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WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.


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,0. ^-^m^With GypsiesIn BuLaARiA

BY

ANDREAS(MUI SHUKO)

LIVERPOOLHENRY YOUNG k SONS, LIMITED19IG


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PO-PHRALENGGE.To publish so long an account of so short a journeymay be to risk classification with the insolent andover-bold globe-trotter, " who ' does ' kingdoms in daysand writes books upon them in weeks." Yet, at thetime, the excursion seemed unusual and romanticenough to amuse my friends ; and since then itmay have acquired a wider interest owing to thefact that a multitude of my countrymen, and Imyself, have adopted in Flanders, almost perforcethough not unwillingly, and for an indefinitely long-period, a habit of life resembling that which I livedin Bulgaria for pleasure. Some of those who, beforethe days of degrading advertisement and shamefullydisguised compulsion, undertook eagerly the burdenof national defence, have been my comrades for morethan a year in the publicity of camps and bivouacs,enjoying that peculiarly tender intimacy and un-selfishness, exercising that wonderful forbearance andtolerance, which, rare alike in the city streets andcountry mansions of so-called civilization, attain theirmajcvstic perfection, the universal brotherhood whichMohammedans both preach and practice, through long-association in the field, and after common trialssummer's heat and dust, winter's cold and mud, dis-comfort, hunger, thirst, fatigue, sickness, danger, andoften heroism. It is surely a strange war, whereopponents at death-grips barter bully-beef for brandy

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where picture-palaces are set within easy reach ofliostile artillery to entertain troops bent on slaughterwhere a soldier can import luxuries and send his wash-ing regularly home by post; and where the leastcallous of men may in a single day lose all his dearestfriends, sigh " Ah ! they were fine fellows," and proceedforthwith to refurnish his circle. But in it the veil hasbeen torn from the soul, and the soul has stood forthunashamed, so beautiful, so admirable that we wereamazed at the revelation. To my treasure has beenadded the love of men from every walk of life, whoareor were, for many will never again shake me bythe hand" more-than-brother " to me. To them Idedicate this little book, in which I attempt todescribe a life similar to that which we led together.

The plates are from drawings by Mr. Robert Lyon,of Liverpool, and are founded on photographs takenby Mrs. Gilliat-Smith, and the Vice-Consul, to whom Ihave referred often, though not so often as their greatkindness deserves.


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CONTENTS.Page

Preface iii.List of Plates vii.

CHAPTER I.The Gypsies of Varna 1

CHAPTER II.The Comb-Makers 16CHAPTER III.

Taking to the Roads 29CHAPTER IV.

North-Eastern Bulgaria .... 41CHAPTER V.Life on the Roads 52

CHAPTER VI.The Luck of the Wagtail .... 63CHAPTER VII.Market-Day at Razgrad .... 75


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CHAPTER VIII.The Turkish Bath 85

CHAPTER IX.Gypsy Blacksmiths 98

CHAPTER X.The Feast at Rustshuk . . . .110

CHAPTER XI.More than Brother 121

CHAPTER XII.The Relapse to Civilization . . .134


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LIST OF PLATES.I. Portrait of the Author . Frontispiece.

PageII. Zagundzhis 8III. A Zagundzhi Woman.... 24IV. MetiA Zagundzhi .... 38V. Comb-Makers 54

VI. Comb-Makers' Camp at Indzhe-Kioi . 68VII. Petrikas Tent 86VIII. Petrika's Cart 100IX. Map of North-Eastern Bulgaria . At End.


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CHAPTER I.THE GYPSIES OP VARNA.

"Needy nothing trimm'd in jollity." Shakespeare.

The Balkan confederates, aided by their mostpowerful ally, Turkish mismanagement, hadrouted the Turks ; the war was over ; but, atthe end of May, 1913, the blessings of peace,eagerly expected, had not yet reached Bulgaria.The work of slaughter was done, and in thesouth rifles and artillery at last were silent ;but in the interior of the country warlikepreparations were being pushed forward inbreathless haste, as if a campaign were begin-ning and not ending. Young conscripts, merelads, w^ere enrolled two years before their time;those who had been exempted, for whateverreason, from military service were summonedto the colours ; men of more than forty-fiveyears, who had said farewell to the army forever, as they thought, w^ere recalled to theirregiments ; and even the Gypsies, hitherto


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2 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.employed only as forced municipal labourers,were made soldiers, Kagged troops were beingshipped to Varna from Thrace, and hurriedwestward by rail, none knew whither. Com-panies of elderly peasants, some of whom, ratherpathetically, carried little tin lanterns contain-ing candles, trudged to town from the countryin their sheepskins and sandals, to be crushedinto barracks that were already crowded. Theforeign consuls were eagerly collecting newsand enciphering dispatches to their ambassa-dors ; the government offices and military head-quarters were hives of industry ; the authoritiesrestless and suspicious. When the women ofVarna, impatient at the continued absence oftheir men-folk, came in a body to the Prefectureto demand the return of their husbands or sons,sweethearts or brothers, the seven ringleaderswere forthwith imprisoned. Arrested in thecountry by soldiers, who thought I was a spybecause I associated with Gypsies, I was lec-tured and released by the general staff, who forthe same reason believed me to be a lunatic,though for a while they entertained a suspicionthat I and the British Vice-Consul, with thehelp of our Romany friends, were hatching a


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 3conspiracy against the King ! An indefinableexcitement prevailed, something was in theairfor Bulo-aria was then meditatinof thetreachery which, a month later, brought herinto simultaneous conflict with Servia, Greece,Montenegro, Turkey, and Rumania, and led tohumiliation that was all the more bitter becauseit followed so closely her success in Thrace.The Tarpeian Rock was very near the Capitol

I had come to Varna for a limited holiday,not completely master of my time ; and, tempt-ing as it was, for a Briton wea^ry of politicaltriviality, to wait and watch politics thatmattered, I could not afford to be confinedindefinitely by war in a foreign town. Whilehesitating about the choice of routes to whataliens in the Balkan States call Europesmaller continent than the Europe of atlasesI was caught in a trap : the Government tookpossession of the railway for military purposes,and passenger trains ceased to run. My positionworried me the less because it provided a reason-able pretext for putting into practice a schemewhich I knew would win the disapproval, andprobably the derision, of all my respectablefriends. I proposed to cross north - eastern


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4 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.Bulgaria with Gypsies, disguised as a Gypsy,and escape into Rumania. My respectablefriends did not disappoint me ; but their con-cern took a kinder form than I expected : theywere alarmed, assuring me that such an excur-sion would be dangerous at any time and wasimpossible in time of war. When, however,they saw that my resolution could not beshaken, they shrugged their shoulders and pro-cured for me powerful passports in Bulgarian,which by good luck I never found occasion touse : one from the Prefect himself certifyingthat I travelled thus eccentrically in order tostudy the morals of the Gypsies, and the otherfrom the verv sreneral who had lectured andreleased me, enjoining the army to render meevery possible assistance.

The purchase of my kit was not a difficultmatter. With a G^^psy as interpreter and ahundred francs in my pocket I visited sundryhumble shops and returned with a big bundleof clothino- and a little chano^e. The bundlecontained the costume worn by local Moham-medan Gypsies : like the Tartar disguise inwhich Borrow journeyed from Bucharest toConstantinople, it w^as " veiy beautiful and by


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 5no means dear " ; but it was not characteristic-ally Gypsy, being simply the dress of aTurkish peasant. I had a short jacket (tlialih)of bright blue cloth effectively braided in black ;trousers (kaltse) of the same material similarlydecorated, tight at the ankles and calves andamply voluminous above ; a shirt-like waistcoat(zahuna) of yellow and red striped materiala sash (kustih) of thick scarlet stuff, five yardslong and a foot wide, and a pair of stiff Turkishshoes which blistered my feet abominably. Thefez and turban which I bouo'ht had to be re-placed by a lamb's-wool /jaZpa/j or cap when Idecided to travel as a Christian ; and durino;the journey I added to my outfit linen drawers(sosten) and a second girdle, thereby makingn)y costume almost intolerably hot. A gaudilycoloured sack, after the pattern of the country,was to contain a few toilet luxuries, handker-chiefs and a chano-e of underclothino- and forsleeping I provided only a Bulgarian quiltedyorgan. I had expended less thought, time,trouble, and money than would have beenneeded to prepare for a week-end at Margate.

It only remained to choose my escort, andthat was surely the easiest task of all. For


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6 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.the Bulgarian Gypsies are needyif it werepossible to pity so gay a race one would describetliem as pitifully poorand it seemed reason-able to expect that, if I offered a couple ofnapoleons, I should be besieged by candidates.Moreover there were plenty to choose fromamong the half-dozen tribes, each speaking itsown dialect of Romani, which are representedin Varna. Most of the Gypsies live in a GypsyQuarter (mahala) on the plain, just beyond thetown and between it and the municipal refuse-heap ; a village of one wide and rather irregularstreet bordered by little single-roomed hutswhich are plastered with mud and whitewashed.Beyond the village again, and nearer still tothe unsavoury public midden, are to be found,at any season except in winter, the ragged tentsof the nomads ; crude, clumsy shelters, to buildwhich any old sticks and any tatters of decayingsackcloth seem to have been cast together atrandom ; dwellinsrs in which a humane hawkerwould refuse to stable his ass. Birds andbeavers even sticklebacksconstruct betterspecimens of architecture.

