Herodotus came to admire

The picturesque cemetery, shaded by oaks, on the hill above the Genoese Castle, overlooking the entrance to the Black Sea, a view that Darius I. and Herodotus came to admire, is also named “The Field of Witnesses,” because there, it is supposed, Saracen soldiers who fell in an attack upon the castle were buried. Such cemeteries are holy ground, and sepulture in them is regarded as a great honour. The attendance of the Sultan at the midday public prayers on Fridays is the official act of the Caliph of the Mohammedan world. He ascends the throne after girding his sword at the grave of the first standard-bearer of the Prophet, in the Mosque of Eyoub.

The mantle of the Prophet, his green standard, his staff, sword, bow, are enshrined in the Seraglio as the sovereign’s regalia, and are annually visited by the Sultan as a great State function. Around that standard all true Moslems must rally when Islam is in peril. No great act of Government may be performed until the chief doctor of the Sacred Law, the Sheik – ul – Islam, has been consulted, and sanctions the act, as in accordance with the supreme authority of faith and righteousness. Sultan Abdul Azis and his nephew, Sultan Murad, were deposed only after such sanction had been obtained.

Brought up as Moslems

Upon this theocratic conception of the State, the exclusion of the Christian subjects of the Empire from the army is based. For, how can aliens in religion be enlisted under the banner of the Faith? Hence the institution of the janissaries in the early history of the Ottoman Power, whereby children of Christian parentage were taken from their homes and brought up as Moslems, to furnish recruits for the army. It was an ingenious device to maintain the religious character of the military force of the Empire, and yet to prevent the burden of filling the ranks from resting exclusively upon the faithful. The abolition of the child-tax, however fortunate to others, proved a great injury to Turkey.

It not only deprived the Sultans of their finest troops, but has been one of the principal causes of the great decrease in the Moslem population of the country; as that class of the community alone has since been called to sustain the losses involved in military service. The mortality among the soldiers of the Turkish army from disease and war is so great that the Moslem population is rapidly dying out, and well-informed medical experts are heard to say, “ The Eastern Question will be solved by the disappearance of the Turks in the natural course of things.”

Artistic elements borrowed from Nineveh

AMONG THE CHURCHES

BUT however interesting the old churches of the city are as historical landmarks, however useful as a clue to guide us through the labyrinth of the life of New Rome, their supreme value after all consists in the fact that they are monuments, one of them the finest monument, of what is styled Byzantine Art — the art’ which blended artistic elements derived from Greece and Rome with artistic elements borrowed from Nineveh, Persia, Syria, and unfolded a new type of beauty. It was the flower developed by that fusion of Western and Oriental aesthetic ideals and tastes resulting from the long intercourse maintained between Europe and Asia, sometimes at the point of the sword, and sometimes by the peaceful ministries of commerce.

Nowhere could that Art find a more congenial atmosphere in which to flourish than in the city which binds the West and the East together. Like all else in the world, Byzantine Art was not a sudden creation, independent of all antecedents, unheralded by previous analogous forms. The dome was reflected in the waters of the Tigris and of the Tiber before it was mirrored in the Bosporus.

Columns were bound together by arches instead of by a horizontal entablature, in the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, before they were so united in the Sacred Palace beside the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Walls glistening with variegated marbles, marble floors glowing with colours that vied with meadows in flower, mosaics radiant with the hues of the rainbow, had adorned homes and made palaces beautiful before the witchery of such coloration cast a spell over the courtiers of Justinian, or suffused the light in S. Sophia.

Even the pendentive that fills the triangular space between two contiguous arches at right angles to each other, so characteristic of Byzantine architecture, is claimed to be an earlier device in domical construction. Be it so. In one sense, there is nothing new under the sun. The new grows out of the old, the present is the product of the past And yet, while a new order of things must spring from an old order, it is not the bare repetition of what has been; while it must employ materials shaped originally for the use of other days, it is not the mechanical combination of those materials.

Beautiful Gate

On the 29th or 80th of May 1458, Sultan Mehemet the Conqueror alighted from his horse at the gate of S. Sophia. It was most probably at the “ Beautiful Gate,” at the southern end of the noble inner narthex of the church, the entrance through which the Emperors of Constantinople usually proceeded to the cathedral. According to one account, the Sultan stooped down at the threshold, took some earth, and scattered it on his head in token of humiliation before God.

