EAST ROUMELIA.

It is unnecessary and useless now to waste words upon the exploded scheme of what was called a joint or mixed occupation of East Roumelia, for every thinking mind perceived from the first that the execution of such a plan could scarcely be but a mischievous muddle, into which no English government would have been unwary enough to plunge. The artistic skill of Russia was wasted in laying that snare for the country she hates so fixedly, and, however prettily she sketched out the theory, she knew well enough we should never have accepted a scheme every detail of which, as she planned it, was patently impossible in practice. It was indeed manufactured solely for her own profit. Her idea was simply to gain time. That all Russian officials have said in set phrase from the beginning 'après notre départ, le déluge,' we know; and we know too-at least, those of us who have seen the acts and deeds of the Russians in Roumelia know only too well-how energetically and skilfully they have laboured to insure that sequence; the mixed occupation' was invented to enable them to stop and see the fun. Glorious fun it would have been to Prince Dondoukoff et hoc genus, to see the Briton, who with true Christian charity screamed for joy over the expulsion of the "hated Turk,' engaged in cutting down the new Bulgarian troops; glorious fun to watch the brethren of those who shouted the welcome of the returning diplomatists now supplanting peace' with the sword, and honour' with broken faith. If our enemies tear up our treaties, we know where we are; but what will become of good faith and honour if every country tears up its own? It is not pleasant to hear what is said of us on the Continent on that score, and it would have been a great misfortune had we been induced to make ourselves more ridiculous by acceding to the joint occupation scheme. That Russian scheme, however, having failed, let us see what remains for us to do in healing the sores of the East.

The unchanged and unchangeable principle of Russia is Might— whether right or not. Brute force, taking advantage of a country bankrupt alike, for the time being, in good government as in money, and encouraged by the rabid exaggeration of party men in England, seized on a fortunate moment for bearing all before her; but the force of

strength had to give way to that of reason; she was compelled to retire. She had, however, accomplished much. For twenty, nay, for twice twenty years, she had been secretly labouring with unwearied skill to mislead the ignorant Bulgarian; like the locust she disdained not the humblest spot in which to lay her poisonous eggs; now, with a fine army, she came to hatch them. The harvest was apparently hers.

Is it any wonder that an astute, shrewd, unprincipled nation such as Russia should desire to obtain the Balkan country for her own, and, like the locust, to devour the Bulgarian people? The religion of their new slaves would, they think, give them very little trouble (in which they are largely mistaken); their language and their habits and customs are cognate, though far from identical. The Russian regards the Bulgarian with an unconcealed but wholly undeserved contempt. Of the two, the Bulgarian has a very superior nature. Uneducated as he is, he is now savage, brutal, and dirty; and he is profoundly ignorant. So is the Russian. But take a fair specimen of each: wash and educate them, and the Bulgarian will be worth two of the other. The Bulgarian is untruthful from the habit of fear, but, relieved of that, he is stolidly upright, full of shrewdness and excellent good sense; he is naturally very industrious, awfully parsimonious, and has an impulse of moral and physical advancement in him which is intensely interesting and admirable. He is, in my opinion, the best of the Slav nations; yet he is the least loveable. He is singularly unaffectionate. I do not hesitate to say there is no European nation with so little natural affection as the Bulgarian. The curious fact is that even a little education seems at once to develope the tender fibre; they become kindly and amiable. They are a dull, sulky-tempered people now; but two or three generations of education will certainly improve that into an animated good temper. Their stingy frugality will become reasonable thrift; their unloving selfishness will melt into kindly goodfellowship. At present they are, one and all, rich and poor, without exception, offensively self-satisfied, supremely self-confident, and full of the most absurd vanity, while they have little of which to be vain. And of course the notice they have lately attracted has greatly increased their self-estimation. Left to the teaching of Russia, this cognate nature will grow into a perfect resemblance to the Russian, whose inflated self-esteem is so unbearably odious; whose ignorance, even when educated, is so astounding; and whose untruthfulness is so boundless. Assisted by Europe, encouraged by the West, the Bulgarians would develope into a solid, valuable people, alike able to govern themselves and to command the respect of that European family of nations of which they will, I thoroughly believe, if kept from Russia, ultimately form a worthy member.

