At last we came in sight of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. It lay at the farther end of a great plain dotted here and there with Bulgarian villages, well watered by a river running through it, and nicely timbered like a great park. Against the dark background of the hills, to use a pretty line of Tennyson's, "the city sparkled like a grain of salt." Sofia was then a place of about twenty thousand inhabitants, and the seat of government. At one time the famous Midhat Pasha was the governor of this vilayet. The regiment moved in column of route along the main road through the plain towards the white houses glinting in the sunshine, every man stepping jauntily as the close of the long march drew near. But Sofia looked better at a distance than it did under our noses. At that time there was only one hotel in the place, a filthy little _cabaret_ kept by a Greek, whose views with regard to beds and meals were most primitive. The railway runs right through from Stamboul to Sofia and beyond now, and French cooking has replaced the black bread and beans which formed the Spartan fare placed before his guests by that "base scion of a noble stock" who took us in and "did for us" in '76. The first English-speaking person whom I met in Sofia was MacGahan, the war correspondent for a London newspaper, and from him I learnt at last where I was and what was happening round us. We dined together, and he told me how the Servians had been beaten all along the line. I found that there were four other Turkish regiments besides my own quartered in Sofia; and among the English surgeons attached to the troops I was glad to find an old friend named Stiven, with whom I could exercise my tongue at last after my enforced silence of the previous week.