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Editor: Stanley Lane Poole

BOOKSELLERS SUPPLIED WITH TRIMMED OR UNTRIMMED COPIES AS THEY MAY INDICATE THEIR PREFERENCE.

NUMBER 12. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE 15 CTS.

TWENTY YEARS' RESIDENCE AMONG THE PEOPLE OF TURKEY: BULGARIANS, GREEKS, ALBANIANS, TURKS, AND ARMENIANS.

BY A CONSUL'S DAUGHTER AND WIFE. EDITED BY STANLEY LANE POOLE.

PREFACE

No one who has talked with many people on the Eastern Question can have failed to remark the wide difference of opinion held on things which ought to be matters of certainty, and on which two opinions ought to be impossible. This divergence of view is only a very natural consequence of the want of any book of authority on the subject. How is one to learn what manner of men these Bulgarians and Greeks of Turkey really are? Hitherto our information has been chiefly obtained from newspaper correspondents: and it is hardly necessary to observe that the nature of their selected information depends upon the tendency of the paper. There have, of course, been notable exceptions to this common rule of a party-conscience: the world of journalists is but now lamenting the untimely death of one of its most distinguished members, with whose name honor and truth and indefatigable thoroughness must ever be associated. But granting the honesty and impartiality of a correspondent, allowing the accuracy of his report of what he has seen, it must be conceded that his opportunities for observation are short and hurried, that he judges almost solely from the immediate present, and that by the nature of his profession he is seldom able to make a very long or intimate study of a people's character. One accepts his reports as the evidence of an eye-witness; but one does not necessarily pledge one's self to his deductions. For the former task he has every necessary qualification: for the latter he may have none, and he probably has not the most important. Especially unsafe is it to trust to estimates of nations formed hastily on insufficient experience in the midst of general disorder, such as that in which many summary verdicts have lately been composed.

But if newspaper correspondents are placed at some disadvantage, what can be said for those well-assured travellers who pay a three months' visit to Turkey, spend the time pleasantly at Pera, or perhaps at the country-houses of some Pashas, and then consider themselves qualified to judge the merits of each class in each nationality of the mixed inhabitants of the land. It is unpleasant to have to say it; but it is well known that scarcely a single book upon Turkey is based upon a much longer experience than of three months.

In this dearth of trustworthy information, it was with no little interest that I learnt that an English lady, who had lived for a great part or her life in various provinces of European and Asiatic Turkey, and whose linguistic powers perfected by experience enabled her to converse equally with Greeks, Turks, and Bulgarians as one of themselves, had formed a collection of notes on the people of Turkey--on their national characteristics, the way they live, their manners and customs, education, religion, their aims, and ambitions. In any case the observations of one who had for more than twenty years enjoyed such exceptional advantages must be valuable. Of the opportunities of the Author there could be as little doubt as of her conscientious accuracy in recording her experience. The only question was not the quality but the quantity of the information. But in this the manuscript surpassed all expectations. Every page teemed with details of life and character entirely novel to all but Eastern travellers. Every subject connected with the people of Turkey seemed to be exhaustively treated, and it was rarely that any need for more ample information was felt.

In editing what, as I have had nothing to do with the matter of it, I may without vanity call the most valuable work on the people of Turkey that has yet appeared, I have strictly kept in view the principle laid down by the Author--that the book was to be a collection of facts, not a vehicle for party views on the Eastern Question, nor a recipe for the harmonious arrangement of South-eastern Europe. Politically the book is entirely colorless. It was felt that thus only could it commend itself to both, or rather all, the disputing parties on the question, and that only by delicately avoiding the susceptible points of each party could the book attain its end--of generally imparting a certain amount of sound information on the worst-known subject of the day.

