Chapter VIII: Part II: Bulgaria (2)

The city covers a considerable area, and looks as if a building boom had been suddenly checked, which is true. Prince Alexander was a great promoter. Under his administration Bulgaria made extraordinary progress, and Sofia started upon a promising career. Stambouloff took up the work where Alexander left it at his abdication, and carried out many of his schemes, but since the “Bulgarian Bismarck” was relieved as prime minister, little has been done in the way of public or private improvement. The stagnation is said to be due in a measure to a lack of confidence in the stability of the present government, and to the fact that Prince Ferdinand is interested in other things. One must infer that he takes little pride in the appearance of his capital and does not encourage the expenditure of money upon public works.

Shortly before he retired, Stambouloff purchased an entire block of ground opposite the palace, upon which he intended to erect a magnificent building for the offices of the government. The plans were drawn by an Austrian architect, excavations were made for the foundation and cellars, and a large quantity of cut stone was delivered by the contractors. A few days after Stambouloff’s retirement work was suspended and has never been resumed. Several train loads of granite lie scattered over the ground; the cellar is half-filled with water during the wet season and overgrown with weeds during the dry months. Every stranger who comes to Sofia instinctively asks an explanation, but Prince Ferdinand, who always has this reproachful panorama before him, seems to be entirely indifferent to it. The palace is a fine building in French style, surrounded by pleasant grounds, and facing a public park that is well laid out with foliage plants and fountains, and is a pleasure ground for the people.

The old city, or the Turkish quarter, as it is called, resembles a patch of Constantinople, and has the low adobe walls, the heavy tiled roofs, the deep windows and the narrow streets of all oriental cities, with long blocks of bazaars kept by Turks and Jews, who have most of their wares displayed upon the sidewalks. This is by far the most interesting section of the town to strangers. The shops are open, so that the visitor is enabled to watch the artisans at their work. The trades seem to be grouped together--the shoemakers in one bunch, the tailors in another, the butchers, bakers, brassworkers, tinsmiths and other people in the same trade occupying adjoining houses.

Most of the natives wear unshorn sheepskin clothing, with the wool next to the body, the leather side being tanned to a soft white, velvety appearance like buckskin; and the most interesting occupation is that of the tailors, who make all sorts of queer-looking garments from sheepskins. Many of the men wear short jackets of the Eton pattern, but as the weather grows colder they change them for warmer garments, and some have long ulsters with wide skirts which reach to their heels. The rest of their clothing is the natural color of the wool woven into heavy fabrics; their headgear is made of lamb’s wool curled like the skating caps sometimes worn in the United States. They are called _kalpaks_.

In the new part of the city the streets are wide, and in the business portion are lined with fine buildings of stuccoed brick, ornamented with elaborate moldings similar to those of Germany and Austria. The residence portion is only partially built up, there being wide gaps between the houses, showing the town lots that have been held for speculative purposes and where building schemes have been abandoned. If Sofia were as closely built as the ordinary European city it could accommodate three times its present population. Occasionally a stately residence rises from behind a forbidding wall. The foliage around it indicates a garden, but Bulgarian civilization has not passed the period when it is prudent to omit any means of protection. The streets and sidewalks are in a horrible condition. In the business portion of the city the roadways are paved with cobblestones and the sidewalks are well laid with flags, tiles and bricks. Each householder in the residence portion is expected to lay the sidewalk in front of his premises, but many of them neglect to do so.

Several imposing buildings were erected for government purposes during the reign of Prince Alexander, usually of French architecture, and among other things a Protestant church (he was a Lutheran), which Ferdinand has converted into a riding-school. The military barracks, schoolhouses, the public printing office, a technical school and other public buildings are creditable, but lose much of their dignity by being scattered over the city, with unsightly spaces of open ground and half-finished buildings that have been abandoned between them. Several former Turkish mosques have been converted to secular uses and are now occupied as prisons, markets, warehouses and arsenals. The largest mosque, in the center of the city, and only a stone’s throw from the palace, was recently fitted up for a national museum.

Although Sofia is still primitive in many respects, modern ideas are rapidly growing in favor and there is nothing in the new part of the town to recall the recent Turkish occupation. The citizens very generally wear modern European clothing. The only place one can see the native costume is at the market in the early morning, where the country people bring vegetables and dairy products for sale. There are two hotels with comfortable rooms and excellent tables, a club that would be an ornament to any city in Europe, and other features of modern civilization quite as advanced as are to be found in Austria or Germany. The streets, public buildings, hotels and many private houses are lighted by electricity. Electric street-cars run in every direction, owned and managed by a Belgian company. The fare is three cents for first-class passengers and two cents for second-class. The cars are divided in the middle by a partition, and the only difference between the two classes is that one sits upon red-plush cushions and the other upon wooden benches. The conductors change the cushions from one part of the car to the other at each end of the trip.

