explain, so much higher than they really are, that birds which at a distance we thought to be large birds of prey, turned out, when we got close to them, to be only jackdaws, and the cliffs which seemed impregnable were so low that an active man could scramble up almost anywhere. Spring in the Crimea was much more backward than in Turkey, and there was little to interest a naturalist at that season, so we returned by way of Odessa and landed at Kustendji, now the Rumanian port called Constanza, on April 1st, 1869.
Here we found an English medical man, Dr. Cullen , who was very helpful, and we spent a very profitable month in the Dobrudja, on the Danube, and in the country about Shumla and Varna. The ornithological results were very rich, as vultures, falcons, eagles and many other birds were very abundant.
I made the acquaintance here of Mr. H. Barkley, afterwards and until his death one of my best friends. He was one of four brothers who had laid out and built the line from Varna to Rustchuk, and his book, Bulgaria before the War, describes the country, its life and people much better than I could do. He, knowing the Bulgarians more intimately, formed a much higher opinion of their qualities than I did, but we, like most Englishmen, much preferred the Turks, and especially the Tartars, who had colonised the Dobrudja after the Crimean War, and who were always more friendly, hospitable and genial, than the plodding, industrious and avaricious Bulgarian peasants. Though one cannot judge correctly of any people until one knows their language, and though they have shown in recent years that they possess military virtues which were not then supposed to exist, I never liked the Bulgarians, and this dislike was increased by my later journeys in their country.
We had one experience of the rough and ready way in which the Turks then administered justice, which I must relate as it occurred. Whilst staying at Kustendji we had our lodgings in a so-called hotel kept by a Greek, but only slept there for four or five nights, and generally had our meals with Dr. Cullen. When it was time to start home and we had everything packed to go, by the only train in the day, to Tchernavoda on the Danube, where the steamer for Buda-Pest called twice a week, the Greek inn¬ keeper would not bring the bill till the very last moment, and when it came it was so exorbitant that I refused to pay more than half what it came to. He then refused to let our luggage go, and in consequence we missed the train. I at once went to the Vice-Consul; he was away, but his dragoman, who was the official interpreter, accompanied me to the Konak, where the Kaimakam administered justice. We found this official ready and willing to hear the case at once. The innkeeper was summoned and the bill produced. The Kaimakam, who had once been to Paris, was very pleased to air the French that he knew, and went through the bill in detail, with sarcastic remarks on the items. " Does the fellow think he keeps the Grand Hotel? Six beshliks a day for a bedroom with bugs in it! He ought to be proud to entertain English travellers for two. Eggs, wine and pilaf and kebabs, four beshliks! Is there a famine then in Kustendji and I not to know it? Such a meal is dear enough at one beshlik. I will not allow such a scandal to pass unpunished in my town,