Entering, he saw a Moslem breaking the marble pavement. He struck at the vandal with a scimiter for daring to injure a building that belonged of right to the sovereign. Then, in what to the Eastern world was the Holy of Holies of Christendom, an imaum ascended the pulpit and cried aloud, “ There is no God but God, and Mahomet is His prophet” And so it has been ever since.

The Church of S. Saviour Pantepoptes, the All- Seeing (Eski Imaret Djamissi), the Church of S. Saviour Pantocrator, the All-Powerful (Zeirek Kiliss£ Djamissi), and the interior of S. Saviour-in- the-Chora (Kahriyeh Djamissi), recall the period of the Comneni and the Angeli (1081-1204).

In their erection ladies of considerable importance in the history of Constantinople had a part. The first was built by Anna Dalassena, the mother of Alexius I. Comnenus; the last was restored by his mother-in-law, Mary Ducaena, a Bulgarian princess famous for her beauty; the second was an erection of the Empress of John I. Comnenus, the daughter of Geysa I., King of Hungary.

These churches represent the age when Constantinople was stirred by the march of the earlier Crusades through the territory of the Empire, when Peter the Hermit and Godfrey de Bouillon encamped their followers within sight of the city walls, to be dazzled by the splendours of the Palace of Blachemae, and cajoled by the diplomacy of Alexius I. Comnenus. They also recall the time when Henrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, brought his fleet and the troops of the Fourth Crusade to the Golden Horn, and founded the short-lived Latin Empire of Constantinople.

It was on the terraced ground beside the Church of Pantepoptes that the Emperor Alexius Murtzuplus pitched his vermilion tents and drew up his reserve forces. There he stood to see the walls on the shore below attacked by the Venetian ships and carried by Frankish knights. From that position he fled at the approach of a body of the enemy’s horsemen, and under his un-stricken vermilion tent Count Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut, soon to succeed him as Latin Emperor of Constantinople, spent the night of that memorable day.

How the river Rhombos became Hebros

Love and hate, or how the river Rhombos became Hebros

Once, long ago, today’s Maritsa river was called Rhombos. It was wide, navigable and at places it swirled in steep rapids. Cassander, the ruler of the land, had a wife who gave birth to a son Hebros. But pretty soon the ruler’s love for his wife faded and he brought to the palace the young and cunning Damasipe. To his misfortune, she fell in love with the handsome youth Hebros at first sight. Hebros, however, put her off and retreated into the mountain hunting. Then Damasipe complained to Cassander that his son tried to rape her. The jealous king rushed with his suite to punish him cruelly. The youth ran but when he reached Rhombos he saw his way was cut from all sides. So, he jumped into the turbulent river, which was henceforth called after him.

Present-day Plovdiv is the center of the Thracian valley, and the Maritsa-Hebros flows across it. In times gone by, the river provided good irrigation to the land and plenty of fish for the people. The climate here was always mild, and the soil fertile and rich for the farmers. People procured pure drinking water from the nearby Rhodope Mountains, as well as stone, timber, ore and game. It is no chance that man found sustenance in these lands since hoary antiquity (the Neolithic, the Bronze and Iron Ages). Once there were seven hills here, as in the Eternal City, three of them being rocky and taller than the others (Nebettepe, Djambaztepe and Taximtepe).

The city with many names

The ancient Thracian settlement (on Nebettepe) is believed to have been called Eumolpia. Plinius Senior describes a Thracian settlement near the Rhodopes and refers to it as Poneropolis. In 341 BC, Philip II of Macedon came here and expanded the place, turning it into a municipal center. A garrison was temporarily stationed here. The ruler called the city by his own name, Philippopolis – the City of Philip. Among the local population this sounded like Pulpudeva and they called it so. A strong wall encircled the top of the hill. Shortly before Thrace became a Roman province, on the hill stood the residence of the Thracian dynast Roimetalkas II, a faithful friend

of Rome. He even helped to suppress the unrests in the mountainous regions in 21 and 26, and the Romans were very grateful to him. Under Claudius (41-54) the Roman administration called the city Trimontium – The Three Hills. This new name, however, did not gain wide circulation. The city was generally known as Philippopolis and preserved this name until the Middle Ages.