The Bulgarian army is composed of thirty thousand men, well drilled, equipped in the German style, and organized by Russian officers upon the Russian system. Every man between the ages of twenty and twenty-four years is obliged to do military duty for four years, although Mohammedans may escape service by the payment of a special tax. Persons exempted on account of infirmities are also required to pay special taxes. On an average forty thousand young men become of military age annually, but, as the government does not need and cannot pay so many, about one-third of this number are drawn by lot for service, so that the actual time spent in the army is two years instead of five as required by law. The reserves, numbering about 200,000, can be called into service upon a few days’ notice, provided there is money in the treasury to meet the expense. There is a military academy at Sofia at which officers are educated, and to enter that institution and graduate with a commission in the army is the highest ambition of every Bulgarian youth. The officers about town are a handsome lot of fellows, with pleasant manners, fine physique, intelligent faces and soldierly carriage. The natives are all natural horsemen, and a squadron of Bulgarian cavalry is a worthy object of admiration. The uniforms are similar to those of Germany. None but an expert could distinguish the difference, and the garrison of Sofia must be very large, because uniformed men are so numerous in the streets. The army is kept up to a high degree of efficiency because trouble with Turkey is always anticipated, and may occur at any moment. The Bulgarians have dedicated themselves as a nation to the emancipation of their neighbors and relatives in Macedonia, and are only waiting a favorable opportunity to strike. Their great difficulty is money. Their treasury is empty and their national credit is exhausted, but they will seize every opportunity that is offered for a _coup d’état_. Politics seems to monopolize the attention of everybody, and the entire Bulgarian population is involved in a perpetual intrigue with the freedom of the Macedonians as its object.

The native horses are small, but nervy and enduring. Domesticated buffaloes of the Asiatic species are used for draft animals. They are not so noble in appearance as the great American bison. Their necks are not shaggy, their heads are smaller and more like that of ordinary oxen. Their coats are smooth and sleek, and the only resemblance to the bison which formerly roamed over our prairies is the horns.

There are several excellent schools in Sofia. The technical school at the foot of the mountain in the suburbs of the city is a model institution, and one of the most interesting and complete of its kind I have ever visited. It gives a practical training in the trades and applied sciences to one hundred or more young men. The standard of education is not high, but that is not needed in Bulgaria. What the country requires is a practical training of its mechanics in the different trades, as the people are generally devoted to agriculture and most of the artisans are foreigners.

The working classes are comparatively well off. There is no lack of employment for all those who are willing to work, and there is a growing demand for skilled mechanics, who receive much higher wages than in Germany and Austria. Masons, carpenters, cabinet-makers, painters, stone-cutters and other skilled laborers earn from $1.25 to $2.50 a day, and ordinary laborers earn from forty to eighty cents a day, which is nearly double the average earnings of people of the same classes in other European countries.

Meat and vegetables are cheap, and the diet of the laboring people is much more nourishing than is usual throughout Europe. The family of a Bulgarian laborer is quite as well fed as are their brethren in the United States. Except in the large cities the peasantry live upon their own produce and dress in garments of sheepskin, cotton or wool, that are made by themselves. Taxes are moderate, compared with Germany and France; they are no greater than in Norway and Sweden, although the peasants complain bitterly of the extravagance of Prince Ferdinand and the amount of money spent for military purposes. The working classes are ardent politicians and are devoted to the cause of Macedonian freedom. They contribute their money as liberally and as patiently as the servant girls in the United States to the Irish cause, and their faith is not weakened by the knowledge that the funds are often squandered in dissipation by their leaders.

The administration of justice is mild, the police system is purely political, and, while the management of the courts is perhaps not as perfect as in more highly civilized countries, I am told that bribery is unknown. Political influence, and particularly the “pull” of the Macedonian Committee, is all-powerful, however. It is practically out of the question to convict of crime any man who has been active or conspicuous in this patriotic movement. It appears possible for any disreputable fellow to violate all the ten commandments with impunity so long as he goes about the cafés shouting the battle cry of freedom for Macedonia.

The Jewish population of the Bulgarian cities is quite large and practically monopolizes the banking and mercantile business. They are the descendants of the large colony of Jews who were expelled from Spain during the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella and Philip II. and found their way by the Mediterranean to the Balkan Provinces. The Spanish language is still spoken in their intercourse among themselves. While the Jews are not persecuted in Bulgaria as in Roumania, they are ostracized and subjected to much injustice. It is not considered dishonest to swindle a Jew if such a thing is possible, and they are contemptuously and roughly treated; but, on the other hand, they are in a great measure to blame for the prejudice against them because of their sharp practices and extortionate methods in business affairs. They have no mercy upon a Christian if he once gets into their power, and the spirit of retaliation seems quite as strong with them as with their enemies.

Generally speaking, Bulgaria has no manufactories, although mechanical industries of various sorts are being introduced upon a small scale. There is plenty of convenient water-power and raw material. The mineral wealth of the country is mythical. There are stories of deposits of coal and ores in the mountains, but they are unexplored. Ninety-five per cent of the population are engaged in agriculture, and the peasants are in a fairly prosperous condition. They are ingenious as well as industrious, but show little tendency to make use of modern improvements and foreign merchandise, or to depart from the habits of thrift so characteristic of their race. It pays them well to produce and export cattle, sheep, hides, wool, wheat, corn, tobacco, the oil of roses, fruits and vegetables, and to supply their own wants by the work of their own hands as far as possible. Most of their clothing is of wool, grown and sheared upon their own farms, spun and woven in their own cabins, cut and made by the members of their own household. Formerly large quantities of cotton goods were imported from England and Germany, but they have learned that cotton will grow in Bulgaria, and a little patch is now found beside nearly every cabin, which is ginned, spun and woven by the women, like the wool.

