THROUGH THE BOSNIAN POSSÁVINA AND USSORA.
Insurrectionary Agitation among Southern Sclaves—Proclamation
of the Pashà of Bosnia—We land in Turkish Brood—Moslem
Children—Interview with the Mudìr—Behaviour of our
Zaptieh—Peasants of Greek Church—How these Christians love
one another—Arrive at Dervent—Interview with Pashà of
Banjaluka—Hajduks’ Graves—Rayah Hovel—Difficulty with our
Host—Doboj; its old Castle and Historical Associations—A
South Sclavonic Patriot—First Mountain Panorama—The ‘Old
Stones,’ a prehistoric Monument—Tešanj: its old Castle and
History—‘_Une Petite Guerre_’—Latin Quarter of Tešanj—Soused
by an old Woman—Influence of Oriental Superstitions on Bosnian
Rayahs—Argument with the Kaïmakàm—Excusable Suspicions.
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.’
[Illustration: View on River Save, looking from Slavonian Brood towards
the Bosnian Shore.]
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.
[Illustration: Plan of Turbine Mill.]
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.
[Illustration: Bosnian Girl of the Possávina.]
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 40,000_l._,
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.
[Illustration: Diagram of Salt-mill.]
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.’
[Illustration: Old Castle of Doboj.]
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.
[Illustration: The ‘Old Stones,’ near Tešanj.]
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.
[Illustration: Castle of Tešanj.]
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?
[Illustration: Turkish Café, Tešanj.]
The Kaïmakàm attached a new Zaptieh to us, with orders to find us
suitable lodgings in the town. What was our dismay when he led us into
a dark and filthy stable!—but following him up a ladder we emerged on
the landing of what we afterwards learnt by experience to be the typical
Bosnian inn, in which the whole ground floor is set apart for horses.
Our room was fairly clean, but infested with an ambuscade of carpeting;
and our host, who was a Roman Catholic, soon provided us with a meal of
which the principal features were hard-boiled eggs, flat cakes of very
fair bread, and a curious Asiatic dish of clotted cream called _kaimak_,
which in Bosnia varies according to the local cuisine, from an approach
to Devonshire cream to the mere scum of boiled milk, and is sometimes
mixed with little lumps of honey or sugar. From here I adjourned to a
neighbouring café, discovered by entering another stable and climbing
another ladder, leaving L⸺ to the safe keeping of our Zaptieh, who
was snoring on the floor of our room. I found myself amidst a bevy of
comfortable Turks, who were alternately sipping their mocha and smoking
their long chibouks,—for they belonged to the old school, and were robed
in flowing dressing-gowns and surmounted with pompous turbans.
In exploring the streets—which are narrow and filthy, though sweeter
than those of many a North-German town!—I was struck once more with
the extraordinary jumble of wares exhibited in each store. Instead
of one shopman reserving his energies for haberdashery, and another
for confectionery, and so forth, you would come upon a goodly row of
Turks, squatting hopefully on what is equally the floor and counter of
their several shops, each of whom set up to supply his customers with
turbans, coffee-cups, knives, boots, tobacco, carpets, Turkish delight,
gun-flints, water-melons, and amulets against warts; so that it was
rather confusing to decide which shop to go to if you wanted to suit
yourself with anything, and you could not be certain of getting the best
tobacco where you had observed the nattiest sandals! Amongst the wares,
wax, which is one of the principal articles of Bosnian export, formed
an important item; and besides these miscellaneous stores there were
others more exclusive, some of which were set apart for the sale of salt,
exposed in massive cubes. But though there are prolific salt-springs not
so very far off, at Dolnja Tuzla, towards the Serbian border, it must not
be assumed that these were native products, for Bosnia prefers to import
her salt from Galicia, Dalmatia, Sicily, and Wallachia. But the shop
which most took my fancy was the blacksmith’s; it was quite irresistible
to see a grimy old Turk in a majestic head-piece—there is something
comically incongruous between a turban and a sledge-hammer!—alternately
working the beam of his bellows and hammering away on a primitive anvil,
fixed into a rough section of oak trunk.