The book has been divided into four parts. In the first, the general characteristics of the various races of Turkey are sketched. Very little is said about their history, for it is not the history but the present state--or rather the state just before the war--of the people that is the subject of the book. But the Author has tried to bring home to the reader the social condition and the national character of their different races. The Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, Turks, Armenians, and Jews are in turn described, and the, for the time, scarcely less important Circassians, with the Tatars and Gypsies, have their chapter.

In the second part, the tenure of land in Turkey and the state of the small peasant farmers are explained, and an account is given of houses and hovels in Turkey, including that most superb of Turkish houses, the Seraglio of the Sultan, to which with its inmates a very detailed notice is devoted; and the part ends with an account of Municipality and Police in Turkey, together with the kindred subject of Brigandage.

The third part is occupied with the manners and customs of the races. Few things give such an insight into the character of a people as a study of their customs, and it is believed that these chapters on the extraordinary ceremonies employed in Turkey on the occasion of a birth or marriage, or a death, the dress, food, amusements, of the Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, and Armenians will prove of as much value as interest. The fact, for example, that in many parts of Bulgaria the weddings take place not in the church but in the cellar of the bridegroom's house speaks volumes on the insecurity of a woman's person while Turkish governors rule in Bulgarian towns. The custom of the Bulgarian bridegroom flinging a halter over his bride's neck and dragging her into his house is an interesting relic of capture, and the subsequent knocking of the bride's head against the wall as a warning against infidelity illustrates the general chastity of the people. The indecent exhibitions, again, at Turkish weddings help to explain the want of refinement and womanly feeling among Turkish ladies. The ceremonies of the Greeks are interesting from another point of view, inasmuch as very many of them are identical with those of the ancient Greeks.

The last part is devoted to the education, superstition, and religion of the people of Turkey. It is here that we get to the root of Turkish manners; for we see how the Turk is brought up, how he learns the vices that have become identified with the thought of his race, how he remains, in spite even of a western education, deeply imbued with superstition, and finally how he loses all the energy of the old Othmanli character by the operation of the fatal doctrine of Kismet. The chapters on Education are among the most valuable in the book; whilst those on Religion will serve to explain some of the difficulties that beset the proper adjustment of affairs in Southern Europe.

The Greeks, again, are certainly conceited, and with excellent reason. It would be absurd to expect anything else. They are but newly freed; after centuries of Ottoman tyranny, followed by a generation of Bavarian despotism, they have at last been allowed to enjoy some fifteen years of freedom. Even under the stiff court of George, but much more during the last fifteen years, they have made prodigious progress. Having worked out their own freedom, they have been making themselves fit for freedom. From craven slaves of the Turk they have become a liberty-loving people. Their thoughts have been casting back to the noble ancestry which they claim as their own, and looking onward to the great future that is in store for them. They have measured themselves intellectually with the rest of Europe and have not been worsted. They have spent the last twenty years in the work of self-education, and so successful have been their efforts that it is well known that no nation can compare with Greece in the general education of its people--that to Greece alone can be applied the ambiguous taunt that she is over-educated.

All these things are legitimate subjects of pride. It is no wonder that the Greeks are vain of their adopted ancestors; no marvel that they are proud of their keen wits and facile intelligence. They have formed a justly high estimate of their national worth, and are justly proud of the progress they have already made, and they take no pains to conceal it. Their faults are only exaggerations of national virtues, the outcome of the reaction from a long servitude; they are the necessary but temporary result of the circumstances. A little time for development, a closer association with the other powers of Europe, and a worthier trust on the part of these, and the Greeks will lose their blemishes of youth; conceit will be toned down to a proper pride, and high intelligence will no longer be called over-cleverness. The nation has marched steadily forward in the little time it has been free; it has made great steps in educating itself and in spreading knowledge among its members still subject to the alien; it has shown itself able to govern itself, even to restrain itself under terrible provocation when there was much to gain and little that could be lost. If it is given fair play, the time may yet come when a seventh Great power shall arise in Europe, when the Greeks shall again rule in Byzantium, and Europe shall know that the name of Hellenes is still a sacred name.

