Aug. 24th.—This being our last morning in Serajevo, we thought it prudent, taking into account the troublousness of the times and the perils that might beset our further pilgrimage, to have recourse to those magic arts, in which the Moslems of this city show themselves so proficient. To this end we have devoted the forenoon to ransacking the shops of the silversmiths, who chiefly traffic in such wares, for amulets, and stones of divers virtues; and, assuredly, if there be aught in ‘mystic cabala and spells,’ we may consider ourselves secure from evil.

When the Turks knew for what we were looking, they brought out strange caskets, and opened many a hidden drawer, that they might set before us gems and talismans of antique form. And many of these turbaned sages who had not such wares to impart for filthy lucre, yet, that they might hold before us, as it were, a beacon wherewith to guide our footsteps in the path of true philosophy, would display to us the rings and periapts that they wore on their person, or would take out potent stones from their wallets for our perusal. By this means we obtained much instruction in the cabalistic science of these true believers. Much virtue lies, it would appear, in the character of the stone itself, and a red carnelian carried about the person, or set in a signet ring, is held as potent an amulet as any. ’Twas a stone like this that the Princess Badoura wore in a purse attached to her girdle. When the curiosity of the luckless Camaralzaman prompted him to open this, he found therein ‘a red carnelian, engraven with unknown figures and characters. “This carnelian,” says the prince to himself, “must have something extraordinary in it, or my princess would not be at the trouble to carry it with her.” And indeed it was Badoura’s talisman or a scheme of her nativity drawn from the constellations of heaven, which the Queen of China had given her daughter as a charm that would keep her from any harm as long as she had it about her.’

Many of the stones were simply signets for rings, and derived their virtue merely from their material—red carnelian or blood-stone. These signets, however, not unfrequently were engraved with stars or a branch of mystic import, besides the Arabic name of the bearer. The talismans, pure and simple, are generally to be distinguished from simple seals by the writing not being reversed. To obtain such stones was naturally difficult, but I secured one, a red carnelian, engraved with the cabalistic words ‘Excellence belongs to God,’ and another mysterious charm—a blood-stone with monogrammatic spells which no Arabian scholar has yet been able to decipher for me—arranged in a Solomon’s seal. Ami Boué, who was struck with the number of charms used by the Mahometans of these parts, notices among the inscriptions on them, ‘the servant of God,’ ‘I trust in God.’ Many curious parallels might be cited among the posies of old English rings.

It is interesting to notice the repute in which the blood-stone is held here for these sigils and talismans. Those who are familiar with Gnostic gems will remember how often this stone, as well as the carnelian, appears engraved with the names of Iao, or Abrasax, or others of that mysterious race of genii. I have myself seen several Gnostic gems of this character from the Roman sites of the Illyrian coast land, and indeed cannot refrain from hinting a suspicion that there may be something more than a chance connection between the abundance of such charms in ancient and in modern Illyria.[262] Those who recognize how much the Mahometan Sclaves of Bosnia have preserved of their earlier Christian superstitions will hardly think it improbable that part at least of their wide-spread belief in the potency of such charms may be an inheritance from Præ-Turkish times.

To answer such questions with confidence more evidence is needed. This, however, is certain, that the present abundance of such charms in Bosnia is partly due to geological causes, being favoured by the presence of stones adapted for the manufacture, in some of the Illyrian valleys. We saw many such stones vended on the bridges of Serajevo by itinerant pedlars—an abundance of rudely cut carnelians, blood-stones, amethysts, agates, and rock crystals—intended not only for sigils and amulets, but also for purposes purely ornamental. It was the abundance of such stones that made Illyria—as I hope to point out later on—the seat of a regular manufacture of Roman gems. These seem to be found in considerable abundance on all Roman sites in Illyria; and even in Serajevo, where there are no remains of Roman habitation beyond a solitary votive inscription to the Thunderer,[263] we noticed several classic gems scattered among more modern talismans and signets. One which I succeeded in purchasing is a masterpiece of ancient art. The stone is a sard of a deep red colour, on which is engraved a faun holding an amphora on his shoulder; the proportions are perfect, and the whole so exquisitely engraved, that not a flaw in the execution can be detected even with the aid of a strong magnifying-glass.

The Prince of the Isles of the children of Khaledan was not more troubled when the bird of ill-omen snatched the blood-red carnelian of Badoura from his grasp, than is a Bosniac who has lost or broken his talisman. At Jablanica, in the valley of the Narenta, we heard of a Turk who a few days before had broken his amulet-ring. The poor man’s terror was piteous to see, and fearing that the injury to his charm portended that some terrible misfortune would overtake him, or that at least his hours were numbered, he immediately set out on a ten hours’ journey to Mostar, that the injury might be repaired by cunning artificers.

