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errand had been, not to pave the way for my reception any where,
but to bring a parcel of pipe bowls with wheels attached
to them one on each side. Of this clumsy appendage what
can be the use? The man made signs as if they were to enable
the smoker to glide the pipe with greater facility upon
the floor on which the length of the tube obliges him to
rest it. I saw I think about 7 or 8 shops appropriated
solely to the vending of these implements with a very few
others of the same kind of ware. Ahmed suffered me to go
into a few others to buy some figs &c.; which gave me
a view of the greatest part of the Bazar (quarter for shops)
but either through laziness or prudence forbid my going any
further. I was therefore obliged to repress my wishes of exploring
a town which from the apparent wealth of its shops and the number and
size of its mosques promised to be considerable. The windows of our
apartment here too were of oiled paper: We had for supper a sallad, composed of chopped onions, and a couple of the Turkish
hashes abovementioned; and for desert some excellent grapes. I could
get a near view of no more than one of the Mosques, which seem'd
well as large as a moderate sized English Cathedral, I saw a
pretty considerable Gun-smiths shop.
Tuesday Dec:r 13. We left Burgas at 40 minutes after 6: at 2
o'clock we reached Kirk Eglise, and there ended our days journey.
About an hours ride from Burgas we enter'd a kind of forest,
composed of Pollard and underwood Oaks thinly scatter'd intermingled
with the Rhammus Palimus; about 3 or 4 hours afterwards
we passed through a Village with one Mosque, called if I understood
Ahmet right, Atabayla. Here were some cabbage
fields, producing some good sized cabbages, several cart-loads
of which we did see travelling towards Burgas, from 16
to 20 miles distant: to get seed from Atabayla, where the
market for cabbages can be but small, and sow them at Burgas
where it cannot but be gre considerable, would
be too great an enterprize too refined a speculation for a
Turkish husbandman.
At Kirk Eglise the Inn we put up at was of a construction
quite different from that of any we had ever seen before:
ranges of apartments built round a quadrangular area, like
many Inns in England particularly in London: the ground
floor, stables: the first floor lodging rooms; a few humbler
rooms a story higher: here we got a room, to appearances
at least upon a par with any of the rest, full of windows
glazed, so to speak, with oiled paper, which at first might
have been totally transparent, but by repeated patchings
had become in most places opake: so much so
that it was with difficulty I could see to hold a pen at
noon-day. In this dungeon above ground I was doomed
to pass little less than two days. The day of our arrival
neither of us had proposed to stir: for though we have had fine
moons. Ahmet will never hear of taking the benefit of them
he chooses rather to set out early in the morning, when it is
pitch dark.
Wednesday Dec:r 14. Upon our rising I proposed to Ahmet
according to my agreement with Dr Bartolozzi to wait that
day for his arrival with the Russian Courier: but Ahmet
would hear of no such thing: but some delay happening
in the getting ready packing up of our baggage, so that it was broad daylight
before we were in readiness, he alter'd his mind and
refused to stir: not on account of the above-mentioned engagement
of which he had been appraised in good Turkish by
the Doctor, and to which he had promised to conform, but
because there was no place where we could get a lodging
nearer than Canara, and Canara was not reachable before
sunset, so that we should be in danger from highwaymen, who
would shoot us and so forth, as he made me easily understand
by signs.
Thursday Dec:r 15. This morning every thing was in readiness
in good time, and I expected every instant to set off, when
a incident intervened to retard our departure. On the Tuesday
I had observed high words between our ,2 grooms
or horse-leaders, Mahmud and Hassan. By this morning
it had proceeded to such a heighth as to render it necessary
for us to part with one of them: for Hassan had declared, that
if Mahmud went farther he would not. This untoward event
two operators necessary: one was to go before the
Magistrate to settle the dispute; the other was to look
out for another man and horse to replace Hassan who was
dismissed. Ahmet took with him my servant, I know not why,
for he made no use of him as an evidence: it would have
been more interesting to me to have been witness to this
specimen of Turkish Justice: but I knew nothing of the
transaction till all was over. I now thought I had a good
plea for staying this one day more for the Russian Courier:
which would have brought us to the utmost extent of the time desired
by Dr Bartolozzi: my remonstrances however were without
effect: for it seems though 8 o'clock was too late, 1/2 after 10 was
not so: accordingly out we set.
At 20 minutes after 1, we passed Erekli, leaving it about a
stones throw to the right. Of this place at the distance of 4 or 5
days, I recollect nothing. I think I saw one minaret in it,
and but one.
At 1/2 after 3 we reached Cojabarla or Lojabarla a Bulgarian village: &
there we took up our quarters for the night. I asked how many
hours we were short of Canara: the answer was, two: and in
fact the next morning we reached it in 1 1/2 hour: Yet to Canara
he would not go, notwithstanding he had mentioned it as the only
place that would afford a lodging: but chose rather to put
up at a hut which gave me the first taste of Bulgarian
accommodation. Neither this nor any of other Bulgarian
houses I have now slept at (Monday Dec: 19) are
Inns, but private houses into which we have obtained admission
by negotiation and promise of Baksish (present)
which would have been backed as I understand, if necessary
by legal force. The covering of this our resting-place was
thatch; walls and floor, mud: cieling and windows, none:
door, one and that too many: for light, a chimney of vast diameter
and about a foot above the lowest part of the roof,
answer'd the purpose of a window. Yet this seemingly inclement
mansion was not without its comforts. The instant of our
entrance two very neat cotton carpets fresh as if they had never
been used, large enough to cover the greatest part of the room,
though they were each doubled, were, one upon another, opened
upon the ground: the earthy composition of which the floor and the walls
were made, though it might without impropriety, be termed mud,
may in a favourable point of view be consider'd as a kind of
stucco, which if it may be depended upon for duration, I
don't know whether I should not prefer to any stucco I have
seen: it forms a smooth even surface, perfectly free from
cracks, the colour a most pleasant uniform light brown, showing no spots, &
in that as well as other respects infinitely preferable in my
eyes to the dead white which colours the walls of the meanest
houses in England, and of some of the most magnificent in Smyrna
and Constantinople. Our dinner or supper consisted of 1. Hushmilek;
2. Bulgarian pilaw. 3. a couple of barn door fowls. This Hush-milek
if I have got the name right is a kind of pancake, composed
of flower and Caymac i.e. clouted cream. At different
Bulgarian tables I have observed it to assume forms considerably
different, but all of them palatable: here and at another place
where it was least good, it formed a kind of thick pudding, rather
heavy with lumps of unchanged caymac
still perceptible on
the surface: in another place it formed 5 or 6 very thin
sheets perfectly distinct from each other, and the two lowermost
crisp like pyecrust with no traces of the caymac, if that
indeed were the oleaginous ingredients, perceptible: another time, it
formed
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Identifier: | JB/540/227/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 540.
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1785-12-10 |
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540 |
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227 |
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001 |
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Journal |
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Jeremy Bentham |
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