The Author's account of the Bulgarians differs little from the ordinary opinion, except on one important point. She describes them as honest hard-working peasants, rather slow and stupid, but excellent laborers. But she absolutely denies the ferocious character ascribed to them by some writers. Every one knows that they exacted a terrible vengeance from the Turks, and no man of spirit can blame them for it; though it is much to be regretted that, if the accounts be true, they carried their revenge to the length of Turkish barbarity. But this was an exceptional time: it has had its parallel in most nations, as those who remember the feeling in England at the time of the Indian mutiny can witness. As a rule the Bulgarian is, on the contrary, rather too tame. He is a very domestic animal, lives happily with his family, keeps generally sober, enjoys his dance on the common on feast-days, and goes with perfect willingness and satisfaction to his daily work in the fields or at the rose-harvest. He is an admirable agricultural laborer, with a stolidity more than Teutonic, without the Teuton's energy. Yet these Bulgarians seem to have a good deal of sound common sense, and show many of the qualities necessary in a people that is to govern itself. It has hitherto submitted with curious tranquillity to the Turkish yoke, and the Sultan has probably had few less ill-affected servants than the Bulgarians. On the other hand, it seems that the Bulgarians entertain a very decided hostility to Russia, an enmity second only to their hatred for the Greeks.

The third important element in the future of South-East Europe is the Turks. Of them it is not necessary to say much: most people are fairly enlightened as to the manners and rule of the Turk, and the Author has intentionally avoided crowding her pages with Turkish atrocities: they are all very much alike, and they are not pleasant reading. The official classes meet with scant respect at her hands; but with most writers she speaks favorably of the Turkish peasant. The principal vice he has is his religious fanaticism, which is the result partly of Mohammedanism itself, and partly of the form and manner in which it is inculcated in Turkey. Islam may be broad and tolerant enough; but not the rigid orthodox Islam as taught in the primary schools of the Ottoman Empire. Islam is an excellent creed by itself; but a ruling Mohammedan minority in a Christian country is an endless source of trouble. But the religious question is only one of those which have disturbed the position of the Porte. The system of administration, as described in these pages, is enough to overturn any power, and an official class brought up under vicious home influences, educated in fanatical mosque-schools, living the self-indulgent indolent life of Stamboul, getting and keeping office by bribery, administering "justice" to the highest bidder, is a doomed class. When one sees how a Turkish child is brought up he begins to wonder how any Turk can help being vicious and dishonest. It is quite certain that there is no hope for the Turks so long as Turkish women remain what they are, and home-training is the initiation of vice. So far as can be judged, the Turk naturally possessed some of the true elements of greatness; but it is rarely they come to bear fruit: they are choked by the pernicious social system which destroys the moral force of the women and thereafter the men of the empire. It is this carefully inculcated deficiency in all sense of uprightness and justice, and this trained tendency to everything that is a crime against the community, that renders the Pasha incapable of governing. It is this fact which compels one to admit that, whatever the decisions of the Berlin Congress, it is a clear gain that the war has won for Europe, to be able to speak of Turkish rule in the past tense.

With full knowledge of the experience and research of the Author, I must yet say there are some points--notably the Greek Church of Russia--in which I cannot bring myself to agree with her; and I must also add that, owing to the haste with which the book was put through the press, I have allowed a few misprints to escape me.

STANLEY LANE POOLE.

THE BULGARIANS.

Sketch of Bulgarian History--The Slav Occupation--Bulgar Conquest--Mixture of the Races--The Bulgarian Kingdom--Contests with Constantinople--Basil Bulgaroktonos--Bulgaria under Ottoman Rule--Compulsory Conversion--The Pomaks--Oppressive Government--Janissary Conscription--Extortion of Officials--Misery of the People--Improvement under Abdul-Medjid--Fidelity of the Bulgarians to the Porte--The late Revolt no National Movement--The Geographical Limits of Bulgaria--Mixture with Greeks--Life in the House of a Bulgarian Country Gentleman--Daily Lev?es of Elders and Peasants--Counsel of the Chorbadji and Stupidity of the Clients--Instances of Bulgarian Grievances--St. Panteleemon--A Spiritual Elopement--Dentist's Fees--Woman's Work in Bulgaria--Sobriety--Town Life--A Bulgarian Ball--A Night in a Bulgarian Hamlet, and the Comfort thereof--Unity of the Nation--Distrust of Foreigners--Demoralization of the Bulgarians--The Hope for the Future.

