[Footnote 24: We are indebted for many of those details to M. Tocilesco, whose beautifully illustrated work, Dacia, &c. (Bucarest: Tipografia Academiei Romane, 1880), contains a vast amount of information concerning Dacian and other antiquities.]
Before proceeding to deal with a subject in connection with the geographical position of Roumania, which has special interest for Englishmen, a few words may be found interesting in regard to its exceptional and variable climate.
Both the winters and summers are very trying and severe; spring is so short as to be almost non-existent, but this is compensated for by the long autumn, a genial season which often lasts from the middle of September to the end of November. In summer the thermometer often reaches 90 deg. to 95 deg. Fahrenheit in the shade, whilst in winter it frequently falls to zero, but the annual average is about 57 deg. Fahrenheit. Bain is not nearly so frequent as with us, and it seldom lasts long. Comparisons have been made between Roumania and other countries which show that whilst in England we have on the average 172 rainy days in the year, there are in Western France 152, in Germany 141, and in Roumania only 74. Snowstorms are not frequent, there being on the average only twelve days of snow in the year. The most trying characteristic of the climate, however, is the cold cutting easterly wind which sweeps over the steppes of Asiatic Russia, and often causes life to be almost intolerable in the Roumanian plains; and another unpleasant feature is the sudden change from heat to cold between noon and evening during the later months of the year.