CHAPTER X
A BULGARIAN MARKET
Bulgaria’s Busy Day—The Orient Express.
Returning to the people of the Bulgaria of to-day, the most advantageous place and time to study them is in the market square of Sophia of a Friday morning. This scene is alone worth the trip to the Bulgarian capital, for I doubt very much if its equal, in the number and variety of types, or in the kaleidoscopic effects of its constantly vibrating patches of colour, can even be approached in any other European city.
From seven in the morning until one in the afternoon the entire town wears a circus-day air. The square surrounding the principal mosque swarms with a hawking, bantering multitude of Greeks, Jews, Russians, Turks, Roumanians, Serbs and Bulgarian peasants, all in gala dress; and as for tongues you might well imagine yourself living in the good old times in the immediate vicinity of the Tower of Babel. Here, as I have said, you may observe the characteristics of the natives to the best possible advantage, for one of the chief sources of interest in this little-travelled principality or, in truth, throughout the whole of the Balkan Peninsula, is its simple-minded, unsophisticated country people; unsophisticated, except in occasional brigandage in the sparsely settled districts.
The market is opened officially at seven o’clock, but long before that hour the peasants, representing many square miles of surrounding territory, begin to arrive on foot, on horseback and in bullock carts. That time-worn adage about the early bird holds true even in Bulgaria, for those who dispose of their produce the quickest and who, consequently, return home with the greatest number of shekels jingling in their leathern money pouches, are the ones who obtain the most desirable stands along the curb, by appearing early upon the scene.
By the time the Muezzin pops out to chant his doleful “Allah el Allah” from the narrow balcony at the top of the mosque pinnacle, the square below is already well-filled and from all directions the tardy ones continue to pour in. The unpacking and arrangement of produce and the chatter and gossip among the peasants themselves occupy the early morning hours before the official opening of the market, for soon the wholesale merchants and townspeople will be dodging in and out, bent on obtaining the lowest quotations, and then there will be no time to talk over the happenings of the intervening week since the last market.
Over there on the curb a swarthy, fur-coated individual has just halted his puny pack-animals, whose dust-covered flanks tell that they have tottered many miles under the bulging loads of wood. It is no wonder that their master perspires as he tugs at the ropes to relieve the little beasts, for, if you examine his clothing, you will wonder how he came to get mixed in the seasons. Although the glare of the sun is nothing if not calorific, this fellow’s legs are bundled closely in thick, woollen stockings tied with thongs, while on his back and reaching clear to his knees he wears a heavy sheepskin coat turned wrong side out. But the particular style in which he wears this coat proves beyond an atom of doubt that he knows as well as you the time of year, for in winter he turns the wool on the outside.
Now look, if you please, at this group of Bulgarian belles from the mountains—symphonies in lavender. The ribbons in their hair are lavender, the embroidery on their jackets is lavender, their long underskirts and aprons are lavender, the linings of their sunshades are lavender. How conscious they are of the tawdry effect of their fine raiment, as they strut about through the dust in the middle of the street! At their heels stalk, jealously, three Bulgarian beaux, also gorgeously attired for the occasion in their Sunday-go-to-meetings.
On the other side of the street two women, each of whom looks to be little less than a hundred years of age, are spreading aprons on the dust-covered sidewalk and arranging thereon their baskets and bundles. They will sell you the finest, most delicious cherries you have ever closed your teeth upon for forty _centimes_ a litre; and strawberries!—well, you just can’t wait to buy a basket of such strawberries at the same price as the cherries. They are large and luscious but a litre really does not weigh enough to get a great number of fruit, for each one is worth at least two bites. I am not stretching the tape a hair’s breadth when I say that I have measured Bulgarian strawberries four and one-half inches in circumference.
Down the street now comes a parade of bullock carts, laden with wool. The clumsy animals lumber lazily along, while the drivers, one of whom walks in front of each team, tap deftly with their long poles first one beast and then the other between the horns, to remind them to stay awake until they arrive at the market. The carts are heavy affairs and look for all the world like some sort of ancient chariots. And I may state here that the bullock, a prototype of the water-buffalo of the Far East, is a domestic animal commonly found in Bulgaria, and for what reason it was originally imported to the country I have often wondered. Nevertheless, it seems thoroughly acclimated, and is used as a beast of burden by the peasants and farmers, not only on the plains but in the mountains as well, where, you might imagine, its awkwardness and weight would be to its disadvantage in negotiating the rocky roads.
