RAVELS AND ROlligL, lNTHENE®iilT ■WlLIJAM ivnttiiR THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES i.. Travels and Politics in the Near East Travels and Politics i\ THE NEAR EAST Bv William Miller TVITH MAP ANT> ILLUSTRATIONS wpijsj'rwps.; NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY PUBLISHERS cs^\^- V 375 TO MY WIFE, THRICE !\IY COMPANION ON THE BALKAN " Ei 06 iiTT ivoc; (ip\oiTo, H) (pi}ovioi Kara rwiVo, afxa\(n> T av £('»/, (vai TToAAw Kpariaroi' ttiivtcov tdvihj}'^ Kara yvwiU}]V Ti)v tjiu)}'. 'AAAa yctp TOVTO aTTOfiuv (T(pi Kd) OjUt'/ Y'^(i'O)' /hi) KOTe n> 7H'(jr«t-" — Herodotus, v. 3. 3027941 PREFACE This book is the result of four visits to the Balkan Peninsula in the years 1894, 1896, 1897, and 1898, and of a long study of the Eastern question. While I can honestly say that I have acquainted myself with all the principal works which have appeared on the Near East during the last ten years, I have in all cases relied upon my own personal observations and inquiries, conducted upon the spot, for the statements made in the following pages. Most persons who have written upon South-Eastern Europe have treated the subject in a partisan spirit, some championing the claims of one nationality, others espousing the cause of another. Not being an enthusiastic admirer of any one Balkan race to the exclusion of all others, I have endeavoured to discover what is most for the material progress and welfare of them all. The critics of " The Balkans " were kind enough to say that I had been impartial in narrating the history of the Peninsula ; I trust that I may be found to have been equally so in describing its present condition, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to a host of persons who have assisted me with in- IX Preface formation and advice. Among them I would specially mention Baron Kutschera, Baron von Benko and Baron von Mollinary, of Sarajevo ; Baron de Goumoens and M. Bohumil Para of Plevlje; Mr. R. J. Kennedy, C.M.G., British Minister to Monteneoro ; the Montenecjrin Prime Minister and his colleague, the Minister of Plnance ; M. Zaimis, the present, and M. Rhallis, the ex-Prime Minister of Greece ; General Con- stantine Smolenski, the Greek Minister of War ; ' M. Deligeorgis, M. Lambros Coromelas, and Mr. Arthur Hill, of Athens, as well as the editors of the "Ao-ru and the WKpoiroXic; ; Dr. and Mrs. Dawes, of Corfu, and Professor G. Gelcic, of Ragusa ; Sir A. Biliotti, Herr Pinter, Herr Berinda, and M. Lyghounes in Crete ; H.H. the Prince of Samos and Mr. Denys L. Marc, British Consul in that island; H.E. Baron Von Calice, Austro- Hungarian Ambassador at Con- stantinople ; Mr. Block, dragoman of the British Embassy, and Mr. Tarring, late judge of the Consular Court ; Sir J. W. Whittall, Mr. ¥. S. Cobb, British Postmaster, Mr. Edwin Pears, Dr. Washburn, Professor Panaretoff, Dr. Dickson and Mr. Whitaker, of the same place ; Consul- General and Mrs. Blunt and Dr. House, of Salonica ; Mr. Wratislaw, M. Shopoff, and M. Constantine Caltcheff, of Philippopolis ; Dr. Clark and Dr. Kingsbury, of Samakov ; M. Grekoff and Professor Slaveikoff, of Sofia ; and the Bulgarian ' Left (jflicc Xovfinbcr lu. X Preface diplomatic agents at Constantinople, Athens, and Cetinje. I am also much obliged to Miss M. Chadwick for a number of photographs. I have adopted the Croatian system of spelling the Slav names of persons and places, because it is usually found in the best books, and avoids the confusion which other methods of transliteration produce. Moreover, Croatian has this advantage for Western readers — ^that it employs the Latin character. For those who are not familiar with it I append a short table of pronunciation. c is pronounced tz e.g. Marica = Maritza c ,, ch e.g. Petrovic= Petrovich c „ tch e.g. Bocae = Botchatz j ,, y e.g. Jablanica = Yablanitza s ,, sh e.g. Dusan = Dushan z ,, j e.g. Zabliak = Jabliak No good English map of the Peninsula being in existence, I have obtained permission to use the best German map, which I have corrected so as to show the strategic rectification of the Thessalian frontier at the peace of December 4, 1897. Un- fortunately this has necessitated leaving the bulk of the names in the map in their German dress. W. M. 10, Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea. October 31, 1898. XI INTRODUCTION When the inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula are meditating- a journey to any of the countries which lie to the west of them, they speak of " going to Europe," thereby avowedly considering themselves as quite apart from the European system. So far as " Europe " is concerned this geographical inac- curacy possesses considerable justification. For of all parts of our continent none is so little known to the average traveller as the Near East, from which he is nowadays but two-and-a-half days' distant by rail. It is no exag'geration to say that many regions of Africa are more familiar to the cultured Eno-lishman or German than the lands which lie beyond the Adriatic. Only when a newspaper correspondent reports from time to time that some fresh conspiracy has been detected against the King of Servia or the Prince of Bulgaria, that the Greeks are fighting against the Turks or paying their creditors, and that Prince Nicholas of Monteneo-ro is disposing of one of his daughters in