It is our duty to help them to accomplish this. It was our duty

to have helped them long ago as Christians and fellow-citizens of the world; but our countrymen knew nothing of them, thought nothing about them, and did nothing for them; only a few individuals laboured with cordial heartiness to show them the path of progress. Had this continued, and steady wise measures been taken at Constantinople, the Bulgarians would have developed and gradually liberated themselves in due time, and in an abiding, satisfactory form, very different from the misfortunes that have now come upon them. As to the four hundred years of bloody oppression and murderous tyranny' of which we have heard so much, I utterly and wholly deny it. The Bulgarians were repressed, that is true: they were at so low and brutal a level that they naturally hewed wood and drew water for the race that had conquered them; slowly they began to rise in level, and rise they did, until, unfortunately for them, the dominant race noticed them, and seized on the tool at hand to play it off against another race that was rising also, and a little faster than they were. 'The encouragement of the Porte undid them, for it drew upon them the attention of the great Czar, and, alas! attracted also his greedy covetousness, besides pointing, as he thought, an easy road to Constantinople. Be it observed it was not Russia that first helped them up, but the Porte, though truly for her own benefit, not theirs. In this, Russia closely resembles her. And then the Bulgarians throve-yes, throve as no mortal beings could thrive had they been as brutally oppressed as it has suited some people to represent them. Just the same were the Irish for nearly three hundred years oppressed by the English; just the same were they subject to an occasional outburst of fanaticism, and just the same did that ill-used people make horrid reprisals. Given the differing status of civilisation, the calamities of 1876 in the one country scarcely equalled those of 1798 in the other. I once read-I think in the Daily News-a list of acts of violence that had happened in European Turkey in the last three hundred years. It was appalling; but a little trouble would have matched a similar list in nearly every country in Europe, the British islands certainly not excepted. Horrible details of this kind are of course very impressive in a speech, and the listeners are seldom quick enough to reflect at the moment that these things are the milestones that mark the progress of civilisation.

Well, the Bulgarians throve, laying field to field and vineyard to vineyard, impossible to a cruelly oppressed people; they became, as they are now, wealthy and comfortable, and constantly able to buy off the depredations of bad governors and rapacious officials. It was terrible to lose the laboriously earned wealth in the shape of bribes; nor was this the worst of the sorrows the Bulgarian had occasionally to bear-I must add only occasionally till quite of late years. No doubt, as in many another case, the trifling annoyances were the most galling; yet the being compelled to wear a fez instead of a

kalpak, and to get off the donkey he rode to stand aside while an Effendi passed by, were troubles hardly worse than those of any country where marks of respect to feudal lords linger still among the people. Fifty years ago what respectable village girl would have dared to show herself at the 'great house' of the place with an artificial rose in her bonnet? What Neapolitan would let his own Eccellenza pass by to-day without bending his knee in the mud to him? As to their wealth, I say nothing of the astonishment of the Russian soldier who came to deliver the oppressed slave,' and contrasted their condition with that of his own people at home; but I ask to be allowed to speak of my own personal experience, as knowing, more or less intimately, the peasantry of England, Ireland, North and South Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Greece, and several Slav nations, and I say that nowhere is there so comfortable and well-todo a people as the Bulgarians; that in every one of the countries I have mentioned there is infinitely more misery than can be found among the Bulgars. For be it remembered there are no mere 'labourers' like our own in that country; every man owns the bit of land he lives on, though he may and does also help a larger owner for wages. If a Bulgar has three or four sons, they assist their father in the farm; they marry and live in the same house till the father has put by money enough to buy more land, on which the sons spread out and form new households. The country is wide enough for all: wider now that every Bulgarian has possessed himself of his Moslem neighbour's land, and will keep it.