While trying to make my way to the other side of the valley I found
myself hemmed in by a variety of fences, which I was forced to surmount,
and run the gauntlet through private orchards, with whose owners I
happily avoided an encounter, and finally emerged with a whole skin on
the Christian quarter, which lies east of the castle. The inhabitants
here belonged to the Latin Church; but though the Roman Catholic
priesthood in Bosnia leans towards Croatia, and shrinks from Serbia with
more horror than from Stamboul, yet these Latin women of Tešanj betrayed,
perhaps unconsciously, their sisterhood with the heretics beyond the
Drina. They were not coiffed Croat fashion, in a kerchief, like the
peasants we had seen in the Bosnian Possávina, but their hair was plaited
round a fez, _à la belle Serbe_, with flowers stuck in coquettishly on
one side, and drooping gracefully about the ear. They displayed, too,
the Serbian partiality for purple, and a maiden with a scarf crossed
over the bosom recalled the peasant girls about Belgrade. The rest of
their dress—the double girdle, the twin aprons, the tunics with expanding
sleeves—may be described as South Sclavonic. The men, though surmounted
with turbans, differed usually from the Turks in wearing a white tunic in
place of the gorgeous vest and jacket, and short flowing white trowsers
instead of indigo bags. Those Christian men, however, who were more well
to do, and inhabited the mercantile part of the town, were, like our
landlord, in complete Turkish costume.
[Illustration: Latin maiden of Tešanj.]
As it was now near sunset a large assemblage of the neighbouring girls
and housewives had gathered together at a spring to draw water and
gossip. I found them very friendly, except one old woman, between whom
and myself a most unfortunate disagreement arose. The cause of our tiff
was that I—being, as the reader may have perceived, curious in pots
and pans—so far trespassed on the old lady’s forbearance as to attempt
to pocket—not indeed that antique and ponderous utensil itself—but a
sketch of the water-pot, which, after duly filling at the spring, she
had in just confidence laid down, the better to gossip with her coevals.
But chancing to turn round, and seeing the outline of her ‘tikvo’—for
that was the name by which she knew it—transferred to my paper, the old
woman’s fury knew no bounds; and taking the law of copyright into her
own hands, she snatched up the outraged vessel and soused a good portion
of its contents over my person. She then emptied out what few drops
remained—she would have none of your ‘water bewitched’!—and hastily
refilling her pot, left in a huff. It appears that she had taken me for
a sorcerer, and had been piously desirous of exorcising the devil within
me by a baptism of a rough and ready sort. Her motives may therefore
have been honourable to her head and heart, though such misconceptions
are sometimes unpleasant at the time. Meanwhile, here is the tikvo, and
two other vessels which I succeeded in drawing without any enforced
lustrations—one of a gourd-like shape, common in Southern Europe; the
other a water-jug like a coffee-pot, of the tinned copper which in Bosnia
greatly supplants earthenware.
[Illustration: Pots from Tešanj.]
There is a sad side, too, to that episode of the old woman in the
intense ignorance and concomitant superstition which it reveals. In
other parts of Eastern Europe I have met with just the same repugnance
against allowing me to take representations of animate or even inanimate
belongings. In Wallachia I once nearly felt a peasant’s whip for
attempting to sketch his horse. In other parts of Bosnia I have found
natives who refused to allow me to sketch them, even when I offered them
money if they would let me do so. I can only refer it to a wide-spread
underlying belief in the Black Art, and especially that grim outgrowth of
Fetishism which our old friend Thomas Ingoldsby places so vividly before
us in the ‘Leech of Folkestone.’ The almost universal use of amulets and
talismans, of which more will be said later on, is but symptomatic of the
same superstition, and its adoption by the rayahs is chiefly due to the
same Oriental influences which are traceable, in more ways than one, in
their everyday life.
While returning to our Han from the spring I witnessed a good instance
of the way in which Mahometan ideas touching the seclusion of women have
taken hold of the rayah mind.
