with his load, veritably takes up the whole narrow street, including the sidewalks, as he slowly picks his way along through mud-holes and protruding cobble-stones.  And yet Philippopolis has improved wonderfully since it has nominally changed from a Turkish to a Christian city, I am told; the Cross having in Philippopolis not only triumphed over the Crescent, but its influence is rapidly changing the condition and appearance of the streets.  There is no doubt about the improvements, but they are at present most conspicuous in the suburbs, near the English consulate.  It is threatening rain again as I am picking my way through the crooked streets of Philippopolis toward the Adrianople road; verily, I seem these days to be fully occupied in playing hide-and-seek with the elements; but in Roumelia at this season it is a question of either rain or insufferable heat, and perhaps, after all, I have reason to be thankful at having the former to contend with rather than the latter.  Two thunderstorms have to be endured during the forenoon, and for lunch I reach a mehana where, besides eggs roasted in the embers, and fairly good bread, I am actually offered a napkin that has been used but a few times — an evidence of civilization that is quite refreshing.  A repetition of the rain-dodging of the forenoon characterizes the afternoon journey, and while halting at a small village the inhabitants actually take me for a mountebank, and among them collect a handful of diminutive copper coins about the size and thickness of a gold twenty-five-cent piece, and of which it would take at least twenty to make an American cent, and offer them to me for a performance.  What with shaking my head for “no” and the villagers naturally mistaking the motion for " yes,” according to their own custom, I have quite an interesting time of it making them understand that I am not a mountebank travelling from one Roumelian village to another, living on two cents’ worth of black sandy bread per diem, and giving performances for about three cents a time.  For my halting-place to-night I reach the village of Cauheme, in which I find a mehana, where, although the accommodations are of the crudest nature, the proprietor is a kindly disposed and, withal, a thoroughly honest individual, furnishing me with a reed mat and a pillow, and making things as comfortable and agreeable as possible.  Eating raw cucumbers as we eat apples or pears appears to be universal in Oriental Europe; frequently, through Bulgaria and Roumelia, I have noticed people, both old and young, gnawing away at a cucumber with the greatest relish, eating it rind and all, without any condiments whatever.