It is a little loft of a place, built upon an
open wooden foundation, not unlike the
guard-houses of the frontier troops near the
Danube; or an elevated boat-house, to use a
more familiar simile. Nobody is up; but, by
moans of much knocking and a loud hullabaloo,
in which our Tatar distinguishes
himself considerably, we rouse the tenants of
the post-house at last, and the lumbering
door revolves sulkily on its groaning hinges.
A fierce gaunt man, the very personification
of slothful worthlessness, now appears, and
looks at us with a contemptuous scowl.
Brutal ignorance and savage passions are
written on eveiy coarse line of his sensual
countenance. He has small dangerous eyes,
which shun the daylight; a long, straight,
fox-like nose, sharpening at the point,
such as I have often noticed in cunning
thieves; a low, lowering forehead; and an
immense thick-lipped mouth. His projecting
lower jaw is of immense power. He wears
enormous rusty moustachios; but the rest
of his beard, now of a week's growth, appears
as if it were shaved sometimes. His dress is
the common dress of the vulgar Turks, save
that he is girded with a thick roll of dirty-
white woollen stuff of some kind. For the
rest, he is a large, loosely-built, hulking
fellow. He stoops in his gait; and has great
awkward hands and arms. He is armed to
the teeth, not figuratively, but literally; for
the hilt of his straight sword projects from
his waist, beyond even his bare bull neck;
and his drowsy half-awakened air announces
that he had just risen from sleep.

Our Tatar dismounted, and bustled up the
rotten wooden steps with holes in them,
pushing his great bulky body aside to pass
the doorway at the top. We followed him
without question; and then another hulking
fellow got up from the straw-stuffed divan or
mattrass, which was laid on the floor along
two sides of the room, and began to wind
some twenty yards of dirty whity-brown
serge round his loins. The post-house was a
foul den, so full of vermin that we were
afraid to sit down and rest ourselves; but
the warmth of a large wood fire burning
on an ample open hearth, was grateful to us,
coming in from the bleak twilight without.
A long, dirty hobbledehoy was, however, coiled
up and sleeping, almost among the embers, so
that we could not get very close; and after
lighting fresh cigars, we were glad enough to
go out of doors and escape, leaving to our
Tatar the general management of our further
affairs. We found that the post-house was
situated in the centre of a sort of farm-yard,
knee-deep in mud and slosh. It was quite a
picture of rustic plenty; and unthrift oxen
and sheep were wandering about in it
whither they pleased. A multitude of fowls,
ducks, and geese, kept them company; and
the shrill clarion of a cock sounded bravely
at intervals to greet the approaching day.
A few stolid peasants lounged about, and
a little way off, another was lazily
harnessing a yoke of oxen to a primitive
waggon, crusted over with the mud of many
roads. In the village streets some children
began to appear, rubbing their eyes and
munching; and one Christian woman looked
palely forth from the low doorway of her hut,
—a sad picture of patient hopelessness. We
had scarcely time to make these observations
before our Tatar appeared with a
blank face, and announced to us that we
could get no horses on. Breakfast also seemed
entirely out of the question; and the loutish
tenants of the post-house looked on scornfully,
enjoying our discomfiture. When we
offered them money (about twice as much as
usual), they turned insultingly away, and left
us talking; but, when our Tatar at last lost
patience, and laid his whip about them, and
when I shouted in a voice of thunder that
I would cause the severest punishment to
be inflicted on them if we were detained, one
of them lurched sulkily off in search of
horses, and the Tatar assured us, with a sly
wink, that the other would very soon manage
to find us something to eat.

The hobbledehoy also now woke up from
his sleep among the ashes, and began to
prepare us some coffee. It is a weary conclusion
to come to, but really nothing can be done
in Turkey without hectoring; and all things
but truth may be found with harsh words
and a whip. As daylight stole slowly in, we
began to look round us and examine the
post-hut, to which we had returned, more
attentively. Its sole furniture was the straw-
stuffed divan, quite alive with vermin, and
two little brass coffee-pots. The unglazed
windows were barred with little rotten
rails of wood. Small rude shutters, which
rattled to every breeze, were placed in them.
The walls and ceiling were of one uniform
smoke colour. You could have traced your
name or a fancy portrait of your enemy upon
any part of them with the point of a stick.

We did not wait long before one of the
truculent-looking men came in, and laid a little
round red earthenware dish before us. It was
full of eggs, warmed rather than cooked in oil,
and seasoned with garlic. He was quite cowed,
now, and moved silently to get us some salt
and black bread to make up the banquet.
When we had eaten, he afforded us every
assistance to make some decoction of tea in
one of the little coffee-pots, and then he
brought us pipes from some house in the
village. His companion had also mysteriously
found us horses; and they both recommended
themselves earnestly to us when we rose to
go, and held our rusty stirrups as we mounted.
Our loud words, indeed, had raised us
generally in the estimation of the neighbourhood,
and there assembled quite a little crowd of
respectful admirers to see us ride upon our
way. Misrule and violence can have but
one effect,—it makes men either slaves or
rebels.