BYZANTINE CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES CONVERTED INTO MOSQUES

St. Sophia is open every day and can be visited at any time; in Ramazan, only in the forenoon. Entrance by the north porch. Admission (paid when entering) 5 piastres per head. The galleries are closed to the public.

St. Sophia, called Ayiah Sofia by the Turks, was originally a basilica with a wooden roof, and was first built by Constantine the Great in 326 A.D. ; it was named by him the Church of St. Sophia (Holy Wisdom), but either because the original edifice was found to be too small, or because it was still unfinished, it was rebuilt of wood in 358 A.D. by the son and successor of Constantine, and consecrated and inaugurated with great pomp by Eudoxius the Arian, then Bishop of Constantinople, on the 15th of February 360 A.D. Forty-four years later, on the 20th June 404 A.D., in the reign of the Emperor Arcadius, the part of the building containing the altar and pulpit, together with the roof, was destroyed by fire during the riots caused by the unjust exile of St. John Chrysostom. The church was restored by Theodosius II., and a vaulted roof was added under the superintendence of Kufinus Magister; but it was again destroyed by fire in 532 in the reign of Justinian, during the horrible riot called the Nika riot, from the watchword used by those taking part in it. Justinian, then at the summit of his power and glory, resolved to rebuild the church in such a manner as to make it eclipse all former attempts in magnificence, grandeur, and size.

Anthemius of Tralles

For this purpose he ordered the best materials and the best workmen to be got together from all parts of his empire, and the new building was commenced forty days after the destruction of the old one, and was completed in five years, ten months and two days by the architects Anthemius of Tralles (Aidin), Isidorus of Miletus, and Ignatius Magister. The dedicatory and inaugural ceremony took place on the 25th December 537 A.D. Twenty years later, the eastern half-dome and the main dome fell in, crushing the altar and pulpits to pieces in their fall. Justinian had the church restored again by the architect Isidorus the younger, a nephew of Isidorus Magister, and the second inauguration took place on the 24th December 562 A.D.; but the restoration caused the edifice to lose much of its former airiness private istanbul tour, its increased solidity having entailed a corresponding amount of bulkiness. It is said that in the re-erection of St. Sophia a hundred architects were employed, each having a hundred workmen under him.

Of these, five thousand worked on the right side, and five thousand on the left side of the building, each of the two sets vying with the other as to which should be first to complete its task, and encouraged by the Emperor, who, turning superstition to account to stimulate the efforts of the workmen, caused it to be known that the plan of the church had been divulged to him in a dream by an angel; and that visions disclosed to him whence to procure the costly materials and art treasures for the building and decoration of the church; while the solution of any architectural difficulties was also ascribed to the agency of the angels. In a word, superstition was the prime factor in the rebuilding of St. Sophia, and clings to the building down to the present day, as is evinced by the numerous traditions handed down ; a favourite one being that this whilom church is haunted every Easter Eve by a chorus of angels, whose chanting is audible to those of the pious who may happen to be in the building at the time; and not only Greeks, but Muhammadans also, are to be found who aver that they themselves have heard the angelic chorus perform!

The cost of rebuilding St. Sophia is estimated to have amounted to what would be equivalent to a million sterling, an immense sum in those days, and proved such a drain upon the imperial exchequer that, according to Procopius, to meet the expense of construction, Justinian had to stop the salaries of all government officials, and even those of masters of public schools, as well as the pay of his troops, and divert the money thus obtained to the further-ance of his pet scheme.

Along Slaveykov Street

Along Slaveykov Street there are several Revival houses connected with Petko R. Slaveykov’s stay in Plovdiv in 1881 – 1883, when Plovdiv was the capital Eastern Ru- malia. He lived in the asymmetrical Revival house of Bedros Basmajyan, now housing the Home of the Teacher and bearing the name of the great public figure, poet and writer. Close by is the so-called Slaveyk- ov School, established in the distinguished- looking house of Georgi Panchev, where Petko Slaveykov taught. Another place is Slaveykov Cafe or Georgi Moraliyata’s Tavern frequented by the elderly teacher for his morning coffee. At the corner of Kiril Nektariev and Architect Hristo Peev Streets there stands an asymmetrical house from the end of the 18th c. the home for many years of the renowned artist Georgi Dan- chov Zografina.

He was a revolutionary, an associate of Vasil Levski’s, an exile in Anatolia and a volunteer in the Russo-Turkish Liberation War. The house has been recently reconstructed by the Chamber of Crafts in Koblents – Germany and now houses a vocational school. At the upper end of Dr. St. Chomakov Street is the home of the first mayor of Plovdiv after the Liberation, Atanas Samokovets bulgaria private tours, a prominent public and political figure, brother of the Revival artist Stanislav Dospevski.

