Around the World on a Bicycle Volume I Part 7

national colors, which he places abound my neck, requesting me to wear it around the world, and, when I arrive at my journey's end, sometimes to think of Servia.

With Igali's sky-blue girdle encompa.s.sing my waist, and the Servian national colors fondly encircling my neck, I begin to feel quite a heraldic tremor creeping over me, and actually surprise myself casting wistful glances at the huge antiquated horse pistol stuck in yonder bull- whacker's ample waistband; moreover, I really think that a pair of these Servian moccasins would not be bad foot-gear for riding the bicycle. All up the Morava Valley the roads continue far better than I have expected to find in Servia, and we wheel merrily along, the Resara Mountains covered with dark pine forests, skirting the valley on the right, sometimes rising into peaks of quite respectable proportions. The sun sinks behind the receding hills, it grows dusk, and finally dark, save the feeble light vouchsafed by the new moon, and our destination still lies several kilometres ahead. But at about nine we roll safely into JaG.o.dina, well- satisfied with the consciousness of having covered one hundred and forty- five kilometres to-day, in spite of delaying our start in the morning until eight o'clock, and the twenty kilometres of indifferent road between Grotzka and s.e.m.e.ndria. There has been no reclining under road-side mulberry-trees for my companion to catch up to-day, however; the Servian wheelman is altogether a speedier man than Igali, and, whether the road is rough or smooth, level or hilly, he is found close behind my rear wheel; my own shadow follows not more faithfully than does the "best rider in Servia."

We start for JaG.o.dina at 5.30 next morning, finding the roads a little heavy with sand in places, but otherwise all that a wheelman could wish.

Crossing a bridge over the Morava River, into Tchupria, we are required not only to foot it across, but to pay a toll for the bicycles, like any other wheeled vehicle. At Tchupria it seems as though the whole town must be depopulated, so great is the throng of citizens that swarm about us. Motley and picturesque even in their rags, one's pen utterly fails to convey a correct idea of their appearance; besides Servians, Bulgarians, and Turks, and the Greek priests who never fail of being on hand, now appear Roumanians, wearing huge sheep-skin busbies, with the long, ragged edges of the wool dangling about eyes and ears, or, in the case of a more "dudish " person, clipped around smooth at the brim, making the head-gear look like a small, round, thatched roof. Urchins, whose daily duty is to promenade the family goat around the streets, join in the procession, tugging their bearded charges after them; and a score of dogs, overjoyed beyond measure at the general commotion, romp about, and bark their joyous approval of it all. To have crowds like this following one out of town makes a sensitive person feel uncomfortably like being chased out of a community for borrowing chickens by moonlight, or on account of some irregularity concerning hotel bills. On occasions like this Orientals seemingly have not the slightest sense of dignity; portly, well-dressed citizens, priests, and military officers press forward among the crowds of peasants and unwashed frequenters of the streets, evidently more delighted with things about them than they have been for many a day before.

At Delegrad we wheel through the battle-field of the same name, where, in 1876, Turks and Servians were arrayed against each other. These battle- scarred hills above Delegrad command a glorious view of the lower Morava Valley, which is hereabouts most beautiful, and just broad enough for its entire beauty to be comprehended. The Servians won the battle of Delegrad, and as I pause to admire the glorious prospect to the southward from the hills, methinks their general showed no little sagacity in opposing the invaders at a spot where the Morava Vale, the jewel of Servia, was spread out like a panorama below his position, to fan with its loveliness the patriotism of his troops - they could not do otherwise than win, with the fairest portion of their well-beloved country spread out before them like a picture. A large cannon, captured from the Turks, is standing on its carriage by the road-side, a mute but eloquent witness of Servian prowess.

A few miles farther on we halt for dinner at Alexinatz, near the old Servian boundary-line, also the scene of one of the greatest battles fought during the Servian struggle for independence. The Turks were victorious this time, and fifteen thousand Servians and three thousand Russian allies yielded up their lives here to superior Turkish generals.h.i.+p, and Alexiuatz was burned to ashes. The Russians have erected a granite monument on a hill overlooking the town, in memory of their comrades who perished in this fight. The roads to-day average even better than yesterday, and at six o'clock we roll into Nisch, one hundred and twenty kilometres from our starting-point this morning, and two hundred and eighty from Belgrade. As we enter the city a gang of convicts working on the fortifications forget their clanking shackles and chains, and the miseries of their state, long enough to greet us with a boisterous howl of approval, and the guards who are standing over them for once, at least, fail to check them, for their attention, too, is wholly engrossed in the same wondrous subject. Nisch appears to be a thoroughly Oriental city, and here I see the first Turkish ladies, with their features hidden behind their white yashmaks. At seven or eight o'clock in the morning, when it is comparatively cool and people are patronizing the market, trafficking and bartering for the day's supply of provisions, the streets present quite an animated appearance; but during the heat of the day the scene changes to one of squalor and indolence; respectable citizens are smoking nargilehs (Mark Twain's "hubble-bubble"), or sleeping somewhere out of sight; business is generally suspended, and in every shady nook and corner one sees a swarthy ragam.u.f.fin stretched out at full length, perfectly happy and contented if only he is allowed to snooze the hours away in peace.

Human nature is verily the same the world over, and here, in the hotel at Nisch, I meet an individual who recalls a few of the sensible questions that have been asked me from time to time at different places on both continents. This Nisch interrogator is a Hebrew commercial traveller, who has a smattering of English, and who after ascertaining during a short conversation that, when a range of mountains or any other small obstruction is encountered, I get down and push the bicycle up, airs his knowledge of English and of 'cycling to the extent of inquiring whether I don't take a man along to push it up the hills!

Riding out of Nisch this morning we stop just beyond the suburbs to take a curious look at a grim monument of Turkish prowess, in the shape of a square stone structure which the Turks built in 1840, and then faced the whole exterior with grinning rows of Servian skulls partially embedded in mortar. The Servians, naturally objecting to having the skulls of their comrades thus exposed to the gaze of everybody, have since removed and buried them; but the rows of indentations in the thick mortared surface still bear unmistakable evidence of the nature of their former occupants. An avenue of thrifty prune-trees shades a level road leading out of Nisch for several kilometres, but a heavy thunder-storm during the night has made it rather slavish wheeling, although the surface becomes harder and smoother, also hillier, as we gradually approach the Balkan Mountains, that tower well up toward cloudland immediately ahead.

