We spent the next forenoon in exploring some of the neighbouring house-communities, a description of which has already been given; and about twelve, after a parting wrangle concerning passports with a sentry on the river bank, took our places in the ferry-boat that was to convey us to the Turkish side of the Save. As the shores of Christendom were receding from our view, we had leisure to reflect on some slightly sensational topics which had lately been forcing themselves on our attention. There could be no doubt that the insurrection in the Herzegovina was at least holding its ground, and that the agitation in the neighbouring Sclavonic lands was increasing in intensity. A revolutionary committee had already been formed in Agram, at Laibach, Spalato, and other Austrian towns. At Agram we came in for a concert in aid of the insurgents; at Siszek there arrived the same night as ourselves thirty Herzegovinians, who had left the employments which they had in Free Serbia, and were hurrying to aid their revolted brothers, while many Croats and Slovenes from Agram, Marburg, Laibach, and other places were—so the Siszekers assured us—also leaving for the seat of war. Vague rumours of insurgent successes were afloat, and Siszek was thrown into a considerable state of excitement by a report that Mostar and Trebinje had both fallen into the hands of the Christians. We were assured from many sides that if the insurrection were to spread a little further, the rayahs of Bosnia would rise also; and fears were entertained for the safety of the Christian minority in Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and the head-quarters of Moslem fanaticism.

But what touched us more nearly was a proclamation which had just appeared, signed by Dervish Pashà, the Turkish governor-general of Bosnia, the authorship of which the wily Vali, later on, thought fit to deny, but which for the present had the desired effect. By it the whole of Bosnia was subjected to martial law, as well as the Herzegovina, and its terms were vague and comprehensive enough to legalise any violence. ‘It is my will,’ so ran the manifesto, ‘that every true believer in the Prophet have the right to seize and bring before me anyone suspected of taking part in the revolt, or of giving aid to the enemies of our exalted master the Sultan. And I order that all strangers direct themselves according to the laws of the country during the insurrection, which probably will not long endure, for already doth the sun of the insurgents verge towards its setting. And assuredly’—we were informed in the poetic imagery of the East—‘shall the lightning of the Sultan strike all who order not themselves according to my will.’

‘But as to those who harbour the unruly, by the sword shall they be cut off; and in all God’s houses subject to our jurisdiction shall prayers be offered up for the help of God and the protection of the prophet, on our exalted master the Sultan and his government.’

But for better or worse our Rubicon is passed, and we land on the Turkish shore, among a group of turbaned gentry, from amongst whom emerges a somewhat tattered soldier, who conducts us to the square, verandahed, Karaula or guard-house. Here we are asked by another official, in Italian, if we have anything to declare in our knapsacks, and having satisfied him by a simple ‘Niente,’ we are again beckoned on by our soldier, and follow him into the narrow street of Turkish Brood to show our pass to the Præfect or Mudìr. Our appearance created as great a sensation as was decorous among the big-turbans of the townlet; crowds of Bosnian gamins followed at our heels; and we caught a passing glimpse of a dusky Ethiopian maiden white-toothing us in the most coquettish fashion from behind a door. As the Mudìr was not at home, we had to wait in the front room of his Konak,[171] if indeed a place which possesses neither door nor window, and is completely open to the air on the street side, can be called a room; and taking our seat on the platform or raised floor—which in the other houses of the town, as generally in Turkey, is used as the squatting-place of the shopkeepers, and the counter on which to display their wares—became the gazing-stock of a motley assemblage, who, crowding round in the street, or taking reserved seats in the melon-shop opposite, ‘twigged us’ at their leisure.

We, too, obtained a breathing space in which to realise in what a new world we were. The Bosniacs themselves speak of the other side of the Save as ‘Europe,’ and they are right; for to all intents and purposes a five minutes’ voyage transports you into Asia. Travellers who have seen the Turkish provinces of Syria, Armenia, or Egypt, when they enter Bosnia, are at once surprised at finding the familiar sights of Asia and Africa reproduced in a province of European Turkey. Thrace, Macedonia, the shores of the Ægean, Stamboul itself, have lost or never displayed many Oriental customs and costumes; but Bosnia remains the chosen land of Mahometan Conservatism, the Goshen of the faithful, ennobled by the tombs of martyrs, and known in Turkish annals as the ‘Lion that guards the gates of Stamboul.’ Fanaticism has struck its deepest roots among her renegade population, and reflects itself even in their dress. In no other European province of Turkey is the veiling of women so strictly attended to. It is said that not long ago the fine egg-shaped turbans of the Janissaries might still be found in Bosnia, and the Maulouka, the most precious of all mantles, which had died out elsewhere, long survived among these Bosnian Tories. As to the introduction of fezzes, the Imperial order almost provoked a revolt here; and to this day among Mahometans the fez is almost confined to officials, the rest of the believers going about in the capacious turbans of the East.

