we met them gayly ploughing their way up-stream, with every bellying sail drawing full, and again we saw them dragged slowly against the current by a long line of patient Turkish sailors harnessed to a tow-rope; or else we came across them tied to the trees in some quiet spot awaiting a favorable wind, the decks covered with sleeping sailors, no man on watch. The Roumanian shore from Kalafat down for scores of miles at a stretch is as straight and level as if drawn with a ruler, and the landscape on that bank of the river is reduced to its simplest terms. The Bulgarian side is seldom monotonous, and never for any long distance flat and marshy. High grassy hills approach the river, and recede again at intervals, enclosing between their spurs great fertile meadows covered with farms. Here and there on the bare slopes of the rounded hills quite extensive villages are seen, usually at some distance from the river. Many of these are only great irregular collections of hovels dug in the ground and roofed with earth, and even the best of them can boast no more than one or two buildings of a better type than the ordinary hut of sun-dried bricks or of wattle and mud. Most of the habitations, together with the great straw and hay ricks--always the prominent feature of every village--are enclosed by walls of mud or by wattled fences, and the streets, which ramble along casually between these boundaries, are seldom better than gullies or watercourses. The interiors are often surprisingly neat and tidy, even in the rudest hovel, and whitewash is used with freedom. About three hours’ paddle below Widdin we came to the flourishing town of Lom Palanka, famous for the purity of its water, and somewhat renowned for the quality of its wine. We ran ashore, intending to fill our wine-bottles and then to move on to an early camp. We fancied that the Lom Palankians would be eager to welcome us when they saw us land prepared to trade, but the delegation who met us as we floundered out of the mud looked uncommonly hostile, every man wearing a uniform, and all more or less heavily armed. Escape was impossible, so we began to parley, and asked the way to a wine-shop with as much politeness as our meagre vocabulary allowed. The only response to this question was a stern demand for our passports. We promptly produced them, and, to our chagrin and astonishment, saw them disappear in the capacious pocket of the chief officer of the little army. The Custom-house people at Widdin had told us that we could land anywhere to buy stores without giving up our papers, and we explained this as well as we were able, and demanded our passports again, preparing to leave without making our desired purchases. Remonstrances were worse than idle, for they soon led to our arrest, and we were marched off to the police-station, a long way up the main street. The chief was not in his office, and he [Illustration: BULGARIAN VILLAGE]