The Bulgarians, who were completely crushed by the Ottoman Conquest, and whose very existence for centuries was almost forgotten, have been suddenly brought before the world by the late unhappy events in their country.

Much has been written by English and foreign authors respecting them, but few of the writings on the subject appear to agree with regard to the origin, the history, or the present social and moral condition of this much injured but deserving people. I have no pretensions to throw a fresh light on the first two points. The few remarks I shall make are based upon such authors as are considered most trustworthy, and especially on the recent researches of Professor Hyrtl, reserving to myself the task of describing the moral and social condition of the modern Bulgarians, as fourteen years spent among them enables me to do.

From the Bulgarian Professor Drinov, who appears to have made the Balkan peninsula his especial study, we learn that before the arrival of the Bulgarian tribes into European Turkey, the southern side of the Danube had been invaded by the Slavs, who during four centuries poured into the country and, steadily spreading, drove out the previous inhabitants, who directed their steps towards the sea-coasts and settled in the towns there. In the beginning of the sixth century the Slavonic element had become so powerful in its newly-acquired dominions, and its depredatory incursions into the Byzantine Empire so extensive, that the Emperor Anastasius found himself forced to build a wall from Selymbria on the Sea of Marmora to Derkon on the Black Sea in order to repel their attacks. Procopius, commenting on this, relates that while Justinian was winning useless victories over the Persians, part of his empire lay exposed to the ravages of the Slavs, and that not less than 200,000 Byzantines were annually killed or carried away into slavery.

The hostile spirit, however, between these two nations was broken by short intervals of peace and friendly relations, during which the Slav race supplied some emperors and many distinguished men to the Byzantines. Many Slavs resorted to Constantinople in order to receive the education and training their newly-founded kingdom did not afford them. The migration of the Slavs into Thrace ceased towards the middle of the seventh century, when they settled down to a more sedentary life, and, under the civilizing influence of their Byzantine neighbors, betook themselves to agricultural and pastoral pursuits. According to historical accounts the Slavs did not long enjoy their acquisitions in peace, for about the year 679 A.D. a horde of Hunnish warriors, calling themselves Bulgars , crossed the Danube under the leadership of their Khan, Asparuch, and after some desperate fighting with the Slavs, finally settled on the land now known as Bulgaria and founded a kingdom which in its turn lasted about seven hundred years.

From the little that is known of the original Bulgarians, we learn that polygamy was practised among them, that the men shaved their heads and wore a kind of turban, and the women veiled their faces. These points of similarity connect the primitive Bulgarians with the Avars, with whom they came into close contact, as well as with the Tatars, during their long sojourn between the Volga and Tanais, as witness the marked Tatar features some of the Bulgarians bear to the present day. The primitive Bulgarians are said to have subsisted chiefly on the flesh of animals killed in the chase; and it is further related of them that they burnt their dead, and when a chieftain died his wives and servants were also burnt and their ashes buried with those of their master. Schafarik, whose learned and trustworthy researches on the origin of the Bulgarians can scarcely be called in question, remarks that the warlike hordes from the Volga regions, though not numerous, were very brave and well skilled in war. They attacked with great ferocity the patient plodding Slavs, who were engaged in cultivating the land and rearing cattle, quickly obtained the governing power, and after tasting the comforts of a settled life, gradually adopted to a great extent the manners, customs, and even the language of the people they had conquered. This amalgamation appears to have been a slow process, occupying, according to historical evidence, full two hundred and fifty years. It is during this period that the Bulgarian language must have gradually been effaced, and the vanquishing race, like the Normans in England, absorbed by the vanquished.

