SOFIA SAMOKOV GOVED

After a 20 minutes5 drive we reach the Zlatni Mostove area, topping near a cosy restaurant. Only 100 metres from the restaurant is the famous “stone river5 of boulders, dragged down by the once rushing waters of mountain rivers. There is a two-star hotel in the Kopito (hoof) area with 50 beds — tel. 57 -50-51. (From Sofia, take the Number 62 bus.) 1 he Kopito area, commanding a beautiful view of Sofia, is linked with the Knyazhevo City District by cable car.

SOFIA-SAMOKOV-GOVED ARTSI-MALYOVITSA-BOROVETS (72 KM)

After touring Sofia you may go to further afield and familiarise yourself with its surroundings. This route will take you to Bulgaria’s best known winter resort. It leads south of Sofia along the Iskur dam and passes through Pancharevo. Here is a man-made lake offering excellent opportunities for aquatic sports and angling. There are mineral baths with constant water temperature of 47°C, Lebed restaurant on the lake side, many rest homes and camping site. Further on the route passes by the remains of Ourvich fortress dating from the Middle Ages. We then come to the largest dam in Bulgaria, the Iskur dam. Along the road on the left is the Sturkelovo Gnez- do (Stork’s Nest) camping site (two star), with bungalows, restaurant, foods and souvenir kiosks.

The next place to see is Samokov (population 26,000), situated in Samokov valley at the foot of the Rila mountains. The town emerged in the 14th century as a major mining settlement. During the years of the Ottoman rule Samokov was well known throughout the empire as an important handicraft and commercial centre. It was particularly famous for ore. Crafts such as copperware, leather ware home-spun and woollen braiding were well developed here.

The Samokov school of icon painting was founded in Samokov during the Ottoman rule. A school was opened in 1832, and a library club in 1869. The art of icon painting flourished’ in the second half of the 18th and early in the 19th century tours sofia. The icon painter Hristo Dimitrov came from the nearby village of Dospei. He studied on Mount Athos and also worked in Vienna. The most talented pupil was Zahari Zograph, a re-markable icon painter for his time. He painted a large number of religious and secular frescoes in the first half of the 19th century. Among them are the frecsoes at Rila Monastery, Bachkovo Monastery, Troyan Monastery and Preobrazhene Monastery. Samokov master wood-carvers decorated the Metropolitan Church in Samokov and the iconostasis of the church in Rila Monastery.

The local museum, housed in a typically Bulgarian building, traces Samokov’s development over die years. Other points of interest are the Belyova Church which has many murals, by Samokov painters, the Metropolitan Church with its magnificent iconostasis, the Covent where the first school was opened, the Old House of the Obrazopissov, Ivan and Nikola Csenofontow House, Kokoshkov House and Marikin House with their well preserved wooden carved ceilings, as well as Sarafov House, the Synagoguee, the Bairakli Mosque which is very beautiful and the big 18th century fountain in front of the community centre.

Under Khan Kroum

We do not know precisely when the first capital, Pliska, was founded. Under Khan Kroum (803-814) and Khan Omourtag (816- 831) it already had the aspect and plan of which we can form an opinion, more or less, from the ruins discovered. Actually, only an insignificant part of Pliska has been studied.The extensive terrain it occupied — about 23 square kilometres — still hides many secrets and surprises. But there can be no doubt whatever that the history of the first Bulgarian capital of Pliska began as a settlement far earlier than the time when the proto-Bulgarian settled in these parts.

Plain of Pliska

Pliska lies in a wide plain, which reaches as far as the first foot hills of the Preslav section of the Balkan Range to the south, and as far as the slight hills of the Loudogorie to the north and north-east. The ruins of old forts and lesser fortifications are still apparent at many places on the surrounding heights, and traces of settlements, dating back to pre-Roman and Roman times are to be found in the foothills. An important road crosses the Plain of Pliska, leading from the interior to the shores of the Black Sea; the passes of the Eastern Balkan Range are also quite near, linking the Danube with the lands to the south of the Balkan Range.

Pliska was built on a very curious plan, quite unusual for the town- planning of the older settlements known in these regions. A deep and broad moat with an earthen embankment on the inner side, reaching a height of ten metres, and which may have been topped by a wooden palisade private tour istanbul, surrounded the city in the form of a lengthened trapeze, lying in a north-south direction, its long sides 7 km. long and its short ones 3.9 km. on the northern side and 2.7 km. on the southern side. There fortified earthworks defended a series of settlements, scattered over the extensive area. They formed the separate districts of Pliska, situated at a certain distance from each other. These were the districts of the common population of farmers, stockbreeders and craftsmen.