Their taste is artistic. The women do beautiful embroidery, and their cotton garments are often handsomely decorated. It is difficult to buy these embroideries, because the work is home-made and intended for home use. The peasants are well-to-do. Their wealth is not only apparent in the flocks and herds which they have accumulated since the emancipation from Turkish tyranny twenty-three years ago, but it is believed that they have large sums of money concealed about their premises. Their experience with avaricious Turkish officials taught them great caution, for in the old days no man could accumulate property without endangering his liberty and usually his life. Nor have they yet acquired faith in banks. Few investments are available for them, and for these reasons they bury their surplus money in the ground. One of the strongest evidences of this practice is the continual disappearance of Bulgarian coin from circulation. Nobody seems to know what becomes of it. It cannot be shipped to foreign countries, because the balance of trade is in favor of Bulgaria; and it is not used in the arts and industries. Yet it disappears almost as fast as it is coined, and the only explanation offered is the prosperity and the secretive habits of the peasants.

An Englishman who traveled through the country and saw much of peasant life says that when he asked a man one day why they hid their money in the ground he answered with surprise:

“Where do the English peasants hide theirs?”

The peasants have the characteristics of the other oriental races, and, in their eagerness to acquire wealth and anxiety to get the best of a bargain, they are not surpassed by the Armenian, Arab, Turk, Greek, or Jew. They are very sharp traders, economical and thrifty in their habits, shrewd in negotiation, and never miss an opportunity to make a penny. The impression there, as in other parts of Europe, is that all Americans are rich and reckless with their money. The hotels, the shopkeepers, hackmen, guides, curio-dealers and everyone else with whom strangers come in contact has a special price for Americans, from twenty to fifty per cent higher than is paid by other people. The waiters and porters expect bigger fees, and the whole community, in fact, considers an American traveler a pigeon to be plucked.

The peasants are industrious, ingenious and intelligent. Both men and women are of fine physique, capable of great endurance, and very few of them are idle or vicious. I noticed but three or four beggars during my visit to Bulgaria, and every one was a cripple. The women do their share of the work on the farms, and seem never to be idle a moment. Holding the distaff in their hands, they spin as they walk along the highway and as they sit behind piles of vegetables in the market waiting for customers. They are so accustomed to it that the work is done unconsciously. They also care for the flocks and herds. Most of the shepherds you see from the highways or the railway trains are children from eight years old and upward, who follow the cattle, sheep and goats over the ranges. The large herds in the mountains far from the towns are kept by men and well-grown boys, and often young women are found among them, who sleep in the open air with sheepskins wrapped around them during the entire winter season.

The hospitality of the peasants is always commented upon by travelers. Whenever you enter a cottage you are cordially welcomed. The oriental laws of hospitality prevail everywhere in Bulgaria and among all classes. No stranger is ever turned from the door if he comes in peace, and the poorest peasant will share his blanket and his bread without the asking, and at the poorest cottage a glass of water or milk, or a bunch of grapes is invariably offered the visitor. Nearly every peasant has a farm of from five to fifteen acres. The cottages of the owners are grouped together in a little village, and the cultivated lands, as in France, usually lie at some distance. There are no fences, and to a stranger the landmarks are obscure. Every family has at least one pair of oxen and forty or fifty sheep, besides cattle, goats, pigs, geese and chickens, all of which are allowed to graze upon the _mera_, or common pasture, which belongs to the government, but has been held by the community from time immemorial. A peasant of one community is not allowed to use the pasture belonging to another unless he owns a hut or garden spot there to give him a title, but there is no limit to the extent of pasture. He may have only ten sheep or cows, or he may have a thousand--they are all entitled to their share of the common range. If a man wishes to sell his place his next-door neighbor has the option. No stranger is permitted to acquire property that any member of the community desires to purchase, and public opinion will regulate the price.

Fruit is plentiful, and in the valleys there is a succession of vineyards which produce an excellent wine. All ordinary vegetables known to the temperate zone are cultivated, and tobacco and cotton grow well. Although the soil has been producing for more than twenty centuries, no fertilizers are used. The revenue from the manufacture of attar of roses amounts to more than $1,000,000 annually. You can buy it in little gilded glass flagons at shops where Turkish goods are sold. The town of Shipka, where was fought the decisive battle of the Russo-Turkish war on the 7th of July, 1877, is the center of the rose gardens. Upon the battlefield are many memorials of that great struggle in the form of monuments, crucifixes, pyramids of cannon balls, cannons and crosses, scattered over a large area, erected by the survivors of different regiments that were engaged in the battle, in memory of their officers and comrades, and many of them mark the burial places of officers and men who distinguished themselves in the fight. In the center of the field is an imposing obelisk erected by Alexander II. of Russia to commemorate the victory of General Gourko, who commanded his troops. It bears an appropriate inscription upon the pedestal, and upon the shaft is engraved a representation of the Russian coat of arms, with crossed rifles and flags beneath it. Upon the top of the shaft is a spear and a cross.