The Bulgarian kingdom, from its very foundation in 679 until its final overthrow by the Turks in 1396, presents a wearisome tale of battles with short intervals of peace, in the struggle for supremacy between the Emperors of Byzantium and the rulers of Bulgaria. The balance of power alternately inclined from one party to the other; the wars were inhuman on both sides; on the one hand, we read of hundreds of thousands of Byzantines yearly sacrificed by the Slavs; on the other, we have equally horrible spectacles presented to us, like that enacted during the reign of Basil, surnamed ?????????????? , on account of the great number of Bulgarians killed by his order. This savage, having on one occasion captured a large number of Bulgarians, separated 15,000 into companies of 100 each, and ordered ninety-nine out of each of these companies to be blinded, allowing the remaining hundredth to retain his sight in order to become the leader of his blind brethren.

In the midst of such scenes, and at the cost of torrents of blood, successive kingdoms were constituted in this unhappy land of perpetual warfare. Raised into momentary eminence by the force of arms, they were again hurled to the ground by the same merciless instrument. Supreme power has been alternately wielded by the savage, the Moslem, and the Christian; each of whom to the present day continues the work of destruction.

The condition of Bulgarians did not improve under the Ottoman rule. Their empire soon disappeared, leaving to posterity nothing but a few ruined castles and fortresses, and some annals and popular songs illustrating its past glory. The Turkish conquest was more deeply felt by the Bulgarians than by their brethren in adversity, the Byzantines and the neighboring Slav nations. These, owing to the more favorable geographical position of their countries and other advantages, were able to save some privileges out of the general wreck, and to retain a shadow of their national rights. The Byzantines were protected by a certain amount of influence left in the hands of the clergy, while the Slav nations were enabled to make certain conditions with their conqueror before their complete surrender, and were successful in enlisting the sympathies and protection of friendly powers in their behalf, and in obtaining through their instrumentality at intervals reforms never vouchsafed to the Bulgarians. This nation, isolated, ignored, and shut out from the civilized world, crouched under the despotic rule of the Ottomans, and submitted to a life of perpetual toil and hardship, uncheered by any of the pleasures of life, unsupported by the least gleam of hope for a better future.

This sad condition has lasted for centuries; and by force of misery the people became grouped into two classes: the poor, who were constant to their faith and national feeling, and the wealthy and prosperous, who adopted Islam in order to escape persecution and save their property. To this latter class may be added the Pomaks, a predatory tribe inhabiting a mountainous district between the provinces of Philippopolis and Serres. They live apart, and pass for Mussulmans because they have some mosques; but they have no knowledge of the Koran nor follow its laws very closely. Most of them to this day bear Christian names and speak the Slav language. The men are a fine race, but utterly ignorant and barbarous.

Upon the poor and therefore Christian class fell all the weight of the Ottoman yoke, which made itself felt in their moral and material condition, and reached even to the dress, which was enforced as a mark of servility. They were forbidden to build churches, and beyond the ordinary annual poll-tax imposed by Moslems on infidel subjects, they had to submit to the many illegal extortions of rapacious governors and cruel landlords; besides the terrible blood-tax collected every five years to recruit the ranks of the Janissaries from the finest children of the province. Nor were the Bulgarian maidens spared: if a girl struck the fancy of a Mohammedan neighbor or a government official, he always found means to possess himself of her person without using much ceremony or fearing much commotion.

The depressing and demoralizing effect of such a system upon the Bulgarians may be imagined; it was sufficient to brutalize a people far more advanced than they were at the time of the conquest. It cowed them, destroyed their brave and venturous spirit, taught them to cringe, and weakened their ideas of right and wrong. It is not strange that a people thus demoralized should, under the pressure of recent troubles, be said in some instances to have acted treacherously both towards their late rulers and present protectors; but the vices of rapacity, treachery, cruelty, and dishonesty could not have been the natural characteristics of this unhappy people until misery taught them the lesson.