Thatched huts and dwellings of the dugout type predominated here, at least in the earlier period. But in the course of time larger dwellings, as well as buildings of various workshops, such as potteries, smithies and so on, made their appearance. After the adoption of Christianty in 865, churches began to be built as well. Each district acquired its church, which stood out among the other buildings with its more solid structure and its size. Large monasteries were also built. So far the ruins of over 20 churches have been excavated. A large part of them are of the basilica type.

The district, inhabited by the ruler and the bolyars (nobles), lay in the centre of Pliska. It covered an area of about half a square kilometre, in the form of a trapeze, the sides of which had a total length of 2870 metres. A heavily-built stone fortress, made of big, well-hewn stone blocks, separated the palace of the Khan, the bolyars’ houses and public buildings from the rest of the city. Although only the lower part of the fortress walls have been preserved, they still seize the eye of the visitor and amaze him with their rugged strength.

They were 2.60 Riri. thick, and up to 10 m. in height, crowned with huge stone crenellations. There was a gate on each side, defended by square double towers. Besides these, round towers at the corners and pentagonal towers along the walls further increased the fortress’s powers of resistance. This fortified district was in fact the citadel of the settlement. Inscientific literature it is usually known as the «Inner City» in contrast to the remaining districts, which formed the «Outer City». The inner city appears to have been very densely built up. The «Big Palace», which was built upon the ruins of an older and larger palace, burnt down by the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus I. in 811, stands out with its spacious halls.

POST TELEGRAPH TELEPHONES

In all Bulgarian towns there are postal, telegraph and telephone services maintaining connections with all parts of the world. There are post offices also in the big hotels in Sofia: Sofia, PIiska, Balkan, Rila and Bulgaria.

The different kinds of postal services cost as follows: an open letter or postcard – 1 stotinka, a closed letter within the precinct of the town – 1 stotinka, for another town — 2 stotinki. Air mail: to a basic fee of 0.13 leva you add: for Japan 0.23 leva, USA – 0.16 leva, Egypt, Iraq, Sudan, Jordan – 0.09 leva, Italy, France, Britain, GFR, Holland, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland – 0.12 leva per 20 g; for USSR (European part) – 0.12 leva, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, GDR and Albania – 0.06 leva per 20 g, Cuba – 0.15 leva, USSR (Asian part)- 0.12leva per 5 g.

Telegrammes within the country are taxed 15 stotinki per word for up to 10 words and 0.14 leva for every succeeding word.

Telephone calls between towns lasting up to 3 minutes are taxed from 9 to 54 stotinki, depending on the distance. Between

8.0 p.m. and 7.00 a.m. chargesiare reduced by 50 per cent private tours bulgaria.

IMPORTANT TELEPHONE NUMBERS

Sofia Plovdiv Varna Bourgas Rousse

First aid 150 150 15 170 150

Militia 166 2-22-11 2-52-11 4-26-84 21-51

International

calls 123 121 a 121 121

BALKAN

International 87-75-73 2-55-64 3-10 31 4-29-00 20-31

Airlines 88-44-33 2-20-03 2-29-48 4-56-05 2-41-61

Airport 45-11-21 2-59-82 4-18-11 4-26-64 2-50-54

Bulstrad 8-51-91 — 2-23-55 4-42-66 2-58 86

Road Aid servis 146 2-50-65 8-00-02 146 142

HOTELS

At your disposal is a wide network of hotels all over the country – in its interior, as well as on the Black Sea coast. The conveniences, services, and all other amenities which they offer meet the standards adopted in international tourism.

To reserve places during the tourist season in the resort com-plexes or towns, your telegramme must be accompanied without fail by a prepaid answer. Written reservations should also have a prepaid reply.

Depending on the class of the hotel, the number of beds per room, etc., prices per bed range from 4 to 30 leva. Children between the ages of 2 and 12 pay 50 per cent of these prices if they occupy an additional bed in the room of their parents. For food they also pay 50 per cent of the price for adults. For children up to 7 who do not occupy a separate bed, no charge is made.

0, 18 lev — Iere et Heme categories.

– 0,10 lev par nuitee dansun hotel de Illeme categorie, motel, logement prive et bun-galow.

– 0,05 lev par nuitee dans un camping.

Montant des assurances: accident Ier groupe – 4 000 leva; He groupe – 3 000 leva; Hie groupe — 2 000 leva; IVe groupe – 1 000 leva. Vol de bagages: Ier groupe – 500

leva; He groupe – 400 leva; Hie groupe – 300 leva; IVe groupe – 200 leva. Paiement en devises respectives, suivant le cours officiel de la Banque nationale de Bulgarie pour les paiements non commerciaux.

