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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.
The proprietor of the mehana kindly takes upon himself the office of apprising me when my visitors are people of importance, by going through the pantomime of swelling his features and form up to a size corresponding in proportion relative to their importance, the process of inflation in the case of the pasha being quite a wonderful performance for a man who is not a professional contortionist.
All the morning long, people swarming around are importuning me with, " Bin, bin, bin, monsieur." The bicycle is locked up in a rear chamber, and thrice I accommodatingly fetch it out and endeavor to appease their curiosity by riding along a hundred-yard stretch of smooth road in the rear of the mehana; but their importunities never for a moment cease.
This village is a miserable little cluster of mud hovels, and the best the mehana affords is the coarsest of black-bread and a small salted fish, about the size of a sardine, which the natives devour without any pretence of cooking, but which are worse than nothing for me, since the farther they are away the better I am suited.
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 comparatively comfortable mehana is found here at Ichtiman, and the proprietor, being able to talk German, readily comprehends the meaning of hune-hen fabrica; but I have to dispense with cherries. Mud is the principal element of the road leading out of Ichtiman and over the Kodja Balkans this morning.
Upon returning to the mehana, I find a corpulent pasha and a number of particularly influential Turks awaiting my reappearance, with the same diabolical object of asking me to "bin! bin!"
While trundling along through the darkness, in the hope of reaching a village or mehana, I observe a rocket shoot skyward in the distance ahead, and surmise that it indicates the whereabout of Adrianople; but it is plainly many a weary mile ahead; the road cannot be ridden by the uncertain light of a cloud-veiled moon, and I have been forging ahead, over rough ways leading through an undulating country, and most of the day against a strong head-wind, since early dawn.
Exhibiting my passport at almost every village is getting monotonous, and, as I am going to remain here at least overnight, I ignore the gendarme's challenge and wheel on to the mehana.
By ten o'clock I happily arrive at a section of country that has not been favored by the afternoon rain, and, no mehana making its appearance, I conclude to sup off the cold, cheerless memories of the black bread and half-ripe pears eaten for dinner at a small village, and crawl beneath some wild prune-bushes for the night.
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