The laws promulgated in the reign of Sultan Abdul-Medjid with respect to the amelioration of the condition of the rayahs were gradually introduced into Bulgaria, and their beneficial influence tended greatly to remove some of the most crying wrongs that had so long oppressed the people. These reforms apparently satisfied the Bulgarians--always easily contented and peacefully disposed. They were thankful for the slight protection thus thrown over their life and property. They welcomed the reforms with gratitude as the signs of better days, and, stimulated by written laws, as well as by the better system of government that had succeeded the old one and had deprived their Mohammedan neighbors of some of their power of molesting and injuring them, they redoubled their activity and endeavored by industry to improve their condition. Such changes can be only gradual among an oppressed people in the absence of good government and easy communication with the outer world.

The Bulgarians south of the Balkans are a mixed race, neither purely Greek nor purely Bulgarian; but their manners and customs and physical features identify them more closely with the Greeks than with the Bulgarians north of the Balkans. There the Finnish type is clearly marked by the projecting cheek-bones, the short upturned nose, the small eyes, and thickly-set but rather small build of the people.

In Thrace and Macedonia, where Hellenic blood and features predominate, and Hellenic influence is more strongly felt, the people call themselves Thracians and Macedonians, rather than Bulgarians; the Greek language, in schools, churches, and in correspondence, is used by the majority in preference to the Bulgarian, and even in the late church question in many places the people showed themselves lukewarm about the separation, and the bulk remained faithful to the Church of Constantinople.

The sandjak of Philippopolis, esteemed almost entirely Bulgarian by some writers, is claimed for the Greeks by others upon the argument that Stanimacho, with its fifteen villages, is Greek with regard to language and predilection, and Didymotichon, with its forty-five villages, is a mixture of Greeks and Bulgarians. As a matter of fact, however, in this sandjak, in consequence of its proximity to Bulgaria proper, and to its developed and prosperous condition, the Bulgarian element has taken the lead.

The revival of the church question and the educational movement have stayed and almost nullified Greek influence, which is limited to certain localities like Stanimacho and other places, where the people hold as staunchly to their Greek nationality as the Bulgarians of other localities do to their own. While dispute waxed hot in the town of Philippopolis between the parties of Greeks and Bulgarians, each in defence of its rights, no spirit of the kind was ever evinced in Adrianople, where the population is principally Greek and Turkish, with a small number of Armenians and Bulgarians. In Macedonia the sandjak of Salonika, comprising Cassandra, Verria, and Serres, numbering in all about 250.000 souls, is, with few exceptions, Greek, or so far Hellenized as to be so to all intents and purposes. The inhabitants of Vodena and Janitza, and the majority in Do?ran and Stromnitza, and a considerable portion of the population of Avrat Hissar, on the right bank of the Vardar, claim Greek nationality. The Greeks in this part of the country have worked with the same tenacity of purpose and consequent success in Hellenizing the people, as the Bulgarians of the kaza of Philippopolis in promoting the feeling of Bulgarian nationality there. This mission of the Greeks here has not been a very difficult one, as the national feeling of the bulk of the population is naturally Greek.

Most of the authors who have written on the populations of these regions have, either through Panslavistic views or misled by the prevalence of the Bulgarian language in the rural districts, put down the whole of the population as Bulgarian, a mistake easily corrected by a summary of the number of Greeks and Bulgarians conjointly occupying those districts, separating the purely Greek from the purely Bulgarian element, and taking into consideration at the same time the number of mixed Greeks and Bulgarians.