Pour tous les hotels de Sofia, de l’interieur du pays, des stations de montagne ou maritimes, les reservations sent faites directement a l’hotel ou bien par l’intermediaire du service des reservations aupres de L’Entreprise econo- mique d’Etat, Balkantouriste, tel.: 88-56-54 ou 88-56-55.

Pour les hotels au Com- plexe touristique Slantchev Briag, tel.: 22-07 ou 24-88, et depuis Sofia – 056-97.

Pour les hotels dans les limites du Complexe touristique Bourgas, tel.: 4-72-75, et de Sofia – 056-4-72-75.

Pour tous les services supplementaires. tels que le repassage, blanchissage, net- toyage a sec, repas servis dans la chambre, etc., on paie sui- vant le tar if etabli. Les prix des chambres au rez-dechaussee et avec bain a l’etage sont moins eleves.

Pour la periode du 15 novembre au 30 avril, les prix des hotels VARNA, a Varna, PRIMORETS, a Bourgas, IANTRA, a Veliko Tirnovo, VEREIA, a Stara Zagora, etc. sont reduits.

ZLATNI PYASSATSI

One of the first resort complexes built on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, it is situated 17 km north of Varna to which it is connected by a modern motorway (part of the E-95 International Highway leading from Romania to Turkey). The name of the resort was given it by its beach – an almost 4 km long strip of sand over 100 metres wide. It lies on the same latitude as the well-known French and Italian Mediterranean resorts. Its climate is mild and warm. The mean temperature in July is 22°C, and the temperature of the water from June to September never falls below 20°C.

At the complex there are more than 80 modern hotels with 20,0 beds, 500 bungalows and two well-shaded camp sites with accommodation for. about 1,800. The builders of the complex have successfully combined the mainly two-storeyed hotels of the first construction stage with the multi-storeyed modern buildings of the last few years, which have interesting architectural features: exquisite winding staircases, ceramic decorations, wood carvings and hammered metal. And all this with due account taken of the requirements for much space, air, sun and comfort.

In the centre of the resort is the administrative building of Balkantourist. There is a barber’s and hairdresser’s shop here, and some one hundred metres west of Diana Hotel and the Vodenitsata (The Mill) Restaurant is the health clinic of the resort – an excellently equipped polyclinic with a dentist’s department and specialized medical laboratories. Whenever necessary a doctor from the polyclinic gives medical assistance in the hotel rooms – for which you only need telephone guided tour ephesus6-53-52, 6-56-86 and 6-56-87. Medical care is free of charge. Only the medicines are paid for, which can be bought at the dispensing chemist’s of the polyclinic (tel. 6-56-89) or at the chemist’s shop north of the Stariya Dub (Old Oak) Restaurant.

There are volleyball and tennis courts, mini-golf links and croquet pitches in front of the hotels Morsko Oko, Lilia, Rodina and Tintyava. Open every day. Tel. 6-52-54. In front of Lilia Hotel there is a swimming pool for children, and at International Hotel there is an indoor swimming pool with warm mineral water all year round. Lovers of riding will find horses, riding outfits for hire and the services of an instructor (every day from 9.0 to 12.00 a.m. and from 3.00 to 7.00 p.m.)

International Hotel

The post office is next to the car park of International Hotel.

It is open from 7.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. without a break. Trunk calls to all parts of the world.

Opposite the post office building, near International Hotel, you will find clothes pressing shops, laundries, bootblacks, watchmakers’ shops, etc. In International Hotel and Ambassador Hotel there are hairdresser’s shops.

Every hotel has its own car park. In the Balkantourist Service Shop, where the road forks off to Balchik, Varna and Aladja Monastery, you can turn to the car mechanics for help,or obtain spare parts or use the automatic car-wash. Open from 7.0 a.m. to 8.00 p.m. Tel. 6-53-16.

The filling station of the resort is next to the Kosharata Restaurant and is open day and night.

Next to the Casino Restaurant is a Rent-a-Car service. Open from 7.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. Tel. 6-53-63.

The places of entertainment at the resort offer an original at-mosphere and varied programme:

Tsiganski Tabor (Gypsy Camp) Night Club serves delicious dishes and excellent wines in Gypsy tents to the music of a Gypsy orchestra. Exotic dances and original souvenirs. Open from 9.0 p.m. to 2.00 a.m.

Koukeri (Masked Dancers) Night Club – in original style. From the club there is a wonderful view of the whole resort complex; ‘koukeri’ dances with quaint masks. Open from 9.00 p.m. to 4.00 a.m.