The climate and soil of that part of Bulgaria are unusually favorable for rose culture, and for miles around the fields are full of the most luxuriant roses, which are cultivated like the grapevines in the valleys and on the mountain slopes farther west. The rose fields cover altogether many thousand acres. The bushes are carefully pruned, so that all the strength of the sap may go into the flowers, and from the middle of June until the last of October women with bags hanging over their shoulders go through them daily plucking the flowers that have reached maturity. At night they take their harvests home, where the petals are carefully removed, placed in kettles similar to an ordinary still, and the oil extracted by steam. Thousands of tons of rose leaves are thus gathered annually, and the oil produced is worth at the distillery from $50 to $75 a pound. A single drop will perfume a two-ounce bottle of alcohol. Much of the product is sent to Paris and Vienna, the remainder to Constantinople.

Philippopolis, the second city in population and importance in Bulgaria, is a famous old town, founded by Philip of Macedon about the year 350 B.C., and its history has been both romantic and exciting. It is picturesquely situated upon three hills of granite and has several fine buildings and churches of every religious denomination. The Alexander Gymnasium, for boys, established by the late prince, is perhaps the most progressive educational institution in the whole country and has exerted a wide influence. There is a government school for the higher education of girls also, which has done much towards the advancement of women. In the market place at Philippopolis you see all sorts of costumes, for nearly every oriental race is represented in the population. The Bulgarian is distinguished by the _kalpak_, a headdress of lamb’s wool, and the Turk by his fez. The Turkish women wrap their faces in muslin veils or shawls, but the Bulgarian women follow the European custom and do not attempt to conceal their features.

According to the census of 1893, and there has been very little change since, the population of Bulgaria is 3,310,713, and is composed of 2,505,326 Bulgarians, 569,728 Turks, 58,518 Greeks, 13,260 gypsies, 27,531 Spanish-speaking Jews, 16,298 Tartars and representatives of nearly every other race on earth. The national faith is that of the Orthodox Greek Church, although in 1870 the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated the entire Bulgarian people in consequence of their persistent demands for religious independence and autonomy. Since then the church has been governed by a synod of twelve bishops, and is under the care of the minister of education, the clergy being paid by the government. In 1893 the members of the Orthodox Greek Church numbered 2,606,786, the Mohammedans 643,258, the Roman Catholics 22,617, and the Protestants about 3,500.

Protestant missionaries from the United States have been at work in Bulgaria ever since the establishment of an independent government, the field being divided between the Methodists, who have the territory north of the Balkan Mountains, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, who are engaged in the southern part and in Eastern Rumelia.

The Bulgarians generally commend the missionaries and tell of the great good that they have done. The newspapers speak well of them, and the government officials have nothing but commendation for their educational and charitable work, although their evangelical labors are not encouraged. The government is willing that they should educate the people, take care of them when they are sick, feed them when they are hungry and clothe them when they are naked, but naturally does not approve of the efforts to convert them from the Greek to the Protestant faith. The Greek clergy are generally bitter and at times fanatical in their opposition, except in the large cities, where there is a cosmopolitan spirit. The Turks have very little to say in Bulgaria, but treat Protestants much more amiably than they treat the Greeks, and are particularly friendly with the missionaries. The American colony very seldom has any difficulties with the Turks. The Russians, whose influence in Bulgaria is greater than that of any other foreign people, and who control the policy of the government, are even more opposed to the evangelical work of the missionaries than the natives, because of their connection with the Greek Church and their hereditary disapproval of the education of the common people. Personally, however, missionaries are often friendly with the Russian residents. That depends, however, largely upon their individuality. Miss Stone, for example, is a great favorite among them, as she is everywhere, and the greatest degree of anxiety was shown by the Russian colony for her rescue.

The Methodists in northern Bulgaria have eight houses of worship, valued at $31,500. Most of them have parsonages attached. There are eleven American and native missionaries, four hundred and thirty-four communicants, forty-three probationers, thirteen schools and three hundred and twenty-eight pupils.

The American Board of Foreign Missions has been at work in that country since 1858, when the first mission station was established at Adrianople. It has three stations in Bulgaria. At Philippopolis there is a church of two hundred and fifty native members under the care of Rev. George L. Marsh, a veteran who has just completed the finest Protestant house of worship in the East, and dedicated it in November, 1901. At Sofia there is a self-supporting church of three hundred members under the care of Rev. Marko Popoff, and a large school at Samakov, under the direction of Messrs. Haskell, Clark and Baird. The work in Rumelia is under the direction of Rev. John Henry House, who resides at Salonika, where there is a flourishing church. There is another station at Monastir. Altogether the American Board has nine missionaries in Bulgaria and East Rumelia, seven American lady teachers, three established schools for the higher education of both men and women, and one kindergarten. Its last reports show fifteen organized churches with regular preaching, fifty places with irregular preaching, twelve houses of worship, about fifteen hundred communicants, and an annual average attendance in 1901 of nine hundred and fifty-six at worship and eight hundred and forty-two at the Sunday-school. There is a large church at Bansko, the place Miss Stone started to visit on the morning of her capture, which has one hundred and fifty members and a house of worship which cost $6,000.

