Visited many countries passed through Bulgaria

Thomas J. Clayton who visited many countries passed through Bulgaria also. Going from Varna to Ruse and then on to Romania Clayton was “surprised” to discover that both Bulgaria and Romania were “such fertile countries.” He wrote that he “never saw better pasture lands or wheat fields” anywhere else in the world. These lands reminded him of the prairie lands of Illinois. He was also surprised to find that there were no farm houses like in America.

The lands, he stated, were “tilled by peasants who live in misserable little huts, or in villages. . . Our route lay through a spur of the Balkan Mountains and was very picturesque. . . very beautiful and entertaining. . . The scenery of these mountains is soft and has a soothing rather than a stirring influence upon the beholder.” The author believed that if peace prevailed in these parts of the world, Bulgaria and Romania “will soon become rich and prosperous.”

By Americans on Bulgaria

There are few more accounts by Americans on

Bulgaria. However, they are not much more different than those presented. Many

a time what Americans said

T. J. Clayton. Rambles and Reflections: Europe from Biscay to the Black Sea and from Aetna to the North Cape with Glimpses of Asia, Africa, America and the Islands of the Sea. Chester, Pennsylvania, about the Bulgarians or for that matter about other peoples, reflected on their own personal character or how they valued American culture and way of life. The descriptions presented by these travellers on a variety of topics, like national character and even the history of Bulgaria are hardly scientific or correct accounts.

Almost all of these travellers present

nothing but cliches. They did not have the necessary expertise to carefully

analyze the Bulgarian personality, their ethnic typicalness in terms of common

national cultural values. The frame of reference these travellers used was

founded on their perspective of American history and culture as the

repositories of values of liberty, freedom, democracy, justice, religion,

discipline, industry and progress.

Almost all of the authors sympathized with

the plight of the Bulgarian people under Ottoman domination. They all condemned

the alien system of despotism and many a time showed their preference for

republicanism. The Ottoman system did not permit the development of the

individual, the arts and crafts as well as agriculture and industry. The

authors were aware that the Ottoman state was in its stages of disintegration.

Those who visited Bulgaria before 1878 believed that the Bulgarians would

become free and those who travelled after the liberation of the country praised

the attempts of the Bulgarians to preserve their independence.