fibre. The streets sap away his field-bred
health. A more elaborate diet attacks the soundness of his almost bovine
digestion. There is no greater contrast between the Bulgarian peasant on
the land, physically the healthiest type one could imagine, and the
Bulgarian town resident, who has not yet learned to adapt himself to the
conditions of closely hived life and shows a marked susceptibility to
dyspepsia, phthisis, and neurasthenia. The Bulgarian peasant has the
nerves, the digestion of an ox. The Bulgarian town-dweller, the son or
grandson of that peasant, might pass often for the tired-out progeny of
many generations of city workers.

Peter could not serve in the army because his lungs were affected. That
was why he was available as my secretary-servant. Peter was, as regards
any practical knowledge of life, the most pathetically useless young man
one could imagine. He could make coffee, after the Turkish fashion, and
had equipped himself for a long campaign with a most elaborate coffee
machine, all glass and gimcrackery, which of course did not survive one
day's travel. But he had not brought food nor cooking pots nor knife nor
fork nor spoon: no blankets had he, and no change of clothing--just the
coffee-pot, a picture of a saint, and an out-of-date book of Bulgarian
statistics, which he solemnly presented to me, with his name
affectionately inscribed on the fly-leaf. I dared not throw it away, and
so had to carry its useless bulk about with me until Peter and I parted.
In addition to his lack of equipment, Peter could not roll a rug, make a
bed, or fend for himself in any way.

The Bulgarian peasant in his life on the land is on the whole a very
clever chap as regards the practical things of existence. During the
campaign I noticed how he made himself very comfortable. Whenever he was
stationed as a guard for a railway bridge or in any other
semi-permanent post, he half-dug, half-thatched himself an excellent
shelter. He made use for food supplies of every scrap of eatable stuff
that came his way, and could do wonders in the manipulation and repair
of an ox-cart. But clearly these simple skills do not survive town life.
Peter was only one example of many that I encountered. The problem that
troubles Bulgaria to-day and will trouble her for some time to come is
that of finding from her almost exclusively peasant population enough
statesmen, lawyers, priests, teachers, leaders generally who will have
substituted