About coins and gods

The numismatic material found in the city and its environs gives us valuable information about life in this land. The region of present- day Plovdiv was indirectly involved in the Peloponnese War between Athens and Sparta in the distant 5th century BC (431-404). From here originate electronic staters from the city of Kyzikos in Asia Minor What happened then? During the military operations, Athens was not able to buy grain from Euboea and Sicily. Therefore, it turned north to Thrace. The coins discovered here are evidence that grain was purchased from the region of Plovdiv and transported down the navigable Maritsa river to the Athenians.

The tetradrachmas of Thasos and Athens indicate live communications between this region and other centers on the Balkans. In the time of the Roman presence, the city of Philippopolis-Trimontium was given the right to mint its own coins mihrimah mosque, during the reign of Emperor Diocletian (81-96). From their effigies we judge about the socio-economic life here, of the urban development and religion. Due respect was given to the river Hebros, personified as a young seminude bearded god, recumbent on an amphora, from which water is pouring out. In one hand he holds attributes of fertility – an ear of wheat, a plant sprig, a flower. Other coins depict boats and river ships, indicative of the intensive trade along the river and in the valley. From Plovdiv comes a very curious bronze coin. It represents three girls. One is reaping, the middle one is cradling sand from the river for gold, the third one is digging out ore from a pit, doubtlessly in the Rhodopes. The mountain is also depicted on a coin with Orpheus, sitting on a rock playing his lyre.

It represents the time when the magic singer had lost his beloved Eurydice and withdrawn to the mountains. From the coins we learn about the government and status of the largest city in Thrace. Philippopolis received two important honorary distinctions. It was a metropolis, i.e. chief city. The administrative capital of Roman Thrace was Perinthos on the Sea of Marmora, but undoubtedly the city on the river Hebros was the most prosperous and imposing. Philippopolis was also granted the right to be neocoria – protector of the imperial cult. A special college of priests was elected to perform the duties to the supreme ruler of the Empire in a newly built or existing stately temple. The city had a demos (people’s assembly) and a bule (municipal council). Another type of coins represent hilltop statues of Apollo, Heracles and Hermes.

Debilitated fisherman

TALE XXIV

A powerful fish fell into the net of a debilitated fisherman, who not being able to hold it, the fish got the better of him, snatched the net out of his hand, and escaped. A boy went to fetch water from the river: the flood tide came in and carried him away. The net had hitherto always taken the fish, but this time the fish escaped and carried away the net. The other fisherman grieved at the loss, and reproached him, that having such a fish in his net, he had not been able to hold it. He replied, “Alas, my brethren! what could be done, seeing it was not my lucky day, and the fish had yet a day remaining? A fisherman without luck catcheth not fish in the Tigris, neither will the fish without fate expire on the dry ground.

TALE XXV

One who had neither hands nor feet having killed a millepede, a pious man passing by said, “Holy God, although this had a thousand feet, yet when fate overtook him he could not escape from one destitute of hands and feet. When the enemy who seizes the soul comes behind, fate ties the feet of the swift man. At that moment when the enemy attacks us behind, it is needless to draw the Ivianyan bow.”

Sweet frown it exhibits

The Cazy said to a respectable man of learning, who was in his company, “Behold that beauteous girl, how rude she is; behold her arched eyebrow, what a sweet frown it exhibits! In Arabic they say that, ‘ A blow from the hand of her we love is as sweet as raisin.’ To receive a blow on the mouth from thy hand is preferable to eating bread from one’s own band.” Then again she tempered her severity with a smile of beneficence; as kings sometimes speak with hostility when they inwardly desire peace.

Unripe grapes are sour, but keep them a day or two and they will become sweet. The Cazy having said thus, repaired to his court. Some well-disposed persons, who were in his service, made obeisance, and said that, “With permission they would represent a matter to him, although it might be deemed unpolite, as the sages have said, ‘It is not allowable to argue on every subject; it is criminal to describe the faults of a great personage; ’ but that in consideration of the kindness which his servants, had experienced from him, not to represent what to them appears advisable is a species of treachery.

The laws of rectitude require that you should conquer this inclination, and not give way to unlawful desires, for the office of Cazy is a high dignity, which ought not to be polluted by a crime, You are acquainted with your mistress’s character, and have heard her conversation. She who has lost her reputation, what cares she for the character of another? It has frequently happened that a good name acquired in fifty years has been lost by a single imprudence,”

The Cazy approved the admonition of his cordial friends, praised their understanding and fidelity and said, “The advice which my friends have given in regard to my situation is perfectly right, and their arguments are unanswerable..

