Independent of individuals

What a contrast, for instance, to the German race! In the earliest history of that people, we discern an element of civilization, a vigorous action of the intellect residing in the body, independent of individuals, and giving birth to great men, rather than created by them. Again, in the first three centuries of the Church, we find martyrs indeed in plenty, as the Turks might have soldiers; but (to view the matter humanly) perhaps there was not one great mind, after the Apostles, to teach and to mould her children.

The highest intellects, Origen, Tertul- lian, and Eusebius, were representatives of a philosophy not hers; her greatest bishops, such as St. Gregory, St. Dionysius, and St. Cyprian, so little exercised a doctor’s office, as to incur, however undeservedly, the imputation of doctrinal inaccuracy. Vigilant as was the Holy See, then, as in every age, yet there is no Pope, I may say, during that period, who has impressed his character upon his generation; yet how well instructed, how precisely informed, how self-possessed an oracle of truth, do we find the Church to be, when the great internal troubles of the fourth century required it! how unam-biguous, how bold is the Christianity of the great Pontiffs, St. Julius, St. Damasus, St. Siricius, and St. Innocent; of the great Doctors, St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine!

By what channels, then, had the divine philosophy descended down from the Great Teacher through three centuries of persecution? First through the See and Church of Peter, into which error never intruded, though Popes might be little more than victims, to be hunted out and killed, as soon as made; and to which the faithful from all quarters of the world might have recourse when difficulties arose, or when false teachers any where exalted them-selves. But intercommunion was difficult, and com-paratively rare in days like those, and of nothing is there less pretence of proof than that the Holy See imposed a faith, while persecution raged, upon the ecumenical body.

Myriads of the faithful

Rather, in that earliest age, it was simply the living spirit of the myriads of the faithful, none of them known to fame, who received from the disciples of our Lord, and husbanded so well, and circulated so widely, and transmitted so faithfully, generation after generation, the once delivered apostolic faith; who held it with such sharpness of outline and explicitness of detail, as enabled even the unlearned instinctively to discriminate between truth and error, spontaneously to reject the very shadow of heresy, and to be proof against the fascination of the most brilliant intellects, when they would lead them out of the narrow way. Here, then, is a luminous instance of what I mean by an energetic action from within.

Certain weapons of defence

Moreover, brutes differ from men in this; that they cannot invent, cannot progress. They remain in the use of those faculties and methods, which nature gave them at their birth. They are endowed by the law of their being with certain weapons of defence, and they do not improve on them. They have food, raiment, and dwelling, ready at their command. They need no arrow or noose to catch their prey, nor kitchen to dress it; no garment to wrap round them, nor roof to shelter them.

Their claws, their teeth, their viscera, are their butcher and their cook; and their fur is their wardrobe. The cave or the jungle is their home; or if they are to exercise some architectural craft, they have not to learn it. But man comes into the world with the capabilities, rather than the means and appliances, of life. He begins with a small capital, but one which admits of indefinite improvement. He is, in his very idea, a creature of progress. He starts, the inferior of the brute animals, but he surpasses them on the long run; he subjects them to himself, and he goes forward on a career, which at least hitherto has not found its limit.

Even the savage of course in some measure exemplifies this law of human nature, and is lord of the brutes; and what he is and man generally, compared with the inferior animals, such is man civilized compared with the barbarian. Civilization is that state to which man’s nature points and tends; it is the systematic use, improvement, and combination of those faculties which are his characteristic ; and, viewed in its idea, it is the perfection, the happiness of our mortal state.

Necessarily Christianity.

It is the development of art out of nature, and of self-government out of passion, and of certainty out of opinion, and of faith out of reason. It is the due disposition of the various powers of the soul, each in its place, the subordination or subjection of the inferior, and the union of all into one whole. Aims, rules, views, habits, projects; prudence, foresight, observation, inquiry, invention, resource, resolution, perseverance, are its characteristics. Justice, benevolence, expedience, propriety, religion, are its recognised, its motive principles. Supernatural truth is its sovereign law. Such is it in its idea, synonymous with Christianity; and, not only in idea, but in matter of fact also, is Christianity ever civilization, as far as its influence prevails; but, unhappily, in matter of fact, civilization is not necessarily Christianity.

