An Observer in the Near East

by William Le Queux

As a matter of fact, a few days later, accompanied by my friend, M. Dimitri Stancioff, of the Commercial Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and M. Mandersheff, another functionary from the same Ministry, we took carriages out to the picturesque village of Vladaja, some seventeen kilometres from Sofia on the broad highroad that leads to Kustendil and Macedonia. The drive was a delightful one in the bright winter sunshine, through a fertile undulating country, until, turning off from the well-kept military road, we found ourselves in a small village lying in a deep dark ravine.

Here the costumes were very quaint and interesting, the men in long blouses of white blanket-like woollen stuff trimmed with black, raw-hide shoes, and their legs bound with leather thongs; while the women and girls wore gay colours, short lace-edged petticoats, and quantities of gold sequins and coins about their necks. Some of those strings of coins were worth at least from fifteen to twenty pounds.

Our journey of investigation was distinctly humorous. Sometimes the four of us could not agree as to the personal beauty of a fair candidate for the approbation of the British public, while those we spoke to were mostly shy to answer our questions. Many of the village girls flatly refused to leave their homes unless their lovers were also employed in the Exhibition, but after much explanation, a good deal of chaff, and considerable giggling, the names of several were taken in order that inquiries should be made of the village Mayor before the presentation and signature of their agreement, which provided for their fare to London, the payment of their wages, their insurance for the benefit of their family in case of accident, and their safe return to Bulgaria at the termination of the Exhibition.

We engaged one flute-player—a tall, dark-faced young giant in sheepskins—after he had displayed his aptness with his instrument. The local han, wherein we rested, drank rakhi, and ate cream-cheese, was a big common room with earthen floor. In the centre was a large stove, upon which was cooking some steaming dish with appetising odour. Around us sat dozens of huge burly fellows, bulky in their sheepskins, gossiping and drinking wine, a fierce-looking assembly, to be sure, and yet withal extremely good-humoured.

After a while, the village musician was discovered, a short little fellow who played a quaint kind of two-stringed violin, and almost as soon as he sounded the weird, plaintive music, young girls with flowers entwined in their long plaited tresses, and others, slightly older, with the white handkerchiefs on their heads—the badge of matrimony—came trooping forth to perform for us the national dance—the horo.

Forming in a line, the youths and maidens crossed arms, linked their hands in each other’s belts, and then began a curious kind of dance, keeping step with the music and ever advancing and retreating, keeping it up for a full half-hour. Now and then the tune was changed, and with the tune the dance.

In the clear Eastern afterglow of evening, with the thin crescent moon slowly rising, it was a quaint and curious scene. The weird music, the strange costumes, the cries of the dancers, and the merry laughter of the girls, will long live within my memory as a picture worthy the brush of a great painter.

And as we drove back to Sofia through the silent, starlit night, I wondered what impression those simple-minded folk, so far removed from Western civilisation, would receive of our fairy-lamps, pasteboard, tinsel, imitation mountains, brass bands, and water-chute at Earl’s Court!

What would be the stories of their adventures in West Kensington and the wonders of London when they returned to remote Vladaja?

I had, like every other Englishman, always regarded Bulgaria as a terra incognita, where local manufactures were absent and where most goods were imported. Therefore a surprise awaited me one day when Monsieur M. V. Lascoff, Director of the Bulgarian Commercial and Industrial Museum at Sofia, took me round that institution, and showed me specimens of the various goods produced in the country. In the museum was a most wonderful collection of articles representing the manufactures of Bulgaria, ranging from violins to soap, and from table-covers manufactured from beautifully embroidered jacket sleeves to writing-ink and tinned fruits.