Artin Gidikov

The corner of Artin Gidikov and 4th January Streets is occupied by the entirely renovated large symmetrical house of Artin Gidikov, an Armenian social figure and benefactor to Armenians and Bulgarians alike. On Saborna Sreet opposite the imposing building of the Girls’ Secondary School there is a memorial plaque reading that the Russian Consulate lay on this site before the Liberation. It was headed in 1957 – 1877 by the Revival figure and man of letters Naiden Gerov and on several occasions visited by Vasil Levski. A very small section of the historic consulate has survived to our time.

One of the most remarkable historic buildings in the Old Town is the Yellow School, called thus because of the colour of its walls. Actually this is the first Bulgarian secondary school to be opened in Plovdiv in 1868, a successor to the well-established diocesan SS. Cyril and Methodius School. The solid building was designed and erected by the well-known Bratsigovo master-builder Todor Dimov. The school is two-storey with an elevated ground floor and sparingly decorated but dignified facades.

On the corner of the building on Tsar Ivaylo and T.Samodumov Streets stand the well-preserved inscriptions in Bulgarian and Osmanli Turkish engraved on a commemorative tablet stating that ‘this public secondary school’ was built in 1868 by the good will of Sultan Abdul Azzis Khan. The yellow school or the SS. Cyril and Methodius First Bulgarian Secondary School is unique in Bulgaria for being still used as an educational establishment. It houses the folklore department of the Music Academy in Plovdiv.

Tourist attractions

Tourist attractions: The 4th century Roman tomb, discovered in 1942, is quadrangular with a cylindrical vault and marvellous frescoes, the finest and best preserved wallpaintings from the time of Theodosius I.

The figures of people, wild animals, birds, flowers, fruits and the scenes showing leopards fighting with boars are interesting material for studying the way of life in slave society.

The Ethnographic Museum in Medjidie-Tabia fortress, two kilometres from the centre,alsohasan archaeological exhibition.

About 17 kilometres from Silistra and three kilometres from the Danube is Sreburna Lake, a national reserve under the Institute of Zoology and included in UNESCO’s World List. Some very rare species of water birds live here and pelicans from all over Europe converge on the lake in the autumn before their flight south.

South along the E-87 is Zlatni Pyassatsi, one of the biggest resort complexes in Bulgaria. It is 17 kilometres north of Varna, to which it is connected by a modern motorway. The resort takes its name from the beach — almost 4 kilometres of golden sand over 100 metres wide sightseeing turkey. It lies on the same latitude as well-known French and Italian resorts on the Mediterranean coast. The climate here is warm and mild, average temperature in July is 22°C and the water temperature from Fune to September never falls below 20°C and sometimes reaches 27°C.

Balkantourist

The complex has 81 modern hotels with 16,270 beds, bungalows and two shady camp sites accommodating about 1,240 with 128 restaurants and places of entertainment, 40 shops, a cultural and information centre, a fleet of 100 buses and microbuses, 84 taxis, a rent-a-car service and good sports facilities. Balkantourist is in the centre of the resort in addition to a barber’s and hairdresser’s shop. Near Diana Hotel is Vodenitsata (The Mill) Restaurant. The medical clinic has an excellently equipped dental surgery and consulting rooms. When necessary a doctor from the clinic can be called to the hotel by telephone 6-53-52, 6-56-86 and 6-56-87. Medicines can be purchased at the chemist connected to the clinic (tel. 6-5 £89), or at the chemist’s shop north of the Stariya Dub restaurant.

There are volleyball and tennis courts, mini-golf and croquet pitches in front of the hotels Morsko Oko, Liliya, Rodina, and Tintyava, open daily tel. 6-52-54. Near Hotel Liliya is a children’s swimming pool and at Hotel International there is an indoor swimming pool with warm mineral water. The International is the pride of the resort with 370 beds, 2 restaurants, coffee shop, and a balneological clinic with diagnostic and therapeutic departments open all the year round. The mineral water of the balneotherapeutical department is clear and colourless; it is slightly mineralized and its temperature ranges between 24°C arid 28°C. It can be used in bath tubs and in the indoor swimming pool and is recommended for diseases of the loco-motor system (arthrosis, rheumatism, arthritis)… radicolitis, plexitis, neuritis, mental fatigue, stresses, cardio-vascular diseases (atherosclerosis, hypertonia), bron-chitis, the early stages of bronchial asthma and obesity of the 1st and 2nd degree.

In 1979 the International won the World Tourism Organization Grand Prix competing with 150 other hotels all over the world.

The Post Office is a stone’s throw from the International and is open from 7.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. with telephone connections to all countries in the world.

Baba Vida Fortress

The town’s major historical monument is Baba Vida Fortress situated on the Danube. Built by Romans in the 3rd4th century, it was restored and expanded in the Middle Ages. In the 13th-14th centuries Bdin was the strongest fortress in North-west Bulgaria and continued to play an important part during Ottoman domination when it was restored and fortifled. Now the fortress contains a museum. Every two years the summer theatre plays host to drama festivals of historical plays.