As I was proceeding along a lane between some cottage enclosures, I
happened to pass a Christian woman on the other side of the palings,
and certainly on the wrong side of forty. So far was I from staring at
her that I had hardly noticed her in passing, till she screamed after
me, ‘Hai’ ti! Hai’ ti!’ ‘Quick; be off!’ a usual expression of veiled
Mahometan women in Bosnia if passed too closely on the road; and on my
looking round to see if anything was the matter, she repeated these
expressions with increased emphasis, and, rapidly raising her voice to
cockatoo pitch, gave vent to the enquiry, which, though couched in not
too courteous terms, few visitors to Bosnia remain long unacquainted
with—_Što glédaš?_ ‘What are you staring at?’ The view was certainly not
very attractive, and as she seemed inclined to follow up her remarks
with some more practical demonstration, and I myself was anything but
desirous of crossing the path of a second Bosnian virago on the same
afternoon, I beat a hasty retreat, venturing, however, to think that it
would have been better if she had carried out her Oriental principles to
their logical conclusion and veiled herself entirely. The rayah women of
some parts of Bosnia—about Pristina, for example—actually go so far as
to do this. I found that L⸺ had been faring worse than myself; for in
attempting to penetrate along another lane he was received in front and
flank with such a volley of stones as repulsed him with loss.
Next morning, hearing that the Kaïmakàm wished to see us before we
proceeded on our way, we visited the Konak about seven; but were obliged
to waste nearly two hours of a time of day most valuable to pedestrians,
waiting for the great man. While we were thus doomed to loaf, a very
learned-looking Effendi of the Kaïmakàm’s divan came up and solicited
permission to look through our spectacles, exchanging the compliment
by lending us his own, which we found to our surprise to be made of
plain window-glass, and even that, partly owing to dirt and partly to
its inferior quality, was anything but crystalline, and positively
obscured the vision. But he probably found them useful in impressing the
Kaïmakàm with a due sense of his erudition, and he certainly succeeded in
focussing his subordinates with them most effectually. The worthy man’s
delight on looking through spectacles that really aided the sight was
something childish, but we were not inclined to accept his overtures for
a swap.
At last the Kaïmakàm himself appeared, attired this time in a light white
suit of most correct cut. He was evidently a Turk of the new school,
and showed a most intelligent interest in our map, which he understood
perfectly, and pointed out on it the route of the new railway which has
just been begun in Bosnia.
He was all politeness; but when we sketched out our projected mountain
route to Travnik, and added moreover that we were going on foot, he
betrayed such a desire to dissuade us from our purpose as convinced us
that he had some misgivings as to our object in visiting the country,
and that he more than half suspected us of being insurgent emissaries
of some kind. When we expressed our intention of making Comušina, a
small Christian village where there is a Franciscan monastery, our that
day’s destination, he began to urge all kinds of obstacles to our plan.
There was no road—the country was impassable—we should not be able to
procure any food, and it was impossible that we should ever find our way
to Travnik by this route. Let him persuade us to go round by Zepše, and
then follow the high road; he would see that we were provided with a good
arabà (a Bosnian waggon)—or would we prefer horses?
We, however, remained firm, and our pass from the Vali being imperative,
there was nothing for it but to let us have our way. The game, as he
thought, was played out; and further concealment being useless, he
dropped his objections with admirable tact, and mentioned incidentally
that we should come in for a large Christian gathering at Comušina—‘_Ce
que peut vous intéresser_.’ He evidently believed himself that we knew
all about the gathering already, and I do not blame his suspicions; for
the moment was far more critical than we had any idea of, and to the
mind of even a liberal Turk our design of leaving the road and plunging
into the mountains was, on any other hypothesis, sheer insanity—for
anything that we might protest about the English passion for scenery
and mountaineering. We afterwards discovered that in addition to the
Zaptieh whom he forced on us as guide and guard, another was despatched
to Comušina with an express commission to observe our movements.