The morning is warm and muggy, indicating rain, and the long, steep trundle, kilometre after kilometre, up the Balkan slopes, is anything but child's play, albeit the scenery is most lovely, one prospect especially reminding me of a view in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming Territory. On the lower slopes we come to a mehana, where, besides plenty of shade-trees, we find springs of most delightfully cool water gus.h.i.+ng out of crevices in the rocks, and, throwing our freely perspiring forms beneath the grateful shade and letting the cold water play on our wrists (the best method in the world of cooling one's self when overheated), we both vote that it would be a most agreeable place to spend the heat of the day. But the morning is too young yet to think of thus indulging, and the mountainous prospect ahead warns us that the distance covered to-day will be short enough at the best.

The Balkans are clothed with green foliage to the topmost crags, wild pear-trees being no inconspicuous feature; charming little valleys wind about between the mountain-spurs, and last night's downpour has imparted a freshness to the whole scene that perhaps it would not be one's good fortune to see every day, even were he here. This region of intermingled vales and forest-clad mountains might be the natural home of brigandage, and those ferocious-looking specimens of humanity with things like long guns in hand, running with scrambling haste down the mountain-side toward our road ahead, look like veritable brigands heading us off with a view to capturing us. But they are peacefully disposed goatherds, who, alpenstocks in hand, are endeavoring to see "what in the world those queer-looking things are, coming up the road." Their tuneful noise, as they play on some kind of an instrument, greets our ears from a dozen mountain-slopes round about us, as we put our shoulders to the wheel, and gradually approach the summit. Tortoises are occasionally surprised basking in the sunbeams in the middle of the road; when molested they hiss quite audibly in protest, but if pa.s.sed peacefully by they are seen shuffling off into the bushes, as though thankful to escape. Unhappy oxen are toiling patiently upward, literally inch by inch, dragging heavy, creaking wagons, loaded with miscellaneous importations, prominent among which I notice square cans of American petroleum. Men on horseback are encountered, the long guns of the Orient slung at their backs, and knife and pistols in sash, looking altogether ferocious. Not only are these people perfectly harmless, however, but I verily think it would take a good deal of aggravation to make them even think of fighting. The fellow whose horse we frightened down a rocky embankment, at the imminent risk of breaking the neck of both horse and rider, had both gun, knife, and pistols; yet, though he probably thinks us emissaries of the evil one, he is in no sense a dangerous character, his weapons being merely gewgaws to adorn his person. Finally, the summit of this range is gained, and the long, grateful descent into the valley of the Nissava River begins. The surface during this descent, though averaging very good, is not always of the smoothest; several dismounts are found to be necessary, and many places ridden over require a quick hand and ready eye to pa.s.s.

The Servians have made a capital point in fixing their new boundary-line south of this mountain-range.

Mountaineers are said to be "always freemen;" one can with equal truthfulness add that the costumes of mountaineers' wives and daughters are always more picturesque than those of their sisters in the valleys.

In these Balkan Mountains their costumes are a truly wonderful blending of colors, to say nothing of fantastic patterns, apparently a medley of ideas borrowed from Occident and Orient. One woman we have just pa.s.sed is wearing the loose, flowing pantaloons of the Orient, of a bright-yellow color, a tight-fitting jacket of equally bright blue; around her waist is folded many times a red and blue striped waistband, while both head and feet are bare. This is no holiday attire; it is plainly the ordinary every-day costume.

At the foot of the range we halt at a way-side mehana for dinner. A daily diligence, with horses four abreast, runs over the Balkans from Niseh to Sophia, Bulgaria, and one of them is halted at the mehana for refreshments and a change of horses. Refreshments at these mehanas are not always palatable to travellers, who almost invariably carry a supply of provisions along. Of bread nothing but the coa.r.s.e, black variety common to the country is forthcoming at this mehana, and a gentleman, learning from Mr. Popovitz that I have not yet been educated up to black bread, fishes a large roll of excellent milch-Brod out of his traps and kindly presents it to us; and obtaining from the mehana some hune-hen fabrica and wine we make a very good meal. This hunehen fabrica is nothing more nor less than cooked chicken. Whether hune-hen fabrica is genuine Hungarian for cooked chicken, or whether Igali manufactured the term especially for use between us, I cannot quite understand. Be this as it may, before we started from Belgrade, Igali imparted the secret to Mr.

Popovitz that I was possessed with a sort of a wild appet.i.te, as it were, for hune-hen fabrica and cherries, three times a day, the consequence being that Mr. Popovitz thoughtfully orders those viands whenever we halt. After dinner the mutterings of thunder over the mountains warn us that unless we wish to experience the doubtful luxuries of a road-side mehana for the night we had better make all speed to the village of Bela Palanka, twelve kilometres distant over - rather hilly roads. In forty minutes we arrive at the Bela Palanka mehana, some time before the rain begins. It is but twenty kilometres to Pirot, near the Bulgarian frontier, whither my companion has purposed to accompany me, but we are forced to change this programme and remain at Bela Palanka.

It rains hard all night, converting the una.s.suming Nissava into a roaring yellow torrent, and the streets of the little Balkan village into mud- holes. It is still raining on Sunday morning, and as Mr. Popovitz is obliged to be back to his duties as foreign correspondent in the Servian National Bank at Belgrade on Tuesday, and the Balkan roads have been rendered impa.s.sable for a bicycle, he is compelled to hire a team and wagon to haul him and his wheel back over the mountains to Nisch, while I have to remain over Sunday amid the dirt and squalor and discomforts - to say nothing of a second night among the fleas - of an Oriental village mehana. We only made fifty kilometres over the mountains yesterday, but during the three days from Belgrade together the aggregate has been satisfactory, and Mr. Popovitz has proven a most agreeable and interesting companion. When but fourteen years of age he served under the banner of the Red Cross in the war between the Turks and Servians, and is altogether an ardent patriot. My Sunday in Bela Palanka impresses me with the conviction that an Oriental village is a splendid place not to live in.