Kolibite Night Club – and Indian settlement. Romantic lighting, interesting floor show and first-class orchestra. Situated in the heart of the forest above the resort. Open from 9.00 p.m. to 2.00 a.m.

Gorski Kut Night Club, next to Kolibite. Open from 9.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Kosharata – an original restaurant in Bulgarian folk-style offering sheep and lamb specialities: ewe’s milk yoghourt, kour- ban chorba (mutton soup), grilled lamb, ewe’s milk cheese roll, etc. Open from 9.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Karakachanski Stan. The atmosphere is typical of the nomad Karakachan (Wallachian) shepherd settlements in the Rhodopes. The wide range of dishes are prepared and served in the Karakachan way. Situated in the forest next to the Kolibite, Open from 4.00 p.m. to 2.00 a.m.

Vodenitsata – an original folk-style restaurant, serving grilled chicken, kebabs, home-made sausages and freshly baked bread. Open from 9.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Astoria Bar – a modern establishment open from May to October. An interesting artistic floor show with music. Situated next to the hotel of the same name. Open from 10.00 p.m. to 4.0 a.m. Caney Night Club – exotic atmosphere, Cuban cocktails, first-class orchestra. Situated right next to Havana Hotel. Open from 4.00 p.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Trifon Zarezan Restaurant. Original restaurant with a special hall for wine-tasting. Bulgarian cuisine and a well-stocked bar. Situated on the road to Varna opposite Strandja Hotel. Open from 9.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Lovna Sreshta. Situated in a woody locality close to the rock-cut Aladja Monastery. Game dishes, prepared to local recipes. Orchestra. Open from 9.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m.

Picnic – a tavern in the heart of the forest near Lovna Sreshta. Grill and excellent drinks served. Every evening folklore programme of songs and dances. Open from 5.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m.

Wealthier neighbours

The ultimate destiny of this huge agglomeration of houses is now vested in the hands of the vast masses of the working population. They have far more keen interests in the city than their wealthier neighbours, who look on London as a centre of labour, amusement, or struggle for a season or a period, whilst they often ‘get away ’ from it, and hope at last to retire to a calmer place. In the meantime, the richer classes seldom know London as a whole, or care for it as their home, or regard it as having any claim on them as their city. Far different is this to the working men: to whom London is their home, their ‘ county,’ their permanent abode. It is a city which they quit only for a few hours or days, which many of them are forced to traverse from end to end under the exigencies of their trade, where they expect to pass their old age and to lay their bones. The healthiness, convenience, pleasantness of London, are all in all to them and to their household.

Mismanagement is to them, and to those dear to them, disease, discomfort, death. There is every reason to look forward to the complete transformation of London into an organic city, with a people proud of its grandeur and beauty, so soon as the new institutions have been fully matured. We have seen a local municipal patriotism break forth with extraordinary rapidity and energy in several of the new boroughs, such as Battersea, Chelsea, and St. George’s-in-the-East. And this interest in city life will grow and deepen, as it has done in Midland and Northern towns, until ultimately we may look to see London as a whole develop the spirit of pride and attachment which the great cities of the Middle Ages bred in their citizens of old.

Central Communications

The big collective problems which deal with Water, with Fire, with the Sick, with the Dead, with central Communications, and with the Housing of the poor population — can only be undertaken by a supreme central municipality, but not by vestries private tour istanbul, or boroughs. And unhappily in London no supreme municipality has as yet a free hand, or can count on the aid of the Legislature.

But in spite of division of authority and legislative obstacles, not a little has been done and much more has been attempted and prepared in every one of these departments. It is fair to say that both the ancient Corporation and the County Council have striven to attain these ends; and in not a few cases with combined energies and resources. And although in the case of the Water Supply no final solution has been reached, an immense amount of scientific study has been directed to the problem; and a great improvement both in quantity and quality has been obtained. At the same time determined efforts and a large expenditure have visibly improved the condition of our great river; and fill us with hope that living men may yet come to see a pure and healthy Thames.

The great problem of how to bring London up to the level of its position in the world and to make it a really noble and commodious city has been continually attacked: as yet with incomplete results and a better understanding of the difficulties which beset it. It is mainly a financial and political question. The greatest and richest city in the world is also the city which now seems to practise the most rigid economy in its own improvement. With the greatest river of any capital in Europe, with boundless energy, wealth, and opportunities, London is put to shame by Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, and New York.

