Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/83

 Serbsko, from Bulgaria. The country is very beautiful but desolate, for the Turks do not cultivate much of the plains, and do not willingly practise agriculture, and the Christian peasants are nearly the only people who work in the fields. Having ferried our horses and carriages across the river, we arrived at night at a village called Kasen, which is miserable and in ruins; and, there then being no inn in it, we were obliged to go to rest as we could, some of us in cottages, others in the open air, and others under the carriages.

On Nov. 1 we came to the brook Nyssus, which flowed almost always on our right, till we arrived at the town. Here they reckon it to be half-way between Vienna and Constantinople. When we came to the inn the grooms, unharnessing the horses, rode carelessly with them into the stream, which flows through the town, and is fifty paces wide or more, in order to water and wash them. A servant of Herr Hoffman’s fell unexpectedly into a deep place, lost his seat, and shouted for help. A groom, wishing to help him, threw him a horse’s halter, which Herr Hoffman’s servant clutched so tight that he dragged the groom also from his horse. The horses swam out, but it was impossible to help the men, and they were both drowned. My lord the ambassador gave orders afterwards that they should be sought for, taken out of the water, and buried. On the bank of this stream, in the town, where signs of a Roman road are still found, we saw a lofty marble pillar, with an inscription in Latin letters, but already so damaged and obliterated that they could not be read. Nyssa is a tolerably populous place, and there we rested.