Though the revolution had not yet occurred, and the peasant population was still engaged in peaceful pursuits, the country swarmed with soldiers. Cavalry and infantry patrols, Turks, Albanians, and Asiatics, passed us by. Occasionally we met a guard with handcuffed prisoners, Bulgarians and sometimes Albanians. Now and then a member of our escort would meet a long-lost friend, and the old comrades would drop from their horses and embrace each other, pressing cheeks first one side and then the other. We were yet an hour off from Prelip when the white tents about the town came into view. Soon we came to the cornfields. The corn was ripe and glowing under the slanting rays of the evening sun, and here and there red poppies had wandered in to stud the golden fields. Once the road led by a milk-white field, most innocent in appearance, but covered with the deadly blooms of opium. Many houses on the edge of the town, and some in the narrow streets, were hung from roof to ground with strings of tobacco leaves, changing colour in the sun. [Illustration: Albanians. Bulgarians. CAPTIVES.] When we entered Prelip the natives were gathered at their gates preparatory to withdrawing for the night. It was too late for Christians to follow, and the Turks are too dignified to do more than bestow a casual glance at any traveller. But in the morning our appearance caused a commotion in the town. Greeks left their shops, Bulgarians deserted the market-place, Vlachs followed us with their pack-animals, Jews and gypsies came after us, the one to sell, the other to beg of us; men, women, and children joined in our train. They followed us until we crossed a narrow street, at the other side of which only a few veiled women were visible; then the whole throng came to an abrupt stop. ‘What is the matter with the crowd?’ I asked one of our guards. ‘They are like the dogs,’ he replied; ‘they have their boundaries. At this street begins the Turkish quarter.’ We walked on through the quiet, clean, Turkish quarter and came upon a group of bashi-bazouks, who had been called into service as village guards, squatting by the roadway smoking. They were kind enough to rise and permit me to photograph them standing. This was rather an exceptional case; the Mohamedans generally resented my camera. A gypsy minstrel, a thing of shreds and patches, on his way to a wedding feast, protested that the Evil Eye would be upon him if I took his likeness, but I ‘snapped’ him while he argued. It would have been unkind to inform him.