192 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



A SERBIAN CHIEF EUEEY ACCOUTRED 



Alone among the Balkan States, Serbia attained her independ- 

 ence unaided. She won it from the Turks under the leadership 

 of one of her own chieftains, Black George, the swineherd. 



stacles. Three monarchs have sat upon 

 her troublous throne. Under one of 

 them a Bulgarian army, deserted by its 

 Russian tutors on the eve of battle, 

 reached the gates of Belgrade ; under an- 

 other the Bulgarian banner was brought 

 to the outer defenses of Constantinople. 

 I r nder the third Bulgaria has again be- 

 gun the slow march upward. 



Sofia, the capital ; Philippopolis, the 

 largest city; Varna, the chief port; Tir- 



novo, the ancient seat of 

 government, with many 

 smaller centers, are towns 

 of which any nation 

 might be proud. 



The country possesses 

 great wheat fields, exten- 

 sive forests, rich mines — 

 all of which have been 

 made to respond to that 

 patient industry for 

 which the Bulgarian 

 peasant is the model for 

 all his Balkan neighbors. 

 A unique product — and 

 the most profitable — is 

 the attar of roses, the 

 world's supply of which 

 comes from southern 

 Bulgaria and which has 

 enriched the landed peas- 

 ants of that quarter be- 

 yond the wildest of their 

 dreams. 



BULGARIA NOW RID OE 



BURDENSOME ARMY 



EXPENSE 



Training for the Bul- 

 garian army, before the 

 signing of the Treaty of 

 Neuilly in 191 9, began in 

 boyhood, and the former 

 Bulgarian military force 

 remains, in my mind, as 

 among the most effective 

 of the world's fighting 

 machines. Created in the 

 first instance by Russian 

 genius and designed to 

 cooperate with Russia's 

 forces in the Russian ad- 

 vance to the southern 

 seas, it was maintained 

 by the Bulgarian people 

 at a cost of taxation and toil incalculable. 

 But the memories of Slivnitza, of Lule- 

 Burgas, of Kirk-Killisseh, and of Adria- 

 nople should not be dimmed by recent 

 events brought about by a misguided and 

 fatal division of opinion among a few 

 leaders wherein the selfish and the stub- 

 born had their way — a way which has 

 led Bulgaria to so sorry a place in the 

 world's esteem, but from which the pa- 

 tient perseverance of her people will one 



Moore 