Wicked man should escape

RULE XXL

A wicked man is a captive in the hand of the enemy, for wherever he goeth he cannot escape from the clutches of his own punishment. If the wicked man should escape to Heaven from the hand of calamity, lie would continue in calamity from tlie s$nse of his own evil disposition.

RULE XXII.

When you see discord amongst the troops of your enemy, be of good courage; but if they are united, then be upon your guard. When you see contention amongst your enemies, go and sit at ease with your friends; but when you see them of one mind, string your bow, and place stones upon the ramparts.

RULE XXIII.

When the enemy has failed in all other artifices, he will propose friendship, that, under its appearance, he may effect what he could not compass as an open adversary.

RULE XXIY.

Bruise the serpent’s head with the hand of your enemy, which cannot fail of producing one of these two advantages:—If the enemy succeeds, you have killed the snake; and if the latter prevails, you have got rid of your enemy.

In the Jay of battle consider not yourself safe, because your adversary is weak; for he who becomes desperate, will take out the lion’s brains.

RULE XXY.

When you have any thing to communicate that will distress the heart of the person whom it concerns, be silent, in order that he may hear from some one else. 0 nightingale, bring thou the glad tidings of spring, and leave bad news to the owl.

RULE XXYI.

Inform not the King of the perfidy of any one, excepting you are assured that he will entirely approve of it, for otherwise you are only workin your own destruction. When you are purposin to speak any thing, do it when you know that your words will take effect.

AMONG THE CHURCHES BYZANTINE

But however interesting the old churches of the city are as historical landmarks, however useful as a clue to guide us through the labyrinth of the life of New Rome, their supreme value after all consists in the fact that they are monuments, one of them the finest monument, of what is styled Byzantine Art — the art’ which blended artistic elements derived from Greece and Rome with artistic elements borrowed from Nineveh, Persia, Syria, and unfolded a new type of beauty. It was the flower developed by that fusion of Western and Oriental aesthetic ideals and tastes resulting from the long intercourse maintained between Europe and Asia, sometimes at the point of the sword, and sometimes by the peaceful ministries of commerce.

Nowhere could that Art find a more congenial atmosphere in which to flourish than in the city which binds the West and the East together. Like all else in the world, Byzantine Art was not a sudden creation, independent of all antecedents, unheralded by previous analogous forms. The dome was reflected in the waters of the Tigris and of the Tiber before it was mirrored in the Bosporus.

Columns were bound together by arches instead of by a horizontal entablature, in the Palace of Diocletian at Spalato, before they were so united in the Sacred Palace beside the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Walls glistening with variegated marbles, marble floors glowing with colours that vied with meadows in flower, mosaics radiant with the hues of the rainbow, had adorned homes and made palaces beautiful before the witchery of such coloration cast a spell over the courtiers of Justinian, or suffused the light in S. Sophia.

Even the pendentive that fills the triangular space between two contiguous arches at right angles to each other, so characteristic of Byzantine architecture, is claimed to be an earlier device in domical construction. Be it so. In one sense, there is nothing new under the sun. The new grows out of the old, the present is the product of the past And yet, while a new order of things must spring from an old order, it is not the bare repetition of what has been; while it must employ materials shaped originally for the use of other days, it is not the mechanical combination of those materials.

Losses involved in military service

It not only deprived the Sultans of their finest troops, but has been one of the principal causes of the great decrease in the Moslem population of the country; as that class of the community alone has since been called to sustain the losses involved in military service. The mortality among the soldiers of the Turkish army from disease and war is so great that the Moslem population is rapidly dying out, and well-informed medical experts are heard to say, “ The Eastern Question will be solved by the disappearance of the Turks in the natural course of things.”

The theocratic character of a Moslem State facilitates, indeed, the incorporation of different races in the same social and political system, seeing that all distinctions between men are obliterated by community in the faith of Islam. And it is impressive to see how closely the Mohammedan world, though not free from sects, is knit together by religious principle, and how strongly it cherishes the brotherhood of believers. In it, not in theory only but also in practice, the black man and the white man are fellow-citizens and of the same household.

