A steamboat, to make a remark which is certainly not novel, but which still more certainly is true, is a microcosm of the country between whose ports it plies. The remark holds good of the tug—for it deserves no other name—which conveys the traffic between Varna and Bourgas, the chief, if not the only, seaports of the Principality. As the crow flies, the two towns are scarcely fifty miles apart There is a road between the two, but it is very rough, very hilly, and very precipitous, as it has to make all sorts of detours to avoid the bays and creeks with which the Bulgarian coast is indented.

There are no public conveyances of any kind in Bulgaria other than the railroads, and to make the journey by land would require about a day and night of constant and wearisome travelling. M. Stambouloff, who has an extreme dislike to the sea, was in the habit of going by land from Bourgas to Varna when he wished to visit the Prince at his seaside residence. But, even when every preparation was made beforehand for his journey, he failed to do the distance under some eighteen hours.

From Varna to Bourgas

For ordinary travellers, the only practical way of getting from Varna to Bourgas is to take the steamer, which makes two journeys a week each way. The passage is calculated to occupy seven hours, but its duration, and even its accomplishment, depend entirely upon the weather. At both ports you have to land in boats ; and, if the weather is rough—and in the Black Sea it generally is rough—the steamer runs for the nearest shelter or returns to its port of departure without being able to disembark its passengers. Some day or other the railroad will be continued from Bourgas to Varna.

But there are any number of more pressing lines calling for construction ; and I fancy the two rival ports of Bulgaria are not very keen about facilitating communication with each other, as neither of them is certain which would lose or gain most by access from one to another being rendered easy. At any rate the bi-weekly-tug boat seems to satisfy the requirements of Varna and Bourgas alike.

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