Not that this belief in charms is by any means confined to the Moslems of Bosnia. The Christians are equally given to it, and I saw some cabalistic gems with crosses and inscriptions in Cyrillian characters. The sale of amulets and charms, written on small slips of paper, is in fact a regular source of income to the Franciscan monks of this country, so much so that they no longer take the trouble to write their spells, but have called in the invention of printing to aid the Black Art! ‘At the present day,’ writes M. Yriarte, ‘it is no secret that the printing of these little cards is a recognised branch of industry with certain typographic establishments at Agram and Zara.’[264] The spells consist of verses of Scripture disposed in the same cabalistic fashion as verses of the Koràn among the native Mahometans; they are folded in the shape of a hat and suspended in a small wallet round the neck of the rayah, who looks to his purchase for protection against the Evil Eye and infernal spirits! If the Franciscan monks take a leaf from the Koràn, the Moslems on their part return the compliment; and it is not the least curious trace of the lurking penchant for the faith of their fathers betrayed by some of the descendants of the Bosnian renegades, that at times Mahometans have been known to send their amulets to the Franciscan monks that their blessing might lend an additional potency to the charm.

Among the Mahometans here scrolls containing verses from the Koràn are a very favourite amulet, and the modern Bosniacs show themselves as prone as the Pharisees of old ‘to enlarge their phylacteries.’ Sometimes these sacred excerpts are sewn into the dress, sometimes hung round the neck, or attached to the arm. One of our Zaptiehs showed us his, enclosed in a leathern case, in much the same manner as in a specimen which I have seen from Egypt. This was fastened round the upper part of his arm—a thoroughly Eastern mode of wearing amulets—if I may be allowed once more to call in evidence Prince Camaralzaman, who, on recovering dear Badoura’s carnelian, ‘having first kissed the talisman, wrapped it up in a ribbon, and tied it carefully about his arm.’

But of periapts those that took our fancy most, and of which we took care to lay in a goodly store for our own use, were certain necklaces or amulets from which were suspended carnelian arrowheads. Of these there was a regular traffic, and we saw large bunches of them hung up for sale in the larger bezestan; on enquiring their use, the merchant who sold them informed me that they were a most valuable and potent charm against skin diseases—in an Oriental city not an unimportant consideration—and insinuated, as a minor attraction, that if I wore them I need never be afraid of warts. I have seen exactly similar charms in Bulgaria, and others from Arabia, which are worn by the Arabs ‘as good for the blood’—so that their cutaneous virtues are widely appreciated. The Serajevan merchant said that they were imported from India—and, indeed, the Ganges may almost be said to have flowed into the Save! But the miniature arrowheads of these amulets command as high an interest from their form as from their Indian origin; and the sanctity with which superstition has invested what was once the everyday weapon of mankind, is one of the many proofs of the antiquity of that Stone Age which preceded the period when Bronze was the only metal known to mankind, and, at a remoter distance, this blessed Age of Iron.

We heard of other charms suspended round horses’ necks, though I am not in a position to describe any of these. But perhaps the most curious amulets were those worn by children against the Evil Eye. Here are some that we succeeded in carrying off. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, are of lead, severally representing a hare, a fish, a crested serpent, a tortoise. No. 5 is the claw of an eagle or some kind of bird, and No. 7 the horns of a stag beetle; both of these are mounted in tin sockets. No. 6 is a rude face carved in jet. These are fixed on the child’s fez, or elsewhere about the person, and the object served is to avert the first stroke, or as the Italians say the Gettatura of the Cattiv’ Occhio; this first stroke being alone considered fatal. It is for this reason that the amulets against its malign influence are usually of bizarre forms, in order to attract the Gettatura to themselves. But the natural objects—notably the animals, representations of which are used for this purpose here—are extremely interesting, inasmuch as they very strongly suggest a continuity with the amulets against the Evil Eye in use in classic times. Thus, on ancient gems the eye is seen surrounded by a lion, a hare, a dog, a scorpion, a stag and a serpent.[265] There is, besides, a well-known class of Roman brooches in the form of fishes, the animals mentioned above, and others, which may, one would think, with great propriety be looked on as nothing but amulets of the same kind, and many of which bear a striking resemblance to these Bosnian charms. Nor is this superstition, any more than the others, at all confined to the Mahometans of Bosnia; it is universal among the Serbs, who, it is said,[266] find great deliverance from the evil effects of the Cattiv’ Occhio by touching iron or looking at blue objects, and the Franciscan spells already described are chiefly directed against this same malign influence.

Having now fortified ourselves to our satisfaction with these and many talismans of virtue, and being supplied by our kind hosts at the Consulate with a store of wheaten bread, Bologna sausages, and eke Sicilian wine, we bade farewell to our friends at Serajevo, and set forth on foot once more. It was our intention to make our way as best we could to the Herzegovina over the wild ranges to the West, and, as the best line of attack on our mountain citadels, made for the gorge of the Želesnica over the foot of lower hills. About an hour from Serajevo we passed the last trace of comparative civilization. This was a brewery recently established by two Austrian settlers, with one of whom we conversed whilst discussing a glass of very fair German beer. The poor man was in a great state of trepidation. Only the day before his brother brewer had made off for the Austrian frontier, taking with him his family, and our host himself was preparing to follow his partner’s example as soon as he could get his effects together. ‘It’s not the Insurgents,’ he said, ‘that I’m afraid of—it’s only the Turks. You can’t believe what cut-throats those Bashi-Bazouks are!’