Paris is the only capital

In the modern world, Paris is the only capital which can be placed beside London as an historic city of the first rank. The modern transformation of Paris has been even more destructive of the past than the modern transformation of London, and, at the same time, it is much more brilliant: so that what remains it is in London. Nor has Paris any ancient monuments which appeal to the popular imagination, with such direct voice as do our Abbey, and our great hall at Westminster, our Tower, our Temple Church, Lambeth Palace, and the Guildhall. Yet withal it may be said that, in a larger sense of the term, Paris is a city of even richer historic memories than London itself: richer, that is, to the thoughtful student of its history, though certainly not to the incurious tourist. If we take into account sites as well as extant monuments, if we call to our aid topography as well as archaeology; if we follow up the early history of buildings which have been replaced, or are now transformed or removed; if we study the local biography of Paris from the days of Julius Caesar to the days of Julius Gr£vy and Sadi Carnot—especially, if we include in the history of Paris that of its suburbs — St. Denis, Vincennes, St. Cloud, St. Germain, Versailles, — then the history of Paris is even richer, more dramatic, more continuous than that of London itself.

Paris is by at least a century older than London in the historical record; for it now has almost two thousand years of continuous annals. Paris was a more important Roman city than London. It has far more extensive Roman remains. The history of its first thousand years, from the first century to the eleventh, of its early foundations, churches, palaces, and walls, is far more complete and trustworthy than anything we know of London. It did not suffer any such gap or blank in its history, such as that which befell London, from the time of the Romans until the settlement of the Saxons. The fathers of men still living have seen at Paris private guide turkey, in its Bastille, at St. Denis, in Notre Dame, and the other churches, in the Tuileries, in Versailles, and old Hdtel de Ville, relics of the past, records, works of art, tombs, and statues, before which the great record of our Abbey and our Tower can hardly hold their own.

Restoration little more than half a century

The great era of destruction began little more than a century ago: the great era of restoration little more than half a century ago. Paris, too, has been the scene of events more tremendous and more extraordinary than any other city of the world, if we except Constantinople and Rome. London never endured any very serious or regular siege. Paris has endured a dozen famous sieges, culminating in what is, perhaps, the biggest siege recorded in history. London has never known an autocrat with a passion for building, has had but one great conflagration, and but one serious insurrection. Paris has had in Louis xiv., and the first and second empires of the Napoleons, three of the most ambitious despots ever known; and in a hundred years has had four most sanguinary and destructive revolutions. Battles, sieges, massacres, conflagrations, civil wars, rebellions, revolutions, make up the history of Paris from the days of the Caesars and the Franks to the days of the Terror and the Commune.

All this makes the topographical history of Paris far more copious and more stirring than the history of London, and indeed of any other modern city whatever. And the history of Paris has been far better told than the history of any other city. There is a perfect library about the history of Paris, with a special Museum, and a collection of 80,000 volumes and 70,000 engravings, devoted to that one subject. The histories reach over six centuries, from the work of Jean de Jandun, the contemporary of Dante, who begins his work about Paris by saying ‘that it is more like Paradise than any other spot on earth ’ — (an opinion, by the way, said to be shared by many Americans and some English) — and they go on to the splendid volumes by Hoffbauer, Fournier, and others, called Paris a travers les Ages: a book, I may say, only to be found in the British Museum and a few public libraries.

Raised on the Acropolis

The Greek people have raised on the Acropolis itself a national museum, where every fragment of the ancient work that once adorned it, is religiously preserved. The collection is unique, incomparable, of inestimable value, and is constantly being increased. It derives its peculiar impressiveness from the fact that these priceless relics still remain on the sacred citadel of Athene, under the shadow of the mighty temple of which they formed part. The Parthenon gains a new charm by their presence; whilst the statues gain a fresh power by being within its precinct. Pheidias, Ictinus, Pericles, acquire each a new dignity in our eyes, as we contemplate the ruin and its adornments on the ever-consecrated spot where such amazing genius laboured and thought.

We go to our own Museum, and we are wont to plume ourselves on the diplomacy and taste of the eminent per-sonage who secured these treasures. We say they are now safe, carefully preserved, and accessible to every one. Perhaps it was wrong to steal them, but now that it is done, it cannot be mended. In the meantime the British public can study High Art at its leisure. But there is something above High Art daily ephesus tours, and that is national honour, and international morality.

Sophocles and Pheidias

And when, in the enthusiasm of a first visit to the city of Plato, Sophocles, and Pheidias, we behold the empty pediments which we have wrecked, and the blank spaces out of which our national representative tore metopes and frieze, when we see the terra-cotta Caryatid, which is forced to do duty for her whom we have ravished from the temple of Erechtheus — it is not so easy to repeat the robber sophism: having plundered, it is best to keep the plunder. One day the conscience of England will revive, and she will rejoice to restore the outraged emblems of Hellenic art to the glorious sky, where only they are at home, on that immortal rock, and beneath the shadow of the sublime temple, which a supreme genius made them to ennoble. And our eloquent discourses about Art will gain by being sweetened with honesty and good manners.

