full volume, and uniting the waters of Alp, Carpathian, and
Balkan, rushes impatiently to the Euxine.

At length the day of departure came. The attendant had just removed
the tumbler of coffee, tossing the fragments of toast into the
court-yard, an operation which appeared to have a magnetic effect on
the bills of the poultry; and then, with his accustomed impropriety,
placed the plate as a basis to my hookah, telling me that F----, a
Bulgarian Christian, wished to speak with me.

"Let him walk in," said I, as I took the first delightful whiff; and
F----, darkening the window that looked out on the verandah, gave me a
fugitive look of recognition, and then entering and making his
salutation in a kindly hearty manner, asked me to eat my mid-day meal
with him.

"Indeed," quoth I, "I accept your invitation. I have not gone to pay
my visit to the Bey, because I remain here too short a time to need
his good offices; but I am anxious to make the acquaintance of the
people,--so I am your guest."

When the hour arrived, I adjusted the tassel of my fez, put on my
great coat, and proceeded to the Christian quarter; where, after
various turnings and windings, I at length arrived at a high wooden
gateway, new and unpainted.

An uncouth tuning of fiddles, the odour of savoury fare, and a hearty
laugh from within, told me that I had no further to go; for all these
gates are so like each other, one never knows a house till after
close observation. On entering I passed over a plat of grass, and
piercing a wooden tenement by a dark passage, found myself in a
three-sided court, where several persons were sitting on rush-bottomed
chairs.

F---- came forward, took both my hands in his, and then presented me
to the company. On being seated, I exchanged salutations, and then
looked round, and perceived that the three sides of the court were
composed of rambling wooden tenements; the fourth was a little garden
in which a few flowers were cultivated.

The elders sat, the youngers stood at a distance;--so respectful is
youth to age in all this eastern world. The first figure in the former
group was the father of our host; the acrid humours of extreme age had
crimsoned his eye-lids, and his head shook from side to side, as he
attempted to rise to salute me, but I held him to his seat. The wife
of our host was a model of fragile delicate beauty. Her nose, mouth,
and chin, were exquisitely chiselled, and her skin was smooth and
white as