Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/88

 servitude which they suffer up to this day. They use a Slavonic language, so that we Bohemians can converse with them.

On Nov. 9 we travelled over mountains without intermission. At noon a chiaous from the beglerbeg caught us up, and brought after us the clock which had been presented to him, as the Turks, not knowing how to manage it, had overwound it and broken a string, which our clockmaker was obliged to put to rights when we stopped for the night. Before we arrived at the plain, which surrounds the city of Philippopolis, we were obliged to travel by a narrow road, over a steep mountain, where there still stands in the midst an ancient stone gateway, called Derwent Kapi, the gate of the narrow way. Here lived the last despot, or prince, of Bulgaria, Mark Karlovitz; but now the whole building is so ruined and desolate that it presents no likeness to a fortress. We spent the night in the village of Janika, without an inn.

On Nov. 10, after starting, we saw the river Hebrus, which takes its rise in Mount Rhodope, not far off, and a handsome stone bridge over the same river, which the Turks call the Maritza. In the evening we arrived at the city of Philippopolis. This city lies on one of three heights, distant, and, as it were, separated, from the other mountains, and which were purposely digni-