April xv.
We still continue our journey at the foot of the mountain, till in an hour’s time we arrive at Eskí Stambol; from whence the way, now leaving Haemus at our backs, carries us in four hours more to the first Turkish village, which had occurred in our progress, called Boklar. Mount Haemus being the limit, that divides Thracia from Bulgaria, or Moesia Inferior of the antients, we made this day’s journey in the latter; which hereabouts appears as pleasant, as a just mixture of hills and vales, woods and lawns, arable and pasture ground can make it. The above mentioned Eskí Stambol is a name given by the Turks to the remains of an ancient city (possibly the Oescus Triballorum) which at the foot of Haemus shews the intire tract of two walls; the inward square, and of about a mile in circumference; the outward almost circular, and containing the compass of five miles. But besides these it has no reliques of carved work, or any inscription, that may give light to the true name or history of the place. In one corner only of the inward wall are several crosses, and an image of the Παναγία, or Virgin Mother, barbarously cut, with two or three rude lines of modern Greek characters, in which nothing but the word Βασηλίσαν, or Queen, was now legible, and that corruptly written, as it is here copied. By the abovementioned walls runs a small river from the Haemus, now called by the Italians Monte Argentato, and by the Turks Batkán.