The very darkness of the background, the dirty narrow street, the timber houses, the time-stained wooden minaret, acted as a foil to the Oriental brilliance of the dress and merchandise, the scarlet sashes, the gold embroidery, those gorgeous little maidens—doomed most of them by sweet thirteen to take the winding-sheets of Turkish matrimony, and bury their beauty in harems, where by thirty-five they are turned old hags; but now, poor little butterflies! fluttering out their brief child-glimpse of the world—light-smocked, in linen chemises, chevroned with rainbow threads of colour—bagged as to their legs, but beflowered with roses of Shiraz—pranked out with gilt coin-bespangled fezzes, whence fountain-like the separate jets of their tresses trickle forth in a score of silken plaits; Perilets, with sisterly arms round each other’s necks, deigning to smile on the strange Giaours. There, too, are their little brothers, showing more of their slender legs, but gay as their sisters, in bags and tunics, with pates not yet artificially baldened, but long-haired as the little maidens, only in softer cascades, falling down their backs, and fringing their foreheads. Capillati (Copi is still the word for boys among the Roumans of East Europe)—one almost hoped to see a bulla round their necks! and indeed I doubt not that they wore many a potent spell against the Evil Eye.

There was one little lad of about five, with blue eyes and hair of Scandinavian lightness, the cut of which called up some tiny page of Charles the Second’s days, who, with some of his playmates, crowded so near as to shut out the view of the two mysterious Franks from the grave and reverend signiors behind, whereupon a Turk, who happened to hold a small switch in his hand, came forward and flicked these small flies away. The whip just touched our small urchin, who moved out of the way with the others. He did not cry, but more, as it seemed, in sorrow than in anger, fixed on his flagellator a look of such childish dignity and grave surprise as should have annihilated anyone less impassive than a Turk. It said, as plainly as a look can speak, ‘I am not accustomed to such treatment.’ The look of a child may seem a slight matter, but it was eloquent of the tenderness with which the Turks treat children—a tenderness which does them honour. Such an unkind cut was a new experience in the little lad’s life.

When our observers had taken sufficient stock of us, the propriety of showing us into an upper room of the Konak suggested itself to some of them, and we were accordingly led upstairs, and invited to squat in a den belonging to some subordinate official, who, while waiting the Mudìr’s arrival, treated us to coffee. It was a very dirty little room, in which the rags and tatters of an old piece of faded carpet and rotten matting made shift for chairs and sofas; these, with a stove such as has been described already, pigeon-holed with pots, and a broken water-jar, completing the inventory of the furniture. After a tedious delay, during which we supposed the worthy præfect to be at his mid-day prayers, or more probably his siesta, the Mudìr arrived, and we were ushered into his room of state, distinguished from that of his sub. by containing a larger area of dirt, and by displaying a larger piece of carpet with a more capacious patch, but also by possessing a greasy divan on which we were beckoned by the Mudìr to take our seat by his side. Our official had turned out in grey clothes of European cut, and a regulation fez; but as he could only speak Turkish, Arabic, and Bosniac, and as we could none of these, an interpreter had to be found in the shape of an Italian-speaking Dalmatian woman before we could hold much communication. The Mudìr was well satisfied with our Bujuruldu; but when we expressed our determination to walk through the country, he was fairly taken aback. It was evidently a case which had never before come within his official experience. There was no precedent for such conduct. Nobody, he assured us, ever thought of travelling on foot in Bosnia; if we wanted a horse or a waggon, he was ready to oblige—but to walk! We had to explain that walking was a weakness of English people; and at last, as I think the good man began to believe that it was connected with our religion, and that we were pilgrims of some sort, he gave over trying to convert us to the Bosnian way of thinking, and told off a Zaptieh to escort us to our that day’s destination, Dervent. Our attempts to rid ourselves from having this encumbrance failed, as the autograph letter of the Pashà made him responsible for our safety.

We left Turkish Brood, after first mollifying our Zaptieh with a present of tobacco, and for a few miles followed the road along the Save valley, stopping once to purchase at a roadside cottage some sweet milk—slátko miléko. I have come upon some of our Sclavonic cousins who could understand the English word! The homesteads were very like the Croatian and Slavonian in general arrangement. The common yard and paling, the wooden cottage roofed with long shingles, and the various outhouses, were there, but the wickerwork maize-garners were less capacious and more like large clothes-baskets, and the whole was on a smaller scale. We heard that the system of house-communities existed hereabouts to a much less extent than on the Austrian side of the Save, but here and there as many as three or four families are to be found in the same homestead with a common house-father and house-mother. Round each cottage were a number of plum-trees, and in each yard was a small distillery for making Slivovitz. Further on, a Serbian merchant drove up in an Arabà or native waggon, and courteously invited us to take a quarter of an hour’s lift, which we accepted, though it was sad jolty work, and we were not sorry to get out again.

