RUSSIA AND BULGARIA.
[To TRH EDITOR OP THE " SPEOTATOR."] SIR,—The volte-face which has just been made by Bulgaria can appeal to no one more forcibly than to Mine. Novilcolf, who has just returned to our shores. " The first Russian Volunteer " to fall in the struggle for the emancipation of the Balkan Slav States was her brother "Nicolas Kiroeff." His portrait is the frontispiece to her book, Russia and England, 1876-80 (Longmans and Co., 1880). Ho was killed in July, 1876. Often since this war began we have heard speculation on "when Germany began to prepare" for it. I venture to suggest 1875, when Russia and England refused to let Germany attack France. Mine. Novikoff tells the story simply and clearly in her book. For a decade or more before the commencement of the Russo-Turkish War the feeling between Britain and Russia in relation to Central Asia had been notably acute. A happy thought to "out and "cut out" both Britain and Russia at their game of Asiatic dominion! Bismarck took his first hand in the great game at the Berlin Congress of 1878, when, with Austria for his partner, he walked off with Bosnia and Herzegovina as his share of the stakes. So well did Bismarck, and William 11. after him, play their cards that Germany has singe thou made her power felt practically all over Asia. We see the proofs of it to-day in Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, India, and Arabia. Bulgaria, too, at her bidding, forgets five hundred years of slavery and links herself with the enslaver against the liberator. Tho future is on the knees of the gods.--I ern,
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