How different are the features of Slaavic Turkey, from those of the
Arabic provinces in which I so long resided. The flat roofs, the
measured pace of the camel, the half-naked negro, the uncouth Bedouin,
the cloudless heavens, the tawny earth, and the meagre apology for
turf, are exchanged for ricketty wooden houses with coarse tiling,
laid in such a way as to eschew the monotony of straight lines;
strings of primitive waggons drawn by buffaloes, and driven by
Bulgarians with black woolly caps, real genuine grass growing on the
downs outside the walls, and a rattling blast from the Black Sea, more
welcome than all the balmy spices of Arabia, for it reminded me that I
was once more in Europe, and must befit my costume to her ruder airs.
This was indeed the north of the Balkan, and I must needs pull out my
pea-jacket. How I relished those winds, waves, clouds, and grey skies!
They reminded me of English nature and Dutch art. The Nore, the Downs,
the Frith of Forth, and sundry dormant Backhuysens, re-awoke to my
fancy.

The moral interest too was different. In Egypt or Syria, where whole
cycles of civilization lie entombed, we interrogate the past; here in
Bulgaria the past is nothing, and we vainly interrogate the future.

The interior of Varna has a very fair bazaar; not covered as in
Constantinople and other large towns, but well furnished. The private
dwellings are generally miserable. The town suffered so severely in
the Russian war of 1828, that it has never recovered its former
prosperity. It has also been twice nearly all burnt since then; so
that, notwithstanding its historical, military, and commercial
importance, it has at present little more than 20,000 inhabitants. The
walls of the town underwent a thorough repair in the spring and summer