The house-dwelling Gypsies have learnedfrom the Turks a measure of tranquil dignity,


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 7and are sharply distinguished from their nomadbrethren whom, in contempt, they call Zagun-dzhis. The Zagundzhis live their life in a hurri-cane, never for an instant still. Even to watchthem is exhausting. Like rabbits in a warrenthey are always dashing out of one tent andplunging into another ; sometimes they may befound dancing with the grace of fauns, or sing-ing strange half-unintelligible songs ; more oftenthey are talking excitedly at the top of theirvoices, shouting and yelling to one another intheir rude tongue ; or grivino^ rein to theirpassions in sudden quarrels that are as fierceand brief as they are unexpected and inexplic-able. They dress in splendidly picturesqueratrs, tlie wrecks of costumes such as I hadbought or of sober Bulgarian homespun suits,so tattered and torn that large areas of brownvelvety skin are exposed to the wind and sun.Their shirts display patterns the like of whichare seen elsewhere only on wall-papers, andderive an additional kaleidoscopic brilliancefrom their patches, for the added pieces nevermatch the attenuated remains of the originalgarment. Their feet are naked, and on theirheads are placed, at a jaunty angle which is not


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8 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.native in the Balkans, faded, shapeless fezeswithout tassels, but sometimes girt by lean ragsapologizing for turbans. The costume is un-studied in the extreme, yet worn with elegance,adorning without concealing the splendid linesof their maa;nificent bodies. The women areless ragged but equally gaudy, and the tentsare thronged by half-naked children. TheZagundzhis do not look dirty, for in the nearEast dirt is not black and adhesive, but whiteand powdery, andit crawls. In this kind ofproperty they are unenviably rich.

Dirt, however, is not their only fault : theyeat carrionthe flesh of animals that have died ;and, what is more discomfiting for visitors, theyare importunate beggars. They beg, all ofthem, at all times, in the persistent and irre-sistible Gypsy way, for everything they see orsuspect that their patron may possess : a visitto their camp costs as much as a stall at theopera. There was then nothing more attractivethan a picture-palace in Varna, but had therebeen a theatre I should have preferred the tentsof the filthy Zagundzhis. Their glamour wassuch that one kept no reckoningone emptiedone's pockets and praised Allah that such folk


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ZAGUNDZHISSee Chapter I.


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 9existed. They are Gypsies "par excellence : inthem the Gypsy character, which among moresophisticated tribes is wrapped in a habit ofGentile (gadzho) respectabihty, stands proudlyforth, naked, unconscious, unashamed. Theyare, as the poetic instinct of Franz Liszt dis-cerned, children ; with a child's indifference topublic opinion, a child's unquestioning accept-ance of destiny, a child's instinctive timidity,a child's unconsciousness of causes, a child'ssudden outbursts of rage and equally suddenrecovery of temper, and at the same time achild's unreasoning happiness and a child's res-ponsiveness to sympathy. Across their mar-vellously expressive faces moods and emotionspass like clouds on a windy day. Lithe aspanthers, strong as lions, playful as kittens,affectionate as dogs, one loved them as one lovesa dog, caring not one whit whether they haveread Shakespeare, can play golf, or are capableof admiring Turner. They are scarcely humanbut they are the most beautiful of animals.

With one Zagundzhi, the tall and gracefulMeti, I was specially familiar. He had under-taken to teach me his difficult dialect, and wehad spent many pleasant hours together study-


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10 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.ing Romani and beer. Perhaps it was the wantof any other language of intercommunication,for I know neither Turkish nor Buls^arian, orperhaps it was Meti's faulty pedagogic method,but I made little progress. My tutor wouldchatter eloquently for a spell and then, suddenlystopping, turn upon me the light of a winningsmile and ask inconsequently : " How do youdo, brother ? " (Sar Jeeves, phrala ?). Thatphrase I learned to understand perfectly : therest of his conversation was always, to me,somewhat obscure. Nevertheless we becameexcellent friends, and when I resolved to travelwith Gypsies I invited him and his family tobe my escort. He consented, subject to theapproval of the chief (tsherihashi), for theGypsies of the mahala, both sedentary andnomad, acknowledged the authority of Osnianthe son of Osman, who then kept a little cafeplanted on an island site in the middle of thevillage street, In consequence the BritishVice-Consul and I paid a visit of ceremony tothe great man, hoping to obtain readily therequired permission.

Osman's cafe, the town-hall of the Gypsymahala, is a little low room about eighteen feet


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 11square, with small windows in three of thewalls, the fourth being a party-wall of anotherhouse or room. At a corner next this party-wall is the door, and, close to it, the cash-box,behind which stands Osman's throne, a narrowwooden platform raised high above the floor,just large enough to accommodate the tsheri-bashi, or his deputy, sitting cross-legged.Beyond this throne, against the party-wall andreaching to the back of the room, is the mosthonourable seat, a much larger though lowerplatform covered with matting. Behind a par-tition screen, in the corner diagonally oppositethe door, is the kitchen : a fire of wood- charcoalwith tiny saucepans, each just big enough tomake one cup of coffee, shelves on which areranged glasses and little handleless cups, and agreat earthenware vase of water half-buried inthe iifround. To the rio^ht of the door as oneenters is a bench, in front of which stands asmall table with a couple of stools ; and, betweenthis bench and the kitchen, there is a platformsimilar to the more honourable seat opposite.The walls and ceiling are whitewashed andundecorated, and the floor is the bare earthhardened by much traffic.


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12 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.Osman received us with his usual courtesy,

and, as always happened on such occasions,some of the elders of the sedentary tribe, vener-able gentlemen of serious mien and polishedmanners, well dressed, bearded, and wearingturbans, assembled to drink coffee at our expenseand listen to the words of wisdom that wouldfall from the lips of the great ones. Osman'ssuavity and politeness to us were in strongcontrast with the ultra-emphasis or violence ofhis communications to his subjects. Belongingto a different tribe, and speaking a slightl}^different dialect, not tall, wiry rather thanmuscular, not even rich, it could only have beenintellectual superiority that raised him to thedignity of tsheribashi of a mahala of 180houses, a position officially recognised by theofovernment. Not lono^ after our visit Osmanfell with the political party which had put himin power ; but even before his fall he had criticsand opponents, and his tenure of office dependedin some measure on the goodwill of his subjects,who have the right to petition the Prefect todepose their chief In consequence, he evidentlyfelt it necessary to keep a tight hold over thepeople he governed. When he spoke, it was


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 13generally to address the whole company ; whenhe commanded silence, they scarce dared drawbreath. He was eloquent and persuasive,delighted in oriental platitudes, and often ex-pressed what he had to say in the form of aparable. Nor did he neglect to use theatricaldevices to give emphasis to his words : he ges-ticulated freely ; at critical parts of the argu-ment his restless eyes seemed to start fromtheir bony sockets ; and once we saw him drivehome a point by raising a heavy stool abovehis head, and flinging it with all his force uponthe floor. Unconsciously following the preceptof Machiavelli, he chose to be feared ratherthan loved. If we visited the mahala alone, wewere at once exasperated by a flock of beggingchildren and importunate women ; but if Osmanwere with us, nobody ventured to approach.He was certainly a great ruler : but the veryqualities that made him great made him a littledisappointing as a Gypsyhe had none of thebewitching levity of his race.

Every tribe of Gj^psies despises every othertribe : and the sedentary dwellers in the mahalalooked down upon their nomad neighbours withpeculiar scorn. The debonair Vice-Consul in


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14 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.consequence, after the customary prelude of2:eneral conversation and cio^arettes, broachedthe subject of my proposed journey verycautiously, explaining the circumstances, em-phasizing the necessity that I should have anescort of people who were accustomed to theroad, manoeuvring dexterously to avoid wound-ing Osman's prejudices or pride, and leadinggradually up to the terrible confession that Ihad seen fit to choose as my companions thecontemptible Zagundzhis. Osman listened with-out interrupting, but his mouth set sternlywhile his eyes glared with growing amazement.When the case had been stated and permissionasked there was a pause, and then the chief,lifting his head, commanded suddenly, "Listen,all ! " The elders at once gave earnest attention." This great one wishes to travel with theZaofundzhis ! " The elders drew in their breath,shuddered with obedient horror, and madegestures of protest. It was as if the LordMayor had announced to the aldermen that theKing proposed to sweep Petticoat Lane. " Hewill be covered with lice to the elbows," Osmancontinued, "they will give him hens to eat thathave died a natural death; they will rob him,


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THE GYPSIES OF VARNA. 15cut his throat in the night, and leave his bodyin a ditch." Again the elders shuddered at myfate. " I would rather all my children shoulddie ! " And then, with a resounding blow onthe little table, and the voice of a tyrantdeterminino- the fate of a nation : "I will notallow it !

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CHAPTER II.THE COMB-MAKERS.

