t the prostrate
country, recaptured, without an effort, Adrianople, which had been won
with such terrible cost of Bulgarian blood, and also Kirk Kilisse. In
the final result Bulgaria was left with but little net gain as the price
of her enormous sacrifices of blood and of treasure. To the north she
actually lost some of her old territory. From the Turk she secured a
fragment of Thrace, and a part of Macedonia which gave her access to the
Aegean Sea, but no decent port there, and no possibility of carrying out
her grandiose scheme of canalising the River Maritza and making a
Bulgarian Adrianople a port for trade. Further, she had the
mortification of seeing all three of her rivals in the Balkans
aggrandised, and Roumania left with the hegemony of the Peninsula.

Only a few months before, Mr. Noel Buxton had written the "Io triumphe"
of the Bulgarian cause:

The blight that had lain on the Balkan lands was healed, the fog
dispelled. Even the prestige of military despotism was gone like
a pricked bubble. The tyranny that rested on delusion and not on
power was vanished like an empty nightmare that fades when the
sleeper wakes. The establishment of Europe's freedom was
fulfilled; the final step taken. A great and notable nation had
obtained recognition through the war. Its persistence, its
purpose, its deep reserve, now stood revealed, added to the
world's stores of national character.

For centuries the Bulgarian refused to compromise with the Turk.
Other nations sought to lighten the weight of the yoke by taking
service with the tyrant or bowing the head. The maxim, "The
sword never strikes when the head is bowed," undermined the soul
of other nations, never of this. Influence and wealth went to
others; all seemed lost by the policy of defiance. Bulgarians
would not balance advantages. A kind of faith made them ready to
pay even death for ultimate gain. The spirit wins at last: and
the indomitable spirit of the Bulgars has come by its just
reward.

Three months after that the Turk was back in Thrace, and the national
life of Bulgaria had touched its lowest point since the war of
Liberation, with only her justified hope in the future as a consolation.

CHAPTER X

SOME FACTS FOR THE TOURIST AND THE ECONOMIST

Bulgaria is in the main tableau or plain land sheltered by lofty
mountains. On the north it is bounded by the Danube until th