This was hardly inspiriting for ourselves, nor did our prospects seem more brilliant when, an hour or so afterwards, in a lonely part of the Želesnica valley, to which we had now descended, we heard a hue and cry behind us, and turning round saw a ferocious horseman armed to the teeth, clattering after us on a gorgeously caparisoned steed. Our infantry thereupon formed, and the cavalry halted a few paces off. Whereupon our dragoon, who, from the sumptuousness of his arms, must have been a Beg at least, roared out to us some commands, in which the insolence alone was intelligible. Thereupon we continued our march, resolved to pay no attention to the insults of the foe; but seeing that he hung about our flanks, and that his general demeanour was becoming momentarily more hostile, we made such an unmistakable sign that we had been sufficiently honoured by his company that he thought better of the matter and beat a retreat. There is one weapon which in Bosnia serves as efficiently for a passport as the Bujuruldu of the Governor-General!

We were in a certain amount of anxiety lest the enemy should renew his attack with reinforcements, but the valley grew wilder and the darkness was rapidly closing in to hide our position. Further up the stream we passed those two monuments, one with a crescent moon engraved upon it, which have been already described—and the position was one which the persecuted Bogomiles might well have chosen. Towards dusk the valley widened out a bit, and we perceived a village a little higher up; but not wishing to run the risk of letting our whereabouts be known, and infinitely preferring the open canopy of heaven to the vermin-ridden shelter of a Bosnian cabin, we sought out some other resting-place for the night, and soon discovered eligible quarters among some haystacks in a meadow by the side of the stream. These haystacks were of a peculiar form, being composed of small sheaves of hay skewered on an upright pole, but they afforded very welcome shelter from the night breeze; so that after taking our tea and an evening meal of simple contrivance, we lay down and slept sound enough till dawn.

Aug. 25th.—We had breakfasted and were on our way again by half-past four next morning, and the light of the rising sun revealed to us a most beautiful cliff of rock, as it were of ivory veined with gold, rising above our encampment. After passing the straggling village of Jablanica, which we had seen the night before, the valley contracted, and we were forced to climb along a rocky steep overlooking the torrent on the left. The mountains on each side grew higher, wooded with small oaks, thorns, and beeches, with here and there a brilliant Colossus of rock in the same chryselephantine style; while the stream below, pent up in so precipitous a gorge, naturally waxed more boisterous, and dashed from one emerald pool to another, flaked with snow-white foam. But our steep quickly became so impassable by reason of rocky bastions, that we were forced to relinquish our design of following the water-course, and in preference ascended the mountain whose flank we had been hitherto hugging. We made our way upwards with difficulty through the tangled brushwood, and from this summit descended once more through the stunted oaks, intending to steer for a hilly ridge running south-west towards Mt. Bielastica. Chancing, however, to hit on a path more or less in our direction, we followed it, and found ourselves before long at a small Christian hamlet consisting of two or three huts, each, as usual, in its paled enclosure. Here we found some peasants—men in long white tunics, women with dress and coiffure of Serbian fashion—all of whom were very friendly, and hastened to satisfy our thirst with sour milk. One of the girls, in the bloom of her age, was really beautiful. Both her hair and eyes, shaded with eyebrows low and broad, were dark, and, in the refinement of her features, the pale olive of her complexion, softly contrasting with her raven tresses and sparkling sombreness of eye, there was a charm almost Italian—had it not yet been eminently South-Sclavonic. She seemed as amiable as she was lovely, and was evidently recognised as a belle even in her small circle; for she alone, we noticed, was possessed of ear-rings. Her comeliness was indeed the beau idéal of Serbian fancy; but I should hardly have drawn attention to it here, were not really transcendent beauty so rarely seen among these uncultured South-Sclavonic peoples, perhaps one might say, among the barbarous members of our Aryan family generally. In a highly civilized society like our own, the proportion of Peris—if I dare generalize—is greater; but, on the other hand, if anyone wishes to find examples of the deepest human degradation, he must search, not among the mountain homes of the oppressed rayahs of Bosnia, but rather in the alleys of one of our great cities. With us the gamut of beauty is greater.

But it is high time to take a fond farewell! so, leaving this flower of the Bosnian highlands ‘to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air,’ we began ascending our ridge, and finding another path, came, an hour or so further on, to a leafy canopy supported by four poles, beneath which squatted two venerable Mahometans with sage and hoary beards. We recognised the signs of a rustic café, and taking our seats on a convenient grassy bank, refreshed ourselves with sundry fragrant cupfuls, the while much delighting our ancient coffee-maker and his fellow with an exhibition of English hunting-knives. We soon after reached the summit of the ridge, and following it along a succession of down-like lawns, gained, from its southern-most bluff just above the Priesnica torrent, a fine mountain panorama, and in especial a good view of the limestone precipices of Mt. Trescovica (which here forms the boundary between Bosnia and Herzegovina), frowning over lower forest-covered heights. So sharp was the contrast between the bold curves and contortions of the light limestone rock and the softer contours and verdant shades beneath, that one could fancy that the green undulations of the Planinas round had at one point burst into foaming billows; and, indeed, the mountain crest seemed to curl over as to imitate a breaking wave,—but alas! how flat is the poetry of nature when reduced to black and white by a prosaic pencil!

