In the early spring of 1876 the Governor of Philippopolis telegraphed to Constantinople that there would soon. be trouble in his province, but that he would guarantee the peace if he could have a reinforcement of one battalion of cavalry. This demand was repeated several times, but no attention was paid to it. It would have been easy to prevent an outbreak, but, for some reason, it was rather encouraged than otherwise. There has been much speculation as to the motives which led the Turkish Government to take this course, and those who see the hand of Russia in everything attribute it to the influence of General Ignatieff; but the probability is that the Turks foresaw that a war with Servia was inevitable, and feared that, when it broke out, it would be followed by a rebellion in Roumelia, which would cut the Turkish line of communication with the frontier. It was thought better to encourage a weak insurrection before the war, and then put it down in such a way as to strike terror into the hearts of the people and prevent any possibility of trouble afterwards.

If this was the plan, it was a success, but there was a recoil upon which the Turks had not counted. They had taken every precaution against publicity which was possible; all communication with the province was cut off; but it was not long before the whole civilized world was excited by the story of the Bulgarian massacres, and Turkey was irrevocably condemned. For her it was a fatal blunder for which nothing could atone. She lost the protection of England. She was condemned by Europe. She was left to contend alone with Russia. She was dismembered by the Congress of Berlin, because public opinion would not tolerate a Government which had deliberately planned and executed

the Bulgarian massacres. England sought to save Turkey in the autumn of 1876, and again at the Conference. Even Sir Henry Elliot used all his influence in the summer to put an end to these atrocities; but all this friendly counsel was wasted, and, to this day, the Turks cannot understand how they lost the friendship and protection of the Western Powers.

The result astonished the Bulgarians almost as much as it did the Turks. There are many who seem to suppose that these people deliberately had themselves massacred in order to secure the sympathy of Europe. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They detested the Turkish rule, as do all the Christian subjects of the Porte, but they had no hope of escaping from it. The insignificant insurrection in the province of Philippopolis was the work of the Bucharest Committee, and was led by an enthusiastic young Bulgarian who called himself Benkovski, a native of Koprivshtitza. No doubt he, and the boys and peasants who followed him, imagined that they could rouse the nation and drive out the Turks, or at least maintain themselves until war was declared by Servia; but the people generally had no sympathy with the rebellion, and no faith in the possibility of defending themselves against the Turks.

While the massacres were going on, the Bulgarians made no appeal to Europe, and had no idea that Europe had any interest in them. A single man in Philippopolis found means to communicate the facts secretly to a friend in Constantinople, who gave them to the correspondents of the Times and the Daily News, and at the same time communicated them to Sir Henry Elliot. From the commencement of the massacres in May until the arrival of Mr. Baring and Mr. Schuyler in Philippopolis in July, the feeling of the people was of utter hopelessness and helplessness. In September, when it became known that their sufferings had excited intense sympathy in England, then, for the first time, they began to hope that all this blood had not been shed in vain-tha there was a possibility of securing some degree of self-government. In January, 1877, they would have accepted the plan of the Conference with grateful enthusi

asm.

It was not until the Russian armies had crossed the Danube that they began to hope for deliverance from Turkish rule. Then large numbers joined the Russian army as volunteers, and General Skobeloff testifies that he had no better or braver soldiers. But the horrors of that summer effaced all recollection of the massacres of the previous year. There was a reign of terror in Roumelia, after General Gourko's raid across the Balkans, which rivalled the most terrible scenes of the Greek Revolution.

There is no doubt but that Suleiman Pacha deliberately undertook to exterminate the Christian population and execute the oft-repeated threat, that when the Turks left Roumelia they would leave nothing but a desert behind them. How far he acted under orders from Constantinople is a disputed question, but he claims to have done nothing without the express approval of the Sultan. When the war was over and the Treaty of St. Stephanos had been signed, the Bulgarians believed that their freedom from Turkish rule had been secured. They were not altogether satisfied, because a part of their territory had been given to Roumania, and another part to Servia, but they accepted their freedom as cheaply bought at this price. They had no fear of the Congress of Berlin, and took no pains to be represented there, for they had no idea that the Powers who had agreed to the protocol of Constantinople could have any desire to restore the Turkish rule in Bulgaria. When the treaty was published, their surprise was almost as great as their disappointment. They saw at once that these decisions were due to the influence of Austria and England; and it was universally believed that these Powers intended to overwhelm the Bulgarian population of Roumelia by the importation, not only of the former Turkish population, who had fled at the approach of the Russian armies, but also of the whole Mussulman population from beyond the Balkans.