The plain of the Clitumnus

Even as regards this low tract, he speaks Alison on of one portion of it, the plain of the Clitumnus, as being rich, as in ancient days, in herds and flocks; and he enlarges upon the Campagna of Naples as “ still the scene of industry, elegance, and agricultural riches. There”, he says, “ still, as in ancient times, an admirable cultivation brings to perfection the choicest gifts of nature. Magnificent crops of wheat and maize cover the rich and level expanse; rows of elms or willows shelter their harvests from the too scorching rays of the sun; and luxuriant vines, clustering to the very tops of the trees, are trained in festoons from one summit to the other. On its hills the orange, the vine, and the fig tree flourish in luxuriant beauty; the air is rendered fragrant by their ceaseless perfume; and the prodigy is here exhibited of the fruit and the flower appearing at the same time on the same stem”.

Great plain is so level

So much for that portion of Italy which owes least to the labours of the husbandman: the second portion is the plain of Lombardy, which stretches three hundred miles in length by one hundred and twenty in breadth, and which, he says, “ beyond question is the richest and the most fertile in Europe”. This great plain is so level, that you may travel two hundred miles in a straight line, without coming to a natural eminence ten feet high; and it is watered by numerous rivers, the Ticino, the Adda, the Adige, and others, which fall into the great stream of the Po, the “king of rivers”, as Virgil calls it, which flows majestically through its length from west to east till it finds its mouth in the Adriatic. It is obvious, from the testimony of the various travellers in the East, whom I have cited, what would be the fate of this noble plain under a Turkish government; it would become nothing more or less than one great and deadly swamp.

But Mr. Alison observes: “It is hard to say, whether the cultivation of the soil, the riches of nature, or the structures of human industry in this beautiful region, are most to be admired. An unrivalled system of agriculture, from which every nation in Europe might take a lesson, has long been established over its whole surface, and two, and sometimes three successive crops annually reward the labours of the husbandman. Indian corn is produced in abundance, and by its return, quadruple that of wheat, affords subsistence for a numerous and dense population.

Change of habits and promising no permanent stability

It was a sudden Tartar descent, accompanied with no national change of habits, and promising no permanent stability. Nor would they have remained, I suppose, as they did remain, were it not that they have been protected, as they were originally introduced, by neighbouring states which have made use of them. There, however, in matter of fact, they remain to this day, in Armenia, in Syria, in Asia Minor, even as far west as the coast of the Archipelago and its maritime cities and ports, being pretty much what they were a thousand years ago, except that they have taken up the loose profession of Mahometanism, and have given up some of the extreme peculiarities of their Tartar state, such as their attachment to horseflesh and mares’ milk. These are the Turcomans.

The writer in the Universal History divides them into eastern and western. Of the Eastern, with which we are not concerned, he tells us that “they are tall and robust, with square flat faces, as well as the western; only they are more swarthy and have a greater resemblance to the Tartars. Some of them have betaken themselves to husbandry.

Profess Mahomedanism

They are all Mohammedans; they are very’ turbulent, very brave, and good horsemen”. And of the Western, that they once had two dynasties in the neighbourhood of Armenia, and were for a time very powerful, but that they are now subjects of the Turks, who never have been able to subdue their roving habits; that they dwell in tents of thick felt, without fixed habitation; that they profess Mahomedanism, but perform its duties no better than their brethren in the East; that they are governed by their own chiefs according to their own laws; that they pay tribute to the Ottoman Porte, and are bound to furnish it with horsemen; that they are great robbers, and are in perpetual warfare with their neighbours the Kurds; that they march sometimes two or three hundred families together, and with their droves cover sometimes a space of two leagues, and that they prefer the use of the bow to that of fire-arms.

This account is drawn up from writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Precisely the same report of their habits is made by Dr. Chandler in his travels in Asia Minor in the middle of the last century; he fell in with them in his journey between Smyrna and Ephesus Jugoslavia. “We were told here”, he says, “ that the road farther on was beset with Turcomans, a people supposed to be descended from the Nomades Scythse or Shepherd Scythians; busied, as of old, in breeding and nurturing cattle, and leading, as then, an unsettled life; not forming villages and towns with stable habitations, but flitting from place to place, as the season and their convenience directs; choosing their stations and overspreading without control the vast neglected pastures of this desert empire. …

We set out, and . . . soon after came to a wild country covered with thickets, and with the black booths of the Turcomans, spreading on every side, innumerable, with flocks and herds and horses and poultry feeding round them”.