In dry weather it is disagreeable enough, but to-day, it is a disorderly aggregation of miserable-looking villagers, pigs, ducks, geese, chickens, and dogs, paddling around the muddy streets. The Oriental peasant's costume is picturesque or otherwise, according to the fancy of the observer. The red fez or turban, the upper garment, and the ample red sash wound round and round the waist until it is eighteen inches broad, look picturesque enough for anybody; but when it comes to having the seat of the pantaloons dangling about the calves of the legs, a person imbued with Western ideas naturally thinks that if the line between picturesqueness and a two-bushel gunny-sack is to be drawn anywhere it should most a.s.suredly be drawn here. As I notice how prevalent this ungainly style of nether garment is in the Orient, I find myself getting quite uneasy lest, perchance, anything serious should happen to mine, and I should be compelled to ride the bicycle in a pair of natives, which would, however, be an altogether impossible feat unless it were feasible to gather the surplus area up in a bunch and wear it like a bustle. I cannot think, however, that Fate, cruel as she sometimes is, has anything so outrageous as this in store for me or any other 'cycler. Although Turkish ladies have almost entirely disappeared from Servia since its severance from Turkey, they have left, in a certain degree, an impress upon the women of the country villages; although the Bela Palanka maidens, as I notice on the streets in their Sunday clothes to-day, do not wear the regulation yashmak, but a head-gear that partially obscures the face, their whole demeanor giving one the impression that their one object in life is to appear the pink of propriety in the eyes of the whole world; they walk along the streets at a most circ.u.mspect gait, looking neither to the right nor left, neither stopping to converse with each other by the way, nor paying any sort of attention to the men. The two proprietors of the mehana where I am stopping are subjects for a student of human nature. With their wretched little pigsty of a mehana in this poverty-stricken village, they are gradually acc.u.mulating a fortune. Whenever a luckless traveller falls into their clutches they make the incident count for something. They stand expectantly about in their box-like public room; their whole stock consists of a little diluted wine and mastic, and if a bit of black bread and smear-lease is ordered, one is putting it down in the book, while the other is ferreting it out of a little cabinet where they keep a starvation quant.i.ty of edibles; when the one acting as waiter has placed the inexpensive morsel before you, he goes over to the book to make sure that number two has put down enough; and, although the maximum value of the provisions is perhaps not over twopence, this precious pair will actually put their heads together in consultation over the amount to be chalked down. Ere the shades of Sunday evening have settled down, I have arrived at the conclusion that if these two are average specimens of the Oriental Jew they are financially a totally depraved people.

The rain ceased soon after noon on Sunday, and, although the roads are all but impa.s.sable, I pull out southward at five o'clock on Monday morning, trundling up the mountain-roads through mud that frequently compels me to stop and use the sc.r.a.per. After the summit of the hills between Bela Palanka and Pirot is gained, the road descending into the valley beyond becomes better, enabling me to make quite good time into Pirot, where my pa.s.sport.undergoes an examination, and is favored with a vise by the Servian officials preparatory to crossing the Servian and Bulgarian frontier about twenty kilometres to the southward. Pirot is quite a large and important village, and my appearance is the signal for more excitement than the Piroters have experienced for many a day. While I am partaking of bread and coffee in the hotel, the main street becomes crowded as on some festive occasion, the grown-up people's faces beaming with as much joyous antic.i.p.ation of what they expect to behold when I emerge from the hotel as the unwashed countenances of the ragged youngsters around them. Leading citizens who have been to Paris or Vienna, and have learned something about what sort of road a 'cycler needs, have imparted the secret to many of their fellow-townsmen, and there is a general stampede to the highway leading out of town to the southward. This road is found to be most excellent, and the enterprising people who have walked, ridden, or driven out there, in order to see me ride past to the best possible advantage, are rewarded by witnessing what they never saw before - a cycler speeding along past them at ten miles an hour. This gives such general satisfaction that for some considerable distance I ride between a double row of lifted hats and general salutations, and a swelling murmur of applause runs all along the line.

Two citizens, more enterprising even than the others, have determined to follow me with team and light wagon to a road-side office ten kilometres ahead, where pa.s.sports have again to be examined. The road for the whole distance is level and fairly smooth; the Servian horses are, like the Indian ponies of the West, small, but wiry and tough, and although I press forward quite energetically, the whip is applied without stint, and when the pa.s.sport office is reached we pull up alongside it together, but their ponies' sides are white with lather. The pa.s.sport officer is so delighted at the story of the race, as narrated to him by the others, that he fetches me out.a piece of lump sugar and a gla.s.s of water, a common refreshment partaken of in this country. Yet a third time I am halted by a roadside official and required to produce my pa.s.sport, and again at the village of Zaribrod, just over the Bulgarian frontier, which I reach about ten o'clock. To the Bulgarian official I present a small stamped card-board check, which was given me for that purpose at the last Servian examination, but he doesn't seem to understand it, and demands to see the original pa.s.sport. When my English pa.s.sport is produced he examines it, and straightway a.s.sures me of the Bulgarian official respect for an Englishman by grasping me warmly by the hand. The pa.s.sport office is in the second story of a mud hovel, and is reached by a dilapidated flight of out-door stairs. My bicycle is left leaning against the building, and during my brief interview with the officer a noisy crowd of semi-civilized Bulgarians have collected about, examining it and commenting unreservedly concerning it and myself. The officer, ashamed of the rudeness of his country - and their evidently untutored minds, leans out of the window, and in a chiding voice explains to the crowd that I am a private individual, and not a travelling mountebank going about the country giving exhibitions, and advises them to uphold the dignity of the Bulgarian character by scattering forthwith. But the crowd doesn't scatter to any appreciable extent; they don't care whether I am public or private; they have never seen anything like me and the bicycle before, and the one opportunity of a lifetime is not to be lightly pa.s.sed over.

They are a wild, untamed lot, these Bulgarians here at Zaribrod, little given to self-restraint. When I emerge, the silence of eager antic.i.p.ation takes entire possession of the crowd, only to break forth into a spontaneous howl of delight, from three hundred bared throats when I mount into the saddle and ride away into - Bulgaria.

My ride through Servia, save over the Balkans. has been most enjoyable, and the roads, I am agreeably surprised to have to record, have averaged as good as any country in Europe, save England and France, though being for the most part unmacadamized; with wet weather they would scarcely show to such advantage. My impression of the Servian peasantry is most favorable; they are evidently a warm-hearted, hospitable, and withal a patriotic people, loving their little country and appreciating their independence as only people who have but recently had their dream of self-government realized know how to appreciate it; they even paint the wood-work of their bridges and public buildings with the national colors.

I am a.s.sured that the Servians have progressed wonderfully since acquiring their full independence; but as one journeys down the beautiful and fertile valley of the Morava, where improvements would naturally be seen, if anywhere, one falls to wondering where they can possibly have come in. Some of their methods would, indeed, seem to indicate a most deplorable lack of practicability; one of the most ridiculous, to the writer's mind, is the erection of small, long sheds substantially built of heavy hewn timber supports, and thick, home-made tiles, over ordinary plank fences and gates to protect them from the weather, when a good coating of tar or paint would answer the purpose of preservation much better. These structures give one the impression of a dollar placed over a penny to protect the latter from harm. Every peasant owns a few acres of land, and, if he produces anything above his own wants, he hauls it to market in an ox-wagon with roughly hewn wheels without tires, and whose creaking can plainly bo heard a mile away. At present the Servian tills his little freehold with the clumsiest of implements, some his own rude handiwork, and the best imperfectly fas.h.i.+oned and forged on native anvils. His plow is chiefly the forked limb of a tree, pointed with iron sufficiently to enable him to root around in the surface soil. One would think the country might offer a promising field for some enterprising manufacturer of such implements as hoes, scythes, hay-forks, small, strong plows, cultivators, etc.