Other points of interest are the mosque and library; The Cross Barracks, late 18th century, houses The History Museum. The Church of St Panteleimon built in the first half of the 17th century; the Church of St Petka, Hadji Angelov House — a two-storey building with two bay-windows typical of the National Revival Period.

There are several other memorials in the town commemorating battles fought over the last 100 years.

The town has a modem hotel — Rovno, 4 T.Petrov Str., two-star with 6 suites, 8 single and 132 double rooms, restaurant, day bar, cafe, duty free shop, rent-a-car service (tel.: 244-02 and 2-62-95). The Bononia Hotel is a five-storeyed, two-star hotel with one suite, 3 single and 48 double rooms, restaurant, bar, cafe and information office.

32 km southwest of Vidin is Bulgaria’s westernmost town, Koula i pop. 6,000). The Vrushka Chouka border check point on the Bulgarian-Yugoslav border is only 13 km away. In Roman times there was a settlement, called Castra Martis which was an- important fortress on the road from Ratiaria to Naisus. Ruins from this fortress are preserved in the town centre.

SOFIA – LOVECH _ VELIKO TURNOVO – GABROVO (260 KM )

Northeast of Sofia the road passes through the village of Yordankino near which Yordanka Nikolova, fighting against fascism, died a hero’s death: she is commemorated by a modest monument.

Between the villages of Potop and Chourek, on the right, is the monument to partisans from the Chavdar brigade which operated m the region during the 2nd World War sofia daily tours, The chalet opposite the monument has a small museum.

44 km from Sofia is the highest point of the picturesque Vitinya Pass. Here there is a restaurant, a food store and a petrol station.

Descending we reach Botevgrad (pop. 19,000), an important industrial and transport centre and the centre of Bulgarian industrial electronics. A beautiful clock tower (1866) stands in the town’s square. Hotels in the town include the Botevgrad hotel, 3 stars seven floors with 6 suites and 232 beds, a restaurant, day bar, night club, cafe, duty free shop, rooftop restaurant, post office; the Sinyo Nebe hotel (tel. 27-90) accommodates the ‘Rest and Recreation’ office.

On the E-83 motorway, 8 km from Botevgrad and 71 km from Sofia is the huge Pravets tourist compound, with a motel accommodating 60, a camping site situated round a pond, with 57 beds in bungalows, a hotel accommodating 104, restaurant, Shatra entertainment area, petrol station and car-repair shop.

Sebastokrator Kaloyan

In 1259, the local bolyar, Sebastokrator Kaloyan, added a two-storeyed part to the original church, a vault below and a church with a cupola above; this had a door on the south wall, reached by a wooden staircase. Although built at two different periods the architect of the second church lias combined the two buildings with such .skill that they now form an indivisible whole, linked with the harmony of measured lines and the most simplified stereometric forms, lightly arranged one next to the other or one above the other. The mountain to the south, and the spacious horizon of the sky to the north form a natural background against which the silhouette of the church stands out picturesquely. Inside, the Boyana Church houses some of the loveliest work of Old Bulgarian art.

The murals which decorate it were painted in the 13th century, and are distinguished by their refreshing realism. Here we have the portraits of the donors Sebastokrator Kaloyan and his wife Dessislava, and of King Konstantin Tih, the reigning monarch, and his Queen Irina. The faces are painted with a masterly skill, which gives a true idea of the character of the sitters. In the portraits of saints, the emaciated and ascetic images have made way for those of real living people, such as the artist who decorated the church saw around him every day. He was a great master of the art of depicting profoundly psychological moments. The picture of Jesus among the doctors, Christ Evergetes, the image of the Virgin Mary at the foot of the cross and the faces in a number of other compositions are unique.

Turnovo School of Painting

Boyana is eloquent enough proof of the great advance recorded by the Turnovo School of Painting with its realistic trend in the 13th century. This advance reached its zenith, however, in the 14th century, in the reign of King Ivan Alexander who, as a true humanist, attracted artists and scholars to his Court in Turnovo. A school of miniature painters was hard at work here city tour istanbul. They illuminated gospels, chronicles and other books which were translated and copied. The miniaturists who illuminated the Curzon Bible (now in the British Museum, London) worked here.

This bible was copied and illuminated in 1356, by order of Ivan Alexander. The miniatures in the Chronicle of Manasses were also the work of this School, and it too was translated from the Greek and illuminated by order of Ivan Alexander in 1345.

The Bulgarian translation of this Chronicle was however, considerably supplemented by short data on events in the history of Bulgaria, which do not exist in the Greek original, and the story of the Trojan war was a iso interpolated at the same time. This interest in the antique and in the national was a characteristic trait in the development of Bulgarian culture at the end of the 14th century. It was a manifestation of a true Renaissance spirit, of true humanism, which was widespread in the European world of that day.