Zingis or Timour

Of these the first in order is the Hunnish Empire of Attila, and if I speak of it and of him with more of historical consecutiveness than of Zingis or of Timour, it is because I think in him we see the pure undiluted Tartar, better than in the other two, and in his empire the best specimen of a Tartar rule. Nothing brings before us more vividly the terrible character of Attila than this, that he terrified the Goths themselves.

These celebrated barbarians at the time of Attila inhabited the countries to the north of the Black Sea, between the Danube and the Don, the very district in which Darius so many centuries before found the Scythians. They were impending over the Roman Empire, and threatening it with destruction; their king was the great Herman- ric, who, after many victories, was closing his days in the fulness of power and renown. That they themselves, the formidable Goths, should have to fear and flee, seemed the most improbable of prospects ; yet it was their lot.

Crushing force of a remorseless foe

Suddenly they heard, or rather they felt before they heard, so rapid is the torrent of Scythian warfare, they felt upon them and among them the resistless, crushing force of a remorseless foe. They beheld their fields and villages in flames about them, and their hearthstones deluged in the blood of their dearest and their bravest. Shocked and stunned by so unexpected a calamity, they could think of nothing better than turning their backs on the enemy, crowding to the Danube, and imploring the Romans to let them cross over, and to lodge themselves and their families in safety from the calamity which menaced them.

Indeed, the very appearance of the enemy scared them; and they shrank from him, as children before some monstrous object. It is observed of the Scythians, their ancestors, who, as I have mentioned, came down upon Asia in the Median times, that they were a frightful set of men. “ The persons of the Scythians”, says a living historian, “ naturally unsightly, were rendered hideous by indolent habits, only occasionally interrupted by violent exertions; and the same cause subjected them to disgusting diseases, in which they themselves revered the finger of heaven”. Some of these ancient tribes are said to have been cannibals, and their horrible outrage in serving up to Cyax- ares human flesh for game, may be taken to confirm the account.

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.

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..

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.”

Burning flame from wild rue raises

TALE XX

I heard of a collector of the revenues, who desolated the houses of the subjects, in order to fill the King’s coffers; regardless of the maxim of the sages, which says, I whosoever offended the Most

High to gain the heart of a fellow creature, God will make that very creature the instrument of his destruction. The burning flame from wild rue raises not such a smoke as is occasioned by the sighs of the afflicted heart. They say that the lion is the king of beasts, and the ass the meanest of animals; but the sages all agree, that the ass who carries burthens is preferable to the lion that destroyed mankind. The poor ass, although devoid of understanding, yet, on account of carrying burthen, is very valuable. The labouring of an ox and the ass are preferable to men who injure their fellow creatures.’

The King, on hearing some part of his base conduct, ordered him on the rack, and tortured him to death. You will not obtain the approbation of the King, unless at the same time you strive to gain the hearts of his subjects. If you wish that God should be bountiful to you, do good unto his creatures. One whom he had oppressed passed by at the time of his execution, and said, “Not every one who possesses ministerial power and dignity can devour the property of men with impunity; you may swallow a hard bone, but it will tear the belly.

They tell a story of an oppressor, who flung a stone at the head of a pious man. The Durwesh, not having power to revenge himself, kept the stone, till a time when the King, being displeased, ordered the other to be thrown into a pit. The Durwesh then came and bruised his head with the stone; upon which he exclaimed, “Who art thou, and why bast thou flung this stone at my head? ” He answered, “I am such an one, and this is the identical stone that on such a day you flung at my head.”

He proceeded, “Where were you all this time?” The Durwesh replied, “I was afraid of your dignity; but now that I see you in the pit, I consider it a favorable opportunity to avenge myself. Whilst the worthless man is in a state of prosperity, the wise think it proper to pay him respect. When you have not a nail sufficiently sharp for tearing, it is prudent not to contend with the wicked. Whosoever grapples against an arm of steel will injure his own wrist, if it is of silver: wait until fortune ties his hands, when, to the satisfaction of your friends, you may pick out his brains.”

A certain King had a terrible disease, the nature of which it is not proper to mention. A number of Greek physicians agreed that there was no other remedy for this disease, but the gall of a man of some particular description bulgaria tours. The King ordered such an one to be sought for, and they found a peasant’s son with the properties which the physicians had described. The King sent for the lad’s father and mother, and by offering a great reward gained their consent, and the Cazy gave his decision that it was lawful to shed the blood of a subject for restoring the health of the monarch.

