The country round Mehadia is so wild, both in regard to the scenery and to the native population, that the contrast of dropping suddenly into a fashionable watering-place is very curious.  This bath is much frequented for pleasure and health by the luxury-loving Roumanians, who invariably display the latest extravagance of Parisian fashion.  Men in patent-leather boots devoted to cards and billiards, while in the immediate neighbourhood of glorious scenery, with bear and chamois shooting to be had for the asking, seem to me “an unknown species,” as Voltaire said of the English.  From what I learned of the ways of the place it seems that the Magyar and Transylvanian visitors keep quite aloof from the Roumanian coterie; they have never anything pleasant to say of one another.  At Boseg, a bath in the Eastern Carpathians which I visited later, the separation is so complete that the Roumanians go at one period of the season and the Hungarian visitors at another.

It had always been my intention to stay a few days at the Hercules-Bad, and I had given the place as an address for English letters.  Accordingly I presented myself at the poste restante.  Seeing that I was a Britisher, the postmaster gave me all the letters he possessed with English postmarks.  Many of them were of considerable antiquity.  Out of the goodly pile I selected some half-dozen that bore my name; but I was greatly surprised to come across one that had made a very bad shot for its destination.  It bore the simple name of some poor Jacktar, with the address “H.M.S.  Hercules.”

The Romans had their etablissement here.  The present name comes from the “Thermae Herculis” of classic times.  There are many interesting remains here—­fragments of altars, sculptured capitals, and stones with inscriptions, all telling the same story—­the story of Roman dominion and greatness.

Just then we had no time for archaeology, for we wanted to push on to Karansebes, and we stayed only a day and a half at Mehadia.  As it was more than we could comfortably manage to do the whole distance in a day, we arranged to drive as far as Terregova and sleep there.  We left Mehadia early in the afternoon, F——­’s groom riding my horse.  The road was excellent—­all the roads are in the districts of the Military Frontier.  As an example of the quick temper of the Wallacks, I will mention a little incident which happened on the road.  We met some of these people, and one of them, who was looking another way, stumbled most awkwardly against the groom’s horse, and very nearly met with an accident.  Though it was so clearly his own fault, he had hardly recovered himself when, raising his axe, he was about to strike our servant on the head.  Meanwhile another fellow seized a big stone, which I believe was going to make a target of the same head.  Luckily I turned, and seeing the scuffle, I was out with my revolver in a moment, pointing it at the man with the axe.  He understood my language, and made a hasty retreat.  F——­ said he had no doubt it would have gone badly with the groom if the distance between us had been greater.