Karanovo statuettes of humans and animals

In the fifth and uppermost cultural stratum at Karanovo statuettes of humans and animals disappear, and so does the pottery, so varied in form and ornamentation. A change is felt even in the plan of the house — the narrow back side rounds out and forms an apse. An original pottery now appears, much simplified with scant ornamentation, consisting mostly of incised lines. The unusually elongated lugs ending in a knob are characteristic of this pottery. The change in the life of those who inhabited the fifth settlement at Karanovo is striking. Its causes are not yet clear. Certain scholars consider that it was due to the incursions of new tribes, who were already acquainted with bronze. Some link these new tribes with the Thracians.

The same materials found in the fifth cultural stratum of the Karanovo tell were also found in the so-called Dipsiska Mogila settlement mound at the village of Ezero, near Nova Zagora. The houses are the same as in Karanovo; rectangular with two rooms, and a semicircular wall at the short back side. In the western smaller room, around the hearth and the hand mill, a number of domestic objects were found. Similar ones were also found around the houses.

Copper spearheads

One is, however, impressed by the still-existing predominance of implements made of stone, bone and horn, and by the weapons — stone battle-axes. However, the first metal weapons — copper spearheads — appear together with them. There is no doubt whatever that this is the earliest period of the Bronze age, which is recently thought to begin the second half of the third millenium B. C., when bronze was still an alloy most difficult to obtain and only slightly distributed. Nevertheless, the rare and expens- i ve bronze implements exercized an influence upon the stone implements with their more expedient forms tours bulgaria. The stone battle-axe found at the village of Lyulin, Yambol district, shows undoubted imitation of a bronze original.

The settlement of pile-dwellings, found at the bottom of the Varna Lake, near the village of Strashimirovo also belongs to the early Bronze Age. Certain extremely interesting articles and pottery were found there.

The bronze implements and weapons so far found in Bulgaria belong to the late period of this age. Of particular interest are the double axes of the type of those found at the village of Semerdjievo, Rousse district. A bronze sword and a bronze spearhead appear here for the first time. Swords of the so-called Mycenaean type, of the second half of the second millenium have been found in Bulgaria, which plainly indicate therelationsof these lands with the Mycenean culture.

Whole treasure-troves of sickles, small bronze axes, as well as the stone moulds in which they were cast, are often found. As to the precise dating of these objects, however, we have no positive data as yet. Perhaps some of them will have to be attributed to the transition from the Bronze to the Iron age. The pottery of this period is also most interesting, particularly that found in North-West Bulgaria. This pottery is distinguished by a new colour scheme in the ornament, consisting of a combination of linear motifs, incised and covered with white matter. This pottery is wi ’ely distributed in the North-Western part of the Balkan Peninsula.

Metal implements now increasingly made their way into production, intensifying and increasing surplus production. This now led to an exchange of the commodities produced between the individual clans, and also to more frequent clashes between clans and tribes to appropriate the accumulated surpluses. This was followed by a develop-ment in weapons, particularly daggers and later swords, which were unknown in the preceding age.

PLOVDIV

The second largest city in Bulgaria, and its unofficial second capital. It has a population of about 300,000. Centre of the fertile Thracian Plain, a city with a very long history, revealed by the different names under which it was mentioned in history: Pulpudeva, Philippopolis, Trimontium. Built on six hills on both banks of the largest interior Bulgarian river, the Maritsa. An old industrial, cultural and commercial centre, developing rapidly nowadays. Well-known abroad for its annual International Fair. Scattered around six syenite hills rising in a vast plain and lying on the two banks of the Maritsa River, Plovdiv is not only beautifully situated, but also has an inimitable charm of its own. Its oldest part comprises the three hills called Trimontium encompassing the heights of Djambaz, Taxim and Nebet. Once upon a time the rulers of the town built high walls around it, of which all that has remained are Hissar kapiya, one of the three fortress gates and ruins. The three other hills have been turned , into lovely parks which seem to float above the town.

But Plovdiv is not merely a blend of the past and the present. It is also, as you have probably already noticed, a lively rail and road junction. The surroundings, too, abound in places of historic interest, and then there – e the teary Rhodope Mountain

Sights:

Liberators’ Hill. On it there are three monuments: the Monument to Vassil Levski (at the foot of the hill), the Monument to the Liberators, commemorating the Russo-Turkish war (1877-1878), and the Monument to the Soviet Army, which the citizens of Plovdiv affectionately call ‘Alyosha’.

Youth Hill – to the southwest of Liberators’ Hill. It is a beautiful park with wide alleys, picturesque paths, arbours and open spaces ephesus sightseeing.

Vassil Kolarov Hill – in the centre of the city. An old clock tower stands on the hill.

National Archaeological Museum. On show are more than 15,0 exhibits, among them the priceless Panagyurishte Gold Treasure.

National Ethnographic Museum, Museum of the Revolutionary Movement, Museum of Socialist Construction, Natural Science Museum, Art Gallery, etc.

Of the Orthodox churches in the city the most interesting are: St Constantine and Helena’s Church, the Church of the Virgin Mary and St Marina’s Church.

Worth seeing, too, are two mosques: Djoumaya Djamiya and Imaret Djamiya.