Impossible for a Moslem State

But on the other hand, because of its theocratic constitution, it is impossible for a Moslem State to accept reforms which seek to secure equality of rights among its subjects, on the ground of a common humanity. Nothing is more opposed to the deepest convictions of a genuine Moslem than the idea that men of a different faith from his own can be his equals. There is no one who can be more polite than a Turk; no one who can treat you in a more friendly and flattering manner than hem.

Yet persons who have known him well, nay, who have loved him, testify that even in the relation of private friendship they have never felt that a Turk had given them his whole self, but was a friend with reservations that might lead him to act toward you in the most unfriendly manner. His religion confers on him an inaccessible superiority, from which he cannot descend without becoming a faithless son of Islam. His interests are superior to those of an infidel.

Code compiled at Constantinople

On 23rd December of the year 438, the Code compiled at Constantinople was presented to the Senate of Rome and recognised by that body. It was a curious reversal of the part which the elder city had acted in the world. The teacher had become the pupil Or is it truer to say, the pupil then did homage to the teacher? The Theodosian Code was superseded by the Code of Justinian the Great, but the earlier compilation retains the honour of being the first great legal instrument to confer upon New Rome the distinction of becoming the tribunal which has guided the most civilised nations of the world into the paths of righteousness and justice in the dealings between man and man. Into the religious controversies which agitated Constantinople while Theodosius II. was upon the throne, this is not the place to enter.

But Constantinople would not have been itself without a hard theological problem to discuss, if not to solve, and we do not know the soul, so to speak, of Constantinople unless we recognise what may be termed the religious temperament of the city. At a period, indeed, when a great religious revolution in the faith of men had taken place, and men were called to make clear to themselves what exactly they believed, and how their beliefs were to be harmonised with their philosophy and the general principles of reason, religious questions could not fail to be prominent everywhere.

They were as naturally prominent in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, when Christianity became the religion of the State, as they were at the time of the Reformation. But Constantinople made these questions peculiarly its own. It could not well be otherwise where the seat of the chief bishop of the Church in the East was found, and in the capital of a Government which concerned itself in these debates as matters of political importance.

Nor can it be denied that in the discussion of the subjects before the public mind we often witness great intellectual acumen, and a profound religious spirit Able and pious men anxiously sought to reconcile faith in the unity of the Divine, with faith in the intimate oneness between the Divine and the human manifested in the life of Christ. No age is dishonoured by keen interest in that theme.

On the other hand, these discussions sometimes degenerated into idle debate, and displayed some of the most odious feelings of human nature. And Constantinople laid itself open to the well- known satirical description of its theological bias by Gregory of Nyssa. “ The city is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you desire a man to change a piece of money for you, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told by way of reply that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is that the Son was made out of nothing.”

Under Theodosius II., the interest taken by the citizens of Constantinople in theological controversy was all the greater, inasmuch as the points at issue were raised by religious teachers in the capital itself; one of the heretics being no less a personage than Nestorius, the patriarch of the city. He denied the propriety of the epithet, Theotokos, Mother of God, commonly bestowed upon the Mother of our Lord.

Rome and Constantinople

A great controversy followed, in which all classes of society, from the Emperor and his family to the monks and populace, took part, and displayed, as usual in such cases, a spirit unworthy of the Christian name. So great was the commotion caused by the questions in dispute, that two General Councils of the Church — that of Ephesus in 481, and that of Chalcedon in 451— were convened to affirm the orthodox faith, if not to restore peace. And thus for some twenty years people in Constantinople had all the theology they could wish to discuss. One result of these religious troubles was to evoke the latent antagonism between the different races which composed the population of the Empire mihrimah mosque. Under the guise of religious differences, national diversities asserted themselves. Rome and Constantinople, the West and the East, did not learn to love each other better in the heat of such debates.

While from the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, the Armenian Church and the Coptic Church date, respectively, their separation from the main body of Christendom. The extent to which religious and political aspirations are associated in the minds of the populations of the modem East casts much light upon the formation of different Churches along national lines in the earlier days of the Christian world, and also enables us to understand why religious conflicts caused so much anxiety to the imperial Government of New Rome.

