--Depart for Widdin.
All hail, Bulgaria! No sooner had I secured my quarters and deposited
my baggage, than I sought the main street, in order to catch the
delightfully keen impression which a new region stamps on the mind.
How different are the features of Slaavic Turkey, from those of the
Arabic provinces in which I so long resided. The flat roofs, the
measured pace of the camel, the half-naked negro, the uncouth Bedouin,
the cloudless heavens, the tawny earth, and the meagre apology for
turf, are exchanged for ricketty wooden houses with coarse tiling,
laid in such a way as to eschew the monotony of straight lines;
strings of primitive waggons drawn by buffaloes, and driven by
Bulgarians with black woolly caps, real genuine grass growing on the
downs outside the walls, and a rattling blast from the Black Sea, more
welcome than all the balmy spices of Arabia, for it reminded me that I
was once more in Europe, and must befit my costume to her ruder airs.
This was indeed the north of the Balkan, and I must needs pull out my
pea-jacket. How I relished those winds, waves, clouds, and grey skies!
They reminded me of English nature and Dutch art.
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