Cordial hospitality was not at that time the strong point of the average Bulgarian, and my host downstairs was an unusually surly person. I was a tenant at will--that is to say, at my own will, not at my landlord's--but the heads of the household took no more notice of me than if I had been dead--probably indeed not so much. There was one little chap, though, a yellow-haired, blue-eyed Bulgarian boy of about thirteen, who used occasionally to visit me; and he endeavoured without success to explain to me his views upon the position. I encouraged his confidences with an eye to subsequent advantages, and reaped the reward in milk, which the little chap used to bring me from his father's dairy cow. With the addition of the milk to my daily fare, I was enabled to boil my rice in a new way and to improve my _menu_ considerably. In the beautiful garden which surrounded the house were some of the most magnificent specimens of china asters, zinnias, and balsams that I have ever seen. I sent some of the seed home to Australia, and can still, even after long years, pluck flowers which are the lineal descendants of those that bloomed for the first time in the blood-stained soil of Plevna. But sometimes that garden produced another and a ghastlier crop. About ten days after the battle we had a terrific downfall of rain. It poured for about twenty-four hours in torrents, and the Tutchenitza was soon running a banker. Presently the flood-waters encroached, and poured across the low-lying flats, through the fence, and over our beautiful garden. When the rain stopped and the water receded, I walked in the garden one morning, and found _débris_ of all sorts, which had been brought down by the stream, still sticking in my favourite gooseberry bushes. Among the flotsam and jetsam gathered there was a grisly relic from the battle-field a mile or two away. It was a human head, with most of the flesh worn off the skull by the action of the water, and the teeth set fast in a horrid grin. It was impossible to say whether it was the head of a Turk or a Russian, and I buried it under the gooseberry bush where I found it. A day or two after this great rainstorm I rode out again over the hills and visited the battle-field. Far down on the lower ground, where the main Russian attack upon Grivitza was delivered, I came upon a gully, down which the recent rains had poured a miniature mountain torrent. The water had scooped away the earth that was thinly laid over the Russian dead, and had robbed the shallow graves of the corpses, carrying the bones away to the lowest lying ground, and depositing them there to whiten in the sun. Hundreds of skulls which had been separated from the bodies were lying there. I thought of the Kurdish colonel, and of the fate which his Circassian servant meted out to the wounded Russian officer, and I guessed the shocking reason. These were the heads of wounded men whom the Circassians had decapitated.