Soon after passing a Turkish graveyard, with the usual turbaned tombstones—some of the turbans of majestic height—we turned off from the Save valley, and, leaving the road, waded across the Ukrina stream, when to our astonishment the Zaptieh, instead of following, stood shivering on the brink; but our surprise was turned to indignation when the fellow shouted to a Christian woman, who was passing along the other bank, to carry him across! We gave vent to such forcible expressions of disapprobation as deterred the poor woman from obeying my lord’s commands; but a rayah man coming up, the Zaptieh, notwithstanding our indignant Jok! jok! (No! no!) succeeded in requisitioning him, and in spite of all our gesticulations the Christian carried over our escort on his back. When the Zaptieh saw that we were very angry, he recompensed his bearer with a handful of tobacco; and it must be owned that the Christian seemed satisfied with the transaction, and that neither the leggings nor the boots of the Zaptieh were adapted for rapid disembarrassment.

Further on we ascended a gentle chain of hills by delicious foot-paths across hayfields, or amidst luxuriant crops of maize—through oak-forests, and, what was stranger, woods of plum-trees laden with small unripe fruit; and now and again along pretty country lanes, where the hedges feasted us with a profusion of blackberries whose size attested the richness of the soil, and whose flavour seemed to combine all that was nicest in blackberry and mulberry. Both fields and hedgerows were varied with a beautiful array of flowers, amongst which I noticed yellow snapdragon, sky-blue flax, a sweet flowering-rush, and a heath of wondrous aroma.

About sunset we stopped at a small shed on the banks of the Ukrina, where, seated among a group of Christian peasants, we regaled ourselves with black coffee which was being dispensed at the rate of about a farthing a small cup. Hard by, fixed over the Ukrina stream, was a water-mill for grinding corn, of the most primitive construction, an idea of which is best given by the accompanying diagram. These turbines are universal throughout Bosnia, and are to be also seen in Croatia.

The peasants here were mostly Vlachs, that is, they belonged to the Greek Church. The men wore red and black turbans, a flowing white linen tunic like the Croats, with a fringe of that coarse lace which we had noticed in Slavonia. A leathern belt wound several times round the waist served as a pocket for their smoking apparatus; their trousers were worn loose and expansive as the Croatian, sometimes close about the calf; their hair was sometimes plaited together behind, and sometimes hung down in two elf-locks—the crown of the head being shaven, as with the Turks. As to the women, they were dressed in light tunics and aprons, much as Croats and Slavonians, but their hair was often plaited like the men’s into a single pig-tail. On their head was a white kerchief arranged in a fashion peculiar to themselves, with a flower-like tassel at one side; and they usually wore in front of the two necessary aprons a superfluous black one with long fringe. Here is a Greek Christian girl that we saw at a well, and who graciously allowed us to slake our thirst from the bucket she had just drawn up.

These Greek Church women wore blue embroidery to their dresses, but the Roman Catholics of this part, though dressing otherwise like the Greeks, distinguish themselves from their fellow-Christians by embroidering their clothes with red, while their men protest against a Universal Church by wearing tighter breeches than the Orthodox. It is hardly to be expected after this that they should call the founder of their faith by the same name; and, indeed, the Romanists call Christ ‘Krst,’ and themselves ‘Krisčiani,’ while the Greeks speak of ‘Hrist’ and of themselves as ‘Hrisčiani;’ so that H in Bosnia is a shibboleth. The Greek Bosnians use Cyrillian characters, and call themselves distinctively Serbs or Pravoslaves, that is, ‘the orthodox;’ the others look on the Cyrillian character as a snare of the devil, and, far from trying to claim fellowship with the people of Free Serbia, style themselves Latins—‘Latinski’—for it always seems to be a tendency of Romanists to thrust patriotic interests into the background.

The Christian men dress much as the Turks about here, or, to put it more accurately, the poorer Mussulman Bosniacs have not much departed from their old Sclavonic attire; and though the Turkish townspeople show themselves off in indigo bags and Oriental vests, their peasants are often only to be distinguished from the Christians round by a preference for white turbans.

We now crossed the Ukrina stream once more, by means of a weir set up to increase the water-power of the turbine, and presently struck again upon the road just before entering Dervent, our halting-place for the night, which rose up before us picturesquely perched, with its two minarets, on a height above the river. Here we were first conducted by our Zaptieh to the Konak of the Kaïmakàm—a bigger personage than a Mudìr. But we, mistaking the official residence for a hostelry, were beginning to air our Bosniac in an attempt to order dinner, when a demand for our Bujuruldu put a stop to these indiscreet utterances. Leaving our pass at the Konak for the night, to be digested at leisure by the authorities, we found a real Han, and being shown an upper room, with a few bits of matting and carpet stretched on the divan to serve as beds and seats, were presently supping à la Bosniaque. Our menu consisted of hot milk, a fowl (pili), chlébba, or bread in shape of a round flat cake, brownish and coarse and rather sour, but superior to the black bread one meets with in German villages; Méd, or honey; and the usual black coffee, all set before us in tinned-copper dishes on a round tray of the same metal—the Tepšia—as is usual in Turkey.

