I had with me land-charts and compass, but nothing for taking
altitude-observations: for the _Speranza_ instruments, except one
compass, had all been broken-up by her shock. However, on getting to the
town of Silivri, about thirty miles from our start, I saw in the ruins
of a half-standing bazaar-shop a number of brass objects, and there
found several good sextants, quadrants, and theodolites. Two mornings
later, we came upon an engine in mid-country, with coals in it, and a
stream near; I had a goat-skin of almond-oil in the bag, and found the
machinery serviceable after an hour's careful inspection, having
examined the boiler with a candle through the manhole, and removed the
autoclaves of the heaters. All was red with rust, and the shaft of the
connecting-rod in particular seemed so frail, that at one moment I was
very dubious: I decided, however, and, except for a slight leakage at
the tubulure which led the steam to the valve-chest, all went very well;
at a pressure never exceeding three-and-a-half atmospheres, we travelled
nearly a hundred and twenty miles before being stopped by a head-to-head
block on the line, when we had to abandon our engine; we then continued
another seven miles a-foot, I all the time mourning my motor, which I
had had to leave at Imbros, and hoping at every townlet to find a whole
one, but in vain.

* * * * *

It was wonderful to see the villages and towns going back to the earth,
already invaded by vegetation, and hardly any longer breaking the
continuity of pure Nature, the town now as much the country as the
country, and that which is not-Man becoming all in all with a certain
_furore_ of vigour. A whole day in the southern gorges of the Balkan
Mountains the slow train went tearing its way through many a mile of