for them. Only the salt quarries are worked, among which that of Okna Teleago furnishes 150,000 cwt. per annum. The climate, notwithstanding two months of hard winter and two months of excessive heat, is more favourable to health and agriculture than that of any of the adjacent countries. The pastures, filled with aromatic plants, supply nourishment even to the herds of neighbouring provinces, and could support even more than these. The wool of their sheep has already attained considerable value. It is estimated that Walachia contains two and a half millions of sheep, which are of three-fold variety – the zigay, with short and fine wool; the zaskam, with long coarse wool; the tatare, which forms a mean between the two foregoing varieties. Horses and oxen are exported. Fields of maize, wheat, and barley; forests of apple, plum, and cherry trees; melons and cabbages, excellent, although enormous, bear witness to the productive nature of the soil. Many of its wines sparkle with a generous fire, and with care might be brought to equal the well-known Hungarian vintages. A thousand other natural advantages are found there, but they are of little avail to a people without energy or enlightenment.”

      This family comprehends the Russians, Finns, Bulgarians, Servians, and Bosniaks, that is to say, the inhabitants of Slavonia; and the Magyars, or Hungarians, the Croats, the Tchecks, the Poles, and the Lithuanians, that is, the people who inhabit the countries intervening between the Baltic and Black Seas.

      Before describing these people individually, we shall give in a general manner the characteristics of the family to which they all belong.

      The Slavonian family includes the European peoples who have preserved in the greatest perfection the type of the primitive Aryan race. They are tall, vigorous, and well made, and while in this respect they recall the Caucasian type, they yet possess the most distinct marks of the Mongolian type. The cheek bones are high, the nose is depressed at the root, and turned up towards the extremity, which is almost invariably thick. The oval form of the cranium is very marked; the chest is of considerable capacity, and the shoulders and arms are large, but the lower extremities are in proportion much smaller.

      Mr. William Edwards has thus described the organic type of the Slavonians: —

      “The form of the head, viewed from the front, represents pretty nearly a square, since the height is about equal to the breadth, while the top is perceptibly flattened, and the direction of the jaw is horizontal. The nose is less long than the space between its basis and the chin: from the nostrils to the root, it is almost straight, that is, there is no decided curve; but if such curve were appreciable, it would be slightly concave, so as to give the tip a tendency to rise; the lower portion is rather broad, and the extremity rounded. The eyes, which are slightly hollow, are exactly in the same line, and if they present any marked characteristic, it is that they are rather small in proportion to the head. The eyebrows, which are scanty, are nearly contiguous at the inner angle, whence they are directed obliquely outwards. The mouth, which is small with thin lips, is much nearer the nose than the chin. A singular characteristic which must be taken in connection with the above, and which is very general, consists in the absence of beard except upon the upper lip.”

      It has been said that the Slavonians of the present day are the old Scythians mixed with the Sarmatians, but their origin is not so simple as this. These people originally bore the name of Venedians or Servians. They occupied, at the commencement of the Christian era, the banks of the Danube and Hungary proper, whence they extended as far as the Dnieper and the Baltic. Their name of Servians is derived from a people mentioned by Ptolemy, under the name of Σερϐοι, who dwelt in the regions around the Baltic (Palus-Meotis), and belonged to the Sarmatian nation. The Sarmatians advanced by degrees from the banks of the lower Don, which was their country, to the centre of Poland, where they mixed with the Venedians. The Sarmatians were allied to the Scythians of Europe, who were an Indo-European nation, considered by Diodorus of Sicily, and Pliny, to have come originally from Media.