Ere I am five kilometres from Tatar Bazardjik the rain begins to descend, and there is neither house nor other shelter visible anywhere ahead.  The peasants’ villages are all on the river, and the road leads for mile after mile through fields of wheat and rye.  I forge ahead in a drenching downpour that makes short work of the thin gossamer suit, which on this occasion barely prevents me getting a wet skin ere I descry a thrice-welcome mehana ahead and repair thither, prepared to accept, with becoming thankfulness, whatever accommodation the place affords.  It proves many degrees superior to the average Bulgarian institution of the same name, the proprietor causing my eyes fairly to bulge out with astonishment by producing a box of French sardines, and bread several shades lighter than I had, in view of previous experience expected to find it; and for a bed provides one of the huge, thick overcoats before spoken of, which, with the ample hood, envelops the whole figure in a covering that defies both wet and cold.  I am provided with this unsightly but none the less acceptable garment, and given the happy privilege of occupying the floor of a small out-building in company with several rough-looking pack-train teamsters similarly incased; I pass a not altogether comfortless night, the pattering of rain against the one small window effectually suppressing such thankless thoughts as have a tendency to come unbidden whenever the snoring of any of my fellow-lodgers gets aggravatingly harsh.  In all this company I think I am the only person who doesn’t snore, and when I awake from my rather fitful slumbers at four o’clock and find the rain no longer pattering against the window, I arise, and take up my journey toward Philippopolis, the city I had intended reaching yesterday.  It is after crossing the Kodja Balkans and descending into the Maritza Valley that one finds among the people a peculiarity that, until a person becomes used to it, causes no little mystification and many ludicrous mistakes.  A shake of the head, which with us means a negative answer, means exactly the reverse with the people of the Maritza Valley; and it puzzled me not a little more than once yesterday afternoon when inquiring whether I was on the right road, and when patronizing fruit-stalls in Tatar Bazardjik.  One never feels quite certain about being right when, after inquiring of a native if this is the correct road to Mustapha Pasha or Philippopolis he replies with a vigorous shake of the head; and although one soon gets accustomed to this peculiarity in others, and accepts it as it is intended, it is not quite so easy to get into the habit yourself.  This queer custom seems to prevail only among the inhabitants of this particular valley, for after leaving it at Adrianople I see nothing more of it.  Another peculiarity all through Oriental, and indeed through a good part of Central Europe, is that, instead of the “whoa” which we use to a horse, the driver hisses like a goose.