WILD MACEDONIA – 1909

Cambridge Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 33, 3 July 1909
Strenuous Life Amid Savage Animals In the Balkans.
Besides some warlike men Macedonia contains an abundance of wild animals. A traveler writes: „By tbe side of oaks and walnuts you ilnd great tortoises and snakes eight feet long, and bears and wolves abound. They are a serious drag upon industry, and even in civilized Bulgaria it has lately been found necessary to Increase tbe government rewards for killing them. I believe It to be a true story tbut a party of peasants with horses was not long ago wholly destroyed by wolves In the Slorl Hovo mountains, nothing but tbe bits aud stirrup irous being found to record them. „In the same hills the peasants migrate for tbe summer to lofty shoulders where tbe laud Is tint enough to grow little patches of maize, and here, night after night, they will sit up with a Are to drive off bears. There are tragic stories of women with babies In their arms beating off bears with burning brands from the tire. „The prevalence of eagles Is a delightful feature for the traveler, and on the cliffs, of Montenegro 1 once counted at the same moment thirtynine ravens.“