conform to the observance of church rites. Deeply interesting, indeed, are the signs of a certain awakening among the superior clergy, a dawning promise, it may be hoped, of better things; but of this it is too early to speak in any way but that of the briefest allusion. The inferior clergy are too grossly ignorant for any progress; many of them cannot even read, but have acquired the old Slavonic service by heart.

But we must return to the present state of the country. There has been nothing worse in the history of the last year than the reiterated assurances on paper of the Russian desire for the return of the Moslem to his land, and the barbarous cruelty with which those who did go back were treated by the Bulgarians who had burned their houses, ploughed up the sites, removed the fences, and divided their lands: deliberately, openly, and boastingly encouraged and abetted therein by the Russian officials on the spot; insult and outrage were the least of the treatment they bestowed on the unhappy Turk who perhaps had never harmed the head of a single Bulgar in his life. The tone now taken by General Stolypine is that he trusts the Moslems will not try to return, as the indomitable hatred between Turk and Bulgarian is too intense to permit them ever to live together. This is another Russian lie persistently repeated and believed in here in England by some people. I solemnly declare it to have been absolutely untrue, although now every sort of hatred has been so hotly cultivated by the Russians, that peace would be difficult were the circumstances the same; and, as long as any Russians remain in the country, they will take care it shall continue difficult. But the circumstances are not the same. Formerly the Turk was armed, the Bulgar unarmed; now the Moslem is not allowed to carry a stick, while every Bulgar man and boy is armed to the teeth. Doubtless the unhappy Turk may wish to revenge his outraged women and his stolen property; but the Turkish peasant is not of an aggressive nature, he is law-loving and gentle in comparison with the Bulgar; and I will answer for it that, equally armed and unarmed, the Turk would be very far less revengeful than the Bulgar under the like injury. There are many here who actually believe it was impossible for Turk and Bulgar to live in the same village, that they were in a chronic state of murder. There cannot be a greater mistake. And this I testify of my own personal knowledge. In the time when the excitement was at the highest, immediately after the horrors of May 1876, I went far and wide through the country, visiting every village and speaking familiarly with the people; it was not true even then. It was true that in the villages where these brutalities had taken place there was unspeakable fear of the dominant race; true that in some villages I could name they had always been quarrelling; but in hundreds of others I saw quiet and contentment, and I heard the same thing repeatedly: 'We are brothers here.' In one place the

priest brought in the mudir to see me, and said: 'Do not give us any money; the governor is our father; we have never had an angry word between us.' I have seen the people working in the same shyack factories, a group of Bulgarian women and girls, and then a group of veiled Moslem women, and so with the men. I have seen scores of Bulgarian servants in Turkish harems kindly treated, fat, and happy. Nor were all Bulgarian girls averse to the caresses of the Turkish Effendi or of the zaptieh, as many can bear witness. And so it would have continued had they been let alone, and not encouraged in every kind of brutal malevolence on both sides. I am writing about the Bulgarians, and therefore I will not stop to relate how constantly the Turks helped me in relieving the needs of the Bulgars in 1876; not in more than two or at most three instances did a Turk refuse a request of mine. And in the two worst places I knew, where there were in each a clique of truculent scoundrels who oppressed and maltreated the Bulgars, the governor did his best to get rid of them, and only failed because there was not local force enough to do it. The zaptiehs were not always to be depended on. So it will always be in an ill-governed country. Nor was the fault on one side only. It has been shown again and again that the oppression of the Bulgar was more than occasionally his own doing; the Turkish taxes were not unfrequently sold to Bulgarian tax-gatherers, who invariably ground down the wretched peasant more cruelly than the Turk would have done. If he did not get what he wanted, he complained to the mudir, and then there was violence. All these things were done in the dark, and cannot now happen again. Nor will the country be kept in fear and trembling by the accursed Circassians; perhaps this is the only result of the war which is an unmixed advantage. It is too late now to try to separate the deeds of the Circassians from those of the Turks; they are all jumbled alike in the minds of many, while in other minds there are many things which people do not choose to believe, whether they are told them or not.' It is more profitable now for thoughtful people to look on instead of looking back. The calamities of the Past are past, and no good can be done by repeating and dwelling on them ad nauseam; our object is to

✦ Efforts are frequently made by a certain party to deny the horrors perpetrated in 1876 by the Turks; but these facts are too thoroughly known by many. They were indeed immensely exaggerated in quantity, but they were indescribably dreadful. Nor does it in any way excuse or mitigate their atrocity to say that they would have been no milder in quality had it been Bulgar against Turk. Repression of meditated insurrection was ordered from Constantinople, and was in one way just; the misfortune was that it was executed chiefly by irresponsible irregulars, who seized the opportunity for paying off old scores. And wherever there was any torture, it was invariably done by Mohammedan Bulgarians (Pomaks), as at Batak. Here, however, the affair was wholly and entirely a local agrarian quarrel; the tribunal at Constantinople having given a verdict in favour of the Bulgarians concerning certain pastures, the Pomaks at once resolved to exterminate the villager rather than submit to the decision.

see what we can do to shape the new nation into honest form with conscientious work; we want to take it away from the hands of those who are now building it up with trickery and baseness. We talked a great deal at one time about helping them; let us now do it.