The executioner prepared to put him to death, upon which the youth turned his eyes towards heaven and laughed. The King asked, “What there could be in his present condition which could possibly excite mirth? ” He replied, “Children look to their parents for affection; a suit is referred to the Cazy: and justice is expected from the monarch. Now my father and mother, seduced by vain worldly considerations having consented to the shedding of my blood, the judge having sentenced me to die, and the King, for the sake of his own health, having consented to my death, where am I to seek refuge excepting in the high God?

Unto whom shall I prefer my suit, since it is against you that I seek justice?” The King’s heart being troubled at these words the tears stood in his eyes, and he said, “It is better for me to die, than that the blood of an innocent person should be shed.” He kissed his head and eyes, and embraced him, and after bestowing considerable gifts, set him at liberty. They say also, that in the same week the King was cured of his distemper. In application to this, I recollect the verse which the elephant driver rehearsed on the banks of the river Nile: ‘ If you are ignorant of the state of the ant under your foot, know that it resembles your own condition under the foot of the elephant.’

Alexander Stamboliiski

So they resorted to conspiracy. On June 19, 1923, the legitimate government of Alexander Stamboliiski was overthrown by a coup d’etat carried out by the Military League which was loyal to the King, and a bloody fascist dictatorship was established in the country with Professor Alexander Tsankov at the head. The popular uprising against the fascist coup, which broke out in many regions of the coun-try, was crushed, and Stamboliiski was murdered after being cruelly tortured.

The usurped fascist power, however, had by far not stabilized its positions. Only three months later, on the night of September 22, 1923, a new, much better organized uprising broke out, in which agrarians and communists acted in conjunction against the common enemy. The uprising was the most massive in North-Western Bulgaria and in the region of the town of Stara Zagora. The insurgents took scores of towns and villages and es-tablished in them worker-peasant rule. The uprising was headed by the recognized Leaders of the Communist Party Vassil Kolarov, Georgi Dimitrov and Gavril Genov.

The forces of the government, however, were far superior and the insurgent forces were defeated after two weeks of fighting. As after the April 1876 Uprising, towns and villages were put to fire while the role of the bashibozouks was performed with ‘enviable’ success by the specially formed for the purpose fascist bands – Spitzkommandos.

Civilians with progressive convictions

Thousands of insurgents and civilians with progressive convictions were murdered, still other tens of thousands were thrown into prison or forced to emigrate. A new wave of white terror flooded the country after April 16, 1925, when extreme-left elements made an attempt at the life of those present at the burial service of a fascist general in the Sofia Cathedral St Nedelya. The atrocities committed by the fascist dictatorship in Bulgaria aroused the profound indignation of world public opinion and under the impact of a far-reaching international cam-paign of protest and popular hate the “bloody professor’ Tsankov was forced to resign and his place was taken by less discredited reactionary politicians.

STRUGGLE FOR A BULGARIAN CHURCH AND EDUCATION

During the first half of the 19th century the Bulgarian people having come into contact with civilized Europe, became aware of their age-long backwardness, to which they had been inevitably doomed by the barbarous foreign domination, and began to strive for more education. Gradually the old monastery schools were replaced by secular ones which taught according to new methods and curricula. Hundreds of selfless teachers, who had dedicated their lives to the cultural upsurge of their people and to the struggle for their liberation, worked side by side with the outstanding organizers of Bulgarian education Dr Peter Beron and Vassil Aprilov.

Slav alphabet of Bulgarian education

Besides the schools, the library clubs — voluntarily established public educational institutions with a wide range of activities — proved very useful in this work. In spite of the great number of obstacles put up by the Ottomans, the number of Bulgarian schools in the 1870s exceeded 1,500, and that of library clubs — 130. The first Bulgarian newspapers and magazines began to come out in the 1840s.

It was during those days of national revival that the brightest Bulgarian holiday began to be celebrated, which is celebrated to this day – the Day of Cyril and Methodius, the creators of the Slav alphabet of Bulgarian education and culture. In 1869 the Bulgarian Literary Society was founded in the Romanian town of Bralla, which constituted the foundations of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Modern Bulgarian literature was also making its first steps, represented by the talented writers and poets, loyal to their people, Lyuben Karavelov, Hristo Botev, Vassil Droumev, Konstantin and Dimiter Miladinov, Raiko Zhinsifov, Grigor Purlichev, Naiden Gerov, Dobri Voynikov, Petko Rachov Slaveykov, Ivan Vazov and others. Many of them were also revolutionaries and became recognized ideologists and leaders of the Bulgarian national revolution.