These people are industrious, especially the women. I have entry met a Servian peasant woman returning homeward in the evening from her labor in the fields, carrying a fat, heavy baby, a clumsy hoe not much lighter than the youngster, and an earthenware water-pitcher, and, at the same time, industriously spinning wool with a small hand-spindle. And yet some people argue about the impossibility of doing two things at once.

Whether these poor women have been hoeing potatoes, carrying the infant, and spinning wool at the same time all day I am unable to say, not having been an eye-witness, though I really should not be much astonished if they had.

CHAPTER VIII.

BULGARIA, ROUMELIA, AND INTO TURKEY.

The road leading into Bulgaria from the Zaribrod custom-house is fairly good for several kilometres, when mountainous and rough ways are encountered; it is a country of goats and goat-herds. A rain-storm is hovering threateningly over the mountains immediately ahead, but it does not reach the vicinity I am traversing: it pa.s.ses to the southward, and makes the roads for a number of miles wellnigh impa.s.sable. Up in the mountains I meet more than one " Bulgarian national express " - pony pack- trains, carrying merchandise to and fro between Sofia and Nisch. Most of these animals are too heavily laden to think of objecting to the appearance of anything on the road, but some of the outfits are returning from Sofia in "ballast" only; and one of these, doubtless overjoyed beyond measure at their unaccustomed lissomeness, breaks through all restraint at my approach, and goes stampeding over the rolling hills, the wild-looking teamsters in full tear after them. Whatever of this nature happens in this part of the world the people seem to regard with commendable complacence: instead of wasting time in trying to quarrel about it, they set about gathering up the scattered train, as though a stampede were the most natural thing going. Bulgaria - at least by the route I am crossing it - is a land of mountains and elevated plateaus, and the inhabitants I should call the "ranchers of the Orient," in their general appearance and demeanor bearing the same relation to the plodding corn-h.o.e.r and scythe-swinger of the Morava Valley as the Niobrara cow-boy does to the Nebraska homesteader. On the mountains are encountered herds of goats in charge of men who reck little for civilization, and the upland plains are dotted over with herds of ponies that require constant watching in the interest of scattered fields of grain. For lunch I halt at an unlikely-looking mehana, near a cl.u.s.ter of mud hovels, which, I suppose, the Bulgarians consider a village, and am rewarded by the blackest of black bread, in the composition of which sand plays no inconsiderable part, and the remnants of a chicken killed and stewed at some uncertain period of the past. Of all places invented in the world to disgust a hungry, expectant wayfarer, the Bulgarian mehana is the most abominable. Black bread and mastic (a composition of gum-mastic and Boston rum, so I am informed) seem to be about the only things habitually kept in stock, and everything about the place plainly shows the proprietor to be ignorant of the crudest notions of cleanliness. A storm is observed brewing in the mountains I have lately traversed, and, having swallowed my unpalatable lunch, I hasten to mount, and betake myself off toward Sofia, distant thirty kilometres. The road is nothing extra, to say the least, but a howling wind blowing from the region of the gathering storm propels me rapidly, in spite of undulations, ruts, and undesirable road qualities generally. The region is an elevated plateau, of which but a small proportion is cultivated; on more than one of the neighboring peaks patches of snow are still lingering, and the cool mountain breezes recall memories of the Laramie Plains. Men and women returning homeward on horseback from Sofia are frequently encountered. The women are decked with beads and trinkets and the gewgaws of semi-civilization, as might be the favorite squaws of Squatting Beaver or Sitting Bull, and furthermore imitate their copper-colored sisters of the Far West by bestriding their ponies like men. But in the matter of artistic and profuse decoration of the person the squaw is far behind the peasant woman of Bulgaria. The garments of the men are a combination of sheepskin and a thick, coa.r.s.e, woollen material, spun by the women, and fas.h.i.+oned after patterns their forefathers brought with them centuries ago when they first invaded Europe. The Bulgarian saddle, like everything else here, is a rudely constructed affair, that answers the double purpose of a pack-saddle or for riding - a home-made, unwieldy thing, that is a fair pony's load of itself.

At 4.30 P.M. I wheel into Sofia, the Bulgarian Capital, having covered one hundred and ten kilometres to-day, in spite of mud, mountains, and roads that have been none of the best. Here again I have to patronize the money-changers, for a few Servian francs which I have are not current in Bulgaria; and the Israelite, who reserved unto himself a profit of two francs on the pound at Nisch, now seems the spirit of fairness itself along-side a hook-nosed, wizen-faced relative of his here at Sofia, who wants two Servian francs in exchange for each Bulgarian coin of the same intrinsic value; and the best I am able to get by going to several different money-changers is five francs in exchange for seven; yet the Servian frontier is but sixty kilometres distant, with stages running to it daily; and the two coins are identical in intrinsic value. At the Hotel Concordia, in Sofia, in lieu of plates, the meat is served on round, flat blocks of wood about the circ.u.mference of a saucer - the "trenchers" of the time of Henry VIII.- and two respectable citizens seated opposite me are supping off black bread and a sliced cuc.u.mber, both fis.h.i.+ng slices of the cuc.u.mber out of a wooden bowl with their fingers.

