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A gathering of Servians before a newspaper office reading the latest war bulletins from the front.

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T IS a startling fact that only three hundred years ago the Sultan's ships were masters of the Mediterranean, the Black Sea was a Turkish lake, and the Turkish empire embraced, with the exception of Rome, all the great and historical cities of antiquity-Ephesus, Smyrna, Antioch, Damascus, Athens, Jerusalem and Alexandria. One point of the Golden Crescent rested on the Golden Horn, and the other glittered opposite the Moorish Towers of Granada. The Turks swept up the Danube, captured Belgrade and Budapest, besieged Vienna, and Hungary became a Turkish Province. Only two hundred years

ago Vienna a second time resisted their attack, but since that day, the Ottoman Empire's power has steadily declined, and one by one her provinces, Bulgaria, Greece, Roumania, Servia, Algiers and Tunis have slipped from under her cruel yoke. In Europe alone, where she once possessed a territory of two hundred and thirty thousand square miles, she now has but sixty thousand, and of her European population of twenty million there remains but five millions under her rule.

Of the three countries-Bulgaria, Servia and Greece-now brought into prominence by their final and successful stand against their ancient foe,

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Bulgaria, perhaps the most aggressive, is a country about the size of Pennsylvania, and has several railroads owned by the government. The service is very poor, and time tables almost useless, as the trains run in a most haphazard haphazard fashion. Threefourths of the inhabitants are farmers. Forty-seven per cent of the entire territory is in pasture, wool, hides and skins being the greatest exports. The Bulgarian language is a sort of Russian dialect. Sofia is the capital and commercial center. Most of the natives wear garments made from unshorn sheepskin, with the wool worn next to the skin, and the leather side tanned to a soft, white, velvety appearance like buckskin; this, of course, is the dress of the out-lying districts, for the inhabitants of the cities have adopted European styles.

Every man between the ages of twenty and twenty-four years must do military duty for five years. The officers about the town are handsome fellows of fine physique, with intelligent faces and soldierly carriage. The

natives are all natural horsemen, and a squadron of Bulgarian cavalry is a worthy object of admiration. The native horses are small, but sturdy and of great endurance, but the principal draft animals used are the domesticated buffaloes of the Asiatic species; they do not resemble the noble animals which roamed the American prairies.

The working classes are comparatively well off, for there is no lack of employment for those who wish to work. The peasants are industrious and intelligent, and both men and women are of fine physique, capable of great endurance. They make most of their clothing of wool, which they grow and shear on their own farms, and which the women spin and weave into garments; these women also do beautiful embroidery-not to sellbut to adorn their holiday attire. They have very little faith in banks, and when they accumulate a little money they bury it in the ground. In a large measure, this accounts for the continued disappearance of Bulgarian

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coin from circulation. Their Oriental characteristics crop out in their eagerness to acquire wealth and their anxiety to get the best of a bargain. The impression in Bulgaria, as in other parts of Europe, is that all Americans are rich and reckless with their money. Travelers always comment upon the hospitality of the peasants: whenever you enter a cottage you are warmly welcomed, and no stranger who comes in peace is ever turned away from the door.

The climate and soil of that portion of Bulgaria which borders on the Black Sea is unusually favorable for rose culture, and from the middle of June until late in October, the women, carrying large bags over their shoulders, pluck the fragrant petals, and thousands of tons of rose leaves are gathered in this way every year. The oil produced at the distilleries is worth from fifty to seventy-five dollars a pound.

The national faith of the Bulgarians is that of the Orthodox Greek Church, which is also the accepted belief of

the Servians, and in the eyes of the Mohammedans, these Bulgarians and Servians forfeited their lives by accepting the faith of the Greek or the Roman Catholic Church, and so, as often as an excuse is offered, it becomes a religious duty to exterminate them. Like the Bulgarians, the Servians, too, are tillers of the soil, eighty-seven per cent of this country's population being engaged in farming. Plums, wheat, grass and corn are the principal products, but they also raise sheep, goats and hogs in great numbers. After a war with Bulgaria, in which Servia was defeated, it was proposed to pay an indemnity of a million and a half of swine instead of cash.

Servia, though one of the smallest countries of all Europe, has long furnished food for gossip to all her near and far neighbors, and the notoriety of her rulers, for many years, has been the butt of Continental comment. This little country has been extensively advertised as "a poor man's paradise," as the soil, climate and other condi

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