The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-11-01

for dealing in such stock as comes na- turally within the scope of peasant sale and barter. where prices and conditions are more liable to variation, and where there is blessed possibility of haggling. The seller of fruit and vegerapies, cheese, and chickens is on surer ground, and his occupation is more congenial to his un- derstanding than is the case with the hardware dealer. There is, perhaps, a gltit of cherries to be disposed of hastily, or hen which must be induced to re- new her youth like the eagle in the. eyes of the unwary customer, and there is much occasion for conversation. While the regular trade shops are dull and dingy affairs. the market stalls and greengrocers' booths are eenters of bus tie. and even these do not exhaust the &C., tivities of the traffic in country produce. The edge of a sidewalk in a busy streee is a favorite resting place for the out door trader, who will squat down beside his tray of eggs, swalnuts ana snails, be- guiling his time by whstling a bubbling reed tune on his pipes, and stopping now and then to replace a snail which has crawled adventurously away from it's fel- lows.
 At the moment of writing the maize is scarcely ripe in the cornfelds around Sofia, but boiled heads of maize. pre- sumably from the early harvest in south ern Bulgaria, are already being hawk ed around the streets an article of light refreshment. Beyond the town linn ; it's. in his more particular domain of : fields and byroads. the peasant appears as cheerful. canny quite immovable in- dividual, a primitive son of the village, with less of human responsiveness than one expects from an average fox-terrier. He will let his dogs bay and snap around your horses heels with absolue un- concern for your possible discomfort at their performance, though if you transfer your chiding from their heads to his sense of possible. personal unpleasantness in store may store him into perfunctory attempt at calling them off If you killed his dog a bitter sense of Injustice and wrongdoing toward his property would probably rouse him to discreet fury. for the sin against the personal pronoun is cardinal offense in his eyes.
 The Slav has not the love of animals and children which exists among his Turkish neighbors and many Asiatic peo- pies. Of the beasts of the byre he sets the greatest store on the placid power ful buffalo, whose qualities make it a valuable factor on the farm lands, and my lord. the buffalo takes the-place in his estimation of "my lord, the elephant with the Indian cutivator. Being beast of certain important requirements with regard to his health and serviceability. In summer, during the hot, dry weather nearly every buffalo cart is furnished with a long poie at the end of which tin can is fastened, and when a conven- tent ditch is met with, too much to per init of wallowing. the can comes into play as ladle. wherewith the mud and water are scooped up and drenched over the hide of the appreciative beasts. The crowning mercy of the bnffalos working day, however, comes when he is unyoked and driven to some neighboring pool for his evening bath. With one rolling splash he sinks into it's muddy depths, freed in an instant from prosecuting swarm of flies, and lies by the half hour with nothing above the surface but ears, nos trils. and wild, staring eyes, possessed no doubt with a huge contentment and having the appearance or submerged ffend.