guide was himself at fault. I took no heed while he led me first along one road a little way, then along another, each time returning puzzled to the cross-roads. At last he had to confess, “It seems to me that I’ve lost my way.” “Sorry I cannot be of any service,” was my remark, “since I do not know where it is you want to go to. I have been all over this region and know where each of these roads leads.” My prince-private-soldier-diplomatist burst into a laugh, and then mentioned our destination. “Then this way,” said I, “about an hour’s ride.” After the crossing of the Danube in the last days of June the Russian army spread out into the adjacent Bulgarian country like a fan. Krüdener went west to subdue Nicopolis, and later to come to grief at Plevna. Gourko rode away over the Balkans, through the Hankioj Pass, on that adventurous expedition which sanguine people expected to end at Adrianople. The Twelfth Corps forged away slowly in the easterly direction, toward the Danubian fortress of Rustchuk, the keypoint of the Turkish quadrilateral in Bulgaria, and its advance I accompanied over the low rolling country, towards the Jantra, and later athwart the more broken terrain between the Jantra and the Lom. It was a sort of holiday stroll for Driesen’s cavalry division, which leisurely pioneered the way for the force that later came to be known as “the Army of the Cesarewitch.” We were received with offerings of corn, oil, and wine by the Conscript Fathers of Biela, and tarried in that pleasant _rus in urbe_ for a couple of days. Then after a while we dawdled on, past the copses of Monastir and the grain-clad slopes of Obertenik, until well on into July we pitched camp on a long swell falling down to the Danube at Pirgos, with Rustchuk away in front of us, some ten miles off. We were far enough forward, pending the coming up of supports; so we threw out pickets to the front and flanks, and made ourselves as comfortable as might be in the bright sunshine tempered by cool breezes blowing down from the Balkans.