If the wide geographical limits projected by Russia for Bulgaria be carried out, there will be a recurrence of all the horrors of the recent war in a strife between the Greeks and Bulgarians, in consequence of the encroachment of the future Bulgaria upon territory justly laid claim to by the Greeks as ethnologically their own and as a heritage from past ages. The question would be greatly simplified and the danger of future contests between the two peoples much lessened, if not entirely removed, by the Bulgarian autonomy being limited to the country north of the Balkans.

The Greek Government might not be equal at first to the administration of their newly-acquired kingdom, but if united in close alliance with some friendly power and placed under its tutelage, an honest and stable empire might be established with every probability of soon rising into a flourishing condition in the hands of a people whose intelligence, activity, and enterprising spirit give them an incontestable superiority over the other races of Turkey.

The Bulgarians south of the Balkans being, as before said, of a mixed race engrafted upon the Hellenic stock, would not be found to offer any serious opposition. They are closely incorporated with the Greek element in some districts; while in others, where Bulgarian feeling predominates, the people would willingly migrate to Bulgaria proper, as the Hellenized Bulgarians under such an arrangement would draw nearer to Greece; whilst in parts of Macedonia, where Hellenism has the ascendancy, very little difficulty would be met with from the Bulgarian settlements.

When it was the peasants who gathered at the Chorbadji's house, their band was led by its Kodja-Bashi, who, acting as spokesman, first entered the big gate, followed by a long train of his brethren. Ranged in a line near the porch, they awaited the coming of the master to explain to him the cause of their visit. Their distinguished-looking patron, pipe in hand, shortly made his appearance at the door, when caps were immediately doffed, and the right hands were laid on the breast and hidden by the shaggy heads bending over them in a salaam, answered by a kindly "Dobro deni" , followed by the demand "Shto sakaty?" The peasants, with an embarrassed air, looked at each other, while the Kodja-Bashi proceeded to explain matters. Should his eloquence fall short of the task, one or two others would step out of the ranks and become spokesmen. It was almost painful to see these simple people endeavoring to give a clear and comprehensive account of their case, and trying to understand the advice and directions of the Chorbadji. A half-frightened, surprised look, importing fear or doubt, a shrug of the shoulders, accompanied by the words "N? znam--N? mozhem" , was generally the first expression in answer to the eloquence of my friend, who in his repeated efforts to explain matters frequently lost all patience, and would end by exclaiming, "N? biddy magari!" --a remark which had no effect upon the band of rustics further than to send them off, full of gratitude, to do as he had counselled.

Perhaps the reader may be curious to know the details of some of the cases daily brought under my notice. I will mention a few not connected with Turkish oppression and maladministration; for by this time the English public has been pretty well enlightened on that subject. My list will include some rather more original incidents which took place in the community: disputes between all non-Mussulmans are generally settled by the temporal or spiritual chiefs, and seldom brought before the Courts of Justice.

While Greeks and Bulgarians in the heat of controversy were snatching churches and monasteries from each other, the priests and monks who were attached to these sacred foundations found themselves unpleasantly jostled between the two hostile elements. To be a Greek priest or monk and be forced to acknowledge the supremacy of an anathematized and illegal church was a profanation not to be endured; and, on the other hand, to be a Bulgarian and be forced to pray day by day for a detested spiritual head rejected by his nation was an insupportable anomaly. In the midst of the difficulty and confusion at first caused by this state of affairs, some of the good fathers and monks had to remove their quarters and betake themselves to a wandering life, visiting their respective communities and encouraging the people by their exhortations to hold fast to their church and oppose with all their might the claims and usurping tendencies of the others. Among these a Bulgarian monk, more venturous and evidently endowed with a greater amount of imaginative eloquence than the rest, and rejoicing in the title of Spheti Panteleemon, regarded himself as the prophet of the Bulgarian people. This Saint Panteleemon was a man of middle age and middle height, with a jovial face, a cunning look, and an intelligent but restless eye, by no means indicative of an ascetic view of life.

