Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/86

 journey did we enjoy such comfortable accommodation in any inn as there.

On Nov. 8 we started from Sophia, leaving the small town of Bossen on a height on the right. In the evening we saw another small town. Falup, on the right, and at a well found an old Turk, born at Vienna, who had been captured and carried off at the siege of Vienna, and, being unable to withstand the Turkish tyranny, had turned Turk, and had now almost forgotten the German language. During this day’s journey, as on we went, we saw cleaner villages and towns, of which there were as many as seven, than at any other time. We had a pleasant day’s journey; the plains were beautiful and fertile, and also the Bulgarian vales. In these localities we ate, for some days in succession, loaves baked under the ashes, which the Turks call “fugatia.” These loaves are baked and sold by the wives and daughters of the people, because in these regions there are no bakers. When, therefore, the women learn that strangers have arrived, from whom there is a prospect of earning money, they hastily make up meal with water, and without leaven, put the dough into hot ashes, and while it is still hot—or, as we say, bread from the oven—sell it at no great price. Other eatables, e. g. mutton, fowls, hens, and eggs, are sufficiently cheap there, and could at that time be bought, for the present wars had not yet begun. That night we lodged in the village of Jessiman.

I cannot here forbear mentioning the dress of the peasant women in this district. They go in white shirts or smocks, which are of corded linen, not very thin, and of all colours, embroidered with Turkey yarn