The best hotels in Plovdiv are: Trimontium – tel. 2-55-61, Maritsa – 2-27-35, Trakia – 3-24-70, Bulgaria – 2-60-64, and Rhodopes – 2-43-32.

PALEOGRAPHIC PURISM

Ancient buildings certainly cannot be treated as ‘exhibits,’ to be cased in glass, and displayed in a museum. All their powers, their vitality and solemnity would disappear. They have in most cases to be kept fit for use; and in some rare cases they may have to be completed, where the kind of work they need is within our modern resources. As to Palladian work that may possibly be attempted; but as to true mediaeval work of the best periods, it is absolutely impossible. No fine carving of this age can be remotely reproduced or imitated by us now in feeling and manner.

The current of gradual growth for the best mediaeval work has been broken for centuries. And we cannot now recover the tradition. The archaic naive grace of a thirteenth-century relief, the delicate spring of foliage round capital or spandrel, are utterly irrecoverable. There does not exist the hand or the eye which can do it. To cut out old art-work wholesale, and insert new machine carving, is exactly like cutting out a Madonna in an altar-piece, or inserting a new head on to a Greek torso. What we have to do is to uphold the fabric as best we may, and preserve the decoration as long as we can.

There is need to educate the public, especially the official public, and above all the clergy, to understand all that is meant by the sacredness of ancient buildings. The business is not so much to discuss solecisms in style and blunders in chronology, as to make men feel that our national monuments are dedicated by the past to the nation for ever, and that each generation but holds them as a sacred trust for the future.

PALEOGRAPHIC PURISM

Iv this age of historical research and archaic realism there is growing up a custom which, trivial and plausible in its beginnings, may become a nuisance and a scandal to literature. It is the custom of re-writing our old familiar proper names; of re-naming places and persons which are household words private turkey tours: heirlooms in the English language.

At first sight there seems something to be said for the fashion of writing historical names as they were written or spoken by contemporary men. To the thoughtless it ‘ suggests an air of scholarship and superior knowledge, gathered at first hand from original sources. Regarded as the coatarmour of some giant of historical research, there is something piquant in the unfamiliar writing of familiar names; and it is even pleasant to hear a great scholar talk of the mighty heroes as if he remembered them when a boy, and had often seen their handwriting himself. When Mr. Grote chose to write about Kekrcps, Krete, Cleopatra, and Pennies, we were gratified by the peculiarity; and we only wondered why he retained Cyrus, Centaur, Cyprus, and Thucydides. And when Professor Freeman taught us to speak of ‘ Charles the Great,’ and the Battle of Senlac, we all feel that to talk of Hastings would be behind the age.

But, in these days, the historical schools are growin in numbers and range. There are no longer merely Attic enthusiasts, and Somersaetan champions, but other ages and races have thrown up their own historiographers and bards. There are ‘ Middle-English ’ as well as ‘ Old- English ’ votaries, — and Eliza-ists, and Jacob-ists, and Ann-ists. Then there are the French, the German, the Italian, the Norse schools, to say nothing of ^Egyptologists, Hebraists, Sanscritists, Accadians, Hittites, Moabites, and Cuneiform-ists. It becomes a very serious question, what will be the end of the English language if all of these are to have their way, and are to re-baptize the most familiar heroes of our youth and to re-spell the world-famous names.

Each specialist is full of his own era and subject, and is quite willing to leave the rest of the historical field to the popular style. But there is a higher tribunal beyond; and those who care for history as a whole, and for English literature in the sum, wonder how far this revival in orthography is to be carried. Let us remember that, both in space and in time, there is a vast body of opinion of which account must be taken. There is the long succession of ages, there is the cultivated world of Europe and America, in both of which certain names have become traditional and customary. And if every knot of students is to rename at will familiar persons and historic places, historical tradition and the custom of the civilised world are wantonly confused. This true filiation in literary history is of far more importance than any alphabetic precision.

Palais de Justice

And, besides these castles and palaces, the closely packed streets were even more thickly strewn with churches, convents, and abbeys. Notre Dame, St. Eustache, St. Germain, I’Auxerrois, the Hotel de Ville, the Louvre, the Palais Royal, and the Palais de Justice were hemmed in with a labyrinth of old and entangled streets. Buildings, alleys, and even churches separated the Louvre from the Tuileries, Notre Dame from the Palais de Justice, cut off Notre Dame and the Hotel de Ville from the river, stood between Palais Royal and Louvre, and between the Pantliion and the garden of the Luxembourg. Where the graceful fountain of Victory now brightens one of the gayest spots in Paris, Place du Chatelet, bordered with two immense theatres, colonnades, gardens, and trees, there were then the decayed remnant of the great royal fortress and a network of crooked and unsightly lanes.

