We spent the next day crawling through Bulgaria, along that old highway of the empire where Janissaries march behind the sacred banner of the Prophet no more. Being no master of Slavic languages, I was dependent on our polyglot porter for news. This gloomy individual, a Greek from Pera, gathered assurance with each kilometre—and they were not few, for the philanthropic Baron Hirsch, who was paid for each one, put in as many of them as he could—that his family had been massacred. He looked for confirmation of his fears at Moustafa Pasha. We reached that humble frontier station about ten o’clock that night. There was no news, but there were soldiers of a new kind, sturdy fellows in moccasins and white leggings, who strode up and down between tracks with a businesslike air entirely different from the usual Moustafa Pasha military. I was to see more of those white leggings. I got up early the next morning, in order to steal a march on the lavatory. The porter, gloomier than ever, assured me that I need not have taken the trouble. We had been delayed by troop trains and could not reach Constantinople much before noon. That began to look interesting. I must confess, though, that the interest paled as we stood still—and breakfastless—at a small way station for something over an hour, with no apparent reason. The reason became apparent at the station following, where we overtook a long train of freight-cars. Their freight consisted of horses, of camp baggage, and notably of soldiers, many of them in moccasins and white felt leggings bound with black. Many others wore the strong pointed slippers of the country, with the counter turned under their heels, and white felt Albanian skull-caps. All of them were friendly, curious as to a train so much more comfortable than their own, and good-humouredly willing to be photographed. A whitecap who led a party of inspection through our sleeping-car explained to his companions why I could not instantly present them with their portraits. He did a little photography himself, he told me; also that he was by profession a municipal clerk in Macedonia, although for the moment a volunteer. I asked him, in my ignorance, what side he was on and what he was going to do. “We are for liberty,” he answered gravely. “We are going to kill Sultan Hamid. In Stamboul the great men sit and eat _pilaf_ while we starve. We have had enough.” And that was the general chorus. “Papa Hamid is finished,” said a young officer whom I later met again in Stamboul. It was clear what the Macedonians thought of the situation. The Sultan had had his chance and he had lost it. [Illustration: Soldiers at Chatalja, April 20]