American mission work in Bulgaria and Macedonia is divided into three departments--publication, education and evangelical. There is a Bulgarian publication society for both secular and religious literature which maintains a printing office, a bookstore and a well-patronized free public reading-room at Sofia. It has circulated thousands of copies of the best American literature translated into the Bulgarian language, and formerly published a weekly newspaper, which has been revived in Philippopolis recently with a native Bulgarian editor. The Bible was translated into Bulgarian in 1872 by the late Dr. Riggs and Dr. Long, and thousands of copies are sold annually. The Methodists are also circulating both religious and secular literature with great energy, and find that it awakens an interest among the natives to learn more, stimulates their ambition, broadens their ideas, and encourages them to improve their own schools and extend the facilities for the education of the coming generation. If the missionaries in Bulgaria had done nothing else than create this public sentiment their labors in Bulgaria would have been well repaid. They have been the pioneers of a general-education system, in which the government has recently shown a decided interest; they have inspired a temperance movement, they have broken the bonds that restrained the women of the country, and wherever their influence extends may be found a radical change from the social, educational and moral conditions which existed when independence was established twenty-four years ago.

The schools at Samakov for the education of teachers and preachers have compelled the government to establish similar institutions to satisfy the demands of the public; and a model kindergarten, maintained by Miss Clark at Sofia, is being imitated under the direction of the minister of education. Miss Clark is a great favorite in Sofia. She is a daughter of Rev. Mr. Clark, one of the missionaries in charge of the schools at Samakov, and she is assisted by two graduates of those institutions. We visited her kindergarten one morning and found twenty-eight black-eyed urchins engaged in making baskets and building barns with blocks. They are the children of the best families in Sofia--bankers, merchants, professional men and government officials, who patronize the missionary kindergarten from self-interest and not because they belong to the Protestant Church. The popularity and success of Miss Clark’s kindergarten has been recognized throughout the entire kingdom, and before long kindergarten work will be recognized as a necessary part of the system of public education.

The Protestants in Bulgaria are trying to raise money to endow the schools at Samakov and want help from America. They recognize that the influence of those schools is wider and more permanent than that of any other branch of work in which they are engaged, because the chief object is to train teachers for the native schools. There is a great demand for teachers, which, with the rapid development of the educational system, far exceeds the supply, and the graduates of the missionary schools at Samakov command the highest positions and do the greatest amount of good. It is not necessary that they should profess the Protestant faith. That is a matter of minor importance, and the missionaries feel that if they can thoroughly educate the people their object will be attained.

The government has recently passed a law providing for compulsory education and requiring the attendance at school of all children between the ages of eight and twelve years. The schools are free to the peasants, but those who can afford to pay are taxed $4 a year for the elementary branches and a corresponding amount for the higher schools. Two-thirds of the cost of the free schools is paid by the general government, the remainder by the municipalities and village authorities. The appropriation in 1901 for education was about $1,500,000, which supported 4,589 primary schools with 7,998 teachers and 336,000 pupils, one hundred and seventy high schools with 1,477 teachers and 33,700 pupils, forty-five technical schools with 255 teachers and 4,640 pupils, and seventeen preparatory schools with 569 teachers and 13,892 pupils.

There is a university at Sofia with three faculties--law, medicine and science--forty-two professors and lecturers and four hundred and nine students. At present it is occupying a temporary building, but is doing good work and promises increased influence.

It is gratifying to find in this far-off country ladies and gentlemen who have been educated in the United States and are familiar with American institutions. The most influential woman in Bulgaria is Mrs. Ivan B. Kassuroff, who was a pupil of Miss Stone. She is notable for having been the first Bulgarian woman to engage in active mercantile business. She violated the customs and traditions of the country and for a time created considerable stir, but Mme. Kassuroff’s character and abilities have not only carried her through a trying ordeal, but have gained for her the respect, confidence and admiration of the entire population, and she now has many imitators. She opened the field of business for women. Although the native citizens, with their oriental conservatism, had a hereditary prejudice against women engaging in business enterprises, they now lift their hats to Mme. Kassuroff when they meet her in the street.

Mme. Kassuroff’s business career, however, was not entirely voluntary. Her husband was proprietor of the principal bookstore in Sofia, and in 1874 died, leaving no one to carry on his profitable business. Rather than make a sacrifice, his widow assumed the responsibility, has since taken personal charge of it, has developed remarkable capacity, and, as I have said, is honored and admired by all classes. She supplies the government with books and stationery, and her shop is known as the “Court Book Store.” It stands upon the opposite side of the public square from the palace. She is a typical example of what an American education and American ideas introduced by the missionaries can do for a Bulgarian woman, and illustrates the advancement women have made in the East under missionary influence.