Life at the Bulgarian Capital evidently bears its legitimate relative comparison to the life of the country it represents. One of Prince Alexander's body-guard, pointed out to me in the bazaar, looks quite a semi-barbarian, arrayed in a highly ornamented national costume, with immense Oriental pistols in waistband, and gold-braided turban c.o.c.ked on one side of his head, and a fierce mustache. The soldiers here, even the comparatively fortunate ones standing guard at the entrance to the prince's palace, look as though they haven't had a new uniform for years and had long since despaired of ever getting one. A war, and an alliance with some wealthy nation which would rig them out in respectable uniforms, would probably not be an unwelcome event to many of them. While wandering about the bazaar, after supper, I observe that the streets, the palace grounds, and in fact every place that is lit up at all, save the minarets of the mosque, which are always illumined with vegetable oil, are lighted with American petroleum, gas and coal being unknown in the Bulgarian capital. There is an evident want of system in everything these people do. From my own observations I am inclined to think they pay no heed whatever to generally accepted divisions of time, but govern their actions entirely by light and darkness. There is no eight-hour nor ten-hour system of labor here; and I verily believe the industrial cla.s.ses work the whole time, save when they pause to munch black bread, and to take three or four hours' sleep in the middle of the night; for as I trundle my way through the streets at five o'clock next morning, the same people I observed at various occupations in the bazaars are there now, as busily engaged as though they had been keeping it up all night; as also are workmen building a house; they were pegging away at nine o'clock yestefday evening, by the flickering light of small petroleum lamps, and at five this morning they scarcely look like men who are just commencing for the day. The Oriental, with his primitive methods and tenacious adherence to the ways of his forefathers, probably enough, has to work these extra long hours in order to make any sort of progress. However this may be, I have throughout the Orient been struck by the industriousness of the real working cla.s.ses; but in practicability and inventiveness the Oriental is sadly deficient. On the way out I pause at the bazaar to drink hot milk and eat a roll of white bread, the former being quite acceptable, for the morning is rather raw and chilly; the wind is still blowing a gale, and a company of cavalry, out for exercise, are incased in their heavy gray overcoats, as though it were midwinter instead of the twenty- third of June. Rudely clad peasants are encountered on the road, carrying large cans of milk into Sofia from neighboring ranches. I stop several of them with a view of sampling the quality of their milk, but invariably find it unstrained, and the vessels looking as though they had been strangers to scalding for some time. Others are carrying gunny-sacks of smear-kase on their shoulders, the whey from which is not infrequently streaming down their backs. Cleanliness is no doubt next to G.o.dliness; but the Bulgarians seem to be several degrees removed from either. They need the civilizing influence of soap quite as much as anything else, and if the missionaries cannot educate them up to Christianity or civilization it might not be a bad scheme to try the experiment of starting a native soap-factory or two in the country.

Savagery lingers in the lap of civilization on the breezy plateaus of Bulgaria, but salvation is coming this way in the shape of an extension of the Eoumelian railway from the south, to connect with the Servian line north of the Balkans. For years the freight department of this pioneer railway will have to run opposition against ox-teams, and creaking, groaning wagons; and since railway stockholders and directors are not usually content with an exclusive diet of black bread, with a wilted cuc.u.mber for a change on Sundays, as is the Bulgarian teamster, and since locomotives cannot be turned out to graze free of charge on the hill-sides, the compet.i.tion will not be so entirely one-sided as might be imagined.

Long trains of these ox-teams are met with this morning hauling freight and building-lumber from the railway terminus in Eoumelia to Sofia. The teamsters are wearing large gray coats of thick blanketing, with floods covering the head, a heavy, convenient garment, that keeps out both rain and cold while on the road, and at night serves for blanket and mattress; for then the teamster turns his oxen loose on the adjacent hill-sides to graze, and, after munching a piece of black bread, he places a small wicker-work wind-break against the windward side of the wagon, and, curling himself up in his great-coat, sleeps soundly. Besides the ox- trains, large, straggling trains of pack-ponies and donkeys occasionally fill the whole roadway; they are carrying firewood and charcoal from the mountains, or wine and spirits, in long, slender casks, from Roumelia; while others are loaded with bales and boxes of miscellaneous merchandise, out of all proportion to their own size.

The road southward from Sofia is abominable, being originally constructed of earth and large unbroken bowlders; it has not been repaired for years, and the pack-trains and ox-wagons forever crawling along have, during the wet weather of many seasons, tramped the dirt away, and left the surface a wretched waste of ruts, holes, and thickly protruding stones.

It is the worst piece of road I have encountered in all Europe; and although it is ridable this morning by a cautious person, one risks and invites disaster at every turn of the wheel. "Old Boreas" comes howling from the mountains of the north, and hustles me briskly along over ruts, holes, and bowlders, however, in a most reckless fas.h.i.+on, furnis.h.i.+ng all the propelling power needful, and leaving me nothing to do but keep a sharp lookout for breakneck places immediately ahead. In Servia, the peasants, driving along the road in their wagons, upon observing me approaching them, being uncertain of the character of my vehicle and the amount of road-s.p.a.ce I require, would ofttimes drive entirely off the road; and sometimes, when they failed to take this precaution, and their teams would begin to show signs of restiveness as I drew near, the men would seem to lose their wits for the moment, and cry out in alarm, as though some unknown danger were hovering over them. I have seen women begin to wail quite pitifully, as though they fancied I bestrode an all- devouring circular saw that was about to whirl into them and rend team, wagon, and everything asunder. But the Bulgarians don't seem to care much whether I am going to saw them in twain or not; they are far less particular about yielding the road, and both men and women seem to be made of altogether sterner stuff than the Servians and Slavonians. They seem several degrees less civilized than their neighbors farther north, judging from tieir general appearance and demeanor. They act peaceably and are reasonably civil toward me and the bicycle, however, and personallv I rather enjoy their rough, unpolished manners. Although there is a certain element of rudeness and boisterousuess about them compared with anything I have encountered elsewhere in Europe, they seem, on the whole, a good-natured people. We Westerners seldom hear anything of the Bulgarians except in war-times and then it is usually in connection with atrocities that furnish excellent sensational material for the ill.u.s.trated weeklies; consequently I rather expected to have a rough time riding through alone.

But, instead of coming out slashed and scarred like a Heidelberg student, I emerge from their territory with nothing more serious than a good healthy shaking up from their ill-conditioned roads and howling winds, and my prejudice against black bread with sand in it partly overcome from having had to eat it or nothing. Bulgaria is a princ.i.p.ality under the suzerainty of the Sultan, to whom it is supposed to pay a yearly tribute; but the suzerainty sits lightly upon the people, since they do pretty much as they please; and they never worry themselves about the tribute, simply putting it down on the slate whenever it comes due. The Turks might just as well wipe out the account now as at any time, for they will eventually have to whistle for the whole indebtedness. A smart rain-storm drives me into an uninviting mehana near the Roumelian frontier, for two unhappy hours, at noon - a mehana where the edible accommodations would wring an "Ugh" from an American Indian - and the sole occupants are a blear-eyed Bulgarian, in twenty-year-old sheep-skin clothes, whose appearance plainly indicates an over-fondness for mastic, and an unhappy- looking black kitten. Fearful lest something, perchance, might occur to compel me to spend the night here, I don my gossamers as soon as the rain slacks up a little, and splurge ahead through the mud toward Ichtiman, which, my map informs me, is just on this side of the Kodja Balkans, which rise up in dark wooded ridges at no great distance ahead, to the southward. The mud and rain combine to make things as disagreeable as possible, but before three o'clock I reach Ichtiman, to find that I am in the province of Eoumelia, and am again required to produce my pa.s.sport.

I am now getting well down into territory that quite recently was completely under the dominion of the "unspeakable Turk " - unspeakable, by the way, to the writer in more senses than one - and is partly so even now, but have as yet seen very little of the "mysterious veiled lady."