We now wanted to make our way into the Narenta valley over the north-west shoulder of Mt. Bielastica, but were turned out of our course by the deep gorge of the Priesnica, and thought it best to ascend the south-eastern promontory of a largish range known by the name of Mt. Igman—though the title covers a multitude of peaks. The scenery now became more beautiful than ever, though profoundly lonely, save here and there for a beautiful black squirrel leaping from branch to branch, or a huge brown vulture floating through the azure overhead. The steeps up which we now made our way were covered with forest more varied in its composition than those of Troghìr and Vučia. Beech, as there, was the predominant tree; but oaks and thorns, dark firs and pines, glaucous ashes and fountainous birches—often so happily blended and grouped as to transcend the planter’s art—disputed the sole dominion of the queen of the forest. The trees were perhaps hardly so large, as a rule, as those we had seen in the mountains of more northern Bosnia, but we noticed one pine no less than eighteen feet in circumference at a yard from the ground. Another speciality of this forest-mountain was that the trees were not so thickly crowded, and grew more freely. The sovereign beech has no need to gird herself so closely, but can stretch out her queenly arms, and spread far and wide her leafy flounces without fear of her robes being pressed and crumpled by the crowd. Glades are here more frequent, and ever and anon a charming lawny break would open a vista through the trees, and we caught a glimpse of the distant ridge of Bielastica.

We reached two summits of the mountain we were on, the first by our aneroid 4,350 feet above sea-level, the second 4,560. About these summits, which were less wooded than the lower regions, we found a variety of flowers, recalling the flora of our chalk downs—the yellow snapdragon, the scabious, white as well as mauve, and the heartsease, though larger and of a richer purple, much as we remembered them on our own Chilterns; and here, as there, the chalk-hill blue seemed the commonest butterfly. But besides these we noticed rosy sweet-williams and autumn crocus, with its double trinity of lilac petals—iris-like—a design for a gothic window. On one summit, gained earlier in the day, we found a curious bulbous plant with a tall stalk and drooping purple bells, each curving down on a separate stem like a pigmy snake’s head;[267] and some mountain lawns shone blue as the sky above, with a wondrous thistle whose leaves as well as flowers were tinged on their upper surface with a bright azure.

But what surprised me most, was to see the Solomon’s seal-like flower, which we had noticed in all the Bosnian forests, bristle up erect and stiff on the breezy mountain summit, after undergoing such a transformation that I should not have known it for the same plant had not I marked the gradual transition. It was now for the first time that I identified the mysterious floral weeping-willow, which had delighted us so often, with an old friend—the autumn gentian. As we descended the mountain we watched the transition with astonishment. The flowers, instead of circling the upright stem in a perfect coronal, crept to the upper side of it as it gradually declined. The leaves and bells grew larger—the stem as much as two feet long—till in the damper parts of the forest the whole was once more transformed into what looked like Solomon’s seal with tall azure cups stretching upwards from the back of its drooping stem—a perfect emblem of hope in sorrow.

But a curious feature in the mountain formation began to make itself painfully felt. There was no water. All the streams ran below ground. Vale and mountain were alike pitted with those inverted-conical hollows—the Dolinas, which we remembered in the limestone wilderness of Carniola—that terrible Karst. These circular hollows are nothing but swallow-holes, formed by the water in its passage to the caverns of its underground course. And so it happened that we were forced to climb on, hour after hour, through the mid-day heat of a Southern sun, without discovering a drop to drink. Our intense thirst rendered us so desperate that we willingly forsook our proper course to plunge into deep gorges in the forlorn hope of finding water. But it was invariably to find that all our labour had been wasted, and that we must climb upwards once more and seek elsewhere. Three times we thought that we had succeeded, and as many times we were disappointed; twice what we hoped to be drinkable turned out to be a filthy pool, almost too bad for cattle; once, however, we thought to have procured some from a shepherd whose temporary hut had attracted our attention from a height above. The poor man went and fetched us a bucket of liquid, but it was green slime! At last, about four in the afternoon—after eight hours of hard struggle since the coffee which we had quaffed at the roadside shed—almost fainting with drought we found, in a moist part of a track that we had hit on, some mules’ footprints, in which some of the rainwater from the storm of the previous day was still standing. This we eagerly sucked up through a hollow hemlock stem; and, though the beaker was novel, were much refreshed.

But what with our frantic searches after water and vain attempts to find a pass which exists nowhere but on the Major’s map, we had diverged very seriously from our right direction; and, on reaching a mountain edge, we discerned ourselves far out in our bearings, and far too much to the north-east. Two thousand feet below us we descried an inhabited country, and, delicious sight! a stream; and though night was closing in, and both my brother and myself are subject to the inconvenience of being night-blind, we resolved, if possible, to descend to this friendly valley before darkness set in. It was a race against night; but we literally bounded down, and striking on a shepherd’s path, were able to run the rest of the way, and descended two thousand feet and were quenching all the thirst of the day in the crystal stream, within half an hour from the time when we reached the mountain edge. A peasant whom we here met conducted us to a Han on the high road a little way off, and we found ourselves under shelter exactly sixteen hours after our start in the morning, during which time we had given ourselves hardly any rest.