Mrs. Popoff, wife of the pastor of the Protestant church in Sofia, is also a graduate of the Painesville (Ohio) Seminary, and has done much to bring American ideas into the family circles of Bulgaria and develop the ambition and independence of Bulgarian women. Her husband, Rev. Marko N. Popoff, is a graduate of Hamilton College, was prepared at Fredonia, New York, and took a course in theology at Auburn Seminary. Altogether he spent about eleven years in America, is a fine all-round scholar, an orator of ability, and exercises a large and growing influence. His church is always crowded and he is a popular lecturer.

Another American product is Stoyan Kristoff Vatralsky, a son of a Bulgarian shepherd, who graduated at Harvard in 1894, was class poet, and was engaged in literary work and on the lecture platform in the United States until recently, preparing himself for educational and literary work in his own country. Mr. Vatralsky is a graduate of the missionary school at Samakov, where he was inspired with an ambition to go to the United States and prepare himself for greater usefulness to his fellow countrymen.

The supreme representative of Russia in Bulgaria to-day is Mr. Bakhmeteff, a diplomatist of great talent, learning and long experience, who disguises his cleverness under an air of cynical indifference. He is well known in the United States, for he has spent much time in Washington, his wife being a daughter of the late General Edward F. Beale, who was General Grant’s roommate at West Point and his most intimate friend for a lifetime. Mme. Bakhmeteff is as clever as her husband, and although she naturally sympathizes with his efforts to keep Bulgaria within the Russian “sphere of influence,” she is thoroughly American in her habits and sympathies. To her benevolent spirit is due the establishment of several much needed charities in Bulgaria. She organized a free hospital and interested in her work the Czarina, who at her own expense sent to Sofia a staff of nurses from a Russian religious sisterhood. Mme. Bakhmeteff also introduced the Red Cross Society into Bulgaria, has interested herself in the improvements of the schools, and as the social leader of the capital has made charitable work fashionable among the Bulgarian women. She has also started a school for trained nurses, in which other ladies of high position take an active interest.

While his wife is engaged in charitable work Mr. Bakhmeteff keeps the government straight. The prime minister never does anything of importance without consulting him, and his advice is equivalent to an order from the Czar.

XI THE KIDNAPING OF MISS STONE

The capture and detention for five months and twenty days--from the 3d of September, 1901, to the 23d of February, 1902--of Miss Ellen M. Stone, a representative of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and her companion, Mrs. Katarina Stephanova Tsilka, wife of the Rev. Gregory Tsilka, has excited much interest in Bulgarian affairs and the cause of Macedonian liberty, but failed to provoke intervention on the part of the United States or the European nations, as the conspirators hoped it might do. That was undoubtedly their chief purpose, and it was successful only so far as it attracted public attention to the condition of anarchy that prevails in Rumelia and the dangers with which missionaries and other foreigners are surrounded.

Miss Stone is well known in Sofia and throughout all the Balkan Provinces. She has been engaged in missionary work in that region ever since the independence of Bulgaria was established at the close of the Russo-Turkish war. Her headquarters have been at Salonika, a Turkish port on the Mediterranean, which was formerly known as Thessalonica. St. Paul addressed his Epistle to the Thessalonians to its inhabitants, and the city is otherwise identified with important events in the history of Christianity. Rev. John H. House of Painesville, Ohio, whose influence and usefulness extend beyond the borders of Bulgaria, where he was a pioneer in missionary work, has charge of the headquarters at Salonika, and Miss Stone has been associated with him for many years. Her especial duties have been to supervise the educational work, and it has been her habit to travel on horseback throughout the country, opening schools, establishing native teachers and looking after their work. In this way she has acquired a wide acquaintance and is universally respected and beloved, not only by the Protestant converts, but by all classes. In her own personal narrative she says:

“During the frequent missionary tours which I have made in Macedonia during the last twenty years and more, I have often been conscious of danger from the brigands who have long infested that country. Thrice before my capture I had come into personal contact with them. Once I spent the night in the common room of a khan or inn with a brigand sleeping on the other side of the fire; once two horses were stolen from the party with which I was traveling; and the third time two bandits stopped us on the road, but hesitated as to what manner of people we were, and so let us pass. On our journey in September, however, we had no thought of fear. Only three weeks before, I had come to Bansko by way of Strumitza and Djumia with two Bulgarian ladies, teachers in our village schools, accompanied only by a muleteer and a young native boy. We had ridden through a wild and rugged country, spending four days on the road, sleeping one night in a native house, and two in khans, all without molestation. I had, indeed, traversed the road on which we were finally captured many times before, and, knowing the people and their ways, I was conscious of all the safety of long familiarity.”

Mr. Tsilka is an Albanian by birth, from the province adjoining Macedonia on the west, was educated in the missionary schools at Monastir and Samakov, and afterwards took a course in Union Theological Seminary, New York City. He is pastor of a native church at Kortcha, Albania, and for several years, with the assistance of his wife, has conducted a school there. Mrs. Tsilka, a Bulgarian, and a native of Bansko, was visiting her parents in that town for several weeks before her capture. Like her husband, she is a graduate of the mission school at Samakov, completed her education at Northfield, Massachusetts, and afterwards graduated from the Presbyterian Training School for nurses in New York City.