St. Germain of St. Martin

Besides the churches, chapels, hospitals, palaces, and castles, there also stood within the circuit of the city more than two hundred religious houses for both sexes; abbeys, convents, nunneries, and fraternities; peopled with thousands of men and women, leading separate lives, under different vows, owning obedience to far-distant superiors, and possessing various immunities. The vast areas occupied by the abbeys of St. Germain, of St. Martin, of St. Victor, by the houses of the Bernardins, and the Cilestins, and the Quinze- Vingts, were a sensible portion of the whole area within the walls. From the then new Place Louis XV. to the Bastille, from the Luxembourg garden to the Port St. Denis, Paris was a great fortified city of the Middle Ages, crammed with thousands of sacred buildings private tours istanbul, Catholic and feudal institutions, and thickly studded with Italian palaces, colleges, hospitals, and offices in the proud and lavish style of Louis xiv. Poverty, squalor, uncleanness, and vice jostled the magnificence of Princes and the mouldering creations of the ages of Faith.

The difference between the Paris of 1789 and the Paris of 1889 is enormous; but it is very far from true that the whole difference is gain. Much has been gained in convenience, health, brilliance: much has been lost in beauty, variety, and historical tradition. To the uncultured votary of amusement the whole of the change represents progress: to the artist, the antiquarian, and the sentimentalist it represents havoc, waste, and bad taste. It would be well if the tens of thousands who delight in the boulevards, gardens, and sunny bridges of to-day would now and then cast a thought upon the priceless works of art, the historical remains, and the picturesque charm which the new Paris has swept away.

Churches and towers, encrusted sculptures of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, rare, inimitable, irrecoverable won-ders of skill and feeling, have been swallowed up wholesale in the modern ‘improvements.’ Sixteen churches have disappeared from the Citt4 alone: four of them and ten streets have been carted away to make the site of a single hospital. Where is the abbey of St. Victor, of St. Germain, of Ste. Gejievih’c, and the Conr des Comptes, and the churches of St. Andrt, St. Jacques de la Boucherie, Saints Innocents, St. Jean, and St. Paid? Where are the turrets of Saint Louis, and Etienne Marcel, and Philip the Fair? Where are the quaint passages and fantastic gables preserved for us only by Silvestre, Prelle, M6ryon, Gavarni, Martial, and Gustave Dorb?

Propontis and the Hellespont

If it issued south through the Propontis and the Hellespont, a few days would carry its armies to the teeming shores of Bithynia, or to the rich coasts and islands of the Aegean Sea, or to Greece, or to any point on the western or the southern coast of Asia Minor. And a few days more would bring its fleets to the coast of Syria, or of Egypt, or to Italy, Spain, Africa, and the Western Mediterranean. Thus, the largest army could be safely transported in a few days, so as to descend at will upon the vast plains of Southern Russia, or into the heart of Central Asia, within a short march of the head waters of the Euphrates — or they might descend southwards to the gates of Syria, near Issus, or else to the mouths of the Nile, or to the islands and bays of Greece or Italy.

And these wide alternatives in objective point could be kept for ultimate decision unknown to an enemy up to the last moment. When the great Heraclius, in 622, opened his memorable war with Chosroes, which ended in the ruin of the Persian dynasty, no man in either host knew till the hour of his sailing whether the Byzantine hero intended to descend upon Armenia by the Euxine, or upon Syria by the Gulf of Issus. And until they issued from the Hellespont into the Aegean, the Emperor’s army and fleet were absolutely protected not only from molestation, but even from observation local ephesus tour guides. To a power which commanded the sea and had ample supplies of troopships, Constantinople combined the maximum power of defence with the maximum range of attack. And this extraordinary combination she will retain in the future in competent hands.

That wonderfully rapid and mobile force, which an eminent American expert has named the ‘ Sea Power,’ the power discovered by Cromwell and Blake, of which England is still the great example and mistress, was placed by the founders of Byzantium in that spot of earth which, at any rate in its anciently-peopled districts, combined the greatest resources.

Persian and the Peloponnesian wars

Byzantium, from the days of the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, had always been a prize to be coveted by a naval power. From the time of Constantine down to the Crusades, or for nearly eight centuries, the rulers of Constantinople could usually command large and well-manned fleets. And this was enough to account for her imperial place in history. As an imperial city she must rise, decline, or fall, by her naval strength. She fell before the Crusaders in a naval attack; and she was crippled to a great extent by the naval attack of Mohammed the Conqueror. During the zenith of the Moslem Conquest, she was great by sea. Her decline in this century has been far greater on sea than on land. When her fleet was shattered at Sinope, in 1853, the end was not far off. And when to-day we see in the Golden Horn the hulls of her ironclads moored motionless, and they say, unable to move, men know that Stamboul is no longer the queen of the Levant.

As a maritime city, also, Constantinople presents this striking problem. For fifteen centuries, with moderate intervals, this city of the Bosphorus and the Propontis has held imperial rule. No other seaport city, either in the ancient or in the modern world, has ever maintained an empire for a period approaching to this in length. Tyre, Carthage, Athens, Alexandria, Venice, Genoa, Amsterdam, have held proud dependencies by their fleets for a space, but for rarely more than a few generations or centuries. The supremacy of the seas, of which Englishmen boast, can hardly be said to have had more than two centuries of trial.