In the slender shadow of the mosque tower another heavily-clothed peasant and his wife are engaged in selling live stock. The woman fondles a suckling pig under her left arm, while, with her free hand, she holds another, head downward, by the hind feet. Each of these pigs may be purchased for two _francs_, and for three, a live lamb from the husband. A pair of spring chickens brings the same ridiculous price as a suckling pig.
In wedging your way through the crowd, which by this time surges over the entire square and overflows into the adjacent streets, you stumble over an old Turkish woman, in baggy, yellow bloomers and curved-toed slippers, who has deliberately spread her array of embroideries in the very centre of the sidewalk.
At the noon hour, when the Muezzin again calls the faithful to prayer, the market is at its height. From a distance, the monotonous drone of the street-cries sounds like the hum of a myriad insects, the swelling cadenzas of which, as they float out upon the soporific atmosphere, may be heard in any part of the city.
At last the peasants, after a profitable holiday in town, prepare to start on their homeward journey. By the middle of the afternoon the last solitary vender has departed with his pack-animals or his bullock cart, his fur coat and his woollen stockings. Then the street cleaners and street sprinklers take the square in hand. They sprinkle the dust and scrub the pavement and in half an hour you would not have believed that that same square was the place from which emanated, but a short time before, the Babelonic hum-drum of hundreds of perspiring market-people.
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It may be the fashion, but it is altogether exasperating, to be called at five-thirty in the morning, in order to take a train which leaves at eight-fifteen. “But when in Rome—” at all events, we arrived at the depot exactly one hour before the time set for the departure of the “Orient Express,” which was to carry us back to Belgrade. But we felt in no wise lonesome, for many others who wished to take the same train had come to the depot even before us. The proprietor himself accompanied us from the hotel and consumed the time taken to drive the distance by asking us repeatedly to “make a recommend” in America for his hostelry, and which we gladly consented to do. When the train arrived he bade us good-bye with tears in his eyes, and graciously kissed the hands of the ladies of the party.
According to our ideas, the word “Limited” as applied to the “Orient Express” was a misnomer; in fact the only “limited” qualifications of the train which we were able to discover were its limited speed and its limited number of up-to-date conveniences. And there is one thing peculiar about travelling through these countries: no matter upon which side of the train you may take your seat, whether the train goes east or west, north or south, whether it be morning or afternoon, your side will be the sunny side. I believe if we had crawled under the seats on some of the trains the sun would have shone up through the bottom of the car. Perhaps we were clothed too heavily, or, perhaps, we only travelled when the sun was exceptionally hot, but, whichever the cause, we sweltered and perspired through almost every railway trip we ever took in the Balkans.
Notwithstanding the “limited” features of the “Orient Express” we were always glad to have a chance to travel on it, if for no other reason than to enjoy our fellow-passengers and amuse ourselves by the humour of the signs, which are tacked up in conspicuous places in every compartment, to be heeded by the traveller. “Gentlemen must not go to bed with their boots on,” read one of these placards, and if the railway must needs have signs to warn its passengers against such a breach of travel etiquette, we thought what a delicate piece of business it must be for the porter or the conductor to enforce the rule; for travellers are apt to act in a manner just contrary to the notices of warning they see posted.
Another sign informed the passenger that “the conductor would shine gentlemen’s boots upon request.” Evidently the railway company had not anticipated the patronage of ladies, but, if they had, they hardly presumed that ladies would require a “shine” or that they would retire with “their boots on.”
It was on this train, too, that we saw the only Americans we had seen or were destined to see for many weeks, two jovial rug-hunters of New York, _en route_ home from a business trip to Constantinople. Also included in the collection of passengers was an immaculate Englishman, with coat tightly buttoned and gloves on, who sat all day in one position for fear of disturbing one molecule of dust, and, owing to his efforts, becoming redder in the face as the train proceeded.