Then commenced an agitation, which has continued ever since, and which has given rise to many regrettable events. No Russian influence was needed to fan the flame, and, in fact, there has been no uniform Russian policy in Bulgaria.

There has been no unity of opinion or of action among the Russian civil and military authorities. The most contradictory advice has been given by different men, and by the same men at different times. Not unfrequently the Bulgarians have been blamed and even punished for doing exactly what they had been advised to do. Russian influence has been diminishing rather than increasing since the signature of the Treaty of Berlin. The rivalries and jealousies of the leading generals have done much to produce this state of things. Still they have generally sympathized with the aspirations of the Bulgarians. They have encouraged them to resist the return of the Turks to Roumelia, and have done what they could to hasten and perfect the organization of a Bulgarian army. The agitation in Bulgaria is genuine, spontaneous, and, at least, excusable. The Bulgarians have been determined for months to resist the return of the Turkish troops to the Balkans. They regard this occupation as an attempt to separate Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia by force, and, moreover, they foresee the evils which must result from the permanent encampment of a large, hostile army in the midst of the quiet Christian villages of the Balkans. It is no sympathy with Russia, no desire to resist the will of Europe, no wish to threaten Constantinople, that moves the Bulgarians to resist the execution of the Treaty of Berlin. They feel as any other people would feel whose fate had been decided without consulting their interests or their wishes, who had been emancipated from a hated despotism and were about to be placed under it again by force, who had realized the hope of a united nationality and found themselves divided again to gratify the ambitious dreams of a kingdom like Austria. The Turks can never regain possession of the Balkans except by war, and no one can blame the Bulgarians for defending their country. the part of the Turks the desire to do this is simply a matter of pride. They have no possible advantage to gain from it.

They have not the means to build great fortresses and maintain a powerful army in the midst of a hostile population in the isolated passes of the Balkans. Such an occupation would be of little value with Shumla, Sofia, and the north

ern slopes of the Balkan in the hands of an enemy. It would be the worst possible position to occupy for the defence of Constantinople. The chief result of such an occupation would be to change the Bulgarians from the most peaceable and unwarlike people in European Turkey into a nation of soldiers. This is as undesirable for Turkey as for Bulgaria. The European Commission, which has been elaborating a Constitution for Eastern Roumelia, has no doubt done its best to give the people as good a government as the Treaty of Berlin would allow, but it complains that the Bulgarians are ungrateful. It is true that they have not manifested much sympathy for the Commission, and would probably have prevented its meeting at Philippopolis if it had not been protected by Russian bayonets, but their hostility has resulted simply from their desire to be united to Bulgaria. They had no other means of protesting against the Treaty of Berlin. They may have acted unwisely, but no Englishman would think of denying their right to protest, or of blaming them for not gratefully accepting a government imposed upon them by

force.

Beyond the Balkans, in Tirnova, the ancient capital, an assembly met on February 22nd to adopt a Constitution and choose a prince. This assembly and its work have been so fully described by the correspondents of London papers that nothing more needs to be said of it. Mr. Palgrave, H.B.M. Consul-General, who has been in Tirnova during the session, reports most favorably of the intelligence, liberality, and good sense of the members, whose chief fault has been their inexperience.

Much has been written since the massacres of 1876 in regard to the character of the Bulgarian people. There has been some indiscriminate praise and much unqualified abuse. But few of these writers have had such personal knowledge of the people as could qualify them to express an opinion. Newspaper correspondents have visited the country during the war, and many, perhaps most of them, have expressed their opinions honestly on this subject; but these opinions are of little value, because they were necessarily based upon very imperfect knowledge of the people, under very un

favorable circumstances. Many books have been written by residents in different parts of the country, but in many cases they have drawn the most false and absurd conclusions from their local experience. In one case at least the author of a popular book has mistaken the language and nationality of the people among whom he lived. The most honest, impartial, and satisfactory book is that of Mrs. Blunt, the wife of H.B.M. Consul at Salonica, "Twenty Years' Residence among the People of Turkey ;" but "a Consul's wife and daughter" is not always in a position to form a just estimate of the character of people whose language she does not understand, and of whom she sees but little.