The 19th century marked the flowering of the arts of the Bulgarian National Revival period. The painters Zahari Zograph, Stanislav Dospevski and Nikolai Pavlovich, the wood-carvers from the schools in Debur, Tryavna and Samokov, the self-taught talented master- builder and architect Kolyu Ficheto and thousands of anonymous masters created immortal works of art which arouse the admiration of the present generations.

INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY AS AN OFFICIAL RELIGION

Christianity, which had been established as an official religion in the former Roman Empire as early as the 4th century A. D., had become firmly rooted in it by the end of the 9th century and was the ideological foundation of the early feudal civilization. The Bulgarians could by no means join this civilization unless they adopted Christianity as their official religion. In spite of the brilliant military victories of the Bulgarian Khans and Bulgaria’s having become one of the most powerful European states, two centuries after its foundation the country was still belonging to the pagan, ‘barbarian’ world.

Christianity became a vital necessity

The adoption of Christianity became a vital necessity, not only for settling the country’s international situation, but also for its internal consolidation. Both Slavs and Bulgarians were heathens but they believed in different gods, had different ways of life and customs and this drew them apart, in spite of their belonging to one and the same state. The measures taken by Kroum and his successors for the legal and political equalizing of the two : ethnical groups and for building up a centralized state apparatus were insufficient to create the indispensable internal ethnical link. Besides, the heathen belief in more than one god did not assist the establishment of the autocratic rule of the head of state.

Khan Boris (852-889) was a statesman who was acutely aware of these historical tasks and who daringly undertook to solve them. He had good reasons to feel ap-prehensive of the growing Byzantine influence in the country and sought the help of the German Emperor (in 843 the Frankish Empire was divided into three parts) asking him to serve as intermediary in Bulgaria’s adoption of Christianity from Rome. Byzantium reacted without delay by organizing an impressive military campaign against Bulgaria. The condition for signing peace was that the Bulgarians should be converted to Christianity by the Byzantine Church.

Checking the advance of the Russians

The retreating Turkish troops, ill armed, ill commanded, and demoralized by defeat, turned to bay at Philippopolis with a forlorn hope of checking the advance of the Russians. On the top of a hill close by the city there stands a stone slab recording the fact that on this spot General Gourkoff had his head-quarters, while he directed the movements of his troops in the plain below. The battle was not long.

The Turks, finding themselves out-numbered and out-manoeuvred, lost heart and fled towards the Rhodope, leaving their guns behind them. With this defeat the war came to an end, and if it had not been for the arrival of the English fleet in the Sea of Marmora, the road to Constantinople would have lain open to the Russians, and in all likelihood Philippopolis would to-day have been the prefecture of a Russian province.

As things turned out, Philippopolis enjoyed a brief period of independent existence as the Capital of Eastern Roumelia. Had it not been for the modifications introduced into the Treaty of San Stefano at the Conference of Berlin, the two Bulgarian provinces would have been converted at once into one united State, of which the city of Philip the Great would have been the natural metropolis.

Deprived Philippopolis

But the fates, as represented by the Western Powers, willed it otherwise; and when, six years later, Eastern Roumelia threw off* the restrictions imposed upon her by the Treaty of Berlin, and proclaimed her incorporation with Bulgaria, Sofia had already been made the seat of government Though I think that the incident which deprived Philippopolis of her claim to be the capital of Bulgaria is not matter for regret, there can be no question that the Roumeliote city was in many respects better fitted than Sofia to be the metropolis of the Principality. It stands in a singularly central position. It has considerable historical and architectural pretensions. It is surrounded by hills not less beautiful than those which encircle Sofia.

Extreme violence by the Opposition Press

The charge was made use of with extreme violence by the Opposition Press, especially in Philippopolis, and the common expectation was that the agitation against Turkey would soon be converted into a popular outcry for the dismissal of the Ministry. Happily, the Turkish Government became alive to the danger of the situation.

The Sultan gave way and revoked the decree in a very frank and prompt manner. He not only yielded on the school question, but he consented to the appointment of Bulgarian bishops in Macedonia, a favour which he had hitherto persistently refused. He also granted a site for the erection of a Bulgarian school at Constantinople, and gave the Exarch permission to build a new official residence at Pera. He further promised that in future the ownership of the Bulgarian schools in Macedonia should be vested in the hands of the Bulgarian bishops or of their nominees.

