After a delay of fourteen days at Constantinople, for the purpose of recruiting my strength, I set out for Vienna. But the beginning of my journey was marked by an evil chance. Just as I left Constantinople I met some waggons of boys and girls who were being carried from Hungary to the slave market at Constantinople; this is the commonest kind of Turkish merchandise, and just as loads of different kinds of goods meet the traveller’s eye, as he leaves Antwerp, so every now and then we came across unhappy Christians of all ranks, ages, and sexes who were being carried off to a horrible slavery; the men, young and old, were either driven in gangs or bound to a chain and dragged over the road in a long file, after the same fashion as we take a string of horses to a fair. It was indeed a painful sight; and I could scarce check my tears, so deeply did I feel the woes and humiliation of Christendom. If this is not enough to make you think that my path was crossed with evil, I have something more to tell. My colleagues had placed under my care some members of their retinue who were tired of being in Turkey, in order that I might take them back with me. Well, when I had been two days on the road, I saw the head man of this party, whom they called their Voivode, riding in a waggon. He was ill, and on his foot was the plague ulcer, which he kept uncovered in order to relieve the pain. This circumstance made us all very uncomfortable, since we were afraid that, this disease being contagious, more of us would be attacked. On reaching Adrianople, which was not far off, the poor fellow’s struggles were terminated by death. Then, as if the peril were not sufficiently great, the rest of the Hungarians seized the dead man’s clothes; one took his boots, another his doublet, another, for fear anything should be lost, snatches up his shirt, and another his linen; though the risk was perfectly obvious, we could not stop them from endangering the lives of the whole party. My physician flew from one to another, imploring them for God’s sake not to touch articles, contact with which would bring about certain death, but they were deaf to his prophecies. Well, on the second day after our departure from Adrianople, these same fellows crowded round my physician, asking him for something to cure their sickness, which they described as an attack of headache and general languor, accompanied with a feeling of deep depression; on hearing of these symptoms my physician began to suspect that this was the first stage of the plague. He told them that ‘he had not warned them without reason; they had done their best to catch the plague, and they had caught it. In spite of their folly he would do what he could for them; but what means had he of doctoring them in the middle of a journey, where no medicines could be procured.’