Our landlord could speak a little Italian, and we found a very pleasant German Jew, who acted as our interpreter and gave us what information we desired as to the neighbourhood. From him we learnt that in Dervent, of the population estimated at 2,000, about 40 per cent. belonged to the Greek Church, most of the rest being Mahometan. Although there are no native newspapers, a knowledge of the revolt in the Herzegovina had spread among the Christians here by means of the orthodox priests, but the rayahs were described to us as too down-trodden even to wish to rise.

We shared our apartment with an Imâm, a Mahometan priest, who dined opposite us from another tray, having first most religiously washed his hands. The holy man slept considerably sounder than we, who were unused to this Turkish kennelling and its concomitants, and certainly were not at all sorry when our Jewish friend roused us next morning, to say that the Pashà of Banjaluka desired us to pay him a visit at the Konak.

We found the old gentleman seated on a divan of more sumptuous appearance than any we had yet seen, with two other dignitaries, a Mutasarìf (probably of Banjaluka), and the Kaïmakàm of Dervent. Two chairs were brought for the ‘Europeans;’ and the Pashà, after enquiring courteously about our travels, and giving us a friendly message to our Consul, chose out for us a Zaptieh after his own heart, who was to escort us on our next day’s match, and whom he particularly enjoined to obey us in everything, wait when we waited, and sleep where we slept. His excellency was as fat and jolly a personage as ever dined, and in a grey European dress, with his measured English way of speaking, good-humoured face, and hearty manner, he reminded us more of a fox-hunting squire than a Turk; though there are episodes in his life—and Ali Riza Pashà is an historical character—which smack more of the Divan than the hunting-field. He began his career as a soldier, but soon discovered that swash-bucklering was not his forte, and that his nerves were better adapted for the arts of peace; for, coming upon the Russians near Kars, he literally took to his heels, and having the misfortune to be followed by his men, was dismissed the army. But he had now proved himself incapable, and accordingly became a natural recipient of Turkish honours. In due course he was created a Pashà, and received the lucrative post of Banjaluka, where to this day, though he is unable to write his name, he retains his office by administering heavy bribes alternately at Stamboul and Serajevo. With the Divan it has long been an arcanum imperii that the more incompetent the official the greater his tribute of bribery. At this moment our Pashà was engaged in collecting troops to be employed, so it was said, against the insurgents in the Herzegovina. But why were they to be massed at Banjaluka, in a remote corner of Bosnia?

Leaving the Konak, we took a stroll through the streets of Dervent, and observed the wares, which may be divided into two kinds—the Oriental and the English. Many Manchester goods, Sheffield cutlery, and other useful articles, find their way here from England by way of Trieste; and we actually found in our chamber in the Han a hair-brush with the name of an English maker on it. The chief product of Dervent and its neighbourhood, besides the Slivovitz, which every cottage makes for itself, is dried plums. These plums are especially grown in the Possávina—the part of Bosnia bordering on the Save—and indeed form the principal article of the export of the country, amounting yearly in value to about 40,000l., nearly an eighth of her total exports. They are shipped up the Save and then overland to Trieste, where they are packed in wooden boxes, and thence find their way to the Western markets, so that many of the inferior qualities of the so-called French plums sold in this country are really Bosnian.

At 8.30 we left Dervent, passing the shapeless ruins of an old castle, two walls of which can alone be traced now, and two mosques, one of them almost as dilapidated as the castle wall. Our march lay through a beautiful country, over the undulating hills which separate the valleys of the Save and Bosna, beyond which, in the exquisitely clear air, rose the lilac outlines of loftier ranges, while every now and then a gap in the hills would reveal to us the rich Possávina spread out below in dim vistas of forest and cornland. We partly kept to the road, partly indulged in short cuts and by-paths through a country sparsely scattered at long intervals with huts and stray maize-plots.

Then the scenery took a wilder aspect. We passed through lonely woods of scrubby oak, and next set to traversing long stretches of open land, relieved with island-like patches and clumps, of nut-trees weighed down by the fond embraces of wild vines. Rare commons they were! and of varying mood; funereal with juniper, or a-frolic with a bright array of butterflies—azure blues, clouded yellows, silver-washed fritillaries, majestic swallow-tails, rising in short flights, and then floating through the air steered by their twin-rudders—they and all drinking in the nectar which the tropical sun distilled from seas of heath and bracken, till the whole air was filled with a kind of subtle steam.

But butterflies have no knapsacks! and we ourselves were glad enough to take refuge for a while from the intense heat of noon in a little Han called Modran, where we obtained a light refection, consisting of coffee and a water-melon.

Beyond this we crossed a neck of land where the oaks gave place to stunted beeches, and noticed by the roadside two small tombstones. ‘Hajduks’ graves!’ ejaculated our Zaptieh. On one was engraved a Latin, on the other a Greek cross, so they were the graves of Christians; but how had they met their fate? Had they turned brigands?—to redress, perhaps, some wrong unutterable?—or were they rather the victims of some outrage? For in Bosnia it is usual to bury the murdered on the side of the road where they fall, and there are other highways in the province lined with such monuments. But the stones are hoar and without inscription.

