The Balkan Trail

by Frederick Ferdinand Moore

The old peasant gripped the bridle of his horse as if someone were trying to rob him of the animal, and followed the very words of the deal as they passed from one man to the other. After a long wrangle a price was finally agreed upon, and the money was produced in the form of Bulgarian bank-notes.

A gleam of joy came over the old man’s face when the currency was first laid in his hands, but it died away almost instantly, giving place to one of hopeless bewilderment; he could not count so much money. He asked my friend if he was not swindling him, and then he asked the mayor, and again and again they each counted the notes over. It was pitiable. He said he had received many pieces of paper from Turkish ‘effendi,’ and they were never worth anything (the Turkish army has a way of giving paper promises for goods and labour).

‘You are no longer a Turkish subject,’ said the mayor.

He finally loosened his grip on the bridle, but as he delivered over the animal a last pang of fear struck his heart, and he turned hastily about in search of something. Spying me at a little distance off, he came shuffling towards me as fast as his old legs would carry him. I had left the scene and gone over to inspect the buffaloes lying quietly covered with their masters’ coats of goats’ hair. The old peasant made his way among the beasts to where I was, and thrust the roll of bills at me, pleading something in Bulgarian. The mayor shouted to him that I did not understand Bulgarian; but I understood the old man, and tried to put his mind at ease as to whether he possessed three hundred good gold francs.

The older peasants of Bulgaria are nearly all illiterate, but State schools teach the younger generations to read and write. Many of the older inhabitants understand the Turkish language; the younger Bulgars are learning French.

They are building a national opera-house in Sofia, and strangers are always taken to see the work. At present there is only one playhouse in the town, a Turkish theatre. One evening I was invited by Boris Sarafoff, the Macedonian leader, to be one of a box party to witness a performance at this place. It was during the war in the Far East, and the other guests of the insurgent were a Japanese and a Russian who happened to be in Sofia at the time. Gathered from the four corners of the earth, it was natural that no two of us thoroughly agreed on any one point, but each was tolerant of the others. As for Sarafoff, more anon; here, ‘the play’s the thing.’

Our box cost the sum of five francs; it was the best in the house with the exception of the royal box. There were seats to be had for twenty and standing room for ten centimes. The building was a rough wooden barn, rather rickety, whitewashed inside. From the single gallery hung hand-painted works of art only equalled by the mural decorations at Rilo. The pictures were grotesque and ludicrous. They portrayed the absurdities of the Turk, his peculiar way of doing things, and his chronic inclination to rest. The band, which vied with the pictures in keeping early arrivals in good humour until the curtain rose, was composed of a fair young lady who beat the drum, a bald bass violinist, a stout matron who blew the cornet, and two or three normal musicians—all led by a youth of not more than fifteen. The work of the band, however, was more artistic than that of the painter, which was well for it, because the music was not included in the price of admission. When the play began the beauty who beat the drum left her instrument to pass a plate among the audience in the same manner that a collection is taken in church. But this was not the only collection to be made. Between the acts the actresses appeared by turns in the house. After the band the leading lady had first draught on the audience. The lady who simply walked on got the last pull—and got what she deserved.

The plays presented at the Turkish theatre are all comedies. The language employed is Turkish; the principal characters are Turks; the actors are Armenians. The leading man is a splendid actor. His impersonation of a Turkish pasha, with all that functionary’s suspicion and corruption, was done with such extravagance, and yet such delicacy, that the Jap, the Russian, and myself, as well as Sarafoff, were highly amused.

The Turk is the subject of much of the Bulgarian’s humour as well as his wrath. He is to the Bulgar very much what the Irishman is to the Englishman, the funny as well as the exasperating man. The Bulgarian peasants are usually on the best of terms with the Turks in their land. They generally treat them with fairness and consideration. But on occasions insurgent bands which have met with defeat across the border have avenged themselves on Mohamedans in Bulgaria. But such slaughters happen with less and less frequency, and on an ever-diminishing scale. Except for individual slaughters, none has taken place for more than ten years. The Government is jealous of its case against the Turk, and has been most zealous in its efforts to prevent murders of Mohamedans ever since the day Prince Alexander, on ascending the new throne, visited the mosque of Sofia in token of respect for the religion of his Turkish subjects. On the whole, the Mohamedan in Bulgaria is better off than his brother in Turkey, who, except that he holds the position of the man with the gun, suffers under the Ottoman rule almost or quite as much as does the Christian. Nevertheless, there is a continuous exodus from Bulgaria of Turks and Pomaks (Bulgarians converted to Mohamedanism) to the land where the Mohamedan rules. And when these Turks pack their goods and chattels and start to trek, they do not stop until they have passed beyond the Bosphorus. They seem to think—as many men have thought for many years—that the day of Turkish power in Europe will soon be past.

The Prince of Bulgaria is a shrewd monarch, but he is not much loved. There are parties which think Prince Ferdinand too subservient to the Russian Government, and parties which think him too independent of the Czar; parties which think him ambitious, and say that he would be a king, and still others which say he cares too little for the man in the sheepskin coat to risk his princely crown in a military venture. I went down, by special invitation, on a private train, to see his Highness cut the ribbon that stretched across the newly finished port of Bourgas. After the cannon had signalled the fact that the harbour was open to the commerce of the world, Prince Ferdinand turned from the end of the pier and strode back towards the shore, shaking hands and chatting a moment, with, as I thought, everybody. When he came to me I extended my hand as I would to Mr. Roosevelt, but the Prince stood still and fixed me with a withering glare. Another correspondent acquainted with us both came to the rescue and presented me to the Prince. The Prince mustered his English, which he said he had not employed for many a year, and conversed with me in my own tongue for quite five minutes. But he did not apologise for his rudeness.