I walked through the narrow streets of Plevna on the day before the first battle, and saw a town already deserted by most of the wealthy inhabitants. Here and there I noticed a Turkish civilian dressed in the long, loose caftan, and the wide trousers tucked into high boots, which formed the universal dress of the Turks; while the Bulgarians wore the sheepskin caps and suits of coarse yellow frieze which I had seen before in Widdin and Sofia. The streets were paved with cobble-stones, and the main street formed the principal bazaar of the place; while sundry evil-smelling lanes, running off to the right and left, were inhabited by scowling Bulgarians, who looked as though they would have cut my throat with the greatest pleasure. The Tutchenitza ran right across the main street; and here I saw the women washing clothes and chattering together, apparently unconscious of the dreadful trials before them. At the lower end of the long, straggling main street, however, there was a collection of dirty little huts occupied by the Gypsies; and when they saw the troops coming, they seemed to recognize that the horrors of war were near, for they set up a prolonged wailing, while they wrung their hands with gestures of the deepest grief. Leaving them to their lamentations, I proceeded to investigate the resources of the town, and was overjoyed to discover a European doctor, upon whom I promptly called and introduced myself. He was a very original character this Dr. Robert, and how he came to Plevna in the first instance I never found out. Born at Neuchâtel in Switzerland, he disappeared from the paths of European civilization when he had finished his medical course, and eventually settled down in Plevna, where he had been for ten years before I met him. He was not a bad-looking man, apparently about thirty-three years of age, with a fair beard and moustache. He had a good practice among the Bulgarians, and had evidently become a fashionable physician who commanded his own price. Dr. Robert lived in the best house of the town, and drove the finest team of four black cobs that I ever sat behind. He had a regular menagerie in his gardens, which were fenced with wire, and contained a collection of storks and herons, a tame animal which I took to be a jackal, and four deer, which we afterwards ate. He had some good ideas as a landscape gardener too, and had tapped the Tutchenitza for water to irrigate his domain by means of channels. After calling on Dr. Robert, I went off to pay my respects to the _kaimakan_, or Turkish governor of the town, who had his quarters in the konak, or townhall, a fine structure, built from the stone taken from an old Roman ruin which once occupied the site. We afterwards used this building as a hospital. The kaimakan was very courteous, and placed a clerk at my disposal, who found me quarters in a small, isolated Bulgarian house at the extreme north of the town.