close to the horses' sides and forced our knees
into so torturing and unnatural a position
that it is odd they were not dislocated. The
horses, which cost two piastres and a half
each per hour, were small, wiry little things
of wonderful endurance, though not much
courage and action. They were half starved
also, and quite worn out by the marchings
and counter-marchings of officers speeding
hither and thither on military service, and
couriers carrying despatches from the seat of
war on which the fate of a beleaguered city or
an army might depend. In any case, however,
they would have been inferior to the
horses of Asia Minor or Syria, and other
parts of Turkey.

Upon the whole I do not remember to
have ever travelled through a country more
uninteresting to the mere wayfarer than
Bulgaria, It is, indeed, comparatively
untrodden, and I dare say that a person
who was disposed to spend any
considerable time in exploring it, would be
extremely well rewarded for the trouble
and the many privations he would be
obliged to experience in so doing. Many
curious ancient games and customs, I know,
may still be witnessed lingering among
the inhabitants of its rarely-disturbed
villages, and some singular glimpses of a
society and local institutions of which we
absolutely know nothing, would repay him at
every step. The country abounds with game,
and the sportsman would hear the echo of few
guns but his own in its boundless covers and
marshes, which are quite alive with waterfowl.
The villagers also, knowing nothing of
the common golden British traveller, are
hospitable, without thought of gain; and a shilling
or two a-day would be the utmost he could
spend.

A passenger, however, who is obliged to
keep the high road enjoys none of these
advantages. All the richest and pleasantest of
the villages are built in secluded nooks, as
far away from the road as possible. It is
difficult to find them without careful inquiry;
and a stranger would excite as much
astonishment as he felt. If any consular
dignitary or tax-gathering Pasha had recently
passed that way, he would also create some
alarm; so that, if alone, he might be in
danger. He should therefore go with one or
two attached attendants, perfectly familiar
with the country, as well as with the language
and habits of the people.

The Greek population is, of course, far the
most numerous; but they are said to have
well deserved a very ill reputation. They
are generally considered as cunning, insincere,
and dishonest, so that it would be well to
sojourn among the Turks whenever a
preference was possible. The Bulgarians and
the Arabs are remarkable as being the best
grooms in Turkey, and the Bulgarians, as a
rule, are even better than the Arabs. I am
unable to explain this on any supposition
save the extraordinary value that horses
acquire in a fiat marshy country, where the
distances between the towns and villages are
very great, and not easily traversed on foot.
Bulgaria is also a corn country, where horses
are in much demand for field-labour and
are cheaply kept. It is worthy of observation
that they are comparatively seldom
harnessed; the ploughs and small agricultural
waggons of the country are almost
entirely drawn by oxen.

The post-houses are usually about five or
six miles apart, and it is seldom indeed that a
house intervenes, or that any object of
interest whatever is seen upon the road.
The postmasters are required by law to
furnish food to travellers on demand, and at
moderate prices. It is seldom, however, that
anything eatable is to be obtained from them,
and any traveller of even minor importance
will therefore do well to ask for the house of
the first man in the village at which he halts;
and, riding unhesitatingly up to it, ask
entertainment for himself and suite. It will
be readily accorded. Food is excellent and
plentiful everywhere except at the post-
houses; and, as any person other than a
consular magnate, would take care to give a
present in proportion to his consumption and
the trouble he occasioned, no party concerned
would have the smallest reason to be
dissatisfied with the result of the visit.

THE MUSE IN LIVERY.

THERE is a volume of verse too little known
for which I must express a particular liking.
It is a thin octavo, printed at London in
seventeen hundred and thirty-two. The
frontispiece is curious. It represents a young
man who, although his right leg is tied
to a log inscribed Despair, and his left
leg is tied by a chain of Poverty to a
never-ceasing circle of Misery, Folly, and
Ignorance, is grasping at the tree of
Happiness, Virtue, and Knowledge. His left hand,
with which he is eagerly reaching at what he
sees before him, is winged with Desire. His
face is full of honest earnestness, and the
title of his book is A Muse in Livery, or the
Footman's Miscellany.

This humble Miscellany is dedicated to the
subscribers. "I have not," he says, "the
vanity to think it is to any merit in myself,
or these poor performances, that I owe the
honour of being allowed to place so many
great names at the beginning of them. No;
I am very sensible it is, in some, who know
my condition, from charity; in others, from
generosity; and by many it is intended only as
a compliment to the person whom I have the
honour and (as I have just cause to esteem it)
the happiness to serve."Few in his station
of life, he justly remarks, are able to find
leisure for verse; "and what," he exclaims,
"can be expected from the pen of a poor
footman?—a character that expresses a want