The tour described in this book was not in the slightest degree due to the Insurrection in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. It was planned before the outbreak, and was first suggested by the interest which previous visits to other South-Sclavonic lands had led me to take in the branch of that race still under the Sultan’s dominion, and owing to a special curiosity to see a race of Sclavonic Mahometans. My desire of visiting Bosnia was further whetted by a day spent a few years ago beyond the Bosnian border, and by the interesting problems suggested by the history and present state of Illyria. While I and my brother, Lewis Evans, who accompanied me throughout, were preparing for our journey, the Insurrection in the Herzegovina broke out, so that it was undertaken rather in spite of than by reason of that event. During our walk through Bosnia that country also burst into insurrection; and as we heard many accounts from trustworthy sources as to the origin of the outbreak, both in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, I have ventured to give some particulars in the story of our itinerary.
We were armed with an autograph letter from the Vali Pashà, or Governor-General of Bosnia and Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces, and owing to this were able to accomplish our tour without serious molestation, though it must be confessed that we underwent some risks. With a few short breaks we made our way through the country on foot, which is perhaps a novelty in Turkish travel. Our only impedimenta consisted of the knapsack and sleeping gear on our backs, so that we were entirely independent; and being able to use our legs and arms and sleep out in the forest, we were able to surmount mountains and penetrate into districts which, I think I may say, have never been described, and it is possible never visited, by an ‘European’ before.
If this book should do anything to interest Englishmen in a land and people among the most interesting in Europe, and to open people’s eyes to the evils of the government under which the Bosniacs suffer, its object will have been fully attained. Those who may be inclined to ‘try Bosnia’ will meet with many hardships. They must be prepared to sleep out in the open air, in the forest, or on the mountain-side. They will have now and then to put up with indifferent food, or supply their own commissariat. They will nowhere meet with mountains so fine as the Alps of Switzerland or Tyrol, and they will be disappointed if they search for æsthetic embellishments in the towns. But those who are curious as to some of the most absorbing political problems of modern Europe; those who delight in out-of-the-way revelations of antiquity, and who perceive the high historic and ethnologic interest which attaches to the Southern Sclaves; and lastly, those who take pleasure in picturesque costumes and stupendous forest scenery; will be amply rewarded by a visit to Bosnia. There is much beautiful mountain scenery as well, and the member of the Alpine Club who has a taste for the jagged outlines of the Dolomites and the Julian Alps, in spite of a certain amount of attendant limestone nakedness, may find some peaks worthy of his attention towards the Montenegrine frontier. It would not be difficult to mention routes of greater natural attractions than that we followed, and I may observe that the falls of the Pliva, which we did not see, have been reckoned among the most beautiful waterfalls in Europe.
The first two chapters, written mostly while delayed in Croatia, refer rather to the borderland of Bosnia, and may not be of general interest, dealing much in costumes and antiquities. The last, which describes the old Republic of Ragusa, may serve to show that the Southern Sclaves are capable of the highest culture and civilisation. In the Historical Review of Bosnia I have attempted to elucidate and emphasise a most important aspect of Bosnian history—the connection, namely, between that till lately almost unknown land, and the Protestant Reformation of Europe, and the debt which even civilised England owes to that now unhappy country.