The Bulgarians are Christian when they are anything, though the great majority of them are nothing religiously. A comparatively comfortable mehana is found here at Ichtiman, and the proprietor, being able to talk German, readily comprehends the meaning of hune-hen fabrica; but I have to dispense with cherries.

Mud is the princ.i.p.al element of the road leading out of Ichtiman and over the Kodja Balkans this morning. The curious crowd of Ichtimanites that follow me through the mud-holes and filth of their native streets, to see what is going to happen when I get clear of them, are rewarded but poorly for their trouble; the best I can possibly do being to make a spasmodic run of a hundred yards through the mud, which I do purely out of consideration for their inquisitiveness, since it seems rather disagreeable to disappoint a crowd of villagers who are expectantly following and watching one's every movement, wondering, in their ignorance, why you don't ride instead of walk. It is a long, wearisome trundle up the muddy slopes of the Kodja Balkans, but, after the descent into the Maritza Valley begins, some little ridable surface is encountered, though many loose stones are lying about, and pitch-holes innumerable, make riding somewhat risky, considering that the road frequently leads immediately alongside precipices. Pack-donkeys are met on these mountain- roads, sometimes filling the way, and corning doggedly and indifferently forward, even in places where I have little choice between scrambling up a rock on one side of the road or jumping down a precipice on the other. I can generally manage to pa.s.s them, however, by placing the bicycle on one side, and, 'standing guard over it, push them off one by one as they pa.s.s. Some of these Roumelian donkeys are the most diminutive creatures I ever saw; but they seem capable of toiling up these steep mountain-roads with enormous loads. I met one this morning carrying bales of something far bigger than himself, and a big Roumelian, whose feet actually came in contact with the ground occasionally, perched on his rump; the man looked quite capable of carrying both the donkey and his load.

The warm and fertile Maritza Valley is reached soon after noon, and I am not sorry to find it traversed by a decent macadamized road; though, while it has been raining quite heavily up among the mountains, this valley has evidently been favored with a small deluge, and frequent stretches are covered with deep mud and sand, washed down from the adjacent hills; in the cultivated areas of the Bulgarian uplands the grain-fields are yet quite green, but harvesting has already begun in the warmer Maritza Vale, and gangs of Roumelian peasants are in the fields, industriously plying reaping-hooks to save their crops of wheat and rye, which the storm has badly lodged. Ere many miles of this level valley-road are ridden over, a dozen pointed minarets loom up ahead, and at four o'clock I dismount at the confines of the well nigh impa.s.sable streets of Tatar Bazardjik, quite a lively little city in the sense that Oriental cities are lively, which means well-stocked bazaars thronged with motley crowds. Here I am delayed for some time by a thunder-storm, and finally wheel away southward in the face of threatening heavens.

Several villages of gypsies are camped on the banks of the Maritza, just outside the limits of Tatar Bazardjik; a crowd of bronzed, half-naked youngsters wantonly favor me with a fusillade of stones as I ride past, and several gaunt, hungry-looking curs follow me for some distance with much threatening clamor. The dogs in the Orient seem to be pretty much all of one breed, genuine mongrel, possessing nothing of the spirit and courage of the animals we are familiar with. Gypsies are more plentiful south of the Save than even in Austria-Hungary, but since leaving Slavonia I have never been importuned by them for alms. Travellers from other countries are seldom met with along the roads here, and I suppose that the wandering Romanies have long since learned the uselessness of asking alms of the natives; but, since they religiously abstain from anything like work, how they manage to live is something of a mystery.

Ere I am five kilometres from Tatar Bazardjik the rain begins to descend, and there is neither house nor other shelter visible anywhere ahead. The peasants' villages are all on the river, and the road leads for mile after mile through fields of wheat and rye. I forge ahead in a drenching downpour that makes short work of the thin gossamer suit, which on this occasion barely prevents me getting a wet skin ere I descry a thrice-welcome mehana ahead and repair thither, prepared to accept, with becoming thankfulness, whatever accommodation the place affords. It proves many degrees superior to the average Bulgarian inst.i.tution of the same name, the proprietor causing my eyes fairly to bulge out with astonishment by producing a box of French sardines, and bread several shades lighter than I had, in view of previous experience expected to find it; and for a bed provides one of the huge, thick overcoats before spoken of, which, with the ample hood, envelops the whole figure in a covering that defies both wet and cold. I am provided with this unsightly but none the less acceptable garment, and given the happy privilege of occupying the floor of a small out-building in company with several rough-looking pack-train teamsters similarly incased; I pa.s.s a not altogether comfortless night, the pattering of rain against the one small window effectually suppressing such thankless thoughts as have a tendency to come unbidden whenever the snoring of any of my fellow-lodgers gets aggravatingly harsh. In all this company I think I am the only person who doesn't snore, and when I awake from my rather fitful slumbers at four o'clock and find the rain no longer pattering against the window, I arise, and take up my journey toward Philippopolis, the city I had intended reaching yesterday. It is after crossing the Kodja Balkans and descending into the Maritza Valley that one finds among the people a peculiarity that, until a person becomes used to it, causes no little mystification and many ludicrous mistakes.

A shake of the head, which with us means a negative answer, means exactly the reverse with the people of the Maritza Valley; and it puzzled me not a little more than once yesterday afternoon when inquiring whether I was on the right road, and when patronizing fruit-stalls in Tatar Bazardjik.

One never feels quite certain about being right when, after inquiring of a native if this is the correct road to Mustapha Pasha or Philippopolis he replies with a vigorous shake of the head; and although one soon gets accustomed to this peculiarity in others, and accepts it as it is intended, it is not quite so easy to get into the habit yourself. This queer custom seems to prevail only among the inhabitants of this particular valley, for after leaving it at Adrianople I see nothing more of it. Another peculiarity all through Oriental, and indeed through a good part of Central Europe, is that, instead of the "whoa" which we use to a horse, the driver hisses like a goose.

Yesterday evening's downpour has little injured the road between the mehana and Philippopolis, the capital of Eoumelia, and I wheel to the confines of that city in something over two hours. Philippopolis is most beautifully situated, being built on and around a cl.u.s.ter of several rocky hills; a situation which, together with a plenitude of waving trees, imparts a pleasing and picturesque effect. With a score of tapering minarets pointing skyward among the green foliage, the scene is thoroughly Oriental; but, like all Eastern cities, "distance lends enchantment to the view." All down the Maritza Valley, and in lesser numbers extending southward and eastward over the undulating plains of Adrianople, are many prehistoric mounds, some twenty-five or thirty feet high, and of about the same diameter. Sometimes in groups, and sometimes singly, these mounds occur so frequently that one can often count a dozen at a time.