The conclusion of this settlement was extremely gratifying to national feeling in Bulgaria, and was popularly attributed to the great skill with which M. Stambouloff had worked on the apprehensions of the Porte and had carried his point without resorting to any military demonstration. The Premier himself attributed a great part of his success to the active support he had received from Sir Philip Currie, who had only recently taken up his position as British Ambassador at Constantinople.

Stambouloffs abode at Sofia

In common opinion, however, throughout Bulgaria, the whole thing was Stambouloffs doing. As soon as the news of the settlement became known in Sofia, a large crowd proceeded with torchlights to M. Stambouloffs abode at Sofia. In reply to the cheers with which he was greeted, he came out on the balcony and made a speech appealing to the Bulgarians to display their special gratitude for the gracious concessions made by the Suzerain, and urging upon them the paramount necessity of keeping on good terms with Turkey as Bulgaria’s best friend and ally.

Cabinet of Ministers seated round a baccarat table

To our Western ideas it seems strange to see a whole Cabinet of Ministers seated round a baccarat-table, laughing, smoking, drinking, whistling, and sometimes singing, while the Premier or the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs holds the bank. Every country, however, has its own usages, and I think it would be unjust to attribute the frequent presence of the leading politicians of Bulgaria in the card-rooms of the Union Club to any special love of gambling. What their presence does show is the total absence of general society in the place. If any Sofiote wishes for relaxation after his day’s work—and most of the leading men here work very hard and very long— the club is the one place he can go to for entertainment. There is but little general conversation in the club, and the only entertainment to be found there is in card-playing. I have thought it worth while to dwell somewhat on this feature of social life in Sofia, mainly in order to show how very meagre and jejune that life still is.

There is a handsome theatre where performances are given occasionally in Bulgarian, but it is very little frequented. There are also one or two cafds chant ants chiefly resorted to by the German commercial travellers, waiters, and shopmen of Sofia.

Contributions from the customers

At these places a few elderly, painted, wrinkled waifs and strays from the music halls of the Fatherland sing songs with cracked voices to the accompaniment of a piano out of tune. After each song the singer comes round with a plate and solicits contributions from the customers. The average contribution is a penny, and these pennies, together with the commission paid upon the liquors which they induce the customers to order, constitute the only remuneration given to the performers.

These wretched places of amusement, so called on the lucus a non lucendo principle, are very little visited by the natives, though I am told that occasionally, on the nights of the great popular holidays, the townspeople come there, and that even Ministers have been seen amongst the audience. Indeed, the utter absence of ladies’ society in Vienna is about the only reason why I can imagine the wildest and youngest of Sofiote gallants ever frequenting these resorts.

Monotony of the endless rows

Architecturally, Sofia has little or no pretensions. The houses are all of brick encased in stucco. The width of the thoroughfares, the monotony of the endless rows of detached villas, the scrubby trees planted along the foot- walks, and the shabby-genteel air inseparable from stucco in every form and phase, reminded me frequently of the non-artistic districts of St. John’s Wood. Palace, public buildings, private dwellings, are all fashioned after the model of the house which children are first taught to draw, a rectangular parallelogram, with a broad slit in the middle for the doorway, and with any number of narrow slits for the windows in the facade.

Except in a few streets of the business quarter, the houses do not adjoin each other, but stand apart. Hardly any house is more than two stories in height: most of them consist of one story only. They all stand in a plot of ground of their own, but gardens are few and far between; the places where one might expect to find a garden are occupied by outhouses. Except in two or three of the main streets, the process of reconstruction is still incomplete.

Every now and then the broad, smooth, flag-stone pavements are intersected by stretches of unpaved ground, filled up with rubble and loose stones, which a shower of rain converts, for the time being, into a quagmire. Here and there, too, sandwiched in between the modern stucco villas, are groups of old- fashioned Turkish houses, half cottages, half shanties, with white-washed walls and broad, red-tiled roofs.

Pass their lives in Sofia

From a painter’s point of view the tumble-down, squalid old town was infinitely preferable; but, from the point of view of people who have to pass their lives in Sofia, the present is doubtless superior to the past Sofia has, in fact, been converted into a very fair specimen of a well-to-do, commonplace Western city. The streets, unlike those of Eastern towns, are all named, mostly after the local celebrities of the era of Liberation, and the houses are all regularly numbered. The main thorough- ) fares are wide and well paved with macadam. The foot- walks in every part of the town are excellent, except for the gaps I have just spoken of; and before long Sofia will be as well constructed a capital, for its size, as any to be found in Europe.