Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/80

 they have tin ones,) with a rim round it two fingers high, like a moderate-sized round table, on which, in the middle, stands a dishful of boiled grains of barley, or sometimes of rice, boiled down to soup, and a tolerably large piece of mutton. Round the dish are cakes of nice-looking bread. Sometimes, in addition to this, they brought a small dish of honey or honey-comb, and begged us not to despise their food. My lord the ambassador, certainly, declined, but we of the suite, having healthy stomachs, accepted it very gratefully from them, and they brought us a third and even a fourth dish. We liked it very well, ate it up, and, after thanking them, gave them an asper or kreutzer as a trinkgeld. They prepared similar food for all the Turks who travelled with us. A stranger may make use of this comfortable provision for three days gratis, but immediately after that must change his inn. These hospitals have large endowments and revenues, for the principal and more religious pashas and Turkish grandees have them built, assign them revenues, purchase villages for them, in their lifetime, and after their death leave them no small sum of ready money. Let this be enough about the inns and hospitals, and also about the nights’ lodgings, which we made use of on our journey, as opportunity offered.

On Oct. 29 we arrived at Budesin, which is a simple village, and in it an inn, which is not a very good one; and here we found six Christians, who had been captured by the Turks at Vesprim in Hungary, and were being taken to the city of Sophia for sale. In the evening my lord the ambassador summoned the four chiaouses, or commissaries, and the four janissaries,