Our diplomatic mission, our visit of ceremony,had failed and my position remained as un-comfortable as ever. For awhile I cheeredmyself with the delusion that a golden keywould easily open the door of escape, but afteroffering what must have been regarded bythe Zagundzhis as a small fortune, I realizedthat Osman's authority was so great that, asa result of his prohibition made thus publicly,no Gypsy could be found in the Mohammedanmahala over which he ruled, who was willingto risk his displeasure by travelling with me.Meti withdrew his promise at once, declaringthat the chief would kill him if he disobeyed,and that the expedition was impossible.

At first the only solution of the difficultyappeared to be the winning or buying ofOsman's approval, and he showed no signs ofyielding. But just as matters seemed to havereached a hopeless impasse, there arrived nearVarna a party of eight tents of Christian


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THE COMB-MAKERS. 17Gypsies who did not acknowledge Osnian'sauthority. They had none of the reason-destroying allurement of the Zagundzhisonedid not love them for the sake of their dirtand rags and vermin, and the glorious savageryimplied. If they had been dirty and ragged,one would have respected them in spite oftheir faults : not for their faults' sake. Butas a matter of fact they appeared at firstsight to be clean, honest, industrious folk,polite, hospitable, and well provided with thenecessaries of their nomad life. They werenot town-Gypsies : they did not beg, and thechildren were so shy that, when addressed bystrangers, they covered their faces with theirhands and cried.

They had good strong carts and excellentweatherproof tents. Their carts (taligas) aregaily painted troughs, on the back-boards ofwhich are circles containing some naivelyexecuted picture, a bunch of flowers, or a rear-ing horse, and at each side are iron steps con-nected with splash-boards over the four wheels.The trough, or body, rests in a cradle on thetwo axles, but is not attached to them rigidly,the axles themselves being connected together


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18 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.by a central beam, a method of constructionwhich gives great flexibihty, and enables thevehicle, although springless, to travel theworst roads M'ithout disaster. The tents aremade of goat's-hair cloth, hard, rough, and verythick : they are expensive, for a suitable piececosts eight napoleons. The cloth is supportedpartly by the taliga itself, which it covers andprotects, and partly by a framework of poles.Of these there are five, besides the pole of thetaliga, which makes the sixthtwo polesmorticed to form the front triangle ; the thinback-post (heli) resting on the ground, andsteadied by insertion through the step of thewaggon ; the horizontal ridge-pole (heixtnd) ;and two other horizontal poles, one of thenjthe driving pole of the waggon, which reston the taliga at the back of the tent, and aretied to the front poles half-way between theirintersection and the ground. The cart thusstands within the tent to which it forms theback, and the cloth is pegged out by meansof ofoat's-hair cords attached at res^ular intervals,so that the edge is about six inches from theearth. Such a tent, compared with thedwellings of the Zagundzhis, was a palace.


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THE COMB-MAKERS. 19The tribe had come to Varna in order to

work at the harvest, where the men expectedto earn about two francs a day ; but their osten-sible means of hvehhood was making combs, aprofession in which they showed great dex-terity. They bought the horns of cattle, cutthem into short cylinders which they split longi-tudinally and flattened by heat and pressure,shaped the piece, smoothed it with a raspand polished it with ashes ; then they cut theteeth with unexpected regularity by meansof two hand-saws, one fine, and the othercoarse, and finished the comb with a littlecrude decoration in double lines by rockingthe handle-end of a file across the surface ofthe horn, A man could produce thirty combsa day, but their profits were probably limitedrather by the number they could sell than bythe number they could make.

So much I learned by two visits to theirpicturesquely situated camp near Indzhe-Kioi,a little villaofe about three miles from Varna,and I found also that their Rumanian Romani,owing to my previous experience with a similardialect, was far more easily intelligible than thedialects formed under Turkish and Bulo^arian


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20 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.influence that I had heard in Osman's mahala.My favourable first impression was confirmedat tlie second visit, when the comb-makersentertained the Vice-Consul and myself withfood and drink, and gossiped pleasantly, if notwith the inconsequent light-heartedness of theZagundzhis ; and, later in the evening, theywon my heart completely when, Avithout com-ment, thev raised the side-cloth of the tent inorder that all might admire a beautiful sunset.I decided that these models of Gypsy proprietywould be most desirable travelling companions,and, seeing that with their help it would beeasy to evade the difficulties caused by Osman'sprohibition, I lost no time, but broached thesubject at once, and made arrangements forescape.

At both visits I had associated with thefamily of Petrika and Totana, his third wife,whom he had married about six months before.Petrika was a sedate man at least fifty yearsold, with a moustache but no beard, and a long,straight, though somewhat fleshy nose. Hehad had children by his two previous wives, andfour of them were in the camp : Stano, with hiswife Tudora and boy Kirtsho ; Turi, with his


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THE COMB-MAKEKS. 21wife and child ; Kira, then recently married toRisteni, who was a refined-lookino- youth ofseventeen, son of Totana by her hite husbandIHa ; and an unmarried girl, Kada. To marktheir Christianity the men wore sheepskinkalpaks instead of fezes and turbans, but theirclothes were otherwise similar, with some minordiiferences of braiding, to my disguise, thoughTuri's zahuna was made of dark crimson velvet,and his jacket (tJialik) had a fur lining. Turiwas a sturdy young fellow of a pleasant ifunenergetic temperament, and not handsome.He had a pretty but shy little girl, Rnsa, theonly one of his four children who had lived, andhis wife Gina was a very dark woman, handsomeand industrious. The greater part of the house-hold work fell to her share. Suitably dressedshe would have been beautiful, but, owing toher husband's poverty, she had unbecomingclothes ; a heavy dark woollen shawl . for instance,over her head instead of a gay kerchief, and shewent without shoes or stockinos. She was,moreover, remarkably silent : I do not think weexchano^ed six. sentences durinsf the week Ispent with her people ; and she was almostequally reserved towards her husband's parents.


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22 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.She did not smoke in the presence of her father-in-law ; but when he was away, or so occupiedas to be unhkely to notice, she would take acigarette from me, unroll it, borrow her mother-in-law's little pipe, and enjoy a whiif.

Unlike Persians and Arabs, who are proudof their genealogy:', the Gypsies resemble theTurks, who thus express their faith in theequality of all classes of Ottomans, and thedemocratic Bultrarians, in havinof no surnames.As some compensation each Gypsy boasts twopersonal names of his own, one for home andthe other for official use. Petrika was knownto the police and other ordinary people asGyorgi, Totana as Kostandina, Turi as Todor,and Pistem as Tanasi. When it is necessary todefine a person more exactly, the name of hisor her father is added in the genitive case, as,for example, Turi (son) of Petrika. and Totana(daughter) of Shudrila.

It was Totana who afterwards betrayed tome gradually that the pleasant spectacle I hadseen at Indzhe-Kioi w'as but the obverse ofa medal wdiicli had another side differentlydesigned. She was a very dark old lady,mischievous-looking and witchlike, and the


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THE COMB-MAKERS. 23somewhat uncanny impression she made wasenhanced by her deep, ahnost manly voice, andby her restless eyes, which seemed to gUtterwith weird intelHsfence, and were all the morestriking because their owner, with orientalpropriety, kept in the background and spokebut little. A larofe ofold coin huno- from herneck, and under the kerchief on her head shewore a little red skull-cap to which, after themanner of Bulgarian and Greek peasants, shehad stitched several medals and pieces of silvermoney. The most conspicuous article in herattire, and in that of the other elderly women,was, however, a long apron gaily embroideredin many colours. In spite of her correctreserve it was easy to see that Totana had awill of her own and a stronor charactertoostrong probably for conventional standards andstrait moralists. She had always been verywild, the Gypsies said, and when she was youngher hair was long, bushy, and tangled. Shecould not bear to stay more than a short timein one place, and on the road she went like aswift horse. They would add, whispering''And she used to beat her husband, the oldIlia, who is dead now." When I met her, her


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24 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.hair was thinner and turning grey, but herpassion for travel was unabated. She had allBorrow's contempt of respectability ; and,scenting as I believe a secret sympathy, sawthat there was no need to play for my benefitthe tiresome role of the unco guid, and tookpains to bring about a thorough understanding.Petrika, in a careless moment, had apologizedfor his wife's lack of facial charm, saying thatalthouofh she was not beautiful she was extra-ordinarily clever at catching hens. One couldmisunderstand, or affect to misunderstand thatbut there was no obscurity in Totana's revela-tions. She began by explaining the connexionbetween a secret inner pocket in her beggingbag, and the boiled fowl which formed an impor-tant element in their diet. Then she showedan intelligent interestand an unjustifiabledelightin the petty misdeeds of BritishGypsies. " Do they steal ? " " Yes," I replied," a little." " What do they steal ? " " Turnipsand firewood," I said, and then as an after-thought, '' hens occasionally." A little chuckleassured me of Totana's approval, and I ven-tured to add: "And sometimes the washingfrom hedges." " But don't they burgle houses ? "


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t i'.i.

mt.

A ZAGUNDZHI WOMAN-.Sfc CAai-^er 7.


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THE COMB-MAKEKS. 25T oave an indionant denial, but Totana, aftersearchino- in the recesses of her voluminousskirts, produced a parcel wrapped in cloth, andsaying, scornfully, " We do," opened it to showme the keys she used for the purpose.

