Certain differences of accent and pronunciation

Between Servia and Bulgaria the outward differences are far less striking than those which distinguish Bulgaria from Romania. Indeed, the physical and moral conditions of the two first-named countries are very much the same. They are both Sclav States, speaking the same language. There are certain differences of accent and pronunciation between the two, certain words which are peculiar to each country. But these differences are not greater, I fancy, than those which exist between the dialects of Yorkshire and Somersetshire, and are certainly not great enough to hinder the inhabitants of either State from understanding the speech of the other.

Anybody who knows Russian can make out what is said to him, alike in Servian and Bulgarian, though I am told that Slavs and Bulgars find it more difficult to understand Russian when spoken to them. This may probably be explained by the fact of their comparative want of education. The written language of the three countries is almost identical Again, Servia and Bulgaria are adjacent lands, divided, not by broad rivers or by mountain ranges, but, in the main, by a purely geographical frontier.

Were it not for the Custom-houses between the two States, a stranger would hardly know when he had passed from one into the other. Their religion is identical, and they are both in theory, whatever they may be in practice, devout adherents of the Eastern Church. The two Sclav States of the Balkan Peninsula have also this in common, that for centuries they remained subject to Turkish rule, that they both achieved their independence recently, and that they both owe their final emancipation to the power of Russia.

Noticeable even by a passing stranger

Their economical conditions are also of much the same order. Servia, equally with Bulgaria, is a peasant State in which there are neither millionaires nor paupers, no privileged classes, and no important industry other than that of agriculture. But in spite of all these resemblances the two countries present many points of difference, noticeable even by a passing stranger. In Bulgaria, one sees everywhere signs of progress ; and in Servia one sees signs of decay. The Serb peasants have not the cheerful look of the Bulgarians; the Serb villages have not the same air of plain, rough comfort The thrift and the stolid soberness of the Bulgarian are not qualities which characterize the western Slavs.