who eventually fought on behalf of the Greeks against the Avars, and was
actually baptized in Constantinople. The power of the Bulgars grew as that
of the Avars declined, but at the death of Kubrat, in 638, his realm was
divided amongst his sons. One of these established himself in Pannonia,
where he joined forces with what was left of the Avars, and there the
Bulgars maintained themselves till they were obliterated by the irruption
of the Magyars in 893. Another son, Asparukh, or Isperikh, settled in
Bessarabia, between the rivers Prut and Dniester, in 640, and some years
later passed southwards. After desultory warfare with Constantinople, from
660 onwards, his successor finally overcame the Greeks, who were at that
time at war with the Arabs, captured Varna, and definitely established
himself between the Danube and the Balkan range in the year 679. From that
year the Danube ceased to be the frontier of the eastern empire.

The numbers of the Bulgars who settled south of the Danube are not known,
but what happened to them is notorious. The well-known process, by which
the Franks in Gaul were absorbed by the far more numerous indigenous
population which they had conquered, was repeated, and the Bulgars became
fused with the Slavs. So complete was the fusion, and so preponderating
the influence of the subject nationality, that beyond a few personal names
no traces of the language of the Bulgars have survived. Modern Bulgarian,
except for the Turkish words introduced into it later during the Ottoman
rule, is purely Slavonic. Not so the Bulgarian nationality; as is so often
the case with mongrel products, this race, compared with the Serbs, who
are purely Slav, has shown considerably greater virility, cohesion, and
driving-power, though it must be conceded that its problems have been
infinitely simpler.