The temperaments of Totana and herspouse seemed almost incompatible. He toomay have had a wild youth, but little wildnesshad survived, and when he married her he wasalready a comfort-loving and rather dull elderlyman, who rejoiced to find a pleasant spot andcamp there quietly for weeks at a stretch.It was rumoured that her relations had oftenurged Totana to leave him, and certainly hisindolent habit of life must have been verytrying to a woman of her activity. Not long-after I left Bulgaria there was a crisis of whichthe Vice-Consul was witness. He was cele-bratino-, with the comb-makers, the feast of theAssumption of the Virgin, sacrificing sheep,makinq; candles from their fat to fasten totheir horns, burning incense over the food,sprinkling it with wine, and devoting the dayto eating, drinking, many songs and muchmerriment. There had been no known quarrelbetween Totana and her husband, but through-


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26 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.out the evening she wept bitterly ; and atnight, when all the Gypsies were abed, Petrikawas heard to raise his voice in ano'er andothreaten that, in the morning, he would cutoff his wife's hair. When morning dawnedTotana had fled. There was s^reat conster-nation when her escape was discovered : theGypsies, afoot or in taligas, scoured thecountry for miles around, but the old lady hadvanished without leaving^ a trace, and at lastthey were obliged to resume mournfully theirordinary occupations. A few days afterwardsTotana reappeared with fourteen napoleons inher pocket and the joy of triumph in her face,and was received with jubilations. Weary ofrespectability, bored to death, j^earning foradventure, she had raided a farmhouse about tenmiles from the camp and burglariously appro-priated twenty napoleons. She had been arrestedby two policemen, had softened their hearts andclosed their mouths with three napoleons apiece,and, having thoroughly enjoj^'ed her little holi-day, felt strong enough to return and faceagain her usual comparatively monotonous life.

The haloes of rectitude I had placed onthe heads of my Gypsy friends were evidently


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THE COMB-MAKERS. 27uncomfortable, for when Totana had torn hersoff, the men followed her example and withone accord pitched the insignia of sanctity intothe ditch. Several times during the journeythey invited me to be their accomplice insheep-stealing expeditions, but, fearing a sen-tence of three years' imprisonment, I wasobliged regretfully to decline. It cannot havebeen long after our start when they explainedthat they did not de23end for their livelihoodentirely on the useful occupations of comb-makino^ and farm-labour. Their real callino-they almost boasted, was the ancient andlucrative, if dangerous, profession of horse-stealino'. Now horse-stealinor in Bulo;aria is ascience, and by no means an easy trade tobe recommended for the bungling younger sonsof suburban Philistines. The owner of a horsein that most civilized country is obliged by lawto own also a certificate on which is writtena full and particular description of the animal.When, therefore, a Gypsy decides that it isnecessary that he should possess a steed, hemust first obtain from a venal Bulgar (fordishonest Bulgars do exist) a properly authen-ticated document ; and, since he is illiterate,


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28 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.must learn its contents by heart. Then heundertakes an extended tour, inspecting horseseverywhere, until he finds one that matcheshis certificate. This horse he steals. Far frombeings a deoTadin(y trade, the theft of horses isa vocation in which an intelligent Gypsy cantake an honest pride, and those who follow itwith any success retain, like certain Britonswho borrow umbrellas and smug'oie cisrars, thesentiment of honour intact.

I confess, however, that had I known thesethings at the time when I was about to trustmyself to the guidance and protection ofacquaintances of untried fidelity and unknownantecedents, whom I had met for the first timebut a couple of da37^s before, I might havehesitated. Fortunately I did not know them,and placed myself in the comb-makers' handswith every confidence. That I had no cause toregret this confidence the following chapterswill prove.


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CHAPTER III.TAKING TO THE ROADS.

Petrika had undertaken readily enough toconvey me from Varna to Rustshuk for thesum of five napoleons. I suppose I agreedtoo eagerly, for he afterwards raised the priceto seven galhi ; but, when this advance wasconceded, stood honestly by his bargain andmade no farther effort to extort a lar^'er fee.The details of the contract were vao-ue : therewas to be a tcdiga (cart) and horses, thejourney was to last about six days, no changewas to be made on my account in the dietor habits of the Gypsies, and on Tuesday,June 3rd, 1913, they were to call for me atthe British Vice-Consulate. At the time, Iwas well pleased with the arrangement ; butwhen Tuesday came and, having dressedmyself in my disguise, I sat rather sulkilyawaiting my escort, it was towards the assesand ragged tents of the Moslem nomads thatmy thoughts wandered ; not towards the tidycamp of the Christian comb-makers. The


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30 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.latter were to have come at nine o'clock, butdid not, and when eleven o'clock struck a hopegrew within me that, Gypsylike, they wouldfail me, and that I should be free to attemptonce more to wringf an unwillino* consentfrom Osman, and make my journey with theZagundzhis, And so when, about midday,Petrika and his son Turi at last arrived inthe taliga, disappointment rather than welcomewas written on my face, as, having biddenfarewell to my indulgent hostesses, I set outfor Indzhe-Kioi.

Somewhat self-conscious in my strangeattire, I glanced furtively to this side andthat, as we threaded the unmade earthen roadsof Varna, between the vulgar stucco villas,and past the grotesque cathedral, meet templeof fanatical hatred ; but it was evident thatI attracted less attention than I had been usedto receive when clothed in western garb. Wehalted for a moment in the market-^^lace, to buygrass for the horses, and as we left the townon the side near Osman's mahala young Toso,Meti's brother, recognizing me, started sud-denly from some corner and ran beside thecart, grinning and shouting and waving his


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TAKING TO THE ROADS. 31arms brown, bright-eyed, ragged and gay, hisstraight black hair falhng in irregular locks onhis forehead from under his fez. At heart Iloathed the staid comb-makers, and wouldjo37'fully have leapt from their taliga ; but allI dared to do was to wave the lad a cold salute.And so the Zagundzhis passed, as it seemed,out of my life and left me for the momentbeggared of joy. If I have dwelt unnecessarilyon the affection I cherished for this wildest ofall Gypsy tribeseaters of carrion, importunatebeggars, indescribably filthyit is not becauseI am blind either to their faults or to thevirtues of other Gypsies ; but rather becauseI have been blamed for the infatuation andwish to record my gratitude to these friendlypeople for being so happy and so beautiful.I have now said all I neednot all I wouldsay, nor so well as I would say itand theywill require no further reference here, althoughI thought still thinkof them often, andoften dreamed of them under the clear starsat night.When near Indzhe-Kioi, Turi and I left thetaliga and walked over the grass towards thetents. He told me that he wished to be a


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32 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.member of the party, but that, if he went, hewould lose the two francs he earned as dailywages by farm-labour, and asked whether Iwould allow him five days' pay (ten francs).Fearing that the constant companionship of histiresome old father would prove tedious, I gavehim evident pleasure by consenting at once.Petrika's tent was still standing, and, thinkingthat the packing-up would take some time,a part}^ of us, including Petrika himself, theVice-Consul, and Ristem, strolled away to alittle roadside khan, sat down in the veranda,and ordered drinks. Packing-up, however, wasbut a moment's work for the women, andthe loaded cart arrived almost as soon as thebeer. The small baggage had been stowed inthe bottom, then the carpets and rugs, thewhole being covered by the great black tent-cloth, while the poles of the tent lay along thesides of the cart and projected behind. Thetaliga was drawn by two horses, small, wiry,and somewhat ill-matched, one of them difficultto catch and harness, and in consequencedescribed as dillo (mad). Petrika asked forpayment in advance, and I gave him four ofthe seven napoleons promised, engrossing an


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TAKING TO THE ROADS. 33elaborate receipt on the back of the GermanConsul's beautifully written invitation todinner. This Petrika, instead of signing,wrapped in paper and put carefully away,thougfh he used to take it out and admirethe wrong side of it almost daily during ourjourney. I agreed to pay the balance of thesum at Rustshuk in the presence of theBritish Consular Agent, from whom theGypsies were to obtain a receipt for mydelivery in an undamaged condition. Thesepreliminaries settled to the satisfaction of all,we were ready to start and our farewells began :Turi kissed his brother Stano on both cheeks,Kistem drew me aside and asked for a keep-sake, the Vice-Consul shook hands, wishing meGypsy luck, and we arranged ourselves as bestwe could on the cart.

In front, on the right, sat old Petrikacrosslegged, driving, with his wife Totanaimmediately behind him. On his left I founda place, somewhat insecure when the taligajolted unmercifully over ditches and stones,with Turi close at my back. Beyond Turiand his step-mother, where there was a valleyin the tent-cloth between the projecting poles.