We next passed a caravan of pack-horses heavily laden with bales, and proceeding, like everything else in Bosnia, at a snail’s pace, and then caught a glimpse of the Roman Catholic church of Foca, a long straggling village lying in a valley to the right. The village seemed to shrink away from the high road, but one cottage was nearer, and into the small yard of this our Zaptieh led us, to see if we could procure any food. Here we found a Christian woman with a small child, who, bringing out two ragged pieces of carpet for us to lie on outside her hut, did her best to prepare us a meal, and presently set before us a couple of toasted maize-stalks, five eggs poached in sour milk, some unripe plums, and unleavened maize and rye bread. For all this she only charged us a single ‘grosch,’ or about twopence, and seemed surprised when we trebled that amount.

I can hardly describe the misery of the hovel and its surroundings, the haggard mother and poor squalid brat, scarcely better clad than when it entered the world,—the all-wretchedest of homes—with earth for flooring, a few stones in the middle to support the fire, above which hung a piece of hooked wood to support a caldron,—a small hole opening in the roof to let out the smoke, which had covered the wooden walls with soot like the inside of a chimney; a low partition shutting off the lair. There was no light but what came in at the door, and the few tatters she had strewn outside for us were the only furniture. There was besides, a shed, in which we imagined a cow, a small hen-roost, and a little patch of maize; but how little of this ever went to the rayah who tilled it was shown by the size of the garner, which was a mere wicker-work basket. But the most indescribable tokens of destitution were some clothes, or what once had been such, hung to the fence,—they were mere shapeless bundles of rags! We could not wonder much after this that the rest of the Christian village shunned the neighbourhood of the road.

Leaving this abode of misery we began to descend into the valley of the Bosna, and pursuing a lane whose hedges were brilliant with the scarlet sprays of wild vines—they can take the gorgeous hues of Virginia creepers—we arrived about five at a small Han called Radanka, about an hour from Doboj, where we were glad to turn in, and obtained much the same accommodation as the night before. We were much amused at our Zaptieh, who showed religious scruples against taking the sour wine of the country, obtainable here, but drank copious draughts of Arrack (Raki), and showed no objection to Rum. At Doboj, however, where we got good red Slavonian wine, these scruples vanished.

Next morning we had a difficulty with mine host, a German-speaking Slavonian, who charged us a ducat—a monstrous sum for a night’s entertainment in Bosnia, and over three times as much as we had paid at Dervent. Our Zaptieh assessed us at half the amount, and we were preparing to pay that much and be off; but the Hanjia had the wit to lock up L—’s knapsack, so we had nothing for it but to offer our host the choice of accepting our terms, or the ducat he demanded, with the prospect of being complained of to the Mudìr of Doboj. He chose the latter alternative, and we left, our Zaptieh shouting ‘Hajduk Hanjia!’ (Brigand innkeeper!)

Our Zaptieh was, in his way, a very good fellow, and we were pleased at the friendly manner in which he treated the rayahs. His demonstrations of affection towards ourselves and Englishmen in general were perhaps a little too hilarious; for he kept shouting for miles at a time that the Turks and English were brothers. He accompanied us presently in a swim in the blue waters of the Bosna, which is here so rapid that we had to choose out a sheltered bay in which to disport ourselves. About half an hour after, resuming our trudge, on passing a turn in the road, the old castle of Doboj rose before us, finely seated on a conical hill.

We found a Han in the lower part of the town, and then visited the Mudìr, whom we found seated on a small but neat and brilliant divan, and to whom our Zaptieh poured forth the story of our Hanjia’s extortion. We have some reason to believe that two Zaptiehs were dispatched to enquire into the matter.

We now ascended the hill to explore the upper part of the town and the castle. The main street is an undulating and snaky mud-path, along each side of which are ranged the usual unglazed shops, in which English cottons, knives and scissors, and European-labelled bottles containing various spirits, are mixed with gold-embroidered Turkish apparel, and a variety of tinned-copper salvers, and water vessels of coffee-pot shape. In one shop were for sale rude hand-mills of this shape for grinding salt.

But the wine shop carried one back to some tavern of antiquity. It displayed a wooden bar facing the street, covered with an array of jars, ‘testjas’ as they are still called hereabouts, Roman alike in shape and name, behind which the vendor stood and filled brimming cups and jars with thick red wine for the passers-by. The whole scene called to mind a more classic wine-bar, as it is still to be seen on the monument of a Gallo-Roman taverner discovered at Dijon.

