A more impudent falsehood was never uttered, even by a Turk. Mr-Schuyler has obtained their tax-list for this year, and finds that there were 1,421 able-bodied men assessed to pay the military exemption tax. This number in any European country would indicate a population of about 15,000, but here it would not give more than from 8,000 to 10,000 souls, all told, and this is the figure at which the population of the place is estimated by the inhabitants, as well as by the people of Pestera.
I think people in England and Europe generally have a very imperfect idea of what these Bulgarians are. I have always heard them spoken of as mere savages, who were in reality not much more civilized than the American Indians; and I confess that I myself was not far from entertaining the same opinion not very long ago.
Bulgarian village
I was astonished, as I believe most of my readers will be, to learn that there is scarcely a Bulgarian village without its school; that these schools are, where they have not been burnt by the Turks, in a very flourishing condition; that they are supported by a voluntary tax levied by the Bulgarians on themselves, not only without being forced to do it by the Government, but in spite of all sorts of obstacles thrown in their way by the perversity of the Turkish authorities ; that the instruction given in these schools is gratuitous, and that all profit alike by it, poor as well as rich ; that there is scarcely a Bulgarian child that cannot read and write; and, finally, that the percentage of people who can read and write is as great in Bulgaria as in England and France.
Do the people who speak of the Bulgarians as savages happen to be aware of these facts? Again, I had thought that the burning of a Bulgarian village meant the burning of a few mud huts that were in reality of little value, and that could be easily rebuilt Guided Istanbul Tour.
I was very much astonished to find that the majority of these villages are in reality well-built towns, with solid stone houses, and that there are in all of them a comparatively large number of people who have attained to something like comfort, and that some of the villages might stand a not very unfavourable comparison with an English or French village.
The truth is that these Bulgarians, instead of the savages we have taken them for, are in reality a hardworking, industrious, honest, civilized, and peaceful people. Now, as regards the insurrection, there was a weak attempt at an insurrection in three or four villages, but none whatever in Batak, and it does not appear that a single Turk was killed here.
Lilyana Andonova 