Over there on the curb a swarthy, fur-coated individual has just halted his puny pack-animals, whose dust-covered flanks tell that they have tottered many miles under the bulging loads of wood. It is no wonder that their master perspires as he tugs at the ropes to relieve the little beasts, for, if you examine his clothing, you will wonder how he came to get mixed in the seasons. Although the glare of the sun is nothing if not calorific, this fellow’s legs are bundled closely in thick, woollen stockings tied with thongs, while on his back and reaching clear to his knees he wears a heavy sheepskin coat turned wrong side out. But the particular style in which he wears this coat proves beyond an atom of doubt that he knows as well as you the time of year, for in winter he turns the wool on the outside. [Illustration: BULGARIANS IN GALA ATTIRE.] Now look, if you please, at this group of Bulgarian belles from the mountains—symphonies in lavender. The ribbons in their hair are lavender, the embroidery on their jackets is lavender, their long underskirts and aprons are lavender, the linings of their sunshades are lavender. How conscious they are of the tawdry effect of their fine raiment, as they strut about through the dust in the middle of the street! At their heels stalk, jealously, three Bulgarian beaux, also gorgeously attired for the occasion in their Sunday-go-to-meetings. On the other side of the street two women, each of whom looks to be little less than a hundred years of age, are spreading aprons on the dust-covered sidewalk and arranging thereon their baskets and bundles. They will sell you the finest, most delicious cherries you have ever closed your teeth upon for forty _centimes_ a litre; and strawberries!—well, you just can’t wait to buy a basket of such strawberries at the same price as the cherries. They are large and luscious but a litre really does not weigh enough to get a great number of fruit, for each one is worth at least two bites. I am not stretching the tape a hair’s breadth when I say that I have measured Bulgarian strawberries four and one-half inches in circumference.