We now directed our footsteps to the old castle that crowns the summit of the hill. The ‘Starigrad,’ as it is called here, is one of the most interesting historic relics in the whole of Bosnia. A glance from its mouldering walls makes one realise the importance of its situation. The peak on which the castle of Doboj stands juts out abruptly into the valley of the Bosna just at the point where in one direction the Sprecca opens out an avenue towards the Drina and Serbian frontier, and in the other the pass of Dervent conducts the road to Croatia. The castle, therefore, was the key to the whole valley of the Bosna against a foe coming from the Hungarian plains, and commanded the highway through the province of Ussora to the very heart of the Bosnian kingdom. The maize-covered river-flat that spreads below it seems one of those spots destined by nature to be the battle-field of nations; and the very name of Doboj or Dvoboi, as it was formerly written, means in Bosniac ‘the two fights.’

As Prince of Ussora, this castle belonged to Tvartko I., who first erected Bosnia into a kingdom. He entrusted the stronghold to the safe keeping of the Croatian Ban, John Horvath, with whom he was bound by common jealousy of the Hungarian suzerain. It was within its walls that the Ban, the bishop of Agram, and the King of Bosnia, concocted, in 1387, the plot by which the Hungarian queen and queen-mother were seized, and the Croat and Bosnian magnates revolted against Sigismund, the King of Hungary. But Sigismund was victorious, and in 1391 the Ban and bishop were shut up within the walls of Doboj,[172] and captured; the Ban while attempting to escape, the bishop in the castle itself, which was forced to surrender; while the King of Bosnia, seeing his province of Ussora overrun, was forced to return to his allegiance. In 1408 another revolt, under Tvartko III., against the Hungarian suzerain, was crushed under these same walls, and the King of Bosnia himself captured in the battle. A terrible vengeance now followed, and 180 nobles, Bosnian and Croatian, are said to have been executed within these walls, and their bodies thrown into the river below. This was at a time when both Hungary and Bosnia should have been united against the Turkish invaders. But the sad national tragedy was being played out, and in due course Doboj, the key of the Christian kingdom, became the stronghold of the Turk. It is a place full of dismal associations for the Christians of Bosnia; they seem to shrink instinctively from the ill-omened site, and at this day the population of Doboj is almost exclusively Mahometan. We could not wonder at coming upon a tradition among the rayahs of this neighbourhood that it was within these walls that the old Bosnian nobility forswore their faith and country and renegaded to the Infidel.

Under the Turks the castle appears to have long since fallen into the decay in which it now moulders. Prince Eugene seems to have found no difficulty in taking it en passant during his hasty dash into Bosnia in 1697; and in 1717 it again fell for awhile into the hands of the imperialists under General Petrasch. At the present day even the Turks recognise it as a ruin, and apparently throw no obstacle in the way of those who may wish to explore it. We, at any rate, entered the old fortress unopposed, passing through a now broken archway, the former outer gate of the castle, which opens on its least precipitous side upon the neck of the hill where the present upper town of Doboj is situated.

We now found ourselves in the outer yard, between the castle and the exterior walls, in a kind of covered causeway leading to the inner gateway of the castle itself. Here, groping among the rubble, we discovered an old cannon of apparently very early date, with two dolphins forming handles—an ancient trophy, we liked to think, from the Venetians; but though we looked carefully about the walls and fragments for any inscriptions or elegant details of architecture, we hit on nothing except an old square stone with an almost effaced chevron moulding round it, set in a dark and inaccessible position in the wall inside the castle-gateway, and which may have had some further device on it. Entering by this gateway, the arch of which is of ogival shape, we passed the remains of what may have been the dwelling-house of some former Turkish commandant, now in a state which makes it dangerous to the passer-by. Then clambering up among the more ancient and massive ruins, we came upon an old chamber in the wall, with a barrel-vaulting, where we discovered a quantity of rotten musket-stocks, which must have been mouldering here for centuries, and a small arsenal-full of stone cannon-balls, such as from time to time turn up on Bosworth Field. Further on we came to the tower which forms the northern corner of the castle, which is tolerably perfect inside, and in shape resembles a halved octagon. There appear to have been two other towers at the two other corners of the castle, which in shape is triangular; but I will not attempt more than a rough plan of this medley of ruins, which, half-concealed with brambles and wild vine, and tufted in every crevice with maidenhair and rue-fern, are more picturesque than intelligible.

Having returned to our Han, we found our Mudìr seated on a divan in one of the rooms, which was strewn with bright Roumelian carpets, in general character very like the Slavonian. He knew no tongues but Bosniac, Arabic, Turkish, and modern Greek; but though I succeeded in describing to him our visit to the castle in the language of Thucydides, we found it on the whole better to make use of our host—a Montenegrine by birth, who has picked up a little Swabian—as an interpreter. The Mudìr told us that the Turkish government were anxious to dispose of the old castle as an eligible site, or a useful quarry for building purposes. Shade of Bosnian kings! Our Mahometan, with the greatest sangfroid, ordered a bottle of thick red Slavonian wine, and proceeded to consume it before our eyes; but the wine-bar in the upper town had already familiarised us with the laxity of true-believers.