Aug. 26th.—Our Han was a miserable little hovel, consisting chiefly of one room, which served at once for kitchen, squatting-room, and bedchamber, in which we slept on a wooden daïs amongst a lot of ragged Turks; but travellers must expect strange bed-fellows—and after all, our chamber was comparatively flealess. We found that we were on the high road which connects Sarajevo, with Mostar, the capital of the Herzegovina, but on the wrong side of the pass, and about seven hours’ walk from Coinica, the first town in the duchy of St. Sava, and our this day’s destination. We stopped on our way to refresh ourselves at a Han, of which I give a plan and elevation, in order to convey an idea of the ordinary cottage in this part of Bosnia: for the dwelling-houses are like the inns, except that their entrance arch opens on to the yard and not on to the road. The lower part is, as usual, reserved for horses and cattle. Making your way through these stables you ascend a ladder in the middle and emerge above on a central hall, at once guest-room and kitchen, with a divan at one end round a bay window open to the air, and the rafters above literally tarred by the smoke which rises from a chimneyless hearth of flat stones. The external walls here are of stone—a Herzegovinian characteristic.

We now ascended the pass which here forms the watershed between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and on our way met a party of Bashi-Bazouks,—according to all accounts the most serious danger that we were liable to meet with. They stopped us; but by great good fortune there happened to be a regular officer with them who understood our pass, and explaining its purport to the others, suffered us to pass on amidst commendatory ejaculations of ‘Dobro! dobro!’—‘Good! good!’ This piece of luck we attributed not only to the amulets on our person, but to the herb amulet, or cyclamen, which bloomed in the crevices of the cliffs, and a few of whose delicious flowers we had plucked, and with great forethought carried with us. The summit of the pass was, according to our observations, 3,080 feet above sea-level. Just here we had another slight adventure, for entering what we took to be a new Han, we discovered on reaching the upper storey that it was a Turkish watch-tower—one of the block-houses hastily run up on the outbreak of the insurrection. The soldiers, however, justly concluding that none but friends would plunge thus boldly into their midst, showed themselves very friendly, and gave us water, which we asked for, to drink. We met some other parties of volunteers, but were not molested.

As we descended the pass towards the valley of the Narenta, the scenery became grand and beautiful. To the left rose the grey limestone precipices of Bielastica, above the nearer forest-covered heights. The base of the mountain forms a wooded slope; above this succeeds a barren glacis of talus, and above this again tower the perpendicular walls of the mountain-citadel itself (for it looks uncommonly like an ancient fortress), with here and there magnificent bastions and even round-towers of rock, relieving the rugged-level line of the citadel walls. To the right of us rose another nearer wall of rock, along whose surface our roadway had been hewn out, in places not without engineering skill. This cliff was of a schistose formation, stained of the most brilliant varieties of hue—rich browns of every shade, a golden orange and a rose so deep and decided that we invoked the neighbouring cinnabar mines of Creševo in order to account for it. In places, again, the rocky wall was formed of sombre slate, but it too could take exquisite hues of lilac in a favourable light, and as we descended lower into the valley the rocks grew white as chalk. Below us was the deep gorge of a torrent, and on its further side the strata were in places knotted and grained and gnarled, like the roots of an old oak-tree.

Now, at a turn of the road, opens our first glimpse of the ancient duchy of St. Sava—or, as it is now more generally known, the Herzegovina—a magnificent vista of rocky mountains rising beyond the yet unseen valley of the Narenta, their dark blue shadows golden-fringed by the setting sun. The trees become more southern in their character; here and there are fine Spanish chestnuts; on a height to the right are the pines of an Italian landscape; wild vine becomes plentiful once more; we pass a Herzegovinian peasant in a peaked cap of Dalmatian character; and finally come in sight of Coinica, the first Herzegovinian town, with mosque and minaret reflected on the silvery waters of the Narenta; and behind, in a glorious amphitheatre, those barren limestone peaks, which, stretching away in unbroken chains to the Black Mountain on the south-east, form the Switzerland of Turkey, and are ringing even now with the battle-cry of freedom.

Across the river, and connecting the few houses on the Bosnian shore, known as Neretva, with Coinica on the other, is stretched a fine stone bridge, the finest we had seen in Bosnia, and indeed the only one that we had seen outside the walls of the capital. This is one of the oldest historic monuments in the country, and is said to have been the work of Hralimir,[268] King of the Serbs, though it has doubtless been restored by the Turks. Thus it is a living witness of the ancient connection between Bosnia and Serbia, in its wider sense, with which the history of Herzegovina, originally under Serbian princes, begins; and it forms a fitting avenue of approach to Coinica itself, which is celebrated in the history of the Bosnian kingdom as the scene of one of the few peaceful events in that unhappy national story that have become memorable. Coinica was in a certain sense the Runnymede of Bosnia. At the ‘Conventus’ or diet of Coinica in 1446, Thomas, last lawful king of this country, set his seal to a charter, which, though rather framed to protect royalty and the feudal régime, was in this sense a popular measure, that it was designed to check violence and abuses in days of anarchy, and that it was presented to the king for signature by an assembly of prelates and barons, who in a certain sense were representative. Its preservation is due to monks of the order of St. Francis, one of whom supplied a Latin copy of it to Farlato, who was thus able to insert it in his ‘Illyricum Sacrum.’[269] As we are on the spot, and as this is an unique constitutional memorial of the old Bosnian kingdom, and illustrates amongst other things the relation in which the two countries on whose borders we now are stood to one another in the days of Christian government, I have ventured to subjoin a translation:—

The cry is peace, and there is no peace! There is a pathos in these short enactments—the voice of national despair sounding faintly down the avenue of time.

