A curious superstition on the part of the Turks came under my notice one night soon after Pain's departure. I was tossing about feverishly in bed, suffering agonies from the assaults of the domestic insects which in Bulgaria attain to stupendous proportions, when I heard a tremendous volley of guns, and for the moment I believed that a night attack was taking place. However, after a few minutes of independent firing, the noise died away, and I went to sleep again. Next morning it appeared that there had been an eclipse of the moon on the previous night, and the townspeople were acting in accordance with an ancient superstition when they fired off every available gun, believing that in doing so they would scare away the monstrous animal which was endeavouring to devour the silver queen of night. They were curiously alive to an empty superstition, yet curiously insensible to hard facts, for they appeared to tolerate the ever-present annoyance of the insects with equanimity. When I resorted to the device of putting the legs of my bed in vessels full of water, so that the fleas and other hopping and crawling visitors could not climb up to attack me, the pertinacious creatures thought out a way to circumvent me. They simply crawled up the wall and along the ceiling until they were in a position to drop down upon me, which they did. It was the most marked display of reasoning power in the lower creatures that ever forced itself upon my notice. The only way that I could baffle the voracious crowd was by moving my bed out into the open air, and this I did. In the forenoon of August 31, while I was pottering about my hospital, I heard guns at a distance of about five miles, and jumping on my horse I galloped off to the headquarters camp, only to find it deserted. Information was obtainable, however, showing that Osman Pasha had suddenly moved off eastward in the direction of Poradim before daybreak with nineteen battalions of infantry, three batteries of artillery, and all the cavalry at his disposal. He had gone out really for the purpose of getting information and ascertaining the position of the Russians. It was a huge reconnaissance ending in a battle. As I had received no orders to remain in camp, I rode off in the direction of the firing, and after going a couple of miles I saw three or four mounted officers. Fearing that I might be sent back, I went a little aside, and passed them, as I thought, unnoticed; but they speedily ordered me to halt, and when I went up to them I found that one was Hassib Bey, the principal medical officer. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he said to me; "you are the very man we want." I told him that I was anxious to see the fun, and he advised me, with a laugh, to curb my ardour, and ordered me to remain with him.