As the Mudìr could not understand German, the Montenegrine, who was an ardent Southern Sclave, could give vent to his patriotic sentiments without reserve. He literally devoured our map of the Herzegovina, and entreated us to sell it him. He believed the insurrection would be successful, and had heard that Mostar was blockaded—for rumours of the first slight successes of the insurgents in the Narenta valley had penetrated in an exaggerated form to the extremities of Bosnia. We asked if he believed that the Christian Bosniacs of the neighbourhood would rise?

‘No,’ he answered; ‘I have little hopes of them—they are a poor lot!’ but (pointing to the mountains of the south-east) ‘out there, about Dolnja Tuzla, and along the Serbian frontier, there is a finer race of men; they will join their brothers against the Turkish swine! We think that even you English will leave the Turks to their fate this time.’

I said that there were other European nations from whom the Southern Sclaves had more to fear than from England.

‘Yes,’ he continued; ‘we know the ambition of Russia; but we don’t want the Russians to lord it over us any more than the Turks! no, nor the Austrians either.’

While sketching the Starigrad I had another proof of the kindness with which the Bosniac Turks treat children. A small boy of about seven came up in the most fearless manner and stated for my benefit that a plum-tree was called ‘sliva,’ and a house ‘kuca,’ all which and sundry other items of information the little man volunteered without the slightest sign of distrust at my outlandish appearance. As I took a last twilight glimpse at the mournfully historic castle a star was setting beneath its topmost parapet, as if to betoken that the dreams of patriots were vain and the hopes of Christian Bosnia had set for ever.

We passed an unquiet night, owing to swarms of gnats, which droned about our chamber and forced us to cover our faces with nets; and were up, and, with a new Zaptieh who had been assigned to us by the Mudìr, on our way again almost before it was light, bound for Tešanj, the old capital of Ussora. For an hour or so we still followed the valley of the Bosna, which is here very beautiful, the timber finer than any we have yet seen in Bosnia, tall poplars and magnificent oaks crowning the banks or chequering the emerald pools with their shadows. On each side of the valley rose the slopes of the low forest-mountains, usually at a gentle incline, but at one point a sheer cliff of the most brilliant limestone—snow-white as Parian marble—towered above our path. This was just at the point where the Ussora torrent runs into the Bosna, and here we left the main road and turned off towards Tešanj by country lanes, following for some time the right bank of the Ussora. On our way we twice stopped to refresh ourselves at wayside cafés, which are simply rough sheds—four poles supporting a thatch of leafy branches—beneath whose shade sits the coffee-maker with a supply of copper pots, earthenware testjas, and brilliant little cups of about the capacity of an ordinary wine-glass. Round the shed run planks raised about a foot from the ground, which serve the wayfarer as a divan on which to quaff the black powdery thimblefuls, or to demolish huge slices of water-melon. As we walked on we were much struck by the tameness of the magpies, which would settle just before us, and let us approach as near as if they were domesticated pigeons. About two hours from Tešanj we left our valley and gradually ascended a wooded range which rises some 1300 feet above the Bosna, where the beeches became larger—a forest of thick pollard stumps, which gradually gladed out into luxuriant heather-land, deliciously perfumed with ferny incense, from which opened out our first panorama of the mountain-peaks that form the heart of Bosnia. In the blue distance rose the dominating cone of Vlašić, but there were no grim Alpine giants, no glacier seas, no jagged horns of rock. The speciality of the mountains was rather their softness of contour. What was quite strange to us was the aërial clearness, the refined delicacy of the colouring—turquoise, lilac, and faint pervading pink.

As we were preparing to begin our descent from these uplands towards Tešanj, some large white objects amongst the heather on a neighbouring hill caught our eye, which, on investigation, we found to belong to a curious prehistoric monument of the kind popularly known as Druidic. It was an alignment of large oblong blocks along the neck of the hill; but the stones, unlike those of Stonehenge or Carnac, were laid on their faces, and not set upright. The blocks, which were composed of limestone and conglomerate, had in most cases been roughly squared, and the largest measured seven feet by four. The chain extended between two knolls of the hill-top, and on looking along it from the lowest of these (see diagram, p. 112), it presented a wavy and serpentine appearance, which may have been due to the slight inequalities of the soil. At one point near this end rose a small hillock capped by a larger than ordinary block of snow-white limestone, in form hexangular, and with some of the facets deftly hewn (see diagram). Before this on either side were two smaller and flatter slabs of rock, arranged apparently with some special reference to the block between them, and which gave me the impression that it had been meant to serve as an altar; though whether these stones were set here by heathen Sclaves or by one of the earlier races of Illyria, and with what object, it would be hazardous to conjecture. By the peasants about they are known as the Old Stones—Stari Stéona.

