The Turks, the Greeks, & the Slavons : travels in the Slavonic provinces of Turkey-in-Europe / by G. Muir Mackenzie and A.P. Irby ; with maps, and numerous illustrations by F. Kanitz.

Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Turks, the Greeks, & the Slavons : travels in the Slavonic provinces of Turkey-in-Europe / by G. Muir Mackenzie and A.P. Irby ; with maps, and numerous illustrations by F. Kanitz. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    A letter from the British Consul at Monastir pro- <mred us hospitable entertainment at the house of a rich Bulgarian merchant, where two rooms were given up to our use. The inner chamber was large, well stocked with cushions and carpets, and so cleanly, that although we prepared our beds on the divan instead of on our iron bedsteads, no disturbance of rest en- sued. The merchant and his family trade in tobacco, which grows in abundance on the Prilip plain, and one of the brothers conducts the business of the house with Vienna. Unluckily he was from home, but his Viennese proclivities were represented by a musical clock, which strikes up tunes every quarter of an hour. We had been warned that we should find this article in our bedrooms, and that its performances would be fatal to sleep ; but it seems our good-natured hosts had found out that it disturbed their former visitors, for just as we were vainly composing ourselves to rest, a daughter of the house demanded entrance, clambered up on the divan, and stopped the clock. The civilized importer of the musical timepiece, and the grave and portly master of the house, were both members of a family of five brothers, who with their wives and children eat at one table, and live in houses opening on one court, within the protection of one high wall. These family associations, or zadroogas,* are general throughout Bulgaria, and have certainly tended to sustain the Christians under the lawless regime of the Turk. Besides securing to every household the presence of a number of men to protect the women from intruders, they ensure widows and orphans a maintenance and security in the bosom of their own ur.e espece d'egalite dans les deux sexes.—Z>e VEsprit des Lois. Livre xvi. chap. II. * See vNppendix.