It was raining heavily when we arrived at Uskub; nevertheless, a picked company of Nizams (regulars) was drawn up in honour of our travelling companion, and presented arms as the train pulled in. The pasha alighted, saluted, and, with us on either side of him, sharing a great white umbrella, proceeded to the Hôtel Turati. Then the bedraggled band struck up one of several Sousa compositions which have been Orientalised for the Ottoman army, and the company marched away through the slush, doing the German ‘goose’ step, acquired from the Kaiser’s officers in the Sultan’s service, which showy effort spattered the mud on civil pedestrians on both sides of the narrow street. Behind the soldiers straggled several hundred Albanians, raw Redifs (first reserves), who had come up on our train in cattle-cars marked in bold letters, in a language they knew not of, ‘8 CHEVAUX OU 48 HOMMES.’ And behind the Arnauts trailed a score of prisoners protesting violently at being driven to gaol through the mire. These were Christians impregnated with the sense of free men’s rights. They were attired in ‘Francs,’ fezzes, and handcuffs--with the exception of one, a priest, who wore only the manacles in common with the others, apparently the conductors of a Bulgarian gymnasium temporarily out of business. Before the school teachers paraded a grinning gypsy bearing on his back a bundle of old muskets. ‘See, see!’ said the pasha. ‘They were captured in arms. There are the guns.’ [Illustration: ‘8 CHEVAUX OU 48 HOMMES’: ALBANIAN RECRUITS.] But a foreign Consul, wise in the ways of the wily Government, told us that this gypsy and his parcel of rifles was the ostentatious advance guard of every detachment of Bulgarian prisoners. The manœuvre was designed to deceive those representatives of the Powers and newspaper correspondents who were particularly prying. Uskub is a stern place with a breath of the mountains upon it. It is but an eight hours’ journey from Salonica, but, thanks to the restrictions of travel and intercourse, wholly free of a Levantine atmosphere. It is peopled principally by Arnauts--as the Turks call the Albanians--and Slavs, both men of character, though their morals are of a peculiar code. These Albanians and Slavs are natural enemies, and of the Slavs again there are Bulgarians and Servians, not good friends. The Kossovo vilayet, of which Uskub is the capital, has been described as a prolongation of Albania, Servia, and Bulgaria. The provincial delimitations of Turkey were undoubtedly designed with a view to encompassing under the same administration as many hostile elements as possible.