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34 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.sat his wife Gina, holding her pretty httlegirl Ruza. These were my five companions,but I must not omit to mention the greatwhite dog, three years old, who guarded thetent at night, and trotted beside the taligaas w^e drove alono-. He was called Grivei,which my Rumanian dictionary translates by" dapple," but he was not spotted ; he was awise dog, gentle to us and never troublesome,but as brave as a lion. Villaofe curs areastonishingly numerous in Bulgaria, very in-hospitable, and rather dangerous ; but thosewho ventured to speak uncivilly to Grivei aswe passed, apologized humbly after his firstsnarl and rush. He was magnanimous, too,for he always accepted the apology at once,and never paused to give the offender thepunishment his impertinence deserved. No-body petted him or took much notice of hiui,and he lived, I think, on the bones and crumbswe left; yet he was a faithful animal andhandsome, and he deserves my gratitude. Ifwe sat round the dying fire after nightfall, hisintelligent face, gazing in from outer darknessthrough the flickering light, completed the pic-ture, and added a sense of security and comfort.


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TAKING TO THE ROADS. 35I have often wondered whether I had any

misgivings, when, against the counsel of prudentfriends, I set out from that Httle khan in suchequivocal society to plunge into the interior ofa country that was disorganized by war, de-prived of railway communications, and peopledby representatives of several jealous races,with none of whom I could exchano-e a sinofleword of conversation, but who all, except theTurks, are barbarian at heart in spite of anancient Christianity and a new cheap plastercivilization which is rather apt to peel. I donot remember that I was uneasy ; probablyI was too well assured that I would beaccepted by the Gypsies as one of their ownkin to doubt their fidelity, and too confidentin their address to fear external dangers ; andI think that the Vice-Consul himself sharedmy living faith in the proverb : " Hawks donot peck out hawks' een." Not so Osmanson of Osman, the tsheribashi. He wasprofessedly a Mohammedan, but with thatindifference to the essentials of religion whichcharacterizes his race he had adopted, insteadof Turkish tolerance, the pitiful inter-religiousrancour which is rife among Balkan Christians,


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36 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.and detested the comb-makers so cordially,because they were nominally Christian, thathe almost forgot that they were brotherGypsies. He could believe no good of them,and his intense hatred compelled him after-wards to refuse to accept my photographbecause Turi and Gina were in the picture.When the news reached him, doubtless throughyoung Toso, that I had left Varna in Petrika'scart, he was unfeignedly anxious. He wentat once to the Vice-Consulate to bewail myprobable fate, and sitting with a glass in hishand, ever and anon instinctively attemptedto emphasize his words by pouring a libationof beer on the carpet, recollecting suddenlywhere he was, and just in time refraining.The burden of his lament was that I haddelivered myself into the hands of thieves andmurderers who w^ould cut my throat by night.It would have been better to have travelledeven with the Zagundzhis ; although theywould have begged without mercy, they wereincapable of treachery and violence. But toprotect me from such discomfort, and fromthe danger I was so rashly courting, he himself,chief though he was, would have acted as my


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TAKING TO THE ROADS. 37guide. The Vice-Consul tried vainly to makehim understand that, since he was a sedentaryGypsy (yerli), the condescension could not havebeen accepted, and, casting the blame onOsman himself, showed that the real causeof all the trouble was his refusal to allowthe Zagundzhis to accompany me. This wasundeniable, and poor Osman, apprehendingdisaster, departed very sorrowfully.

It is impossible to approve Osman's atti-tude, but easy to explain it. Occupying a re-sponsible position, he was guided by a standardof honour higher than is usual among Gypsies,and Islam had had more effect on his characterthan Christianity on that of the comb-makers,whom he doubtless regarded as not much betterthan Bulgarians. He knew, I suppose, butlittle of the Koran, but he was heir to thenoble traditions of the Turkish people, and tothe principles of the Mohammedan religion :traditions and principles which have still anextraordinarily powerful influence on conduct.The comb-makers, on the other hand, iden-tified themselves more or less with a nationin whose superstitious Church simony waslately rampant, and whose peasants, oppressed


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38 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.more cruelly by their clergy than by theirgovernors, were glad not long ago to lookto Turkish beys for protection from theexactions of their illiterate priests. Probablythe standard of Bulgarian Christianity hasrisen since her emancipation from Turkishrule, and schooling has certainly made greatstrides ; but the effects of a long period ofmoral neoj'lect and relig'ious miseruidance arenot rapidly corrected. It is well within thememory of living men that the Greek clergyof Bulofaria tauo'ht that it was no sin to robor cheat a Mussulman, but that it was wickedto give alms to a Gypsy. The effect of suchChristianity on a dour, cloddish, unimagina-tive race like the Bulgarians could only befurther deo-radation. Thus we find Consul-General Longworth reporting, in 1867, thatof the three hundred or four hundred claimsfor the recovery of debts which were broughtbefore a mixed commission, all those againstTurks were at once admitted, whether sub-stantiated by written receipts, or only by oraltestimony ; of those preferred in the samemanner by Turks against Christians, not onewas acknowledged


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MBTI-A ZAGUNDZHI5ee Chapter I.


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TAKING TO THE ROADS. 39On Gypsies, of course, such Christianity

could have no influence at all, and it wasnatural that nominally Christian Gypsies, likethe comb-makers, should retain more of theGypsy outlook and attitude than did Osman,and, knowing that the hands of all men areagainst them, regard all men as lawful prey.

There is a story of the siege of Varna, in1444, which well illustrates the difference be-tween the two o^reat Balkan reliofions. GeorgfeBrankovitsh, belonging to the Greek Church,and doubtful which side to favour, asked theRoman Catholic Hunyades what he would doif victory favoured him. Hunyades replied thathe would compel the inhabitants to confess hiscreed. Brankovitsh then approached the Sultanwith the same question, and received the replythat a church should be built near every mosquein order that the people might, according totheir faith, cross themselves in the one, or pros-trate themselves in the other. For the Turkshave always respected the injunction of Othmanwhen dying, in 1326, to his son, ''Give equalprotection to all thy subjects," and have main-tained religious liberty throughout their empire.That they should wish to follow simultaneously


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40 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.another of his precepts, " Extend the law ofthe Prophet," is but natural, since that law notonly enjoins but produces patience, discipline,sobriety, cleanliness, bravery, honesty, modesty,and even humanityvirtues which, as an oldChristian missionary in Constantinople hadonce occasion to remind his younger colleagues,are more talked about in Christendom thanpractised.


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CHAPTER IV.NORTH-EASTERN BULGARIA.

A VISITOR who judged by what he saw atVarna, and on the plain in which it hes, wouldtake north-eastern Bulgaria to be quite occi-dental, and very much like any other country.The town itself is unblushingly modern : thereare bathing-places on the shore of the BlackSea ; there is a park ; the school, barracks andcathedral are conspicuous ; foreign steamersunload in the harbour ; gardens and greattracts of common pasture are found on theoutskirts ; the lake of Devna suggests a well-watered hinterland ; good highways seem tolead in various directions ; there are isolatedvillas and farm-houses, trees, fences, and evenfactory chimneys. The district looks ratherunfinished, but nothing is distinctive or pecu-liar. Excepting for a short coast-line, the plainis hemmed in by a wall of low hills, and theBritish traveller assumes innocently that, afterclimbing up their near side, he will be able todescend on the other into similar country. My


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42 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.first discovery, on making the experiment, wasthat the good roads, which seemed to inviteexcursions, became much less alluring as soonas the town was out of sight, and almost hintedthat there was the point to turn back. When,after scrambling through deep-sunk lanes, andalong hill-side paths, I arrived very hot at thetop of the heights, and was anticipating an easydownward journey beyond, I was amazed tofind myself on a great tableland, which beganabruptly, and was, like the plain I had just left,itself fringed by low hills, the edge of a thirdand yet higher plateau.

Personally conducted by Petrika and hisfamily, I crawled from the level of the seaup this flight of enormously wide but lowsteps, feeling like an ant on a staircase, untilwe began to descend into the valley of theDanube. It was a tedious alternation : first ashort, sharp pull, from the end of one plateau tothe beginning of the next ; then a long, drearydrive across the plain ; then another ascent.Our day was as monotonous as recurringdecimals, or as the infinite repetitions of thoseoriental melodies, which Balkan Gypsies loveto coax from clarinets and drums. The table-


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NORTH-EASTERN BULGARIA. 43lands are astonishingly fertile by reason of theirgreat depth of rich soil, but they are hot anddry. In the uncultivated parts, the grass wasso thin and scanty that there was little or nograzing, and our horses had to depend almostentirely on what we cut with our knives fromthe roadside and collected in a sack as we drovealong. The landscape was without features,the scenery unattractive. Later, as we ap-proached Rustshuk, trees and villages weremore numerous,, and occasional woods appeared.But during the first part of our journey theland was totally unenclosed, bare of trees, andplanted with immense areas of corn and maize.The plains were so spacious that the sense ofloneliness numbed one : seldom did we see apeasant tilling with an antique plough ; isolatedfarms and cottages were entirely absent ; vil-lages were rare, and generally hidden in foldsof the ground, or clefts in the limiting ram-part of hills. It was difficult to understandhow so sparse a population could cultivate sohuo^e a tract.