They had been attending a summer school for teachers at Bansko, and, with several members of the class, started on horseback for their respective homes on the 3d of September, 1901. Miss Stone’s journey led her towards the railway which runs from Budapest to Salonika. Mr. and Mrs. Tsilka and Mr. Dimitsoff, her father, were on their way to Albania, and the rest of the party expected to leave them at various stations on the road which crosses the Perion range of the Balkan Mountains. Seven of the party were men, but only one of them was armed. Upon a rough mountain trail between Bansko and Djumia, after three hours’ journey, they sat down under the forest trees to eat their luncheon and feed their animals, when they were captured by a band of alleged brigands variously estimated from twelve to forty. Miss Stone says:

“They were of various ages--some bearded, fierce of face and wild of dress; some younger, but all athletic and heavily armed. Some wore suits of brown homespun, some Turkish uniforms with red or white fezzes, while others were in strange and nondescript attire. One had his face so bound up in a red handkerchief as to be unrecognizable; others with faces horribly blackened and disguised with what looked like rags bobbing over their foreheads--the knotted corners of their handkerchiefs, as we afterwards learned.

“Their rifles and accouterments seemed fresh and new, and they also carried revolvers and daggers in their belts, with a plentiful and evident supply of cartridges. They had undoubtedly intended to fill us with terror at the sight of them--and truly horrible they looked.

“Mr. Tsilka had given his wife his watch and money; the latter she secreted in her mouth, and tucked the watch under her belt, as she supposed, but it slipped below and showed. One of the brigands called her attention to it, sarcastically remarking that she had better put it away more securely. He could not have alarmed her more; if the brigands did not want our money and watches, what could be their purpose!”

The brigands seemed to be on friendly terms with George Toderoff, the guide of Miss Stone’s party, who had been employed at Bansko, and was afterwards arrested as an accomplice, but was released by the Bulgarian government without trial or examination and against the protest of the diplomatic agent of the United States. They showed no disposition to rob or injure any member of the party, although they promptly and in cold blood murdered an unarmed Turk who happened to be passing along the trail, and who, they no doubt feared, might communicate their movements to the authorities. As soon as a convenient place was reached, the brigands instructed the party to go into camp, and repeatedly assured them that they need fear no harm. No threats of violence were made and no insults offered, as is customary when Turks encounter Christians. No Christian woman can expect to escape insult and seldom injury if she meets a Turkish soldier in Macedonia; but Miss Stone, being an American of strong character and past middle age, has usually been treated with respect. If her captors had been Turks the proceedings would have been entirely different from what actually occurred, and the three young women teachers, especially, would have had an entirely different experience. This circumstance is the strongest kind of evidence that their captors were Bulgarians. The party went into camp, and during the evening the brigands disappeared, taking with them Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka and two horses. If they had been Turks their captives would have been stripped of everything valuable and their animals would have been stolen, but not an article was missing. The luggage was undisturbed and the brigands did not even help themselves to the food supplies provided for the journey.

During the remainder of the fall and the succeeding winter, until February 23, 1902, the captives were kept moving from place to place in the mountains, suffering considerable privation and discomfort, but, as both Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka testify, they were treated with invariable respect and kindness, and were as well supplied with the necessaries of life as was possible in that primitive country. They seemed to appreciate the value of their captives and took a great deal of care and trouble to protect them from exposure and injury, and in November, when Mrs. Tsilka’s child was born, they brought an old woman from some unknown quarter to assist as a nurse.

In the meantime there was great excitement in Sofia and other parts of Bulgaria. In the United States public meetings were held in many places and liberal contributions made towards a fund to ransom Miss Stone and her companion, and the secretary of state ordered Mr. Charles M. Dickinson, the American consul-general at Constantinople, to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, with instructions to use his best efforts to secure the release of the captives.

On the morning of September 4, after the disappearance of their captors with Miss Stone and Mrs. Tsilka, that lady’s husband and father, with the other men in the party, made a careful examination of the country around them, but could find no trace of the women or the brigands except their trail, which led over the mountains back towards Bulgaria. The entire day was spent in the search. The husband and the father of Mrs. Tsilka, almost overcome with grief and consternation, pursued their fruitless search through the next night, and as there were no further signs of the brigands decided to return to Bansko and give an alarm. Messengers had already been sent there, and to notify the missionary colony at Samakov, but, strange to say, the news of the capture preceded them and was whispered about the streets by Cyril Vaciloff and other Macedonian revolutionists, who appeared to know all about it. They also predicted the amount of ransom that would be demanded before anything had been heard from the brigands. The demand, which was contained in a letter written by Miss Stone in the Bulgarian language to the treasurer of the missionary board, was dictated by some person of intelligence. The language and the forms of expression used were very unlike her literary style. There was no doubt, however, of the penmanship. That letter was thrown into the window of the house of missionary Haskell at Samakov during the night, and his daughter identified Vaciloff in the moonlight while trying to open the window. A local newspaper friendly to the Macedonian cause published the important part of the contents of the letter before they were made known by the missionaries, including the amount of ransom demanded.