The crops have already been trodden down beneath the troops of Turkish horsemen. The foe is at the gates, and anarchy and treason reign within. The discordant parties and turbulent nobles seem at length to realise that Bosnia must unite or perish. For a moment the bans forget their mutual feuds, and the bishops of both churches agree as brothers. Let the murderer no longer be unpunished; let Holy Church no longer be robbed with impunity; let the great barons of the land cease to disown their fealty to their sovereign; let some restraint be put upon the corruption of family life; let the coinage no longer suffer debasement. The Grand Inquisitor himself sets his seal to an act by which the hated Bogomiles are accorded comparative toleration. But it is all too late. Already the national treason shows symptoms of beginning, and it is found necessary to insert a special enactment against those betrayers of fenced cities. The impending national catastrophe seems to overshadow this High Court of Feudal Bosnia, just as even now in the still evening air the shadows of yonder mountains are creeping over the mosques and minarets of Coinica, and spreading a pall over the tents which the Turkish soldiery have pitched on the Bosnian bank.

One cannot wonder that Coinica was chosen as the meeting-place of the lords spiritual and temporal of Christian Bosnia. The situation on the one pass which connects the heart of Bosnia and her present capital with the duchy, and the magnificent bridge which here spans the Narenta, make it the key to the Herzegovina; and even the Turks have shown themselves so alive to its strategic importance that on the outbreak of the insurrection one of the first cares of the government was to secure the position by posting here a division of troops, whose tents we now descried on a height above the Narenta, as—after a short and satisfactory audience with the Kaïmakàm, whom we interviewed in a house which he was building on the Bosnian shore—we crossed the bridge, and, entering Coinica, find ourselves in the old duchy of St. Sava.

Here, after some difficulty, we have discovered a Han—or rather a loft above a stable—and the attendance is certainly in keeping with the place! We are waited on by a turbaned youth, who is a very good specimen of the untutored savage, as he exists in Bosnia at the present day. He comes into our room and gapes at us while we are eating; he takes up our scrap of wheaten bread—a bonne-bouche which we had brought with us from Serajevo—and fingers it complacently. When we ask for water, this child of nature snatches up the pitcher, and before handing it to us takes a good pull at the spout himself! Since then he has stared at us persistently, with interludes of spitting about the floor. We have hinted in every possible way that he is de trop—but to hints our young barbarian shows himself quite unapproachable—till at last all our respect for the sanctity of a host fairly breaks down, and we rid ourselves of our incubus by the magic word Haiti!

Nature’s gentlemen the Bosniacs certainly are not! There is not here that surviving polish of an older civilization—that inheritance of refinement which one traces amongst the Italian peasants, and which the traveller meets with even among the Rouman shepherds of the Carpathian wilds. The Bosniacs, on the contrary, show themselves grossly familiar when not cowed into bearish reserve; they have not even sufficient tact to perceive when their impertinence or obtrusive curiosity is annoying. They show no delicacy about prying into our effects, and in this respect are far behind the Wallacks and other uncivilized European populations with whom I have come in contact. They never displayed gratitude for any small largess that we bestowed on them, though they grabbed at it with avidity; and their general ingratitude was confirmed by those who have had more experience of the country. Amongst the Mahometan burghers there certainly is a very considerable amount of politeness and a natural dignity, due to the grand Oriental traditions with which their conversion to Islâm has imbued them, to which I willingly pay homage. But among the Christians, even of the highest social strata, the want of politeness and that ungenerous vice of mean spirits—ingratitude—are simply astounding. It has already been mentioned that when the new Serbian cathedral was being built, the Russian government presented the Greek congregation of Serajevo with a magnificent set of icons and other church furniture. This costly gift was sent carriage free as far as Brood; but from this town to Serajevo the cost of transport, amounting to at most a dozen or so ducats, fell on the Christian merchants of Serajevo, who, on their own showing, are the wealthiest part of the population of a large city. Will it be believed?—instead of paying the money at once and with pleasure, they entered a formal protest at the Russian Consulate against defraying this trifling expense! The Russian Consul was profoundly disgusted.

