When they appeared to us in this Dress, I thought they resembled _Clytemnestra_, or some _Hecuba_ or other, in the flourishing Time of _Troy_, coming upon the Stage. This Sight suggested to me some pious Meditations, _viz._ How frail and mutable a Thing that which is called _Nobleness of Birth_, _is_; for when I asked of some of these Lasses, they that seemed to be the handsomest among them, concerning their Stock and Lineage, they told me, They were descended from the Chief Nobles of that Country; and some of them were of a Royal Progeny, though now it was their Fate, to marry Herdsmen or Shepherds: For Nobility is very little esteemed in the _Turkish_ Dominions. For, I my self did afterwards see at _Constantinople_, and other Places, some Descendants from the Imperial Families of the _Catacuzeni_, and the _Palæologi_, living more contemptuously among the _Turks_, than ever _Dionysius_ did of old at _Corinth_; nay, the _Turks_ esteem no Men for their Birth, but only for their own perform’d Accomplishments, excepting only the _Ottoman Family_; for that they have a high Veneration, upon Account of its Original. It is thought that these _Bulgarians_ had their Original from _Seythia_, near the River _Volga_, and that they changed their Habitations and came into these Parts, when other Nations, either compelled by Force, or prompted by Choice, changed theirs; and that they were called _Bulgarians_, i. e. _Volgarians_, from the River _Volga_, aforesaid. Upon this Transmigration, they fix’d their Habitation upon those Parts of Mount _Hæmus_, that lie between _Sophia_ and _Philippopolis_, which are Places naturally strong; where they, for a long Time, baffled all the Power of the _Grecian_ Emperors, and killed _Baldwin_ the Elder, Earl of _Flanders_, then Emperor of _Constantinople_, after they had taken him in an hot Skirmish. Yet, for all this, they were not able to resist the Power of the _Turks_, but were overcome and miserably enslaved by them. They use the _Illyrian_, or _Slavonian_ Tongue, as the _Servians_ and _Rascians_ also do. Before a Man descends into that Plain that lies over against _Philippopolis_, he must go through a Forest and a craggy Mountain, which the _Turks_ call _Carpi Dervent_, i. e. _The Gate of the strait or narrow Passage_; but in the Plain before-mentioned, we met with the River _Hebrus_, having its Original from the adjoining Mountain _Rhodope_. Before we could pass the said Straits, we saw the Top of Mount _Rhodope_ all cover’d over with deep Snow. The Inhabitants, as I remember, call it _Rulla_. From hence flows the River _Hebrus_, as _Pliny_ says, and _Ovid_ also affirms the same in this Distick. _Qua patet umbrosum Rhodope glacialis ad Hœmum,_ _Et sacer amissas exigit Hebrus aquas._ _Where Icy ~Rhodope~ ope’s to shady ~Hœme~,_ _And sacred ~Hebrus~ wants part of her Stream._