As far as the buildings are concerned, Kronstadt has much the air of an old-fashioned German town.  As you pass along the streets you get a peep now and then of picturesque interior courtyards, seen through the wide-arched doorways.  These courts are mostly surrounded by an open arcade.  Generally in the centre of each is set a large green tub holding an oleander-tree.  This gives rather an Oriental appearance to these interiors.  The East and West are here mixed up together most curiously.  Amongst the fair-haired, blue-eyed Saxons are dusky Armenians and black-ringleted Jews, wearing strange garments.  By the way, the merchants of these two races have ousted the Saxon trader from the field; commerce is almost completely in their hands.

The market-day at Kronstadt is a most curious and interesting sight.  The country-people come in, sitting in their long waggons, drawn by four horses abreast, they themselves dressed in cloaks of snow-white sheepskins, or richly-embroidered white leather coats lined with black fur.  The head-gear too is very comely, and very dissimilar; for there are flat fur caps—­like an exaggerated Glengarry—­and peaked hats, and drum-shaped hats for the girls, while the close-twisted white kerchief denotes the matron.  The Wallack maiden is adorned by her dowry of coins hanging over head and shoulders, and with braids of plaited black hair—­mingled, I am afraid, with tow, if the truth must be spoken.

Kronstadt is rather a considerable place; the population is stated to be 27,766, composed of Saxons, Szeklers, and Wallacks, who have each their separate quarter.  It is most beautifully situated, quite amongst the mountains; in fact it is 2000 feet above the sea-level.  The Saxon part of the town is built in the opening of a richly-wooded valley.  The approach from the vale beyond—­the Burzenland, of which I have spoken before—­is guarded by a singular isolated rock, a spur of the mountain-chain.  This natural defence is crowned by a fortress, which forms a very picturesque feature in the landscape.  Formerly the town was completely surrounded by walls, curtained on the hillside, reminding one of Lucern’s “coronal of towers.”  In the “brave days of old” the trade-guilds were severally allotted their forts for the defence of the town—­no holiday task for volunteers, as in our “right little, tight little island.”

Though the dangers of the frontier are by no means a thing of the past, the town walls and the towers are mainly in ruins, overgrown with wild vines and other luxuriant vegetation.  As no guidebook exists to tell one what one ought to see, and where one ought to go, I had all the pleasure of poking about and coming upon surprises.  I was not aware that the church at Kronstadt is about the finest specimen of fourteenth-century Gothic in Transylvania, ranking second only to the Cathedral of Kashau in Upper Hungary.