Another feature in the religious life of Constantinople that became very distinct in the time of Theodosius II., was the veneration cherished for relics, and the growing desire to consecrate and enrich the city by their presence. The body of Chrysostom was taken from its grave in Pityus and entombed in the Church of the Holy Apostles, as an act of reparation for the wrongs he had suffered, and as an atonement for the sins of his persecutors. The supposed relics of Joseph and of Zacharias, on their arrival in the city, were received with great pomp by the Emperor, the Senate, and great officials, as though the saints were being welcomed in person.

Constantine enlarged the town into New Rome

The long history of Byzantium, since the day when a band of colonists from Megara settled there in 658 B.C., to the day in 828 A.D. when Constantine enlarged the town into New Rome, must not detain us. It was a prosperous little town, much occupied with fisheries, interested in the business of corn and wine, and a port of call for ships trading between the countries bordering the Euxine and the Aegean.

It was also celebrated as a fortress, being surrounded by walls of extraordinary strength, which were defended on more than one occasion with great heroism. Situated on one of the principal highways between the East and the West, “even in the force and road of casualty,” many of the chief movements of ancient times in either direction passed by its ramparts, and compelled its citizens to take a side in the conflicts of the great powers of the day, and act a part on the field of general history.

When Darius I. crossed the Bosporus into Europe to chastise the Scythians in Russia, the town fell under the power of Persia, and remained subject to the Great King until Pausanias, the victor at Plataea, delivered it from that yoke.

Pescennius Niger

In the struggle for supremacy between Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, it was controlled now by one of the rivals and then by another of them. It acquired great fame by its resistance to Philip of Macedon, when the star and crescent moon, which have from that time been the device of the city through all changes of fortune, exposed the approach of the enemy and disconcerted his plans. With the rest of the Greek world, Byzantium formed part of the dominion of Alexander the Great. In the war between Rome and Mithridates, it became the ally of the former, and was eventually merged in the Roman Empire. Septimius Severus levelled its splendid walls to the ground, because of its loyal adherence to the cause of his rival, Pescennius Niger.

Varna Electrification Region

After the end of World War I the electricity supply in Varna gradually returned to normal. Varna DPP (diesel power plant) operated from 7.00 till 12.00 at daytime and from sunset till midnight. Due to the small loads, only one machine ran in the morning, and both machines-at nighttime.

In 1922 the number of consumers amounted to 1873 with electric meters and 1730 without electric meters, or a total of 3603 consumers at town population of 43 000. These figures show that a large part of the population in Varna was not yet electrified-a situation typical of other electrified towns in Bulgaria. In 1930 a municipal lighting business enterprise was established in Varna. And in 1937 two small separate power plants were also commissioned-one on the Aqueduct from the Batova river, and the other at “Prince Boris” Factory, with a total capacity of 500 kW.

The electrical load increased quite rapidly, and in the evenings the generators voltage fell from 5000 V to 4500 V for covering the peak load. At the same time, the redemption time of the loan drawn by the enterprise for the first three diesel generators was prolonged-the debt to the bank amounted to 1 414 637 Leva and it was returned as late as 1949.

A fourth diesel generator set was also supplied, but its capacity was quite small-500 kW. The disputes whether a new thermal power plant should be constructed or elec-tricity should be supplied by Adree J.S.C.-Bourgas, went on. A special commission assigned to carry out thorough investigations, presented 3 options of development of Varna electricity supply, as follows:

I.Extension of the existing DPP;

II.Supply of electricity from Adree-Bourgas, through a 95 km 60 kV overhead transmission line;

III.Construction of a local thermal power plant.

Czechoslovashki Colben-Danek

The third option was recommended and approved. Through a tender procedure, at the first stage a 2200 kW unit was procured from Czechoslovashki Colben-Danek, Prague (1944), and after that-a second 5000 kW unit, so the total capacity became 7200 kW (10 000 hp). The Varna DPP became a large regional power plant for its time, in compliance with the decisions of the first general electrification plan of 1941.

The Varna Municipality received a loan from the Electrification Fund covering 30°/o of the resources initially needed for the construction of a new thermal power plant. Against that loan, the Municipality undertook the obligation to electrify six districts including the newly liberated Dobrudja (1940).

The civil works on the regional 20 kV overhead transmission lines to the value of 80 million Leva continued simultaneously with the Varna DPP construction. Their length reached 500 km, and sixty five 20/0.4 kV distribution transformers to the cost of 50 million Leva were connected to them.

Thus, by the end of World War II, the Varna electrification region recovered and almost all towns were electrified, but electric lighting still had to reach the villages.