Visited Rome four times

In the space of some thirty years I have visited Rome four times, at long intervals, and each time I groan anew. I was Italianissimo in my hot youth, and I am assuredly, not Papalino in my maturer age. I rejoice with the new life of the Italian people; I know that for the regenerated nation Rome is essential as its capital; I know that a growing modern city must wear the aspect of modern civilisation. I repudiate the whining of sentimentalists over the conditions of modern progress; and the advice which Napoleon’s creatures gave to the Romans, ‘to be content with the contemplation of their ruins,’ has the true ring of an oppressor. We acknowledge all that, and are no obscurantists to shudder at a railroad with Ruskinian affectation. But yet, to those who loved the poetry of old Papal Rome, the prose of the modernised new Rome is a sad and instructive memory.

When I first saw Rome, it was not connected by any railway with Northern Italy. We had to travel by the road, and I cannot forget the weird effect of that Roman Maremma, purple and crimson with an autumn sunset; the buffaloes, and the wild cattlemen and pecorari in sheepskins; the old-world coaches and postilions; the desolate plain broken by ruins and castles; the mediaeval absurdities of Papal officialism; the suffumigations and the visas; the cumbrous pomposity of some Roman returning from villeggiatura — it was as though one had passed by enchantment into the seventeenth century, with its picturesque barbarism, and one quite expected a guerilla band of horsemen to issue from the castle of Montalto coastal bulgaria holidays.

Rome itself

And then Rome itself, so perfectly familiar that it seemed like a mere returning to the old haunt of childhood, with its fern-clad ruins standing in open spaces, gardens, or vineyards; the huge solitudes within the walls; the cattle and the stalls beneath the trees on the Campo Vaccino, forty feet above the spot where now professors lecture to crowds in the recent excavations; the grotesque parade of cardinals and monsignori; the narrow, ill-lighted streets; the swarm of monks, friars, and prelates of every order and race; the air of mouldering abandonment in the ancient city, as of some corner of mediaeval Europe left forgotten and untouched by modern progress, with all the historic glamour, the pictorial squalor, the Turkish routine, all the magnificence of obsolete forms of civilisation which clung round the Vatican and were seen there only in Western Europe.

It had to go, and it is gone; and Rome, in twenty or thirty years, has become like any other European city big, noisy, vulgar, overgrown, Frenchified, and syndicate-ridden, hardly to be distinguished from Lyons or Turin, except that it has in the middle of its streets some enormous masses of ruin, many huge, empty convents, and some vast churches, apparently abandoned by the Church.

But the ruins, which used to stand in a rural solitude like Stonehenge or Rievaulx, are now mere piles of stone in crowded streets, like the Palais des Therme’s at Paris. The sacred sites of Forum and Roma Quadrata are now objects in a museum. The Cloaca are embedded in the new stone quay, and are become a mere ‘exhibit,’ like York House Water-Gate in our own embankment. The wild foliage and the memorial altars have been torn out of the Colosseum, and the Allian Bridge is overshadowed by a new iron enormity. Rome, which, thirty years ago, was a vision of the past, is to-day a busy Italian town, with a dozen museums, striving to become a third-rate Paris.

The mediaeval halo is gone, but the hard facts remain. For to the historian Rome must always be the central city of this earth — the spot towards which all earlier history of mankind must in the end converge — from which all modern history must issue. Rome is the true microcosm, wherein the vast panorama of human civilisation is reflected as on a mirror. It is this diversity, continuity, and world-wide range of interest which place it apart above all other cities of men. This one is more lovely, that one is more complete; another city is vaster, or another has some unique and special glory. But no other city of the world approaches Rome in the enormous span of its history, and in this character of being the centre, as the Greeks said the if not of this planet at least europe.

Old intellectual system was discredited

This suggests a fourfold division: the school of thought whereby the old intellectual system was discredited; that by which the old political system was destroyed; those who laboured to construct a new intellectual and moral basis of society; and those who sought to construct a new social and political system. These schools and teachers, writers and politicians, cannot be rigidly separated from each other. Each overlaps the other, and most of them combine the characteristics of all in more or less degree. The most pugnacious of the critics did something in the way of reconstructing the intellectual basis.

The most constructive spirits of the new world did much both directly and indirectly to destroy the old. Critics of the orthodox faith were really destroying the throne and the ancient rule, even when they least designed it. Orthodox supporters of radical reforms rung the knell of the mediaeval faith as much as that of the mediaeval society. The spiritual and temporal organisation of human life had grown up together; and in death it was not divided guided tours istanbul.