In the vicinity of Philippopolis several have been excavated, and human remains discovered reclining beneath large slabs of coa.r.s.e pottery set up like an inverted V, thus: A, evidently intended as a water-shed for the preservation of the bodies. Another feature of the landscape, and one that fails not to strike the observant traveller as a melancholy feature, are the Mohammedan cemeteries. Outside every town and near every village are broad areas of ground thickly studded with slabs of roughly hewn rock set up on end; cities of the dead vastly more populous than the abodes of life adjacent. A person can stand on one of the Philippopolis heights and behold the hills and vales all around thickly dotted with these rude reminders of our universal fate. It is but as yesterday since the Turk occupied these lands, and was in the habit of making it particularly interesting to any "dog of a Christian" who dared desecrate one of these Mussulman cemeteries with his unholy presence; but to-day they are unsurrounded by protecting fence or the moral restrictions of dominant Mussulmans, and the sheep, cows, and goats of the "infidel giaour" graze among them; and oh, shade of Mohammed! hogs also scratch their backs against the tombstones and root around, at their own sweet will, sometimes unearthing skulls and bones, which it is the Turkish custom not to bury at any great depth. The great number and extent of these cemeteries seem to appeal to the unaccustomed observer in eloquent evidence against a people whose rule find religion have been of the sword.

While obtaining my breakfast of bread and milk in the Philippopolis bazaar an Arab ragam.u.f.fin rushes in, and, with anxious gesticulations toward the bicycle, which I have from necessity left outside, and cries of "Monsieur, monsieur," plainly announces that there is something going wrong in connection with the machine. Quickly going out I find that, although I left it standing on the narrow apology for a sidewalk, it is in imminent danger of coming to grief at the instance of a broadly laden donkey, which, with his load, veritably takes up the whole narrow street, including the sidewalks, as he slowly picks his way along through mud-holes and protruding cobble-stones. And yet Philippopolis has improved wonderfully since it has nominally changed from a Turkish to a Christian city, I am told; the Cross having in Philippopolis not only triumphed over the Crescent, but its influence is rapidly changing the condition and appearance of the streets. There is no doubt about the improvements, but they are at present most conspicuous in the suburbs, near the English consulate. It is threatening rain again as I am picking my way through the crooked streets of Philippopolis toward the Adrianople road; verily, I seem these days to be fully occupied in playing hide-and-seek with the elements; but in Roumelia at this season it is a question of either rain or insufferable heat, and perhaps, after all, I have reason to be thankful at having the former to contend with rather than the latter. Two thunderstorms have to be endured during the forenoon, and for lunch I reach a mehana where, besides eggs roasted in the embers, and fairly good bread, I am actually offered a napkin that has been used but a few times - an evidence of civilization that is quite refres.h.i.+ng. A repet.i.tion of the rain-dodging of the forenoon characterizes the afternoon journey, and while halting at a small village the inhabitants actually take me for a mountebank, and among them collect a handful of diminutive copper coins about the size and thickness of a gold twenty-five-cent piece, and of which it would take at least twenty to make an American cent, and offer them to me for a performance. What with shaking my head for "no"

and the villagers naturally mistaking the motion for " yes," according to their own custom, I have quite an interesting time of it making them understand that I am not a mountebank travelling from one Roumelian village to another, living on two cents' worth of black sandy bread per diem, and giving performances for about three cents a time. For my halting-place to-night I reach the village of Cauheme, in which I find a mehana, where, although the accommodations are of the crudest nature, the proprietor is a kindly disposed and, withal, a thoroughly honest individual, furnis.h.i.+ng me with a reed mat and a pillow, and making things as comfortable and agreeable as possible. Eating raw cuc.u.mbers as we eat apples or pears appears to be universal in Oriental Europe; frequently, through Bulgaria and Roumelia, I have noticed people, both old and young, gnawing away at a cuc.u.mber with the greatest relish, eating it rind and all, without any condiments whatever.

All through Roumelia the gradual decay of the Crescent and the corresponding elevation of the Cross is everywhere evident; the Christian element is now predominant, and the Turkish authorities play but an unimportant part in the government of internal affairs. Naturally enough, it does not suit the Mussulman to live among people whom his religion and time- honored custom have taught him to regard as inferiors, the consequence being that there has of late years been a general folding of tents and silently stealing away; and to-day it is no very infrequent occurrence for a whole Mussulman village to pack up, bag and baggage, and move bodily to Asia Minor, where the Sultan gives them tracts of land for settlement. Between the Christian and Mussulman populations of these countries there is naturally a certain amount of the "six of one and half a dozen of the other " principle, and in certain regions, where the Mussulmans have dwindled to a small minority, the Christians are ever p.r.o.ne to bestow upon them the same treatment that the Turks formerly gave them. There appears to be little conception of what we consider "good manners" among Oriental villagers, and while I am writing out a few notes this evening, the people crowding the mehana because of my strange unaccustomed presence stand around watching every motion of my pen, jostling carelessly against the bench, and commenting on things concerning me and the bicycle with a garrulousness that makes it almost impossible for me to write. The women of these Eoumelian villages bang their hair, and wear it in two long braids, or plaited into a streaming white head-dress of some gauzy material, behind; huge silver clasps, artistically engraved, that are probably heirlooms, fasten a belt around their waists; and as they walk along barefooted, strings of beads, bangles, and necklaces of silver coins make an incessant jingling. The sky clears and the moon s.h.i.+nes forth resplendently ere I stretch myself on my rude couch to-night, and the sun rising bright next morning would seem to indicate fair weather at last; an indication that proves illusory, however, before the day is over.

At Khaskhor, some fifteen kilometres from Cauheme, I am able to obtain my favorite breakfast of bread, milk, and fruit, and while I am in-doors eating it a stalwart Turk considerately mounts guard over the bicycle, resolutely keeping the meddlesome crowd at bay until I get through eating.

The roads this morning, though hilly, are fairly smooth, and about eleven o'clock I reach Hermouli, the last town in Roumelia, where, besides being required to produce my pa.s.sport, I am requested by a pompous lieutenant of gendarmerie to produce my permit for carrying a revolver, the first time I have been thus molested in Europe. Upon explaining, as best I can, that I have no such permit, and that for a voyageur permission is not necessary (something about which I am in no way so certain, however, as my words would seem to indicate), I am politely disarmed, and conducted to a guard-room in the police-barracks, and for some twenty minutes am favored with the exclusive society of a uniformed guard and the unhappy reflections of a probable heavy fine, if not imprisonment. I am inclined to think afterward that in arresting and detaining me the officer was simply showing off his authority a little to his fellow-Hermoulites, cl.u.s.tered about me and the bicycle, for, at the expiration of half an hour, my revolver and pa.s.sport are handed back to me, and without further inquiries or explanations I am allowed to depart in peace. As though in wilful aggravation of the case, a village of gypsies have their tents pitched and their donkeys grazing in the last Mohammedan cemetery I see ere pa.s.sing over the Roumelian border into Turkey proper, where, at the very first village, the general aspect of religious affairs changes, as though its proximity to the border should render rigid distinctions desirable. Instead of the crumbling walls and tottering minarets, a group of closely veiled women are observed praying outside a well-preserved mosque, and praying sincerely too, since not even my ncver-before-seen presence and the attention-commanding bicycle are sufficient to win their attention for a moment from their devotions, albeit those I meet on the road peer curiously enough from between the folds of their muslin yashmaks.