As the Catholic pilgrim

The fanaticism of these same priests and missionaries has its own reaction. As the Catholic pilgrim to-day prostrates himself on the spot where for eighteen centuries Christian pilgrims from all parts of the earth have prostrated themselves, the followers of Garibaldi and Mazzini glare on them with hatred and contempt; so that, but for soldiers and police, no priest in his robes would be safe in Rome. The death-struggle between Papacy and Free Thought was never more acute. Hundreds of churches are bare, deserted, without the semblance of a congregation. Of late years, one may visit famous churches, known throughout the Catholic world, and find one’s self, for hours together, absolutely alone; and sometimes we may notice how they serve as the resort of a pair of lovers, who choose the church as a place to meet undisturbed in perfect solitude. Vast monasteries, which for centuries have peopled Christendom with priests and teachers, are now empty, or converted to secular uses. The Pope is ‘the prisoner of the Vatican,’ and the Papal world has withdrawn from public view.

Nowhere else in the world are we brought so close face to face with the great battles of religion and politics, and with the destruction wrought by successive phases of human civilisation. This destruction is more visible in Rome, because fragments remain to witness to each phase; but the destruction is not so great as elsewhere, where the very ruins have been destroyed. At Paris, Lyons, London, York, Cologne, and Milan, the Roman city has been all but obliterated, and the mediaeval city also, and the Renascence city after that; so that, for the most part, in all these ancient centres of successive civilisations, we see little to-day but the monotony of modern convenience, and the triumphs of the speculative builder. But at Rome enough remains to remind us of the unbroken roll of some three thousand years mystical bulgaria tours.

At Rome we see the wreckage

At Rome we see the wreckage. At Paris and London it has been covered fathoms deep by the rising tide.

They are finding now the tombs, arms, ornaments, and structures of the primitive races who dwelt on the Seven Hills before history was. We may now see the walls which rose when the history of Rome began, the fortress of the early kings, and their vast subterranean works. We can still stand on the spot where Horatius defended the bridge, and where Virginius slew his daughter. We still see the tombs and temples, the treasure-house of the Republic.

We see the might and glory of Rome when she was the mistress of the world and the centre of the world. We see the walls which long defied the barbarians of the North; we see the tombs of the Christian martyrs, and trace the footsteps of the great Apostles; we see the rise, the growth, the culmination and the death-struggles of the Catholic Papacy. We see the Middle Ages piled up on the ruins of the ancient world, and the modern world piled on the ruins of the mediaeval world. At Rome we can see in ruins, fragments, or, it may be, merely in certain sites, spots, and subterranean vaults, that revolving picture of history, which elsewhere our modern life has blotted out from our view.

Take the Pantheon — in some ways the central, the most ancient, the most historic building in the world. For more than 1900 years it has been a temple — first of the gods of the old world, and since of the Christian God. It is the only great extant building of which that can now be said. It is certainly the oldest building in continuous use on earth, for it was a temple of the pagan deities one hundred years before the preaching of the Gospel at Rome; dedicated by the minister and son-in-law of Augustus in the first splendour of the Empire; converted after six centuries into a Christian church and burial- place, when it was filled with the bones of the martyrs removed from the catacombs. The festival of All Saints thereupon instituted is the one Christian festival which modern scepticism concurs in honouring.

Mirabeau thunder in the National Assembly

At Cannes there is no post-house, carriage, horses, or mules, and he has to walk through nine miles of waste ! And so he at last gets back to Paris. There he hears Mirabeau thunder in the National Assembly; meets the King and Queen, La Fayette, Barnave, Sieyes, Condorcet, and the chiefs of the Revolution; and is taken to the Jacobin Club, of which he is duly installed as a member. And this wonderful book ends with a chapter of general reflections on the Revolution, which go more deeply down to the root of the matter, John Morley has said, than all that Burke, Paine, and Mackintosh piled up in so many eloquent periods.

The Revolution as a whole would carry us far afield. In these few pages we are dealing with the great transformation that it wrought in the condition of the peasant. It must not be forgotten that part of the wonderful difference between the peasant of the last century and the peasant of to-day, is due to the vast material advancement common to the civilised world. Railroads, steam factories, telegraphs, the enormous increase in population, in manufactures, commerce, and inventions were not products of the ‘ principles of ’89,’ nor of the Convention, nor of the Jacobin Club. All Europe has grown, America has grown almost miraculously, and France has grown with both.