Revolution at hand

All through the eighteenth century the intellectual movement was gathering vitality and volume. From the opening years of the epoch the genius of Leibnitz saw the inevitable effect the movement must have upon the old society; and, in his memorable prophecy of the Revolution at hand (1704), he warned the chiefs of that society to prepare for the storm. For three generations France seemed to live only in thought. Action descended to the vilest and most petty level which her history had ever reached. From the death of Colbert, in 1683, until the ministry of Turgot, in 1774, France seemed to have lost the race of great statesmen, and to be delivered over to the intriguer and the sycophant. Well may the historian say that in passing from the politicians of the reign of Louis xv. to the thinkers of the same epoch, we seem to be passing from the world of the pigmies to that of the Titans. Into the world of ideas France flung herself with passion and with hope.

The wonderful accumulation of scientific discoveries which followed the achievements of Newton reacted powerfully on religious thought, and even on practical policy. Mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, began to assume the outlined proportion of coherent sciences; and some vague sense of their connection and real unity filled the mind of all.

Out of the physical sciences there emerged a dim conception of a crowning human science, which it was the grand achievement of the eighteenth century to found. History ceased to be a branch of literature; it began to have practical uses for mankind of to-day; and slowly it was recognised as the momentous life-story of man, the autobiography of the human race. Europe no longer absorbed the interest of cultivated thought. The unity of the planet, the community of all who dwell on it, gave a new colour to the whole range of thought; and as the old dogmas of the supernatural Church began to lose their hold on the mind, the new-born enthusiasm of humanity began to fill all hearts.

Phil could stand this no longer

Phil could stand this no longer. With a whoop and a bound (he had just won the long jump in his college sports) he cleared the broad ditch, and alighted clean in the meadow round which they were tramping.

‘ Why,’ he cried, as a second bound brought him back again to the side of his Venerable friend, ‘ at that rate we should want at least a hundred works, I suppose in ten volumes each, or a thousand volumes in all, cram full of gritty facts of no good to any one. All this week I have been entering in my note-book such bits as this: — “ Ecgfrith marched to a place called the Hoar Apple-Tree. It is not known where this is, or why he went there. He left it the next day, and neither he nor it are ever mentioned again in the chronicles.” What is the good to me of knowing that? ’ he asked, as if a cheeky freshman was likely to put the Reverend iethelbald into a tight place.

‘ Bad, bad! ’ said the tutor, who began to fear that he was wasting his time on Phil, ‘ you will never be a credit to your college if you can make game of “truth” like that ! One would think a young man who hoped to do something would care to know a few true facts about his English forbears a thousand years ago. But the question is not what you care to know, but what you ought to know; and every Englishman ought to know every word in the Saxon Chronicle, to say nothing of the rest daily sofia tour.

Nor is it a question at all about your thousand volumes of history, the bulk of which deal with “periods” that do not concern you at all. Your thousand volumes, too, is a very poor estimate after all. You would find that not ten thousand volumes, perhaps not a hundred thousand volumes, would contain all the truths which have ever been recorded in contemporary documents, together with the elucidations, comments, and various amplifications which each separate truth would properly demand.’

‘ But at this rate,’ said the freshman gloomily, ‘ I shall never get beyond Ecgfrith and the other break-jaw Old- English sloggers. When we come up to Oxford we never seem to get out of an infinite welter of “origins” and primitive forms of everything.

I used to think the Crusades, the Renascence, Puritanism, and the French Revolution were interesting epochs or movements. But here lectures seem to go round and round the Mark-system, or the aboriginal customs of the Jutes. We are told that it is mere literary trifling to take any interest in Richelieu and William of Orange, Frederick of Prussia, or Mirabeau and Danton. The history of these men has been adequately treated in very brilliant books which a serious student must avoid. He must stick to Saxon charters and the Doomsday Survey.’

‘Of course, he must,’ said the tutor, ‘if that is his “period” — and a very good period it is. If you know how many houses were inhabited at Dorchester and Brid- port at the time of the Survey, and how many there had been in the Old-English time, you know something definite. But you may write pages of stuff about what smatterers call the “philosophy of history,” without a single sentence of solid knowledge. When every inscription and every manuscript remaining has been copied and accurately unravelled, then we may talk about the philosophy of history.’