I am worrying along to-day in the face of a most discouraging head-wind, and the roads, though mostly ridable, are none of the best. For much of the way there is a macadamized road that, in the palmy days of the Ottoman dominion, was doubtless a splendid highway, but now weeds and thistles, evidences of decaying traffic and of the proximity of the Eoumelian railway, are growing in the centre, and holes and impa.s.sable places make cycling a necessarily wide-awake performance.

Mustapha Pasha is the first Turkish town of any importance I come to, and here again my much-required "pa.s.saporte" has to be exhibited; but the police-officers of Mustapha Pasha seem to be exceptionally intelligent and quite agreeable fellows. My revolver is in plain view, in its accustomed place; but they pay no sort of attention to it, neither do they ask me a whole rigmarole of questions about my linguistic accomplishments, whither I am going, whence I came, etc., but simply glance at my pa.s.sport, as though its examination were a matter of small consequence anyhow, shake hands, and smilingly request me to let them see me ride. It begins to rain soon after I leave Mustapha Pasha, forcing me to take refuge in a convenient culvert beneath the road. I have been under this shelter but a few minutes when I am favored with the company of three swarthy Turks, who, riding toward Mustapha Pasha on horseback, have sought the same shelter. These people straightway express their astonishment at finding rne and the bicycle under the culvert, by first commenting among themselves; then they turn a battery of Turkish interrogations upon my devoted head, nearly driving me out of my senses ere I escape. They are, of course, quite unintelligible to me; for if one of them asks a question a shrug of the shoulders only causes him to repeat the same over and over again, each time a little louder and a little more deliberate. Sometimes they are all three propounding questions and emphasizing them at the same time, until I begin to think that there is a plot to talk me to death and confiscate whatever valuables I have about me. They all three have long knives in their waistbands, and, instead of pointing out the mechanism of the bicycle to each other with the finger, like civilized people, they use these long, wicked-looking knives for the purpose. They maybe a coterie of heavy villains for anything I know to the contrary, or am able to judge from their general appearance, and in view of the apparent disadvantage of one against three in such cramped quarters, I avoid their immediate society as much as possible by edging off to one end of the culvert. They are probably honest enough, but as their stock of interrogations seems inexhaustible, at the end of half an hour I conclude to face the elements and take my chances of finding some other shelter farther ahead rather than endure their vociferous onslaughts any longer. They all three come out to see what is going to happen, and I am not ashamed to admit that I stand tinkering around the bicycle in the pelting rain longer than is necessary before mounting, in order to keep them out in it and get them wet through, if possible, in revenge for having practically ousted me from the culvert, and since I have a water-proof, and they have nothing of the sort, I partially succeed in my plans.

The road is the same ancient and neglected macadam, but between Mustapha Pasha and Adrianople they either make some pretence of keeping it in repair, or else the traffic is sufficient to keep down the weeds, and I am able to mount and ride in spite of the downpour. After riding about two miles I come to another culvert, in which I deem it advisable to take shelter. Here, also, I find myself honored with company, but this time it is a lone cow-herder, who is either too dull and stupid to do anything but stare alternately at me and the bicycle, or else is deaf and dumb, and my recent experience makes me cautious about tempting him to use his tongue. I am forced by the rain to remain cramped up in this last narrow culvert until nearly dark, and then trundle along through an area of stones and water-holes toward Adrianople, which city lies I know not how far to the southeast. While trundling along through the darkness, in the hope of reaching a village or mehana, I observe a rocket shoot skyward in the distance ahead, and surmise that it indicates the whereabout of Adrianople; but it is plainly many a weary mile ahead; the road cannot be ridden by the uncertain light of a cloud-veiled moon, and I have been forging ahead, over rough ways leading through an undulating country, and most of the day against a strong head-wind, since early dawn. By ten o'clock I happily arrive at a section of country that has not been favored by the afternoon rain, and, no mehana making its appearance, I conclude to sup off the cold, cheerless memories of the black bread and half-ripe pears eaten for dinner at a small village, and crawl beneath some wild prune-bushes for the night.

A few miles wheeling over very fair roads, next morning, brings me into Adrianople, where, at the Hotel Constantinople, I obtain an excellent breakfast of roast lamb, this being the only well-cooked piece of meat I have eaten since leaving Nisch. It has rained every day without exception since it delayed me over Sunday at Bela Palanka, and this morning it begins while I am eating breakfast, and continues a drenching downpour for over an hour. While waiting to see what the weather is coming to, I wander around the crooked and mystifying streets, watching the animated scenes about the bazaars, and try my best to pick up some knowledge of the value of the different coins, for I have had to deal with a bewildering mixture of late, and once again there is a complete change. Medjidis, cheriks, piastres, and paras now take the place of Serb francs, Bulgar francs, and a bewildering list of nickel and copper pieces, down to one that I should think would scarcely purchase a wooden toothpick. The first named is a large silver coin worth four and a half francs; the cherik might be called a quarter dollar; while piastres and paras are tokens, the former about five cents and the latter requiring about nine to make one cent. There are no copper coins in Turkey proper, the smaller coins being what is called "metallic money," a composition of copper and silver, varying in value from a five-para piece to five piastres.

The Adrianopolitans, drawn to the hotel by the magnetism of the bicycle, are bound to see me ride whether or no, and in their quite natural ignorance of its character, they request me to perform in the small, roughly-paved court-yard of the hotel, and all sorts of impossible places.

I shake my head in disapproval and explanation of the impracticability of granting their request, but unfortunately Adrianople is within the circle where a shake of the head is understood to mean " yes, certainly;"

and the happy crowd range around a ridiculously small s.p.a.ce, and smiling approvingly at what they consider my willingness to oblige, motion for me to come ahead. An explanation seems really out of the question after this, and I conclude that the quickest and simplest way of satisfying everybody is to demonstrate my willingness by mounting and wabbling along, if only for a few paces, which I accordingly do beneath a hack shed, at the imminent risk of knocking my brains out against beams and raf