They are simple and open in their manners, and hospitable to the stranger, giving of the best they possess, and cutting their coarse loaf with an expression of welcome, that makes one forget its colour in the good humour which presents it. Dried fish and cheese are always amongst their stores ; and the traveller who has passed " the desert mountain-track of Leon," or the dreary Stepps of Russia, will not reject the clean, though coarse provisions, which the hospitality of the Bulgarian peasant sets before him.
It is recorded, and believed by all denominations of the superstitious inhabitants of the Crimea, that this quality (hospitality) was the means of preserving a whole village from the dreadful visitation of the plague during the years 1812 and 1813. The beliefofthe personification of evil, is rarely found, though we read of it in all the Eastern tales. The story is as follows : Near midnighta stranger knocked, and obtained admittance, at the cottage of one of these villagers ; he begged for food and drink, both of which were freely given to him, and his stay for the remainder of the night pressed; but having refreshed himself, he got up to depart, and thanking them for their reception ofhim, assured them he would amply repay it. "I am," said he, " THE PLAGUE, and during the scourge with which I am come to visit this country, jour village shall remain unhurt and untouched amidst surrounding devastation." The promise was fulfilled, and the village escaped the infection, which spread with horrid rapidity around.
The fact of their escaping the plague is well known, but it would not be difficult to account for this circumstance by much more reasonable means. The tale alone serves to shew the extent of credulity, and that superstition alike exerts her powerful influence over the ignorant ofevery nation. Could the skull of a horse or ox, with which theBulgarianguards his cattle-yards from the malice of witches, or the evil eye, defend him from the much more to be dreaded witchcraft of superstition, it would indeed be a friend to him. But until education dispels the native darkness of the mind, we cannot hope to see this universal power of superstition subdued, any more than we can expect the light and genial warmth of the sun, before he has risen in our horizon.
The religion of the Bulgarian is that of the Russian or Greek church, and they observe the holidays with more strictness than the Sabbath ; the breach of one of these being punished by setting the offender in the stocks. Each village has its public concerns regulated by the elders of it ; and oneman serves an appointed time the office ofconstable.
Their language and origin is Slavonian*, but the intercourse with the Russians has made it now a mixture of that and modern Russian.
* The Bolgarians are Slavonians, who obtained their name from their capital, Borgard, situated thirty versts below the Kama, and five from the Volga. It was destroyed in 1500 by the Russians. Tooke's History of the Russians.