THE MORAVA-YARDAR TRENCH

The Maritza takes a direct course toward Constantinople for more than one hundred and fifty miles, then turns abruptly southward to the Mediterranean Sea. At this sudden bend in the river stands the fortified city of Adrianople. Except for a short distance below the city, the Maritza no longer serves as part of the great pathway to Constantinople, but becomes a segment in the natural moat, consisting of the Tundja and lower Maritza valleys, which in the past has repeatedly provided Constantinople with an admirable first line of defense against aggression from the west. Above Adrianople the river is too frequently obstructed with sandbars to be of much use for navigation, but its broad basin carries the road and railway which follow the southern bank of the stream. South of Adrianople the small Ergene River flows to the Maritza from the east, and its valley offers a very gentle grade which the railway ascends till within a few miles of Constantinople.

THE MORAVA-YARDAR TRENCH

Second in importance to the Morava-Maritza corridor is the deep trench which cuts through the Balkans from north to south, connecting Belgrade with Saloniki. The Morava-Yardar depression does not lead to the land bridge uniting Europe with Asia Minor, but it does serve as a most important outlet channel from the plains of Hungary to the Mediterranean Sea, and is one of the shortest routes from Central Europe to the Suez Canal. From southern Germany and the eastern Alps, the foothills of the Carpathians and the Alps of Transylvania, and from all of the great Hungarian basin, the valley routes lead straight to Belgrade, whence the Morava-Yardar valley cleaves a way through the mountains to the open waters beyond.

Ostrogoths entered northern Greece

It is not without reason that the Morava-Vardar trench has been called the key to the history of the Balkan Peninsula. Through it ebbed and flowed the tides of repeated invasions from the dawn of history. Under Roman dominion most of it was occupied by an important military road. Through it the Ostrogoths entered northern Greece in the fifth century, A. D., while names still found on the map of Greece bear witness to the great Slav flood which, two centuries later, flowed through the trench and overwhelmed the Greek peninsula. The story of the Serb race is largely the story of a struggle for control of this vital artery of communication.

Approached the Meander

December the 3th.

We proceeded on our journey, and the first part of this day’s ride was very unpleasant, as we had for three miles a bad causeway to travel over till we approached the Meander,1 over which there was a wooden bridge of considerable height and length, without battlements and very narrow ; and the construction of it appeared so feeble, that we did not cross it without apprehensions. Here we paused to view this celebrated stream, and bring to our recollection the great events which took place on its banks and will perpetuate its name. Here we fancied we trod the ground where the great Antiochus sustained a total overthrow from Lucius Scipio one hundred and fifty years before Christ,1 in which] he lost fifty thousand foot and four thousand horse with fifteen elephants.

At twelve we reached a poor village called Zachonona about fifteen miles from Magnesia. We had sent our mules with the baggage forward. As we reached this place before them, and had not passed them on the road, we were seriously alarmed, and apprehended that the black slave who was with the baggage had either run off with our effects or was plundered. We remained for two hours in this painful suspense, and were at length relieved by the arrival of the negro, who had taken a different road, by which he had gone several miles out of his way. After having blamed each other for having separated from him, as he had in his possession every valuable and all our money, we resolved to be more prudent for the future.

Attack on our cold provisions

We retired to a kind of barn, where we made a violent attack on our cold provisions. We removed part of our valuables from the trunks and secured them in [our] own pockets. Here we were honoured with a visit from the Governor of the village, accompanied by fifty other Turks, who all appeared in uniform misery. They seated themselves on the ground around us and entertained themselves with admiring our fire-arms, which, we were pleased to find, they were sensible of being well loaded.

Marseillese ladies are in general handsome

The Marseillese ladies are in general handsome, excessively gay and without the least restraint in their conversation; using the most familiar and unrestrained expressions to gentlemen as well as to each other without the least ceremony. This freedom of speech, however, keeps the bon ton at a distance; and though very pleasing in their own circles, becomes very vulgar and tedious to a nice observer. I was young, had a respectable train of servants and spoke the French language tolerably well: this was more than sufficient to gain me admission into all their parties. But my versatile disposition, or rather my evil genius, prompted me to quit this pleasant and harmless society and return to Lyons, where I met with an adventure, from which I may date all my subsequent misfortunes.