Contrary to the saying that no man is a prophet in his own country, Spheti Panteleemon was acknowledged as such by a considerable class of his people, consisting entirely of the gentle sex, and his success among them was as great as ritualism appears to be in England.

Another incident was of a nature less sensational but equally repulsive to the feelings and notions of the strict portion of the Bulgarian nation, and had also a monk for its hero. It consisted of an elopement, and if there is one crime that shocks and horrifies orthodox people more than another, it is that of a monk who, taking the vows of celibacy, perjures himself by adopting the respectable life of a married man. Such events are of very rare occurrence, and when they take place cause a great commotion.

This monk, at the time of the disputed church rights, lost his solitary retreat, and was once more thrown in contact with the world he had forsworn. Sent adrift, he set out in search of an unknown destiny, without hope or friends, uncertain where his next meal was to come from. After a long day's march, he lay down to rest under a tree in a cultivated field, and, overcome by fatigue, fell asleep. He was about twenty-five years of age, tall, with regular features, a startlingly pale complexion, and coal black eyes, hair, and beard; his whole appearance, indeed, rather handsome than otherwise. Such, at least, was the description given of him by the rustic beauty who surprised him while driving her father's cattle home.

A Bulgarian monk in those stirring times was always an object of interest, even to a less imaginative person than a young maiden. She, therefore, considered it her duty to watch over his slumbers, and refresh him with bread and salt on awaking. Quietly seating herself by his side, she awaited the arousal of the unconscious sleeper. When he awoke, his eyes met those of the girl, and in that exchange of looks a new light dawned upon these two beings, who, though they had never met before, were now to become dearer to each other than life itself. The monk forgot his vows and poured forth his tale of love to a willing listener, who immediately vowed to follow his fortunes and become his wife, or end her days in a convent. This illustrates the definition of love once given to me by a Bulgarian gentleman: "Chez nous l'amour n'a point de pr?liminaires; on va droit au fait." The adventurous couple forthwith eloped, and wandered about the country, until the monk was discovered, in spite of his disguise, by the scandalized Bulgarians, by whom he was once more sent to a monastery, imprisoned in a dungeon, condemned to live upon dry bread and to undergo daily corporal chastisement for his sins. But the adventurous maiden, determined to effect his release, contrived to make friends with the Kir Agassi, or head of the mounted police in the district where the monastery was situated, and through his instrumentality the monk was again set at liberty. The subject was discussed in all its bearings at the house of my friends, until the couple wisely adopted Protestantism, and after being married by a minister of that church settled down to a peaceful life of domestic bliss.

A third incident illustrates the Bulgarian appreciation of surgical art. The name of surgeon was unknown in the country villages, and that of dentist, even in a large town like S?, until an adventurous spirit belonging to the latter profession, in the course of a speculative tour, established himself there. The inhabitants, on passing his house, used to stop and gaze in wonder at the sets of teeth displayed under glass cases. Conjecture ran wild as to how these were made and could be used. Some imagined them to be abstracted front the jaws of dead persons, salted, and prepared in some mysterious way for refitting in the mouths of the living.

The fame of the dentist's art began to be noised abroad throughout the district, and many became desirous, if not of procuring new teeth, at least of having some troublesome old stumps extracted. Among these was a well-to-do Bulgarian peasant, who presented himself in the surgery for this purpose. The dentist relieved him of his tooth with great facility, to the man's exceeding astonishment. On leaving he took out his long knitted money-bag, carefully counted out five piastres , and handed them to the dentist, who returned them, saying that his fee would be half a lira. "What!" exclaimed the indignant Bulgarian; "do you mean to say that you will charge me so much, when last week I underwent the same operation at the hands of my barber, and after a struggle of two hours over an obstinate tooth, during which I had several times to lie flat on my back and he and I were both bathed in perspiration until it finally yielded, I paid him five piastres, with which he was quite contented; and you, who were only a few minutes over it, demand ten times that sum! It is simply monstrous, and I shall forthwith lodge a complaint against you!"

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