This and other circumstances make it very clear that Vaciloff intended or expected to be the medium of negotiation for Miss Stone’s release, and his failure was undoubtedly due to his arrest, which frightened him and induced him to deny all knowledge of the affair. The missionaries and the United States consul-general were not allowed to question him or communicate with him while he was in jail. He was released by the order of the authorities at Sofia upon the pretext that no evidence had been offered against him, although no one had been invited to present evidence. No attempt was made by anybody to secure evidence. The missionaries and Consul-general Dickinson were not informed of the decision to release him, and they did not know of his release until they saw the announcement in the newspapers. The only inference to be drawn from this unusual procedure was that the officials and the managers of the Macedonian Revolutionary Committee realized the complications that might ensue with the United States, the damage their cause would suffer before the world and the odium they would be compelled to endure if Vaciloff’s plans were carried out.

Cyril Vaciloff is a young adventurer, who had been acting as president of the Macedonian Committee at Samakov, a small town near the border, about fifty miles south of Sofia, in the foothills of the Balkan Mountains. That is the missionaries’ headquarters, where a large school for young men and women has been conducted ever since Bulgarian independence. Its graduates may be found occupying important positions in every part of the country, and the good it has accomplished directly and indirectly is incalculable. Cyril Vaciloff was educated at this school. His father was formerly a man of some importance, but intemperance ruined him. His mother was a good woman and was quite intimate with the missionary families up to her death. Although she remained a member of the Greek Church, she frequently attended Protestant worship and sent her children to the Protestant school. Young Vaciloff was a bright scholar and a fluent speaker, with considerable literary talent, but was always wild and restless, fond of notoriety and unreliable in character. He never earned a dollar in his life, but went into politics while a mere boy, and for several years lived off the contributions for Macedonian freedom. He is a popular café orator, writes pamphlets in support of the Macedonian cause, and is an active, eloquent and effective agitator. In the spring of 1901, after the reorganization of the Macedonian Committee, he called upon Mr. Clark, superintendent of the mission at Samakov, and requested a contribution for the Macedonian cause. Mr. Clark explained that while his sympathies were with the Macedonians in their struggle for liberty, it would be impolitic and unwise for foreigners, and especially for missionaries, to subscribe to political funds. They were working in Turkey, as well as in Bulgaria, and must keep on terms with the Sultan. Vaciloff was not satisfied with this explanation, and shortly after his visit Mr. Clark received a written warning that unless a prompt contribution was made to the Macedonian cause the missionaries would regret it. This threat was followed by an incendiary fire and the destruction of the barn attached to the mission establishment. Mr. Clark then received another letter from Vaciloff saying that the barn caught fire from an electric spark, and that another would soon fall in the same neighborhood unless $2,500 were immediately forthcoming. No notice was taken of this threat except to solicit police protection, and nothing happened.

During the summer of 1901 the missionaries frequently heard of threats made by him and by others associated with the Macedonian cause, and Vaciloff frequently remarked that the Protestants would soon be compelled to pay a large sum into the treasury whether they wanted to or not. He was the first to learn of the capture of Miss Stone; he was the first to announce that $110,000 was the sum fixed for her ransom, and as I have said, he was identified as the man who threw the letter from Miss Stone into the window of Mr. Haskell’s residence.

It is believed that the actual leader of the bandits who captured Miss Stone was Ivan Zandanski, formerly keeper of the Bulgaria penitentiary, who resides at Dubnitza, a little town near the scene of the incident. He is also active in connection with the Macedonian movement, is associated with Vaciloff, and is a notorious desperado. He is known to have followed Miss Stone during the summer on several of her journeys, and usually appeared wherever she was. This was noticed and commented upon, without suspicion at the time, but is remembered as of significance since the outrage. Shortly before the kidnaping Zandanski started ostensibly upon an expedition to visit and organize the Bulgarian sympathizers on the Turkish side of the boundary in the Balkan Mountains, and took with him twenty or more guns from the arsenal of the Macedonian Committee at Samakov. He returned on the 11th of October, surrendered the guns to their proper custodian, and reported that he had met with great success. It is current gossip among the peasants in that part of the country that he was the leader of the band, and he was actually identified by several of Miss Stone’s companions. He was arrested and released for want of evidence, without consulting the missionaries or the United States consul-general.

George Toderoff, the mule driver who was in charge of the animals used by Miss Stone’s party, and acted as their guide, is believed to be implicated. Upon his return from the mountains he told several conflicting stories concerning the event, which caused his arrest, but he also was released by order of the government at Sofia because of supposed threats from Macedonian patriots. It is established by abundant evidence that a number of members of the local Macedonian organization around Samakov disappeared the last of August, shortly before the capture, gradually returning to their homes during September. They claimed to have been engaged, like Zandanski, in organizing revolutionary bands in Macedonia, but the natives generally believe that they were members of the party.