‘ But surely,’ said Crichtonius mirabilis, ‘you don’t wish me to believe that there is no intelligible evolution in the ages, and that every statement to be found in a chronicle is as much worth remembering as any other statement? ’

Reverend Aithelbald dogmatically

‘You have got to remember them all,’ replied the Reverend Aithelbald dogmatically, ‘ at any rate, all in your “period.” You may chatter about “evolution” as fast as you like, if you take up Physical Science and go to that beastly museum; but if you mention “evolution” in the History School, you will be gulfed — take my word for it! I daresay that all statements of fact—true statements I mean — may not be of equal importance; but it is far too early yet to attempt to class them in order of value. Many generations of scholars will have to succeed each other, and many libraries will have to be filled, before even our bare materials will be complete and ready for any sort of comparative estimate. All that you have to do, dear boy, is to choose your period (I hope it will be Old-English somewhere), mark out your “claim,” as Californian miners do, and then wash your lumps, sift, crush quartz, till you find ore, and don’t cry “ Gold! ” till you have had it tested.’

This was a hard saying to his Admirable young friend, who felt like the rich young man in the Gospel when he was told to sell all that he had and to follow the Master. ‘ I have no taste for quartz-crushing,’ said he gloomily; ‘what I care for are Jules Michelet on the Middle Ages, Macaulay’s pictures of Charles 11. and his court — (wonderfull scene that, the night of Charles’s seizure at Whitehall!) — Carlyle on Mirabeau and Danton, and Froude’s Reformation and Armada. These are the books which stir my blood. Am I to put all these on the shelf? ’

The visible State on earth

We turn to the Church, the moral element which pervades the Middle Ages. Amidst the crash of the falling empire, as darker grew the storm which swept over the visible State on earth, more and more the better spirits turned their eyes towards a Kingdom above the earth. They turned, as the great Latin father relates, amidst utter corruption to an entire reconstruction of morality; in the wreck of all earthly greatness, they set their hearts upon a future life, and strove amidst anarchy and bloodshed to found a moral union of society.

Hence rose the Catholic Church, offering to the thoughtful a mysterious and inspiring faith; to the despairing E and the remorseful a new and higher life; to the wretched, comfort, fellowship, and aid; to the perplexed a majestic system of belief and practice — in its creed Greek, in its worship Asiatic, in its constitution Roman. In it we see the Roman genius for organisation and law, transformed and revived. In the fall of her material greatness Rome’s social greatness survived. Rome still remained the centre of the civilised world. Latin was still the language which bound men of distant lands together. From Rome went forth the edicts which were common to all Europe. The majesty of Rome was still the centre of civilisation. The bishop’s court took the place of that of the imperial governor. The peace of the church took the place of the peace of Rome; and from the first, the barbarian invaders who overthrew the hollow greatness of the empire humbled themselves reverently before the ministers of religion.

The church stood between the conqueror and the conquered, and joined them both in one. She told to all — Roman and barbarian, slave or freeman, great or weak — how there was one God, one Saviour of all, one equal soul in all, one common judgment, one common life hereafter. She told them how all, as children of one Father, were in His eyes equally dear; how charity, mercy, humility, devotion alone would make them worthy of His love; and at these words there rose up in the fine spirits of the new races a sense of brotherhood amongst mankind, a desire for a higher life, a zeal for all the gentler qualities and the higher duties, such as the world had not seen before guided turkey tours.

System of morality

Thus was her first task accomplished, and she founded a system of morality common to all and possible to all. She spoke to the slave of his immortal soul, to the master of the guilt of slavery. Master and slave should meet alike within her walls, and lie side by side’ within her catacombs; and thus her second task was accomplished, and she overthrew for ever the system of slavery, and raised up the labourer into the dignity of a citizen. Then she told how their common Master, of power unbounded, had loved the humble and the weak. She told of the simple lives of saints and martyrs, their tender care of the poorer brethren, their spirit of benevolence, self-sacrifice, and self-abasement; and thus the third great task was accomplished, when she placed the essence of practical religion in care for the weak, in affection for the family, in reverence for woman, in benevolence to all, and in – personal self-denial.

Next, she undertook to educate all alike. She provided a body of common teachers; she organised schools; she raised splendid cathedrals, where all might be brought into the presence of the beautiful, and see all forms of art in their highest perfection — architecture, and sculpture, and painting, and work in glass, in iron, and in wood, heightened by inspiring ritual and touching music. She accepted all without thought of birth or place. She gathered to herself all the knowledge of the time, though all was subordinate to religious life. The priests, so far as such were then possible, were poets, historians, dramatists, musicians, architects, sculptors, painters, judges, lawyers, magistrates, ministers, students of science, engineers, philosophers, astronomers, and moralists. Lastly, she had another task, and she accomplished even that. It was to stand between the tyrant and his victim; to succour the oppressed, to humble the evil ruler, to moderate the horrors of war; above all, to join nation to nation, to mediate between hostile races, to give to civilised Europe some element of union and cohesion.