irds, such as eagles, falcons, bustards, wild
geese, pheasants, partridges, woodcock, snipe, and moorhen. For the
sportsman the Balkan Peninsula is almost the only tract left in Europe
offering really wild game. King Ferdinand, who recognises the tourist
possibilities of his country, has lately encouraged the stocking of the
Rhodope streams with trout, to offer another attraction to the visitor.

[Illustration: GUARDING THE FLOCKS AND HERDS]

To King Ferdinand's initiative also is due in a great measure the
movement to develop the spas of Bulgaria. The mountains abound in
medicinal springs of various kinds. Some of the most important have been
used in a primitive fashion since the Roman times, and under the Turkish
rule. Recently, the mining section of the Ministry of Commerce and
Agriculture has succeeded in developing the mineral springs at Sliven,
Banki, Varshetz, and Meritchleri. Modern health-resorts have been built
at Banki, Varshetz, Hissar, and Meritchleri. There are, all in all, more
than 200 hot and mineral springs in Bulgaria in some eighty different
places. In the department of Sofia there are twenty-three, the hottest
of which is Dolnia Bania. The town of Sofia itself possesses very good
hot springs. The municipality has almost completed the building of
public baths which will cost L60,000.

Though it is far from the mind of the Bulgarian people to aim at making
their country another playground for the west of Europe, there is no
doubt at all but that in the future Bulgaria will attract, yearly,
thousands of tourists--in the winter for snow-sports; in the spring and
autumn for the scenery, the sport, the medicinal baths. At the present
time there is practically no tourist traffic. Travellers wishing to
explore early a new country may be confident of getting in the capital,
Sofia, excellent hotel accommodation, and in the chief towns, such as
Stara Zagora and Philippopolis, decent and clean accommodation. But to
see Bulgaria properly it is necessary to take to horseback or wagon. At
the capital it is possible to engage guides who speak English, and to
hire horses or oxen for transport at an astonishingly cheap rate. The
horse-carts of the country are springless and not too comfortable. The
ox-wagons, also springless, are quite comfortable, as the oxen move
along smoothly and without jerking. I have slept quite soundly in a
Bulgarian ox-wagon as it crawled over roadless country at night.

Mainly an agricul