Among the Bulgarians, as in other Slav nations, there is no difference of class except what is given by the possession of more or less wealth; although a man who has visited Russia, Austria, or England naturally introduces a further advancement of civilisation into his house, and takes his place accordingly. If he introduced a better style of building that house, he would be a benefactor to his race. All Bulgarian houses, whether built of rough stone or of wood coated with mud, as most of them are, resemble each other in form. A staircase and middle room or hall of bare boards from which all the rooms open; there is rarely a second story, even of the very best houses; the basement contains the offices, including sometimes the stables. Every house or cottage stands in its own ground walled or fenced round; the better ones have a flagged court as well as garden. The rooms, more especially the ceilings, are gaily daubed with scarlet and green paint, after the fashion of a Nuremberg toy; I have never yet seen in any Bulgarian house anywhere the smallest sign of taste or art. They have, however, contrived to build many large churches, some of which are really handsome inside. Their architecture is sometimes prettily painted and gilt, and is generally done by native artists, but invariably men who have been to Vienna or Moscow to learn the business. The furniture is confined to stiff divans round

two sides of the room, covered in worsted or silk according to the wealth of the owner. Every room possesses one or two huge cupboards: these are filled with yorghans (thick wadded quilts) piled up, and these, with the carpets, constitute the riches of the house. A little very common German glass and some handsome brass vessels and basins finish the catalogue of furniture. Only a very few of the rich have bedsteads; all the rest sleep on two or three of the quilts on the floor. The worst feature in the houses is that every room is one-third window; the whole of one end and half of each side wall is made of ill-fitting, small glass panes, as unadapted to the very hot summer as to the terribly cold winter. For the Balkan country is one of extremes: four months of intense winter, followed by a burning summer, when the townspeople are glad to stay in their tchifliks (small country houses), or to visit convents on the mountain slopes. There are also many hot mineral springs which are crowded all the summer through. Of course the vintage time is the prettiest for this as for other countries, and it lasts longer than the June gathering of roses in the Kesanlik and Klisoura districts. Then every one looks happy: the big bullock wagons, the heavy baskets of fruit, the bright-coloured aprons of the women, are all picturesque adjuncts to the glorious mountains, some of which are snow-capped all the year through, and well deserve to be visited by artists and lovers of nature. They will be better pleased with the exceeding loveliness of the country than of its inhabitants, for I am sorry to say I cannot recall three pretty Bulgarian women. They are all ugly, and have the very worst figures in Europe; but nearly all have pleasant, winning manners, and sweet, gentle voices. The men are not handsome, but are mostly well-built and powerful. Some of the women are now leaving off the national costume, but the majority still wear the sukhman, a sleeveless gown of black or brown native-made cloth, open at the bosom over a white linen homespun chemise gaily embroidered. Very bright cloth aprons, a coloured handkerchief over the hair, and a quantity of rough silver necklaces and clasps complete the costume, with the addition of a furlined jacket in winter. The women work very hard, and do quite as much agricultural work as the men, besides weaving all the shyack (thick cloth or serge) of the country. For this they spin and prepare the wool, and dye it of many bright hues; the coloured wools are not much used for shyack, but are dyed to make the carpets of which the Bulgarians are justly proud. Large quantities of rough mats are made

2

1A Mr. Long, who built huts for the houseless in 1876, constructed steeply sloping wide shelves in them by way of bedsteads. The poor people were amazed, and said, 'What does it mean? what is it for? When we want to go to rest, are we to slope our heads up or down? We might as well stand up to sleep!'

2 As an incidental proof of their industry as well as wealth, I may mention that, in the eight months of my stay at Philippopolis, I had 34,200 jackets, breeches, gowns, and cloaks made for distribution of the shyack then in the district; not a yard was imported from beyond fifty miles.