Something should, perhaps, be discountedfrom the cheerless impression the country gave,on the ground that I travelled with despised


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44 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.outcasts, who may have had reasons of theirown for avoidino: villao;es where Petrika antici-pated unfriendly attention from the pohce, orthe recognition of one of his horses by a formerowner. Doubtless, too, the solitude was accen-tuated by recent loss of hfe in the war withTurkey, and by mobilization for the war againstthe alHes ; but even in times of peace north-eastern Bulgaria must have the appearance ofbeing almost uninhabited. Not long ago, whenthe country was in a disturbed state and undera weak government, to have lived in isolatedhouses would have been impossible, for theirtenants would have been murdered and robbedwithin a week. So the peasants gatheredthemselves together for protection, and, as inall countries which have been recently underthe dominion of Turkey, placed their villages asfar as possible from the main roads, and con-cealed them in sequestered nooks to eludeobservation. To have set them in conspicuousor convenient situations would have been toinvite the attention of marauding hordes, andencourage the unwelcome visits of officials,troops, and zaptiehs, whom the villagers wouldhave been obliged to entertain without hope of


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NORTH-EASTERN BULGARIA. 45remuneration. The causes no longer exist, butthe effects remain. At another season weshould probably have seen the people workingin the fields, and passing to or from their homesand their labour ; but the harvest was not yetripe, and even the roads were deserted.

When, as sometimes happened, we came toa village, the women took bao^s and walkedthrough it in search of food, while we droveround to meet them at the opposite side. ThusI saw less than I could have wished of the ruralinhabitants. The country through which wepassed contains Bulgarians and Turks inapproximately equal numbers, besides repre-sentatives of several other races, and eachdifferent section of the population keeps itselfseparate in villages of its own. The varioustribes have not appropriated great districts ashave the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh, norwhen they approach one another do they dwelltogether in amity as next-door neighbours Ukethe several sects of Britons. Sometimes onesaw a slender minaret, and knew that the hamletit graced was exclusively Moslem ; sometimesone saw a church, and understood that thosewho dwelt near it were all Christians. Some-


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46 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.times one would be told, " That is a Turkishvillage ; its name is Day has Dawned." At othertimes, " This is a Christian village : all the menare drunkards." It is this juxtaposition ofnaturally hostile peoples which makes theproblems of Balkan politics insoluble. Inthat unhappy peninsula there are not simplyone Dublin and one Belfast, between which aninfinite number of dividing lines could easily bedrawn, but hundreds of Dublins and hundredsof Belfasts, mixed intimately and fortuitously.No lines can ever group together the districtsinhabited respectively by Turks, Bulgarians,Greeks, Serbs, Vlachs, Tatars, and Circassians :they are distributed like variously colouredmarbles in a bottle. The difficulty is furtherintensified by religion, for there are Bulgarswho are Greeks and Bulgars who are Moham-medan, and every church and every race loathesall the rest, and none, except perhaps the Turk,can be trusted to rule any of the others.

For the whole of the first two days of ourjourney, and occasionally afterwards, the I'oadswe travelled would have been considered impass-able by a prudent driver. Stunil)ling-blocksthe size of portmanteaux were as conimon as


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NORTH-EASTERN BULGARIA. 47daisies, great ditches crossed the track, and wepassed over the dry beds of streams which wouldhave made picturesque rockeries in a city park.The jolting was prodigious, and sometimes oldPetrika seemed to take a malicious delight inrushing the obstacles at a canter, playing agame of cup-and-ball with his passengers. Itseemed a miracle that we fell back into ourplaces : a miracle, too, that the taliga heldtogether. There were, of course, no springs,and the buffeting was such as would havewrecked any British cart. There have beenperiods in the history of Turkey when a ragefor building highways consumed the funds, andwonderful feats were accomplished. The makingof these voyoX roads impressed the popularimaofination, and leorends about it have beentransferred, as legends so often are, to morerecent achievements. It is said in Varna, forinstance, that the very new road, reputed thebest in Bulo'aria, which leads from the town tothe King's country palace, was begun andfinished in a single night. Extraordinaryefforts were, however, sometimes really made.When, in 1837, Sultan Mahmud II. visited hisfortresses on the lower Danube, a few weeks


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48 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.sufficed to construct a special road from Con-stantinople across the Balkans to Shumla, withbridges over the rivers, and pavilions where HisMajesty might pass the night or halt for refresh-ment. Unfortunately the Turks, after lavishinga fortune to build a road, grudge a penny tokeep it in repair, and in a short time it becomesimpracticable for wheeled vehicles. An Englishtraveller who looked for Mahmiid's highwayabout ten years after it had been made, reportedthat it had disappeared under rank herbage,that the elements in league with the torrentshad swept away the bridges, and that the onlyvisible memorial of the Sultan's progress thenconsisted of a few ruinous pavilions convertedinto khans. Several times during our journeywe came upon the great chaussee connectingVarna with Rustshuk, which Midhat Pashabuilt for all time during his short administration(1865-7). It is paved with great blocks ofstone, and so sturdy that the country folk neveruse it except to cross it, preferring parallel side-tracks of their own made by the repeated pas-sao^es of their carts over the bare earth. Thesetracks consist of a double path, one for eachhorse, with a garden of wild flowers between


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NORTH-EASTERN BULGARIA. 49them. Often one horse and two wheels travelon a plane a couple of feet above that on whichthe other horse and wheels move, and the shockwhen sides chano^e is unnervinor. When theruts become so deep that traffic is impossible,the peasants go a little wider afield and make anew detour, so that in places where the groundwas soft we sometimes found six or sevenpuzzling tracks branching out like the ribs ofan open fan, but all leading at last to the samegoal.

Travelling in a springless cart by roads ofthis kind, through dreary waterless solitudes,in the height of summerweary, hungry, dusty,roasted in the sun, my mouth so dry that con-versation was impossibleI often wished myselfanywhere but in Bulgaria, and wondered fret-fully what devil had made me prefer such aventure, when I might have been dwellingcomfortably in the Vice-Consulate at Varna.And then, perhaps, the plain would dip unex-pectedly into a little dell, where were tall shadytrees and green grass, and a long low w^all, atone end of which was a higher and more monu-mental partvery simple and dignified, butmarvellously cheering. As half-dead a moment


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50 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.before, our spirits rose suddenly, and all thegaiety of life surged again within us ; for henceflowed a jet of cold, pure, crystal-clear water,fillinof a series of stone cattle-trou2"hs that ranthe whole length of the wall. In such oases wewould pause for our meals and a short sleep inthe welcome shade, the horses would be fed,and even Grivei would rush forward, barkinggladly, to slake his thirst and cool his feet inthe stream. Those only who have suffered theparched throat and burning lips can know theheartfelt thanks with which such a siofht ishailed ; and all such will join me in blessing,not western civilization, not the Bulgariangovernment, not even a water company or asanitary board, but the despised Turk. Thedevotion of a just part of a man's wealth toreligious and charitable purposes is a constantlyreiterated and piously observed principle ofIslam, and the construction and endowment offountains (tsheshmes) is one of the most admi-rable expressions of Turkish munificence. Yearsago some benevolent Mohammedan, passingthis spot, had needed to drink, and discoveredthe spring. Out of gratitude to the Giver ofall good things he had raised and endowed this


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NORTH-EASTERN BULGARIA. 51gracious monument, in order that his fellow-men might the better enjoy the same blessing,and the faithful have water for their ablutions.The same hand that erected the fountain for thetraveller, planted also the trees to shelter himfrom the scorching rays of the sun, and gavethe surrounding land to provide pasture for hishorses. Above the point from which flows thelimpid and precious stream is, generally, amodest panel of white marble, on which isgraven, in delicate Arabic script, perhaps thename of the donor, which no wayfarer couldread without respectful gratitude, or perhaps averse from the Koran. It was with angeralmost amounting to fury that, over and overagain, I found these little recording tabletslying broken on the ground, purposely removedand defaced by that far less admirable race towhom the Turks once taught a very necessarylesson in charity, piety, and cleanliness.


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CHAPTER V.LIFE ON THE ROADS.

After leaving the camp at Indzhe-Kioi, wefollowed the banks of the lake Devna and thestream which feeds it, travelling inland untilwe reached a glass-factory and a few cottagesjust before Gebedzhe, but on the opposite side ofthe little river. We had filled a large sack withgood grass and dandelion leaves for the horses,but though it was then six o'clock, I had had nodinner, nor indeed anything to eat except amorsel of bread and some raw garlic. Feelinghungry, I paused with old Petrika at the khanto drink beer, eat sausages, and buy sweets forthe child, before joining the others at thecamping-place. It was a piece of waste groundby the roadside, covered with thin grass andsparse bushes, littered with rags, tins, and rub-bish ; but not unpleasantly dirty. Turi hadturned the horses out to graze, and the twowomen had gone to the village of Gebedzhe to


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LIFE ON THE KOADS. 53obtain food. They came back, after about anhour, with the raw material for a meal, includinga stolen hen, and borrowed my knife to prepareit for the pot. During the cooking, Turi andI revisited the khan, returning to find supperread}'-. On the ground had been set a largeplated copper tray, in the middle of which, in ametal dish, steamed a savoury stew, containingthe stolen hen which I had seen alive half-an-hour earlier. It had been plucked and dressedwith great care, for not a feather was visible thatmight have betrayed the theft. Unleavenedbread had been baked, and a big piece, too hotto touch, had been placed on the tray for eachof usPetrika, Turi, and myself Tlie womenate apart. The hori (girl), Turi's wife, carriedwater round, "that we might wash our handsto eat bread," and after this ceremony we fellto with good appetite. First we ate the soupwith wooden spoons, then we mopped up therice and vegetables with pieces of bread, andlastly we seized in our fingers the dismemberedfragments of the stolen hen and gnawed them.Both the meal and the mode of serving it w^erein Turkish style, and the only characteristic-ally Gypsy circumstances were the method


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54 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGAKIA.of obtaining poultry and perhaps the mannerof kilHng it. Although all the cooking isdone by females, animals intended for foodmust be butchered by a man : the Gypsieswould refuse to eat anything that had beenslaughtered by a woman.

