• Oldies abroad
Page 50
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"Did you see the horseless phaeton?" "What, without horses? Who is driving it?"
"Probably the devil...."
That, I'm told, is how inhabitants of Sofia reacted at the turn of the century to the first motor vehicle to pass through the streets of Bulgaria's capital. The tale—which really has very little to do with commercial road transport—is told in a news letter that CM gets from time to time from Bulgaria; these Balkan states are very good with their English news bulletins on a host of subjects.
The setting for this tale is an intriguing item about the History of Sofia museum, in the capital. It contains one of those early devil-driven machines, a Mercedes of 1905, once used by the royal court, but it also contains such fascinating relics as the real gold carriage of the former King Ferdinand, delivered in 1893 for his wedding and drawn by six large horses in gilt harness. One pictures the street urchins equipped with knives trying to get a few crafty scrapings off the superstructure without being spotted by the royal guard.
Also in the museum among the exotica is a landau presented in 1879 by a Turkish sultan and a sledge used by Prince Batemberg "the first head of Bulgarian State after its liberation from the Ottoman yoke".
Well, a little bit of culture does us all good now and again.