was unearthed from his hiding-place only after a half-hour’s search by a large scouting party of policemen. The usual series of questions was put to us, and we sandwiched our replies between bursts of indignant language, which perhaps it would be unwise to chronicle here. The pachydermatous young man, bristling with authority, and assuming the indifference of immeasurable superiority, paid little attention to our explanations or our expletives, and after slowly spelling out the words from our passport, “We, Robert, Arthur, Talbot, Gascoyne Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, Earl of Salisbury, Viscount Cranborne, Baron Cecil,” and from the other, “Robert Lincoln,” copied the numbers in a book, ordered us to sign our names, and then let us go. Hot with wrath at the delay, we paddled off, determined to leave Lom Palanka out of sight if we had to sleep in a swamp. We had the good-fortune, however, to discover just after dark a reasonably good camp-ground on a low bank of sun-baked mud covered with coarse grasses, and the next morning found we had chosen the spot where the natives had their summer clam-bakes, for great heaps of fresh-water clamshells, the well-picked bones of a sheep or two, and traces of recent fires were scattered all around us. CHAPTER XVII [Illustration: BECALMED] Between Lom Palanka and Sistova, a stretch of about 150 miles--which, by-the-way, we paddled in less than two days and a half--there are only three towns on the river, Cibar Palanka, Rahova, and Nicopolis, and these are all Bulgarian. There are two or three busy grain-shipping stations on the Roumanian side, however, and we could see on the edge of a low plateau, miles back from the river, frequent prosperous-looking places, and, opposite Nicopolis, the church-towers of Turnu Magurelli, one of the most important towns in southern Roumania, rising above the trees. This shore of the river is, for almost the entire distance referred to, a broad, low marsh, intersected by numerous lagoons and shallow, irregular lakes, often ten miles or more in length. The lonely picket-stations are the only human habitations along the bank. In agreeable contrast to this dull and desolate waste of marsh and willow swamp, is the rich pastoral country of Bulgaria opposite. Although villages and farm-houses are not numerous, we saw everywhere abundant signs of life. The meadows were dotted with hay-stacks, and great net-works of deeply-worn cattle-paths scored the smooth slopes of the hills, all burned yellow by the summer sun. Before the greatest heat of the day came on, immense herds of cattle and buffaloes, driven by Turkish cowboys, rushed panting down the hill-side in a cloud of dust to cool themselves in the stream. The buffaloes wallowed in the muddy places, and then lay down with the tops of their heads alone visible above water, like uncouth amphibious animals. Great flocks of sheep stood on the shore by the water’s edge, crowding together in a solid