There are special reasons why it is difficult to form a general estimate of the character of the Bulgarians. It must be remembered that they have been under the bondage of the Turks for five hundred years, and under that of the Patriarch for a hundred years. Forty years ago their condition was worse than that of the serfs of Russia, and it was almost an insult to call a man a Bulgarian. The awakening of national life from this sleep of centuries has been one of the most remarkable events in the history of Europe, and the intellectual development of the people has gone on with unprecedented rapidity, but it had exerted only a limited influence upon the peasantry when the disturbances commenced in 1876. The progress of education and enlightenment had been confined to the towns and larger villages, where the people enjoyed a certain degree of liberty, and had learned how to secure protection for their lives, honor, and property by a judicious use of backsheesh.

There are certain national characteristics which may be mentioned as common to all Bulgarians, but in many respects there is a very marked difference between the peasants and the townspeople. As a whole, the Bulgarians are more decidedly Europeans than any other nationality in the Turkish Empire. They are not unlike the Germans. a race they are both industrious and frugal-far more so than any other race in Turkey. The latter of these virtues is often carried to an unpleasant extreme, but the former is seen to advantage in all classes. The Bulgarian stu

As

dent, for example, applies himself to his books with a devotion and patient perseverance which more than compensate for any lack of brilliancy. He generally attains the highest rank in scholarship by means of hard work rather than from any natural love of learning; but this last will be developed with the growth of the nation. Thus far schools have been established chiefly from patriotic motives-from a feeling that it was only by education that the people could be elevated to the rank of a civilized nation.

Another national trait is obstinacy, which is perhaps nothing more than an excess of the virtue of perseverance, or possibly a development of conservatism. The Bulgarian is slow to accept new ideas, but when he has once adopted them no amount of persuasion, persecution, or suffering will move him to abandon them. This spirit of obstinacy has given the Bulgarians the reputation of being quarrelsome, and in one sense they are so they are disputatious; but, as a general rule, not passionate or revengeful. This spirit naturally leads to an excessive development of individuality, which is at present a source of weakness in the nation, but which will probably disappear, in some measure, as the necessities of national life develop parties, and as certain men come to be recognized as leaders.

The Bulgarians are eminently religious, and are virtuous in their family relations; but their religion is, of course, tainted with the superstition which is always developed by ignorance, and their morality is perverted by the lack of honesty and truthfulness which is always found in a subject race. Still, in all these particulars, they compare very favorably with the other Christian races in Turkey. In all the Eastern Churches there is a lack of spiritual life, which results from the fact that the ecclesiastical organizations are rather political than religious in their character. This is especially true of the Greek and Bulgarian Churches, but there is a very strong feeling among the Bulgarians that henceforth the Church must devote itself to spiritual affairs, and abstain from all interference with politics. The American missionaries in Bulgaria have been well received by the people, and have met

with very little opposition. In the exclusively Bulgarian villages, where the character of the people is best seen, the tone of morality is high. Crime is almost unknown. Poverty and drunkenness are rare, and the family life is pure and civilized, though patriarchal in its character. The Bulgarians are essentially Democratic in their ideas, although there is no inclination towards a Republican form of Government as in Greece. It is rather the idea of social equality and equal rights. They not only have no aristocracy, but there are no servile expressions or elaborate titles in the Bulgarian language. These expressions have only been used in their relations with the Turks, and this intercourse has always been carried on in the Turkish language. Such titles and expressions are therefore associated in their minds with the hated despotism of their Mohammedan oppressors, and can never be applied to Bulgarians. This spirit has been manifested in the assembly at Tirnova in such a manner as to astonish the Russians, and it has attracted the attention of the Commission at Philippopolis. Three years ago a certain class of writers represented the Bulgarians as no better than sheep. The same writers now denounce them as wolves, always ready to devour meek and innocent Turks. The truth is simply this-the Bulgarian peasant has been for five hundred years in hopeless bondage. He has suffered from the Turks such indignities as have never been inflicted upon the Christians of Asia Minor. It has been no unusual thing for him to find himself suddenly deprived of his property by an edict of which he had never heard. It has been no rare occurrence for a Turk to mount upon his back and compel him to carry him to the next town. His daughters were often carried off by force to Turkish harems; and when a Moslem Bey entered his village, he ate up his provisions, ravished his wife or daughters, and often took his life. For all this there was no redress. The Turkish police were his worst enemies. Within five years they have inflicted the most horrible tortures upon peasants who had not the means to pay their taxes. It is no doubt true that in 1876, when these outrages were carried on upon a larger scale, the Bulgarians, in their hopeless