I was ashamed to find that my table deport-ment, compared with that of my friends, wasclumsy and uncouth. The Gypsies seemed tofind the thumbs and first two fingers of theirleft hands perfect substitutes for knives andforks, and manipulated their bread so cleverlythat plates would have been superfluous. Myimitative efforts were shockingly unsuccessful,and I fear that Totana, if, as was probably thecase, she watched me, must have been painedby my solecisms. But my attention was fullyoccupied in the attempt to learn a new anddifficult process of eating, and I had no time toconsider the feelings of my hostess. My firsttrouble was that sitting cross-legged is not oneof my accomplishments : the heels of my shoesget into wrong places, I find the ground unex-pectedly hard, my knees rise obstructivelyagainst my wish, cramp seizes me suddenly,and I am apt to lose my balance. After strug-


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LIFE ON THE ROADS. 55gling manfully for some time, I capitulated andknelt ; but my second difficulty could not bethus easily evaded. It needs perseverance anda very steady hand to convey food in a shallowwooden spoon from the distant common dish to-the mouth, and in my hunger and impatienceI fear I wasted the good victuals distressingly.And lastly, on the occasion of this, my firstmeal with the comb-makers, I was faced by thedreadful problem of the bones as puzzling asmust have been the problem of the cherry-stones to the Shah and the question of howto gnaw. Here, however, I made an importantdiscovery. If any creature of civilization hasever wondered why the Almighty providedhim with front teeth, let him attack a tougfhfowl without knife or fork, and he will under-stand that Providence is wise. " Stolen hensare sweet," the Gypsies said ; and, truly, inspite of its toughness, I think I have neverenjoyed a more welcome meal.

When the remains of the food had beencleared away, gadzhe (Gentiles) came to stareand talk ; but they did not stay long, and bynine o'clock we were all ready for bed. Thetent, being regarded rather as a shelter against


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bQ WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.rain and sun than an enclosed dwelling, waspitched only when wet weather seemed probable,and, since the night promised to be fine, weslept luxuriously under the sk}'-, with nothingto separate us from mother-earth but thin rugs.The old couple lay in front of the taliga, andalmost under it, Turi with his wife and childat the back, and I at a corner, I threw myselfdown in all my clotheseven with the kalpakon my head ; and Turi came, in brotherlyfashion, to tuck me in under my yorgan. Likemost Gypsies, he was much afraid of thieves,and, before biddinof me o^ood-nioi-ht, asked whereI kept my money, instructing me to put it,with my passport, and such other valuables asI n)ight possess, down the leg of my trousers.Then I began to count the stars, which seemedto shine with unusual splendour, and before Ireached fifty I was fast asleep.

I awoke at half-past three, and putting outmy hand, found that my face and my quilt werewet with heavy dew. A thick mist had risenfrom the lake and swamps near which we wereencamped, and it was some hours before thesun dispersed it. At about a quarter-to-fourthe old woman arose, groaning much, as if she


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LIFE ON THE KOADS. 57were seriously ill ; but she lay down about aquarter of an hour later, when the ho7-i beganthe work of the day. I, too, fell asleep again,but got up with the rest at about six o'clock,found the bori sitting by a fire she had made,sewing diligently, and walked off with towels,soap, and brushes, to wash in the river, near awooden bridge which leads from the main roadto the village of Gebedzhe. This bridge mustbe indispensable now ; yet under other con-ditions, less than fifty years ago, when it wasbuilt by a British engineer to facilitate theconstruction of the railway-line from Rustshukto Varna, it was cut down during the firstnight after its completion, and the mortifiedbuilder was told that, rather than live withsuch easy access from the road, the villagerswould burn their houses, and migrate to a lessapproachable spot. The Gypsies' ablutionswere simpler than mine, for they contentedthemselves with pouring water over their handsand heads, using no soap. They also carefullyrinsed their mouths and gargled, and Turiscrubbed his teeth with his thumb. Then eachof us drank a tiny cup of Turkish coffee, excel-lent in quality, but in quantity a mockery of


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58 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.breakfast, and a miserable support for the longand laborious day ; the horses, which had beentethered near the waggon, were harnessed, andby seven o'clock we were jolting violently alongan alleged road. It skirted a lake, but at firstthe mist rendered everything invisible, excepta fringe of reeds, from which was heard thechorus of innumerable frogs.We halted outside Little Pravadia, unhar-nessing the horses that they might eat thegrass we had collected, and with an uncontroll-able 7iostalgie for ham and eggs, I allowed myhopes to dwell pleasantly on the prospect ofbread, and perhaps butter. I assumed, ofcourse, that w^e had paused for a meal, and wasdismayed to find that Petrika, more mercifulto his beasts than he was to his family andmyself, had no desire except to be shaved.By good fortune we found the barber's shopcrowded, and I persuaded the old man to walkon, whither I much preferred, to the khan toeat a savoury breakfast with wine. The localconstable gladly accepted an invitation to shareour meal, and I watched, with amusement, therepresentative of law and order making to him-self a friend of the mammon of unrighteousness,


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LIFE ON THE ROADS. 59each, no doubt, with a far-seeing eye on sonnefuture advantage. Totana and the others wereleft starving, and did not seem to mind it, forthe Gypsies follow the old Turkish rule, andeat only once a day, generally after sunset,though they sometimes tempered their ab-stemiousness to my western voracity by munch-ing crusts in the forenoon, or calling at khansfor supplementary food.

Breakfast finished, we returned to the taliga,and resumed our journey by rather better roadsover the great plains. Our custom was to siton the cart and drive, sometimes furiously, ifthe road ran level or downhill. When we wentuphill, Turi, his wife, and I used to walk ; andoccasionally, towards evening, the old couplewould take a long stroll by themselves. Aswe were driving steadily across one of thewide tablelands, a yellow wagtail ran for somedistance in front of the waggon. Petrikatouched me with his whip, pointed to the bird,and said it would bring great good luck. I wasmuch interested, because between wagtails andvagabonds there used to be, in the minds ofthe ancients, an association which was trans-ferred by mediaeval scholars to Gypsies, when


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60 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.the Gypsies became familiar objects of scholarlyspeculation in Europe. Three centuries beforeChrist, Greek poets quoted the KtyKAos as anemblem of poverty ; and, three centuries afterChrist, Italian peasants used the same word asa nickname for tramps. Later, a mediaevalpoet applied the metaphor to himself, lamentingthat, weary of the life of a cinclus, he longed tobe a snail, with a house of his own. Modernnaturalists have allotted the title cinclus to thewater-ouzel, but the older writers seem alwaysto have taken it to mean the wagtail, generallythe water-wagtail ; and in those happy times ofirresponsible etymology, when the study oflanguage was less a scientific discipline than animaginative romance, they sought to derive therace-name Cingariis, " Gypsy," from the bird.If this derivation wanted truth, it possessed atleast a certain appropriateness, for its supportersgave credit to an unfounded legend which makesthe wagtail a homeless wanderer, too feeble tobuild a nest for itself. Some of them pointedout, in triumphant corroboration, that it is also,like the Gypsies, restless and poor of plumagethey might have clinched their argument byadding, what Shakespeare knew, that it is pert.


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LIFE ON THE ROADS. 61The vaofaries of the learned would be of

little interest, were it not that in westernEurope the Gypsies themselves claim the water-wagtail as their own. Both in Germany andGreat Britain it is called the Gypsy bird(Romano tshiriklo), and honoured above allother feathered fowl. In an unpublished essay,Mr. Engelbert Wittich, a German Gypsy, whohas, by his writings, done more than any otherGypsy author to elucidate the customs andsuperstitions of his tribe, depicts the joy withwhich his brethren hail the appearance of awater-wagtail, sure precursor of a lucky day,during which success will attend them in alltheir undertakings. To scare such a visitor, orattempt to do it the slightest injury, is counteda serious crime, and punished severely. Bywagging its tail with energy, a single bird warnsthe Gypsies that other travellers, not of Gypsyblood, are near at hand ; but if several runhither and thither in the camp, or on the road,it is a sign that Gypsies will be met, probablyfriends or relations. The English Gypsies, asis well known, have a similar tradition, andbelieve that the appearance of a water-wagtailforetells a meeting with other Gypsies, kinsfolk


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62 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.or strangers, according as it flies, or does not flyaway. They have variants, also, which do notring genuine, but sound a gadzho (Gentile)rather than a Gypsy note, borrowings, perhaps,or superstitions misapplied. An authority onthe subject records that the Gypsy lad whokills one of these birds, is said to be sure to havea lady for his sweetheart ; and an old woman, amember of the Heron family, remarked to mereflectively, when a wagtail was fearlessly haunt-ing the neighbourhood of her tent : " Dere'ssomeone a-thinking of me werry hard."

