Paton, Andrew Archibald, 1811-1874 / 2008-06-27 00:00:00
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
of 1843.
The majority of the inhabitants are Turks, and even the native
Bulgarians here speak Turkish better than their own language. One
Bulgarian here told me that he could not speak the national language.
Now in the west of Bulgaria, on the borders of Servia, the Turks speak
Bulgarian better than Turkish.
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