In this city I could find nothing to amuse me, if I except the sumptuous entertainments I gave to all those who chose to partake of them. Magnificent balls and suppers to the ladies, extravagant and expensive dinners to the gentlemen, succeeded each other in quick rotation.

The people of Lyons are very different from those of Marseilles. The latter only think how to make life agreeable, while the former concentrate all their enjoyments in the eagerness of making a rapid fortune. As an instance of their interested character, I shall relate a circumstance not generally known ; and which I should not have discovered, had not a Lyonese girl led me into the secret. At Lyons there is a league formed between the shopkeepers and the other inhabitants against all strangers who come to visit them. It is usual for foreigners to bring letters of recommendation to some of the principal inhabitants for the purpose of procuring lodging and assisting them in the purchase of whatever they may stand in need of. These complaisant conductors have ten per cent, from the merchant upon every article which he sells by their recommendation, and for which he of course takes care to reimburse himself in the price of his commodities; so that the purchaser pays ten per cent, more than he would have done, if he [had] gone alone to the shop; and at the same time looks upon himself as much obliged to his friend for his assistance in obtaining what he thinks a good bargain.

The rich and the poor are here employed in their shops and warehouses from morning till night. The spirit of gain is the sole active principle which prevails in this vast magazine of luxury, which distributes its various articles to the four quarters of the world.

The Lyonese ladies

As to the Lyonese ladies, they possess but few attractive charms. A certain apathy and listlessness of manners destroy the effects of any beauty with which nature may have endowed them; and which is further injured by those monstrous wens, from which very few of them are exempt wooden workmanship byzantium. I had no resource therefore, but in the pleasures of the table.

Among my numerous friends and acquaintances were two Irish gentlemen, whose names I shall conceal; because I only wish to impeach myself. I lived with them in so close an intimacy, that in a short time we became inseparable. Some time afterwards I received an anonymous letter, cautioning me to beware of my new friends, who were represented to be a couple of desperate gamblers, come from Spa, for the express purpose of making me the dupe of their execrable trade. They had received information of my residence at Lyons from one of their emissaries, whom they employed in such places as young men of fortune were likely to resort to.

I paid but very little attention to this advice, as I never observed in either of them the least inclination for play: besides, I was so little addicted to it myself, that I did not believe they had sufficient influence over me to induce me to play, even were they so inclined. However, I shewed the letter to my tutor, who was of opinion that I should entirely avoid their company, and gave me some further exhortation against every species of gaming whatsoever : yet I was so infatuated with my new acquaintance, that I disregarded this good advice and the admonition of my unknown friend.

Fifteen thousand pounds

July, 1789, and their return was celebrated by the lighting of bonfires through the city by the excited populace.t Whaley then “ produced such incontestable proofs of having accomplished his arduous undertaking ” that his friends were obliged reluctantly to pay him a sum of fifteen thousand pounds. This left him seven thousand pounds to the good after defraying the expenses of the expedition ; “ the only instance,” to use his own words, “ in all my life before in which any of my projects turned out to my advantage.”3 He remained in Dublin upwards of two years, engaged largely in gambling, only to find in the end that there was a considerable balance against him.

Speaking of these years, he says, “ It was at this period I happily formed an acquaintance with a lady of exquisite taste and sensibility, from whom I have never since separated. She has been a consolation to me in all my troubles, her persuasive mildness has been a constant check on the impetuosity of my temper, and at this moment constitutes, in my retirement, the principal source of all my felicity.” She was a Miss Courtney ;4 and she lived with Whaley up to the time of her death, which took place when he was resident in the Isle of Man.

Having gone the round of such amusements as Ireland could afford, he opened house in London, “ bought horses and carriages, subscribed to all the fashionable clubs, and was in a short time a complete man of the ton at the West End of the town.”

Knutsford: its Traditions and History, by Rev. Henry Green (Manchester, 1887), author of Shakspere and the Emblem Writers.

Dangerous time are highly interesting

A restless curiosity next led him to Paris, where the Revolution was then in progress. His experiences in the French capital at that dangerous time are highly interesting, and are detailed with his usual openness. From thence he returned to Dublin, but only for the purpose of selling an estate, which brought him twenty- five thousand pounds. “ Having paid some debts and made a few necessary urchases,” he went back to Paris with fourteen thousand pounds in his pocket, and again plunged into the old life.