practised hitherto by the great landlords were all
sanctioned if they would inaugurate no new ones. The Franciscan monks,
beloved by the people, had kept alive the people's hope that something
would be done for them; they could not stop the people from attempting
to obtain it by ill-organized revolts. From time to time there would
be a concerted movement; thus Luka Vukalovi['c] in 1862 fired his own
Herzegovina and also the Bocche di Cattaro, weapons and volunteers
came from Montenegro, and Vukalovi['c] was recognized by Turkey as the
military and civil head of an autonomous Herzegovina. But he was
subsequently forced to fly to Serbia, while the Turks had such
success against the Montenegrins that the Great Powers had to
intervene. And that was one of the most fruitful of the insurrections.
When the news was spread that Michael would arrive there were great
popular rejoicings. Christians and Muhammedans were busy, till the
time of his assassination, preparing for his solemn entry.

IF MICHAEL HAD LIVED!

Many of the Bulgars were as eager to associate themselves with
Michael. In 1862, when Belgrade was bombarded by the Turks, Rakovski
got together a Bulgarian legion which would fight in Serbia against
the common foe; in 1867 the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee at
Bucharest, where these leaders of the people had sought sanctuary,
proposed the union of Bulgaria and Serbia under Michael. "Between the
Serbs and the Bulgars," says the first article, "there shall be
established a fraternal union calling itself the Yugoslav Kingdom." If
this idea had been put forward by any one but Rakovski one might
consider it a mere fantastic notion, but the Bulgars who elected this
extraordinary man to be their chief were, as is the habit of the
Bulgars, nothing if not practical.

THE STRANGE CAREER OF RAKOVSKI

Rakovski was born at the picturesque little town of Kotel in the
eastern Balkans, and was educated at Constantinople, but his ebullient
temperament did not allow him to pursue his studies to the end. He
turned up at Braila in 1841 and, being hardly twenty years of age, was
dreaming of a revolution of the Orient. With a group of insurgents he
tried to cross the Danube and to rouse the Bulgars. A Roumanian patrol
opens fire, on each side there are several killed and wounded. He is
captured and condemned to death, but having a Greek passport he is
rescued by the Greek Consul and put on board a boat which lands him at
Marsei