of divorce, is given to the innocent party, except when the
children are below the age of five years, in which case they are left
with the mother. Mutual consent of the married is not a ground for
divorce. All marriages contracted in opposition to the canon laws are
considered null. The Diocesan Council is the sole competent authority to
judge affairs of divorce, its decisions being submitted to the approval
of a metropolitan bishop.

I think Gibbon was responsible in the first instance for ascribing to
the Bulgarians a low moral character. But all the evidence that came
under my notice suggested that the Bulgarians were exceptionally
virtuous.

In their hospitals I found no cases of disease arising from vice. In
their camps they had no women followers. I passed through many villages
which their troops had traversed, and never observed any evidence of
women having been interfered with.

[Illustration: A BULGARIAN FARM]

The young Bulgarian, married--without much romance in the wooing, but
perhaps none the less happily married for that according to his
ideas--tilling his little farm, joins now in the main current of the
national life. He is exceedingly industrious, rising early and working
late. His food is frugal--whole-meal bread, hard cheese, soft cheese
(which is like rank butter), vegetables, very occasionally meat and
eggs. From his Turk cousins he has acquired a love of sweetmeats, and so
for his treats lollies and cakes are essential. But also he is a Slav
and likes a glass of _vodka_ on Sundays and feast days. He is very
sober, however, and drunkenness is rare. His chief drink is water, with
now and again tea made in the Russian fashion, or coffee made in the
Turkish fashion. At the village _cafes_ these are the chief
refreshments--_vodka_, tea and coffee. But a light beer is also brewed
in Bulgaria, and drunk by the inhabitants.

Both as regards food and drink, however, the Bulgarians' habits are
usually governed by an intense frugality. The country gives no very rich
return to the peasant. He almost invariably marries young and has a
large family. The household budget thus leaves very little margin over
from the strictly necessary food-expenses. That margin the Bulgarian
prefers in the main to save rather than to dissipate. The Bulgarian is
economical, not to say grasping. He dreams always of getting a little
richer. In his combination of the instincts of a cultivator and of a
trader he resembles a grea