Thus it was pleasant to find that, at theopposite end of Europe, the Gypsy bird wasstill held in respect by the Gypsies as a fortu-nate omen, and I awaited with interest the luckwhich the wagtail should bring.


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CHAPTER VI.THE LUCK OF THE WAGTAIL.

As we approached the village of Yasi-Tepe,near which the comb-makers winter in houses,we saw, out on the plain, a great horse- andcattle-fair in progress. Petrika quickened thepace instinctively, passing without remarka camp of spoon-makers (roiari). We hadalready met a tribe of similar Gypsies onthe road : I believe they possessed donkeys,but they travelled in long waggons coveredwith matting and drawn by buffaloes ; and thewomen were distinguished by great brass claspsat the waist. I saw them, however, but for amoment as we passed, and had no time to studythem carefully. The tribe is numerous in north-eastern Bulgaria, and I had examined at closerquarters a poorer company which visited Varna.On the plain to the north of the town, far fromOsman's niahala, they had turned their sevendonkeys out to graze, and pitched three verysmall tents, which they moved frequently, ac-cording to the direction of the wind. The party


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64 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.consisted of an old woman, three young women,an unmarried girl, three men, a lad, about tenchildren, and a baby which was generally slungin a hammock-cradle in one of the tents. Asoldier in khaki uniform often worked withthem ; but whether he belonged to the familyor came from the barracks, which were quitenear, I never ascertained. It was difficult tocommunicate with them, for, although theywere dark and Gypsy-like, they denied theirrace and did not understand Romani, usingRumanian among themselves. They madespindles, wooden spoons, large wooden ladles,troughs, and little wheels or pulleys the use ofwhich I did not discover, labouring early andlate with exemplary diligence, and a man couldproduce a hundred spoons in a day. The womenwere usually employed in hawking their waresin the town, though the girl often took a turnat one of the lathes. Of these they had three ;curiously primitive instruments, in using whichthe power is supplied by sawing with a kind ofbow, the string; of which is wound round theobject to be turned. When selling in the townthey bargained, but at the tents they had fixedprices for their goods, neither bargaining nor


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THE LUCK OF THE WAGTAIL. 65asking more than they were wilUng to accept.For spindles and spoons they charged aboutthe same price : thirty centimes for five. Abig wooden ladle cost sixty centimes ; and atrough, made of wood hardened by burning,two francs.

Immediately after passing the spoon-makers'canjp, Petrika, the old lady, and I dismountedand made oft' across the plain, leaving Turi totake the taliga to a halting-place. We foundthe business of the fair almost at an end ; thehorses which had changed owners were beingled away, while the dealers crowded the canvasbooths where food and drink were sold, talkingexcitedly. Except for the flatness of the landand the absence of trees and hedges, the sceneclosely resembled a great British fair, such asthat which is held every autumn in the opencountry at Brough Hill ; the Yasi-Tepe gather-ing was, however, much smaller, the costumesbrighter in colour, and I saw far more drunken-ness dozens of intoxicated and unconsciousBulgarians were being pitched headlong intothe carts which were to take them home. Turiarrived soon, but he and his father met so manyfriends that I was left to sit rather disconso-


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66 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.lately on a bench in a beer-booth. G3^psies wereplentiful, and all took me for one of Petrika'snumerous sons or sons-in-law ; becoming muchinterested when the nature of my journey wasexplained. I learned that Gypsies are not theonly thieves in Bulgaria, for I was introduced toa singular character, a purely gadzho (Gentile)horse-dealer who spoke fluent Bomani, andmust have been involved in the illicit branchof his trade, since he gave Turi, as baksheeshfor help in some past transaction, a long andgorgeous cigarette-holder of amber, ivory, andebony inlaid with silver. The Gypsies describedhim as very wealthy, and I believe he wasmayor of a neighbouring village I foundhim genial. He accompanied us to our campon the edofe of the villagfe, and shared ourmealthis time lamb, bought at the fair ; notstolen poultry. Then we packed up and pro-ceeded on our way, passing as usual round theoutside of the village, not through it, probablyfor the purpose of escaping the attention of thepolice. It had been a pleasant experience, andthe wagtail had vindicated its reputation.We made a second halt late in the afternoon,at a village where, according to Petrika, there


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THE LUCK OF THE WAGTAIL. 67was a small Gypsy quarter. I have forgottenits name, and was much too tired to visit themahala, but threw myself at once on the groundand slept. Petrika, however, had resolved toattempt the impossible task of reaching Shumlathat night, and I was soon roused in order thatthe journey might be resumed. Dreadfullyfatigued I dozed in my place, and had to befrequently awakened in case I should fall fromthe taliga. And then occurred the only inci-dent which gave me any anxiety during thewhole journey. Waking suddenly from half-slumber, I found the Gypsies in the middle ofan eager conversation, and the words which fellon my ear were, " We will not kill (mar-) himto-morrow." I started into complete conscious-ness at once. If they were not going to killme to-morrow, evidently they intended to do sothe day after, or at some later date. What wasI to do ? Was Osman's prophecy about to befulfilled ? The Gypsies had revolvers ; I wasunarmed. I thought of running away ; but,with the railways suspended, I should have hadto run far. I considered casting myself on theprotection of the police ; but how was I toexplain the case to them, knowing neither


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68 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.Bulgarian nor Turkish ? And so, in the end, Idozed off again, preferring the evils I knew tothe evils I knew not of; or, at least, preparedto reconsider the matter during the day of lifethe Gypsies had allowed me.

At nicyhtfall we reached a modern villaofecalled Kaspitshanone street with a few shopsand khans, a railway station, a market-building,and a factory of some kind. It was an un-pleasant place, and we camped, or rather settled,for the tent was not spread, on the most un-pleasant part of itthe market-place, litteredwith offal and stones, and smelling of cattle.We were all terribly tiredtoo tired to make afire, or cook, or do anything except drag outthe mats and prepare to sleep. Old Petrikaapparently took pity on me, for he invited me toa khan and gave me a halfpenny cup of coffeesurely an unnecessary kindness if he intendedto murder me two days afterwards. And, whenwe returned, Turi was sympathetic and atten-tive, and I went with him to another khan todrink rakia (spirits), and to a shop to buy sar-dines and bread in order that we might not goto bed starving-. When we brous^ht the food tothe waggon the women were evidently pleased,


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THE LUCK OF THE WAGTAIL. 69and ate merrily. And then, as I watched thestars and awaited the obhvion of sleep, I re-flected that Tnar- can be used metaphorically,and has other meanings besides " kill," so thatprobably the Gypsies meant nothing worsethan that they would not over-fatigue me onthe next day.

We rose at a quarter to four and startedbreakfastless at a quarter past, glad to leave sounwholesome a pitch. About two hours afterstarting we halted at a high grassy place by theroadside, within sight of Shumla, and ate breaddipped in oil from the sardines we had had for sup-per ; but it was a short halt, and at about a quarterto eiofht we reached the outskirts of the town.The horses were unharnessed and turned out tograze on a large tract of waste land, covered asusual with rubbish and rags, while the horibaked bread. Her method was one which isused also by peasants in Bulgaria, and is by nomeans a lengthy operation. A large, round,cushion-shaped slab of dough is hastily kneadedon the metal tray which serves for table atmeals, and is then placed on a circular sheet ofiron, slightly cupped. The iron and dough areset on the wood fire, and red-hot ashes heaped


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70 WITH GYPSIES IN BULGARIA.upon them, nothing protecting the bread fromburning. The result, if slightly heavy, is by nomeans unpalatable, though much blackenedsuperficially in the process. It is eaten freshand hotso hot that it is difficult to touch it.

In the meantime, before the meal was ready,Turi and I took the two horses to be shodnecessary precaution, because we were, in future,to travel much by metalled roads, and less thanpreviously by country tracks of bare earth.Turi led them, while I followed behind with awhip which, doubtful as to what would be theeffect of its application on the horse called dilloyI was afraid to use. Unfortunately the daywas a holiday ; all the shops were shut, and itwas some time before we found, with the helpof the old couple who had joined us, a smithwilling to work. Holidays and days of abstin-ence used to be observed religiously in Bulgaria.Of the latter there are one hundred and eighty-three when, even now, it is sometimes almostimpossible to buy anything to eat or drink inChristian villages. Since all the rest of the yearis made up of feast-days, half a Bulgar's lifeconsists of fasts when he may scarcely eat, andthe other half of festivals when he dare not


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THE LUCK OF THE WAGTAIL. 71work. The strictness of this ridiculous pietymust have been somewhat relaxed, or evensuch progress as Bulgaria has made would havebeen impossible. In the end we persuaded ablacksmith to commit sinor perform a workof necessity and mercyand four shoes wereput on at a cost of two francs, Totana takingbaksheesh surreptitiously in the form of a usefullong rod. Turi then returned to the taliga,while Petrika and I, after being sh

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(1916) With Gypsies in Bulgaria