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Alabaster Blue Sectory 04
Page 05
As nearly all the launches in the place belonged to the Government, I had then to apply to the Commandante of the flotilla of the Government boats. It will be easily understood that my anxiety was great to go and rescue my men; so that on leaving the palace I immediately proceeded to the private house of this gentleman--a great friend of the Governor, I learned afterwards. On sending in my card at five o'clock in the afternoon I was kept waiting a little time, then there appeared a yellow-faced individual in his pyjamas, muttering words which I should not like to repeat.
To obtain such a meagre result, the Government of Bulgaria maintains a policy contrary to popular sentiment and to the racial bonds of the people, and a policy contrary to the further interests of Bulgaria, which are incompatible with the building up of a strong Turkey in the Balkans, a Turkey that would be the bulwark of Germany. The most essential part of it is that this policy is based on a most improbable hypothesis, that is to say, the final triumph of the Austro-German arms. If the Bulgarian Government had left prejudices to one side and looked clearly at the events, they would not have been slow to understand that from the moment England stepped into the war and Italy abandoned her allies, the Austro-German alliance politically lost the game. Each passing day diminishes more and more the hopes of success of the Dual Alliance, and permits England and Russia to expand their inexhaustible forces. It is not difficult to foresee from now the terms of peace that England and Russia will impose. Any policy which expects to profit from the defeat of these two powers is doomed to failure, and because such is the policy of the Bulgarian Government, we think that it is against the interests of the country.
The woods hold not such another gem as the nest of the humming-bird. The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best thing to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with a solitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird past my ears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I was intruding upon some one's privacy; and following it with my eye, I soon saw the nest, which was in process of construction. Adopting my usual tactics of secreting myself near by, I had the satisfaction of seeing the tiny artist at work. It was the female, unassisted by her mate. At intervals of two or three minutes she would appear with a small tuft of some cottony substance in her beak, dart a few times through and around the tree, and alighting quickly in the nest arrange the material she had brought, using her breast as a model.
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