But I should be guilty of passing a very shallow judgment on the sometimes too obtrusive familiarity of these people if I did not point out that it is but an unpleasant phase of what is really one of the most valuable qualities preserved by the Bosnian people in the days of bondage. It is part and parcel of a democratic habit of mind common to the whole Serbian, and indeed the whole South-Sclavonic race. It is the representative in conversation of those primitive social relations which hold throughout all these lands within the common yard of the house-community, and have survived alike the imported feudalism of the Middle Ages, and the Turkish conquest. In these Illyrian lands I have often been addressed as ‘brat,’ or brother, and the Bosniacs are known to call the stranger ‘shija’—neighbour. I, who write this, happen individually not to appreciate this ‘égalitaire’ spirit. I don’t choose to be told by every barbarian I meet that he is a man and a brother. I believe in the existence of inferior races, and would like to see them exterminated. But these are personal mislikings, and it is easy to see how valuable such a spirit of democracy may be amongst a people whose self-respect has been degraded by centuries of oppression, and who in many respects are only too prone to cower beneath the despot’s rod: for one need not be enamoured of liberty coupled with equality and fraternity not to perceive that, when the choice lies between it and tyranny, freedom, even in such companionship, is to be infinitely preferred; and a man must be either blind or a diplomatist not to perceive that in the Sclavonic provinces of Turkey the choice ultimately lies between despotism and a democracy almost socialistic.

Aug. 27th.—There was nothing to see in Coinica except the bridge and a mosque or two, so we were again on our way this morning, following the road along the Narenta valley. The scenery much reminded us of the valley of the Izonzo as you descend southwards across the Julian Alps. The whiter and more barren rocks: the signs of a more southern climate in the ripe grapes and what vegetation there was, as well as in the intense heat of the sun over our heads: the houses, no longer of wood, but of white stone,[280] almost tower-like, with high stone stairs outside—recalled one after the other the metamorphoses which had struck us on a former pilgrimage when emerging on the stifling valleys of Gradisca from the Predil Pass. And assuredly the Narenta flowing beside us was as emerald green in its transparency as ever those Sontian pools which feasted Dante’s eyes when the guest of Pagano della Torre. The Narenta in its upper course is very dangerous to bathe in, since the current is not only very rapid, but has short cuts by underground caverns which form whirlpools not easy to detect in the general turmoil of the surface waters, but which are capable none the less of occasionally sucking down into earth’s bowels some of the enormous trees which are seen to float down this river. We, however, discovered a safe and sheltered pool of this wonderful blue-emerald purity, in which we disported ourselves while the soup of our mid-day meal was brewing on the shore.

Towards evening, still following the road, we began to leave the Narenta valley, and to cut off a great bend of its course by zigzagging over some heights. Here we passed some sick and wounded Turks en route from the scene of war, and other soldiers with them, but our pass again stood us in good stead. The heights above the road looked more desolate than any we had seen, as the brushwood had been set on fire, apparently to prevent the enemy from advancing unperceived and perhaps surprising a convoy, so that, as we passed, volumes of smoke were rising above us from blackened thickets. From the summit of this pass opened out a grand view of naked mountain peaks. Rapidly descending we came once more upon the Narenta at a point where a party of Turks, under the direction of a Belgian engineer, were using their best endeavours to complete an iron bridge across the river.

The Belgian engineer, who had been kindly told by consular agency to look out for us, received us with open arms, and hospitably offered us the shelter of his tent for the night. He told us, as a good illustration of Turkish laisser-aller, that the bridge, which had been brought here at a large expense from England, had lain for two years on the river bank without being set up. At last the outbreak of the insurrection harshly aroused the authorities to a sense of their negligence; and now the work has to be pushed on with the greatest hurry imaginable, as the bridge is becoming every day more indispensable for the transport of cannon and other heavy munitions and supplies into the Herzegovina. The workmen employed are only Mahometans, but there are some booths hard-by for the sale of raki and provisions, kept by a small Christian colony. The Belgian himself lodged at the Mahometan village of Jablanica, a little further down the valley, whither we presently accompanied him to accept of his hospitable shelter.

As we were walking towards this our engineer pointed to a part of a maize-plot on the roadside to the right, where the maize was slightly trodden down. ‘Do you see that?’ he asked; ‘perhaps you would like to know how the maize got trodden down there?’

He then recounted to us the following narrative, which, coming from an eye-witness, served to enlighten us considerably as to the amenities of Turkish rule.

It must be prefaced that at the present time no one can go from one village to another without being provided with a teskeri or Turkish pass, and that it was one of the functions of the Belgian engineer, as head of the Road Commission, to examine and set his visé on the teskeris of all who passed along this road. A few days ago a young Herzegovinian Christian—a fine young fellow, according to the Belgian—stopped at his tent and showed his pass, which proved to be quite en règle, and was visé’d by the engineer accordingly. He then proceeded on his way with a light heart, but as he was passing by the booths which I have mentioned near the bridge, two Turks—not officials or soldiers of any kind, but armed nevertheless—came up and insolently demanded to see his teskeri. This they had not a shadow of a right to ask for; but the young fellow, knowing that in this country might is right, did not hesitate to comply, and handed his teskeri for their examination. Thereupon the two Mahometans, who could not read a syllable, swore that the whole thing was wrong, and seizing hold of the young rayah began to drag him along, crying out to the Christians at the booths that they were taking him off to the Road Commission.

But they had not proceeded far when they suddenly fell upon him, and hauling him off into the maize where we had seen it trampled down, butchered him with seven blows from their handshars, one of which half cut through his neck. They then made off in broad daylight, making their way through the Christians and others whom the young fellow’s cries were bringing to the scene of the tragedy—not a soul daring to lay a hand on the murderers, who were also Turks! The Belgian, who was in his tent, had been also roused by a loud ‘Homaum! homaum!’ as he expressed the cries, and coming out, found the young rayah, who had succeeded in crawling to the road, past human assistance.

