The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-12-18
LEE In BULGARIA.
A Trip Through "A Strange Country In.
habited by an Industrious People.

l
From Slivnitza to Sofia is thirty xii.
ometers, with good roads all the way.
The cathedral and Parliament house,
with the white villas of the new Euro.
peaI quarter, which stands on high
ground, are visible an hour before the
capital is reached. There is scarcely
any traffic on the road. Once in ten
miles we may meet a droschky drawn
by four horses. harnessed abreast, and
with jingling bells, and twice as often
a rickety carriage that looks like pa.
lanquin on wheels, and contains four
passengers, who have to sit with their
heads bent. because their hats would
otherwise touch the ceiling. No dwell
ing above the rank of cottage is to be
seen in any direction, for the land laws
make it impossible that a squirearchy
should grow up, and the country has
not yet any rich merchants who can
build rustic summer residences with
parks and gardens. Yet in the land,
SO unlike England, except in its green
beauty, incongruous "reminiscences of
Henley regatta and Lords ground are
brought up every moment by the hoii-
day dress of the peasantrv, which at
short distance looks like that of
our cricksters and oarsmen. The
men wore trousers of white chalak
or wooden homespun, red sashes, Ok
ford blue jackets and scarlet skull caps.
A group of them on grass plat makes
none look around for the familiar tent,
the pickets and the rival eleven fielding
out The women have a graceful head
drapery of Turkish lawn, and their
dresses are profusely embroidered with
that beautiful crewel work of silk or
wool which the Turkish women used
to make, but which is made no longer
since they left the land. These en-
broideries are still to be bought fairly
cheap, but in a few years the railways
will have carried them all off to the
west. Already Bulgarian women are
beginning to understand their value
and are putting tn I'm away for sale,
along with the Turkey carpets, mats
and rich bed counterpanes which make
the interior of so many Bulgarian
cottages contrast marvelously with the
outside. 1t is quite common thing to
find in these novels, grimy with smoke
and infested with vermin, hangings
and dresses which could be sold for
guinea the square foot in Regent street,
and the color of this stuff is so fine, the
material so pure. and the work so good
and firm that little cleaning will make
a fifty year-old embroidery look like
new. Alas, some apostles of civiliza-
ton in the form of German bag
men have latterlv taught the
Bulgarian women that they can
mix little cotton with their wool and
use cheaper materials for their dyes.
so that even the comfortable white and
blue .chalaks, which were warm in
winter and light in summer, which
kept out rain and rheumatism, which
could be darned and redarned, and
worn down to the thread, are now
yielding to textures which, for trade
purposes, bear the same name, but of
which the properties have nothing in
common with the original. 1t is the
German bagman, too, who has brought
to Sofia the hts of shoddy that shrink
at the touch of water, the printed
cotton stuffs of which the colors are
warranted fast-that is. fast to disap-
pear; the watches, guaranteed for
twelve.month. and which go for
just that length of time-nO more-and
the gimcrack furniture which limps,
turns scaly, will not lock, and misbe-
HAYES itself in a dozen other ways in
the new houses of the European
quarter.
Dashing through the Turkish streets
of the city as hard as the coachman can
drive-for no isvotcshik ever yet en-
tered an Oriental town without acting
as if he meant to run over the inhab-
itants-one finds the modern part of
Sofia looking like new watering place
that is just becoming fashionable. The
Princes palace might well pass for the
customary casino. In front of it is
large public garden where military
bands play; hard by is the principal
hotel, with seasiee pr ceS, couple of
large cafes, with French and German
newspapers, billiards and Ger: row of
good shops, cab stand and hundred
yards of pavement which is the favorite
lounge of well-dressed officers and, in
stirring times, of politicians and news
paper correspondents. In the adjoining
streets there are many gaps of waste
land; but the whole assemblage of new
government and consular buildings
and private villas of one or two stories
is clean and pretty. The British agency
occupies a substantial block; the Rus
sian consulate is a palace of somewhat
,oretentious style; the residence of the
Austro-Hungarian agent, with its turret
and long glass veranda, sug guests some
such name as Bellevue or Belvidere
mansion. Then there is the well-situ-
ated and captallymanag9d Union Club,
which is great boon to the diplomatic
body and to strangers. Altogether
Sofia has much more promising APP
pearance than Belgrade, AMI the whole
atmosphere of the town is that of
place where the inhabitants are accus-
toned to act for themselves, and are
not afraid to speak out their minds
Cor LO11don Times.