A GROUP OF COUNTRY BElvLES : SOFIA, BULGARIA 



Orthodox Church and a Bulgarian Ortho- 

 dox Church. For this the Greeks have 

 never forgiven them, and even now we 

 hear of a Greek priest in a Greek Mace- 

 donian village refusing marriage or burial 

 rites to an isolated Bulgarian. 



Another cause of friction between 

 Bulgarians and Greeks is the difference 

 in character. The Greek thinks himself 

 superior to the Bulgarian in every way ; 

 the Bulgarian, on the other hand, regards 

 the Greek as his inferior ; so it is the 

 world over. 



A Greek schoolmaster has been quoted 

 as saying that as the Turkish conqueror 

 had the claws and fangs of the tiger the 

 Greek had been forced to acquire the 



qualities of the fox. If the Turk at his 

 worst had tigerish qualities and the Greek 

 a foxy nature, the Bulgarian, in his per- 

 sistence and solidity and lack of subtlety, 

 might be compared to a bulldog. 



These peasant people have very solid 

 qualities, qualities that should take them 

 far, and should never let them retrograde, 

 for a gain made by persistence and sheer 

 weight cannot be lost, as can that won 

 by a trick. There is an initiative and a 

 power of organization in the Bulgarians 

 that is unusual in the capricious and 

 fatalistic Orient. 



Our Bulgarian students had a certain 

 sturdiness, an out-of-doors quality, a 

 sanity which marked them as different 



383 



