ODESSA entered into negotiations with the government for the surrender of the ship.
It was agreed that none of the mutineers should be arrested, detained, or otherwise interfered with, but that every man aboard would be permitted to land and to go where he pleased, on condition that no arms or other property belonging to the ship should be injured or carried away, and that everything should be left exactly as it was when the mutiny broke out. It was also agreed that the sailors should be given five days to get out of the country.
This agreement was kept, and five days later the Potemkin was delivered by the captain of the port of Constanza to a crew of officers and men from the Russian navy, who were sent down from Sevastopol for that purpose. Her bunkers were filled with coal and she was taken back to Sevastopol, where she was repainted and renamed. Her extraordinary experience is never alluded to in the Russian navy. It is a painful topic. Most of the mutineers left Constanza and scattered over Europe. Those who remained in Roumania have been protected, but many of the others have been captured. Some are in prison, some were shot at the time of the arrest, others were hanged under sentence of a court-martial.
CHAPTER XV
THE western coast of the Black Sea is divided into four parts — the Russian province of Bessarabia at the north, a strip of European Turkey at the south, and between these two contesting nations are Bulgaria and Roumania. The latter is a recent nation, made up of the ancient principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, which have the Danube River for their southern and the Carpathian Mountains for the northern and western boundary. Hungary is on the other side of the range.
Roumania is the most advanced of all the Balkan states yet at the same time one third of its area toward the north and west is inhabited by a semi-savage class of shepherds — one of the strangest peoples in Europe. They follow their flocks in utter solitude among the heights of the Carpathians during the warmer months of the year, and in the winter drive them down into the sheltered valleys and plains. They never accept the shelter of a roof, but sleep among their flocks like dogs, no matter how cold the atmosphere or how deep the snow. They seldom speak, and many of them have lost the use of their tongues in their solitary existence. They are a race by themselves. They are entirely illiterate; they cannot abide in towns, and they wear a costume of their own, consisting of coarse white woollen shirts, long mantles of wool as thick as a carpet, and high caps of sheepskin with the wool upon them. They let their hair grow long until it hangs upon their shoulders, and their beards sometimes reach to their waists. They are very superstitious; they know all the signs and omens, and their folk-lore and legends have been the theme of poets and writers of romance for centuries.
There is a race of gypsies in Roumania, too, of greater numbers than are found in any other country. They are called Tzigany and are famous for their musical genius. Tzigany orchestras are the fashion in European restaurants these days, and their wild, weird, passionate music has a fascination and an exhilaration that comes from none other. These gypsies number perhaps a quarter of a million and are related to the tribes that wander about Hungary. They preserve their distinctive habits, customs, and dress as well as their racial purity with fierce jealousy. No Tzigany ever marries any but a gypsy; and they are faithful until death to the members of their own race, although their transactions with the rest of the population are usually open to suspicion.
The population of Roumania is about six million, of whom about three hundred thousand are Jews, 250,000 Roman Catholics, 50,000 Protestants and the rest orthodox Greeks. It is a singular fact that, although a greater part of the population belong to the Greek Church, their greatest pride and satisfaction are found in their descent from the Roman legions which overcame and occupied the country during the reign of the emperor Trajan, a century after the Christian era.
The famous column of Trajan, in the centre of Rome,