The Princess Sophia

The Princess Sophia

THE independent principality of Rhodop lies, as everyone knows, on the wooded coast-line of Albania. Its territory, no greater than the area of the English counties palatine, is triangular in shape, the base of the triangle (a line some twenty miles long if measured as the crow flies, but more like a hundred if we follow the indentations and promontories of that superbly fertile land), being washed by the waters of the Adriatic. It is bounded on the south by the kingdom of Greece, and up to its northern border extends the benign rule of that most pitiful and Christian monarch the Sultan of Turkey. Rhodop preserved during the Grco-Turkish War of 1897 (I am almost ashamed to remind my readers of events so recent) a strict neutrality, though the offers made it by both one side and the other might well have been enough to turn a less level head than that of Prince Leonard, the ruling{6} sovereign. For an Imperial Irad, with promise of a definite Hatt (I think I have the terms correctly), arrived from the most Christian monarch, prospectively granting the cession of Corfu to the Prince, when Greece lay crushed beneath the heel of the Sultan, if only his beloved brother (so the Sultan was pleased to say) would join the cause of the imminently victorious Turks; while from the other side a cleverly worded sketch pictured the immense advantage it would be to Rhodop if by an extension of its territory it was so arranged that the Upper Valley of the river Stryposthe Golden River, as it is not inaptly nameda plain of surpassing fertility, and odorous with the finest growths of tobacco, should pour its revenues into the coffers of the Prince. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 58150
Author: Benson, E. F. (Edward Frederic)
Release Date: Oct 22, 2018
Format: eBook
Language: English