ness, submitted to their fate very much like sheep. It is also true that since the war these ignorant peasants have often revenged themselves upon the Turks, and have resisted their return to Eastern Roumelia. If this is not very Christian, it is at least very human. These Bulgarian peasants are in fact neither sheep nor wolves. They are simply men, possessing the good and the bad qualities of their race, debased by ignorance and oppression, brought too suddenly from bondage to comparative freedom, but naturally quiet, industrious, frugal, and capable of a higher civilization than any race in Turkey.

It was unfortunate for the Bulgarians that the great crisis in their history came when it did. They were not ready for it. Ten years longer under Turkish rule, especially if this could have been modified as was proposed by the Conference of Constantinople, would have consolidated the nation, reconciled the Greeks to the idea of union with the Bulgarians, given time for the extension of the public schools from the towns to the villages, and for a more general elevation of the people. It would have given the people recognized and trusted leaders. There are now many well-educated, clever young men in the country, but they are not generally known, and they have not the age and experience which are necessary to command full respect and confidence. There are men who have local influence, but there is not one who is recognized as a leader of the nation. The plan agreed upon by the Conference of Constantinople was exactly adapted to the actual condition of the nation. It would, no doubt, have resulted in the ultimate dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, but this change would have come gradually, and possibly without any war. After the war this scheme was impracticable. Then the Bulgaria of the St. Stephanos Treaty, with some modifications perhaps, was the best solution possible, but it was replaced at Berlin by an arrangement which was very nearly the worst possible for every one concerned, except Russia and Austria. For them it has the advantage of securing continued anarchy and confusion in European Turkey.

Under this Berlin Treaty it is impos

I

sible to foresee what will be the political affinities of the Bulgarians in the future. Just now the European Powers seem to be vying with each other in the effort to force the Bulgarians to look to Russia as their only friend and possible ally. In the spring of 1875, before the outbreak in Herzegovina, I made a tour in Bulgaria, and made a special effort to ascertain the feeling of the people in regard to the different European Powers. found an unexpected unanimity of opinion. The only Power universally feared and hated was Austria. In regard to Russia there were various shades of opinion; but there was a general feeling that Bulgaria had much to hope from her hostility to Turkey, and much to fear from her ambition to extend her territory. She would no doubt improve the first opportunity to deliver them. from the Turks, but she might annex them to herself afterwards. They would rather take their chance, and wait for Turkey to fall to pieces, than be swallowed up in Russia; for it was the reality of a Bulgarian nation, and not the dream of Panslavism, in which they were interested. In regard to England, the question was always asked, how it was that a free Christian State could be the ally and defender of Moslem despotism? They would prefer the friendship of England to that of any other Power, but they saw no hope of ever securing it. After the massacres, and at the time of the Conference, there was a complete change of feeling. The people were filled with hope that, at last, they might count upon the friendship and protection of England; but the Congress at Berlin and the alliance with Austria have brought back the old feeling that English diplomacy is an inscrutable mystery. They manifested very little interest in Italy or Germany, but France was always spoken of with enthusiasm. This feeling in regard to France seemed to result in part from the vigor with which French Consuls defended the rights of the Christians, but still more from the conduct of France in the Italian war of 1859. The influence of this war upon the Christian nationalities in Turkey has not been noticed by European writers; but, in fact, it marked the beginning of a new era. Up to that time the Christians of Turkey had no idea of national