We were beginning to get a little short of food in Plevna; and though I was not very particular about my cuisine and got on fairly well on boiled beans and rice, I felt sorry for poor Czetwertinski, who had been very bad with dysentery, and for whom I prescribed nourishing food in vain, for there was no one to make up the prescription. However, one morning I noticed a fine flock of geese in the yard of a Bulgarian house between my place and the hospital, so I approached the proprietor with an eye to purchase. He was a sour-tempered fellow; and though I offered him a medjidie apiece for the geese, he declined to trade. When I got home again that night and sat down to more boiled beans, I casually mentioned to Ahmet that there were a nice lot of geese in a Bulgarian house not far away. Next night all the geese were in our yard. I did not inquire too closely the motive which impelled the toothsome birds to seek for change of scene; but it flashed across me that Ahmet and his mate Faizi were young and strong, and also that they were Circassians. We ate four of the geese in our house, and gave the rest away to my brother surgeons. There were a dozen of them originally, and I sent the Bulgarian goose-farmer a couple of Turkish liras for them, so that he did not do so badly after all out of his forced sale. Although big engagements seemed at an end for the present, and the Russians evidently intended to starve us out, instead of attempting to take Plevna by assault, still we had plenty of casual skirmishes to keep us in form and remind us that we were not at a picnic. Towards the end of September, Mustapha Bey was ordered to go out with a squadron of cavalry across the Vid and reconnoitre the Sofia road, to see what sort of a force the Russians had placed there. I was a great favourite with old Mustapha, and he made an application to Osman Pasha that I should be allowed to accompany the column. Permission was readily granted, and one beautiful morning I found myself cantering out of Plevna, with Mustapha Bey and Czetwertinski at the head of a troop of four hundred regular cavalry and three hundred Circassians. We rode out to the foot of the Janik Bair colline below Opanetz, and from that point we could see the village of Dolni-Netropol, about a mile away. As we were riding towards that village the troop suddenly halted, and Czetwertinski declared that he could make out a regiment of infantry drawn up about three-quarters of a mile away. We held a consultation, and Czetwertinski said that he could see a battery of Russian artillery in position as well. I had a great reputation for being sharp-sighted in those days, and was generally the first to see the enemy; but I fancied that what Czetwertinski saw was really a herd of the small black cattle of the country. "Wait here a moment while I go on and have a look," I shouted; and sticking the spurs into my horse, I galloped forward by myself.