Arthur Young’s journey

But the political lesson of Arthur Young’s journey is this: the poverty and the desolation which he saw in 1789 were directly due, as he so keenly felt, not to the country, not to the husbandmen, not to ignorance or to indolence in the people, not to mere neglect, weakness, or stupidity in the central government, but directly to bad laws, cruel privileges, and an oppressive system of tyranny. Arthur Young found an uncommonly rich soil, a glorious climate, a thrifty, ingenious, and laborious people, a strong central government that, in places and at times, could make magnificent roads, bridges, canals, ports; and when a Turgot, or a Liancourt, or a de Turbilly had a free hand, a country which could be made one of the richest on the earth. What Arthur Young saw, with the eye of true insight, was, that so soon as these evil laws and this atrocious system of land tenure were removed, France would be one of the finest countries in the world. And Arthur Young, as we see, was right private tours istanbul.

Another point is this: to Arthur Young, the Suffolk farmer of 1789, everything he sees in the peasantry and husbandry of France appears miserably inferior to the peasantry and husbandry of England. France is a country far worse cultivated than England, its agricultural produce miserably less; its life, animation, and means of communication ludicrously inferior to those of England; its farmers in penury, its labourers starving, its resources barbarous, compared with those of England. In an English village more meat, he learns, is eaten in a week, than in a French village in a year; the clothing, food, home, and intelligence of the English labourer are far above those of the French labourer. The country inns are infinitely better in England; there is ten times the circulation, the wealth, the comfort in an English rural district; the English labourer is a free man, the French labourer little more than a serf.

The Dominicans or Black Friars

The thirteenth century saw the romantic rise, the marvellous growth, and then the inevitable decay of the Friars, the two orders whose careers form one of the most fascinating and impressive stories in modern history. The Franciscans, or Grey Friars, founded in 1212, the Dominicans, or Black Friars, founded in 1216, by the middle of the century had infused new life throughout the Catholic world. By the end of the century their power was spent, and they had begun to be absorbed in the general life of the Church. It was one of the great rallies of the Papal Church, perhaps of all the rallies the most important, certainly the most brilliant, most pathetic, most fascinating, the most rich in poetry, in art, in devotion. For the mediaeval Church of Rome, like the Empire of the Caesars at Rome, like the Eastern Empire of Constantinople, like the Empire of the Khalifs, which succeeded that, seems to subsist for centuries after its epoch of zenith by a long series of rallies, revivals, and new births out of almost hopeless disorganisation and decay sofia city tour.

But the thirteenth century is not less memorable for its political than for its spiritual history. And in this field the history is that of new organisations, not the dissolution of the old. The thirteenth century gave Europe the nations as we now know them. France, England, Spain, large parts of North and South Germany, became nations, where they were previously counties, duchies, and fiefs. Compare the’ map of Europe at the end of the twelfth century, when Philip Augustus was struggling with Richard 1., when the King of England was a more powerful ruler in France than the so-called King of France in Paris, when Spain was held by various groups of petty kinglets facing the solid power of the Moors, compare this with the map of Europe at the end of the thirteenth century, with Spain constituted a kingdom under Ferdinand in. and Alfonso x., France under Philip the Fair, and England under Edward I.

At the very opening of the thirteenth century John did England the inestimable service of losing her French possessions. At the close of the century the greatest of the Plantagenets finally annexed Wales to England and began the incorporation of Scotland and Ireland. Of the creators of England as a sovereign power in the world, from Alfred to Chatham, between the names of the Conqueror and Cromwell, assuredly that of Edward I. is the most important. As to France, the petty counties which Philip Augustus inherited in 1180 had become, in the days of Philip the Pair (1286-1314), the most powerful nation in Europe. As a great European force, the French nation dates from the age of Philip Augustus, Blanche of Castile, her son Louis ix. (the Saint), and the two Philips (ill. and iv.), the son and grandson of St. Louis. The monarchy of France was indeed created in the thirteenth century. All that went before was preparation: all that came afterwards was development. Almost as much may be said for England and for Spain.

Hundred years of European history

It was an age of great rulers. Indeed, we may doubt if any hundred years of European history has been so crowded with great statesmen and kings. In England, Stephen Langton and the authors of our Great Charter in 1215; William, Earl Mareschal, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and above all Edward 1:, great as soldier, as ruler, as legislator — as great when he yielded as when he compelled. In France, Philip Augustus, a king curiously like our Edward 1. in his virtues as in his faults, though earlier by three generations; Blanche, his son’s wife, Regent of France; St. Louis, her son; and St. Louis’ grandson, the terrible, fierce, subtle, and adroit Philip the Fair.

Then on the throne of the Empire, from 1220 to 1250, Frederick II., ‘the world’s wonder,’ one of the most brilliant characters of the Middle Ages, whose life is a long romance, whose many-sided endowments seemed to promise everything but real greatness and abiding results. Next, after a generation, his successor, less brilliant but far more truly great, Rudolph of Hapsburg, emperor from 1273 to 1291, the founder of the Austrian dynasty, the ancestor of its sovereigns, the parallel, I had almost said the equal, of our own Edward 1. In Spain, Ferdinand 111. and his son, Alfonso x., whose reigns united gave Spain peace and prosperity for fifty-four years (1230-1284).