And firstly, let us steadily insist upon their seeing that those who wish to enter the circle of national life must accept its responsibilities and duties as well as its privileges. To become an European nation, they must agree to accept the dictum of Europe. They are young and ignorant, but they are teachable; let Europe show them the truth, and they will follow it. The Treaty of San Stefano made them Russian slaves, only they had not intelligence enough to see it : the Treaty of Berlin gave them national life. Let them look to it, to preserve and develope that life. Russia pretended to assist at the birth of the nation: she keeps her finger on the throat of the newborn infant, and does not always conceal her intention of strangling it when the favourable moment shall arrive. And the Bulgarian nation will unquestionably succumb under that fatal act, if they are blind now, and if Europe does not watch over them to prevent it. The Treaty of Berlin, however good (or bad), stultified itself by leaving the Russians in Roumelia for a year. The Russians avowed, in the suggestion of the joint occupation, that they did not intend to leave the Bulgarians to themselves. We have got these pigs, and

we mean to drive them,' is the constantly repeated saying in the mouth of every Russian. The Bulgarians, with their young enthusiasm and new troops-proud as a schoolboy of his new clothesbelieve they can rid themselves of the Russians when they please. They cannot. Only Europe can free the Bulgarians of the newer, heavier, more oppressive yoke of their big brothers.' The Bulgarian nation is no match for Russia, but Europe is; and by the help of Europe alone can she free herself from the despotic oppression of her church and her people that is already beginning. They may present bouquets to their deliverers on anniversaries—every Bulgar is willing to add another festal day to his already long calendar; but some of them are beginning to know that their brethren are silently despatched to Siberia, there to meditate on their over-lofty national aspirations.

The one lesson for the Bulgarians to learn is simply this: let them abide by the law of Europe; let them show themselves capable of self-respect, self-control, and dignity; let them calmly accept the protection of Turkey, which will certainly do them no harm, while it purchases for them their entrance into the circle of European nations, and preserves them from Russia. Their independence, thus protected and guaranteed by the word of Europe, will develope into a healthy and goodly tree. Sorely they need a few years of protection and fostering care. These years would enable them to attain unity, wisdom, and strength: without these they cannot gain the respect of

Europe, nor secure any lasting national life. The crests of the Balkans have little enough to do with the plains below; and does any one in his senses believe that the essentially unaggressive Turkish soldier, carefully watched over, as he will be, by officers responsible to the European Commission, would be guilty of violence to the armed and drilled Bulgar? The ever favourite game of Russia is the waiting-game; let the Bulgarians follow her example, and prove that they too can wait; so sure as they do, they will win the day in the end. Gradually, slowly I. hope, for therefore surely, they will arrive at complete and matured independence. Solidified, tried, refined, and self-collected, they will be a real true Nation: then, then they will be able to say to Russian Bulgaria, Throw off the yoke of the Czar: join with us, and let us be one, united, free Bulgaria !'

6

EMILY, VISCOUNTESS STRANGFORD.

ROCKS AHEAD AND HARBOURS OF
REFUGE.

6

SOME five or six years ago I ventured under the allusive, but not inappropriate pseudonym of Cassandra to call attention to a few of the dangers which appeared to me to threaten our social well-being in some very material points. My representations excited considerable notice, and produced several replies. The country, however, had then been revelling in a long period of almost unexampled prosperity, and was little inclined to listen to gloomy forebodings or to criticisms of a disparaging character, or to take cognisance of the small clouds on the horizon scarcely bigger than a man's hand,' which appeared to me ominous of coming storm and darkness. Indications of mischief, which could not be altogether denied, I was held to have exaggerated; I was generally regarded as a prophet of evil, constitutionally disposed to look at everything en noir; and on the whole my warnings met with little more belief or practical recognition than did those of my namesake in the days of Troy. Since the publication of my first note of caution a marked 'change has come over the spirit of our dream;' the small cloud has overspread a very considerable part of the sky, the prevalent prosperity of 1872 has been replaced by heavy losses and by distress at once wide-spread and severe; commercial activity has been succeeded by commercial stagnation, disaster, and alarm; and, speaking generally, the spirit of sanguine selfconfidence and self-satisfaction characteristic of Englishmen in their periods of sunshine is giving way to a tone of depression and uneasiness not perhaps more dignified, but at least of more hopeful augury for the future, and indicative of a mood of mind in which warnings are more likely to be listened to. 'Sweet'-not are but may be-' the uses of adversity;' and assuredly the lessons of the last two or three years, harsh enough, no doubt, have neither been few, nor trivial, nor conveyed in language difficult to read. On the deplorable and unsuspected unsoundness in certain circles of the mercantile and monetary world, revealed by the disasters of 1878, I am not going to dwell, nor do I wish to enter on the unprofitable and irritating field of mere party politics, though both might furnish texts for sermons more than ordinarily impressive. But I think I am justified, by the