Nearing Tešanj we came upon, and partly followed, the remains of an ancient road, roughly paved in such an antique fashion as to remind me of the streets from time to time exhumed on the sites of Roman towns. Perhaps it really in some way represented the continuity of Roman engineering. Certain it is that the wooden bridges, such as the one on which we crossed the Ussora, and others that we were afterwards to meet with, with their beam-work arches and supports and their lattice railings, strangely recalled some of Trajan’s handicraft. The Bosnian waggons—not so unlike, either, in form, the gementia plaustra of antiquity—as they rumble along the old-world roads and bridges, with creaking so loud and stridulous as literally to make woods and rocks re-echo with their wailing, bring before you another feature in the country life of classic times, which in the England of to-day it is hard to realise. With such discord piercing your ears, there seems new point in those exquisite lines of Martial which describe his friend’s garden as not too near the highway—‘ne blando rota sit molesta somno.’[173] Heard from afar the sound is not so unpleasant, and might be mistaken for the plaintive whistling of the wind; but if any one wants to know what it is like at close quarters, he had better tweak a young pig’s tail and listen.

The view which now broke upon us was the most beautiful that we had yet set eyes on in Bosnia. It is best seen by climbing the high rocks which start up above the little Tešanška Rieka. Below you winds the gorge of the shallow stream, its steeps and narrow meadowland shaded with orchards and plum-woods, amongst which peep out the chalet-like roofs and slender minarets of the truly Alpine town of Tešanj. But all this only forms an avenue to a bold rocky height which leaves the town clinging to the two sides of the valley and towers up in the middle in isolated grandeur, crowned with the old castle of the Bans of Ussora, whose walls on one side frown over an overhanging precipice on to the sources of the rivulet several hundred feet below. It is more perfect, but not so open to investigation as that of Doboj, being still made use of by the Turks. Like the other it is triangular, and ends in a polygonal tower, which here is capped by a conical roof. Below this tower are some subsidiary fortifications and a solitary tower, in general effect not unlike the Campanile of St. Mark at Venice on a small scale.

Parts of the castle are probably of great antiquity. Indeed the magnificence of the position would point it out as a stronghold in any age. Tešanj is in fact one of the earliest Sclavonic strongholds in Bosnia of which we possess any record, if we may be allowed to identify it with the Tesnec mentioned as a Serbian town by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century. It was the residence of the Bans of Ussora, and probably of earlier Župans, the former area of whose jurisdiction seems to be still indicated by the name Župa, which clings to this mountainous triangle between the Bosna and the Verbas. When Ussora became a province of Bosnia, and Bosnia a kingdom, Tešanj was therefore a royal castle, and it was probably one of the seventy strongholds ‘defended by nature and art’ which fell into the hands of Mahomet II. during those terrible eight days which followed the capture of the last Bosnian king in 1463. Soon afterwards, however, when Matthias Corvinus restored Northern Bosnia to Hungary and Christendom, and made of it the Banat of Jaycze, Tešanj was again set free from the Paynim yoke. But it fell into the custody of the Voivode, whose carelessness lost Zvornik to the Pashà of Upper Bosnia in 1520. The Pashà, regardless of terms of capitulation which he had conceded, ‘keeping,’ as the Bosniacs bitterly expressed it, ‘Turkish faith,’ butchered all except the young or the beautiful, who might be useful for the harem or the Janissary camp. When the people of Tešanj, and they of Sokol, another fortress held by this Unready, heard of the miserable fate of the Zwornikers, a panic seized on them, and, setting fire to the castle, they fled to the mountains, though it is said that few escaped the Turkish sword. With Tešanj[174] one of the keys of Lower Bosnia was lost, and the Banat of Jaycze did not long survive this disaster.

At present Tešanj has some importance as a centre of the corn trade, and though containing but 30,000 inhabitants at the outside, is a seat of a Kaïmakàm, a more exalted governor than a Mudìr, to whose sumptuous white Konak we now made our way. As we approached it we found the whole place buzzing with peasants, who were issuing from the Konak in troops, and we were obliged to wait some time in an antechamber, where we were at liberty to exchange a few remarks with a good-natured Italian-speaking official, before we were admitted to the great man’s presence. When we were admitted we found a very civilised being in thin white clothes of European cut, and who but for his fez might have been mistaken for an Italian. He looked dreadfully bored, and not without reason, for he had been reviewing hundreds of peasants all the morning; but he was extremely courteous, and treated us to the usual coffee and cigarettes. Paper cigarettes!—twenty years ago they would have been narghilés, ambery, Oriental, ablaze with gold and jewels, enchantingly barbaric; but their date is fled; the West advances and the East recedes; and now, even in Conservative old Bosnia, the pipe is degenerating into the symbol of a fogy! Sic transit gloria mundi. It was to be observed that the Kaïmakàm’s coffee-cup was twice as big as ours; but, as L— remarked, ‘we could not well complain.’ We were able to converse with him, as we found that he could speak French ‘full feteously.’ On our enquiring what the large assemblage of peasants meant, he explained that he was collecting the Redìf or reserve, adding incidentally, for our information, ‘Nous avons une petite guerre dans l’Herzek.’ But why, we asked one another again, were the reserves to be sent to Banjaluka?