Off to Widdin--Strong Fortifications--Osman Pasha in Command--The Kalafatians at Work--Dr. Black--A Discreditable Englishman--Shooting on Sight--An Arrest and a Release--"Life off Black"--Egyptian Troops arrive--Zara Dilber Effendi--Osman Pasha's Ball--A Memorable Function--I get Plenty of Partners--Military Wall-flowers--The Ladies of Widdin--The Dance before the Fight--Three Beautiful Roumanians--An Angry Grandfather--Lambro Redivivus--Preparing for the Campaign--Some Forcible Dentistry--Religion of the Turks--The Wrestlers--Visitors from Kalafat--I pay a Return Call--Across the Danube into Kalafat--Dinner with the Roumanians--Pumping the Guileless Stranger--A Futile Effort--Frank Power--Nicholas Leader--Edmund O'Donovan--Wild Duck Shooting. A march of four days brought us to Widdin, the journey being accomplished by easy stages and with a fair degree of comfort. Of course it must be remembered that there was no such thing as a commissariat department in the Turkish army. The _zaptiehs_, or mounted police, in each district received notice of our approach, and requisitioned the necessary supplies from the farmers, who received acknowledgments of Government indebtedness for the amount due. We always sent forward a few _arabas_ with an advance party and a number of cooks; so that when the regiment reached the camping-place for the night all the preparations were made, and a hot meal was ready for the men. We usually camped in a Bulgarian village; and if there was no other shelter for the men, we appropriated the mosque, and made up our beds in it. I have slept many a time on the paved floor of a Turkish mosque, in the very arms of Islam as it were; and I must candidly admit that my slumbers were quite as refreshing and my dreams as sweet as they have since been within sound of the cathedral bells of Christendom. Widdin is a town of considerable commercial importance, and a strongly fortified position of great military significance, being, in fact, one of the keys of Bulgaria, for it is situated on a wedge of Bulgarian territory, having both the Servian and Roumanian frontiers almost under the muzzles of its siege-guns. When we were there the population numbered about fourteen thousand persons, of whom perhaps one-half were Bulgarians, one-third Turks, and the remainder Levantines, Greeks, Italians, Spanish Jews, and Tchiganes or Gypsies. There are a great number of Jews everywhere throughout the Turkish Empire, and they are very well treated by the Turks. It is hardly necessary to say that almost all the bankers and financial agents in the country belong to this race.