The Belgian at once sent for Zaptiehs to arrest the murderers; but by the time these functionaries were on their way the birds were flown. At any rate they never arrested them—but it is well known that Zaptiehs often let felons escape on purpose, if they are true believers.

When I say that since this event the Belgian has been in a state of painful agitation, I am but feebly expressing the state of mind in which we found that unfortunate official. His colleague, an Italian, has already made off—and the poor man himself has been exercising his engineering sagacity in planning the nearest route over the mountains by which to escape to the Dalmatian frontier. He had collected his effects, and was ready to start at a moment’s notice. He thought he could reach the border at the nearest point in ten hours. He was most afraid of the Bosniac Mussulmans, and especially of the Bashi-Bazouks; and when we suggested that he, being in the Turkish service, ought at least to feel secure, he assured us that this was not sufficient to restrain the fanaticism of the native Moslems, who regard the office of an engineer with pious horror, and curse the new-fangled iron bridge whenever they pass it, as the devil’s handiwork! His fears were so genuine that he dared not walk as far as the bridge—just five minutes off—without an escort of Zaptiehs!

The engineer’s funk, however, did not prevent him from providing us with a most satisfactory repast, consisting of pili, eggs, and fried slices of gourd, which are excellent. He told us that had it been earlier in the summer it would not have been safe to sleep in his tent, as this spot, as well as the whole Narenta valley, is infested in June with snakes and scorpions. During that month the peasants dare not go about with bare feet, as they like to do at other seasons; and indeed, though the dangerous season has passed, we have noticed that the people about here are more swathed as to their legs than ordinary Bosniacs.

Aug. 28th.—This morning our Belgian, who was hardly reassured by the news which we brought from Serajevo, has suddenly discovered that he has a pressing engagement at Trieste—to meet his mother—and hands us a letter to the Vali demanding ‘a temporary leave of absence’—his sole object of course being to visit the old lady. We were much touched by this display of filial affection.

The heat being again cruel, we secured the luxury of a horse to carry our knapsacks to Mostar, the destination of our to-day’s trudge; and, while waiting for the due equipment of our beast in the yard of our Mahometan Kiradjì or driver, we have leisure to observe a most curious phenomenon in the costume of the female Moslems of this district. In every other part of Bosnia and the Herzegovina the veil is de rigueur with the wives and mothers of the faithful. But here at Jablanica, and in this part of the valley of the Narenta on both sides of the spot where the little river Rama[281] debouches into it, the Mahometan women discard their yashmak[282] with one accord, and not only show themselves before strangers of the other sex bare-faced, but do not blush to hold converse with them. It is true that even here they display on occasion a certain shyness of male regards; and the Belgian warned us that, if looked at too curiously, they did not confine themselves to a prudish Haiti! but were known to vindicate their modesty with a volley of stones. We, however, were never saluted after this fashion, the fair Mahometans contenting themselves at most with turning away their faces from the passing Giaour.

But while waiting in our Kiradjì’s yard, we were treated with far greater condescension by the womankind of his family. The yard itself was very unlike the stockaded prison-court of our earlier Bosnian experiences. Here, instead of the tall palisade which as a rule so effectively screens the members of the harem from the public gaze, was simply a low stone wall; and while we were contemplating the dwelling-house, built, like the yard wall, of the rough limestone of the country, and admiring the elegant ogival windows, out came an old Mahometan dame and two younger women—the mother, we conjectured, and two daughters of the house—and calmly took stock of us with faces unveiled, and without the slightest sign of bashfulness. They smiled, and we smiled, and though our stock of Bosniac was limited, we made ourselves intelligible to one another by means of the universal language of signs, and in this fashion carried on a very edifying conversation. As the old lady was particularly desirous of trying on our spectacles, we hastened to gratify her wishes; and as we were particularly anxious to see the carnelian and other rings of virtue that adorned their fair fingers, they obligingly held out their hands for our perusal. We were pleased to see the finger-nails of these would-be Houris stained with rosy henna—a fond reminiscence of the wings, which, as every true-believer knows, Eve lost little by little when driven forth beyond the gate of Paradise. Here, at last, we have Darwin defeated on his own ground! Preposterous to suppose that these who still show traces of the rainbow plumes wherewith their first angelic fore-mother was wont to flutter—that these Rhododactyls—should be great granddaughters of hirsute gibberers!

From the waistband of these dutiful daughters of Eve knives and keys were suspended by a short string, on which were strung a variety of quaint objects, which we were gracefully accorded permission to examine more closely. They proved to be a selection of large beads of antique fabric—some apparently Venetian, one certainly Roman; and intermixed with these were the vertebræ of some small animal—possibly worn as amulets.

The clasp-knife itself, or Britva as it is called, attached to this chatelaine, is an interesting feature of the national costume of Serbian women. These are sometimes of the most gorgeous workmanship, inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, and are alluded to in the popular poetry.

Thus in the tragic poem entitled ‘The Stepsisters,’ which Sir John Bowring has translated, Paul arouses the jealousy of his wife by presenting his sister Jélitza with