The Days of a Man 



the road slowly ascends the passes of the Balkan range, 

 the mountains of which, though fairly high, are seldom 

 craggy, being for the most part broadly rounded. 

 At Sofia, toward evening, we put up at the excellent 

 "Grand Hotel de Bulgarie." There we were greeted 

 by Reuben H. Markham, a young Kansan, a grad- 

 uate of the Union Theological Seminary, then principal 

 of the Mission School for Girls at Samokov, with 

 whom I had frequently corresponded. A man of 

 liberal spirit and large capacity, he speaks Bulgarian 

 fluently and is remarkably well posted on Balkan affairs. 

 He remained with us as companion and interpreter 

 during our entire stay in Bulgaria. 



Scholar- A serious scholar, a short time before he had 

 shi f a " d read a paper before a local missionary conference on 

 modern views of the authorship of the Bible, giving 

 ideas now currently taught in our divinity schools. 

 Some of the older missionaries were very much 

 horrified at these lapses from their orthodoxy, one 

 good lady declaring that "Mr. Markham is no better 

 than a Calvinist or Unitarian or something of that 

 sort," while certain other conservatives tried to 

 have him disciplined. But wiser men, Haskell of 

 Salonica and Ericson of Albania, realizing that he 

 had few equals in the Christian service, came success- 

 fully to his defense. 



Sofia The capital stands on a rather high plateau sur- 



rounded by dome-like mountains. In no respect 

 metropolitan in appearance, it is a very quiet, almost 

 Puritanic town occupied by relatively self-respecting 

 and well-educated people shut away from the great 

 currents of Europe. 



At the hotel I met the late James D. Bourchier, 



c 574 : 