marriage, does public attention turn for a moment to the Balkan States. Yet to the politician and the his- torical student, to the traveller and the artist, to xiii Introduction the man of business and the man of letters, few countries should prove so interesting as these. In the Balkan Peninsula that uncanny bird, the Eastern question, has its eyrie, and there one day, when Russia is ready, the fate of the Ottoman Empire may be decided. There, too, under the auspices of Austria- Hungary, perhaps the most remarkable experiment in the government of an Oriental country is being conducted ; while, in other parts of the same Peninsula, young and newly-emancipated nations are demonstrating their capacity, or incapacity, for managing their own affairs on European lines with all the modern apparatus of Parliament and Press. It has been reserved for the Balkans, too, to present us with the most curious instance of patriarchal government now extant ; and, in common with Asiatic Turkey, to prove to the world that great military power may co-exist with the feeblest and most corrupt of civil administrations. Here again, in the past, great empires, of which Western Europe is almost uncon- scious, rose up at the bidding of some Bulgarian or Servian Tsar, and then fell at his death, yet, falling, left memories behind them which have had a lastino- effect on the politics of our time. The battlefield of Kossovo, the exploits of the great Emperor Dusan, and the feats of the mediaeval rulers of Bulg-aria — these are scarcely even names to most of us in the West, but in the Balkans are living, and sometimes very awkward, realities. Here, four times within the present century, the armies of the Russian and the xiv Introduction Turk have met ; and here, just twenty years ago, the collective wisdom of Europe closed the last great war of our time. The traveller in pursuit of the picturesque or in Hight from the commonplace will find here what he seeks and can escape what he shuns. Full justice has scarcely even now been done to the natural beauties of South- Eastern Europe. The splendid primaeval forests of Bosnia, the azure fiords of Dalmatia, the snow mountains on the Macedonian frontier of Bulgaria, the gentle Enpflish scenerv of Servia, and the "rim maoni- ficence of Monteneo-ro's limestone citadel — these remain, even now, almost unvisited. x^nd in the Balkan Peninsula the interest of travel and the beauties of the landscape are immensely enhanced by the extraordinary variety of costume and cus- toms, which still happily linger on in most parts of the Near East. No Italian market-place can show such an amount of colour as the squares of the Dalmatian coast-towns ; no Swiss mountaineer can compare in physique or in dress with the gigantic, crimson-clad highlanders of Cetinje ; no artist's model is half so artistic as the shaven Albanian, with his arsenal of weapons. From the practical standpoint, too, the British trader might with advantage turn more attention to countries which, though individually small, between them muster over ten million inhabitants, and where the British commercial traveller is almost unknown. And, finally, to the literary man, the Balkan Peninsula, with its extraordinary medley of races and languages, XV Introduction affords a field of observation which is all but virgin soil. Here the Hulgarian and the Greek, the Albanian and the Serb, the Osmanli, the Spanish jew and the Roumanian, live side by side. Here we have the curious phenomena of people speaking practically the same language yet using a different alphabet ; of the same race, split up into three distinct religrions ; of converts from Christianitv becomino" more Mussulman than the Turks them- selves. In short, the Balkan Peninsula is, broadly speaking, the land of contradictions. Everything is the exact opposite of what it might reasonably be expected to be ; the traveller finds himself in the realms of romance, where all his wonted ideas are turned topsy-turvy, and soon falls into the native distinction between what they do "on the Balkan" and what they do in " Europe." XVI CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE THRESHOLD OF THE NEAR EAST : ISTRIA AND DALMATIA. PAGE From Trieste to Pisiiio — Istrian politics — Tlie Foiha — Abbazia — Pola — Characteristics of Dalmatia — Dalmatian seamen — Lussin- piccolo — Zara — Sebenico — The Kerka F'alls — Dalmatian dress — Slavs and Italians — Want of railways — Trail — Spalato — Ragusa, the "South Slavonic Athens" — Dalmatian politics — Lacroma — Valle\- of the Ombla— The Bocche di Cattaro . . . 1-40 CHAPTER n. A PATRIARCHAL PRINCIPALITY : MONTENEGRO. Effects of Princess Helena's marriage — Growth of Cetinje — Character of Prince Nicholas — His relations with England — His political aims — His relations with Austria-Hungary — A benevolent autocrat — His Court — Montenegrin dress — Crown Prince Danilo — ■ Montenegrin Ministers— Christmas at Cetinje — The standing army — Roads and Post-ofhce — Montenegrin harbours — Trade and Education — Scenery — Rjeka — Podgorica — Dioclea — Danilovgrad — The Monasteries of Ostrog— Niksic— Ride to Risano 4i-!S6 CHAPTER III. THE MODEL BALKAN STATE : BOSNIA AND THE HERCE- GOVINA. History prior to the Occupation — The first lour years — Religious equality : Catholics, Orthodox, and Mussulmans — Education — Technical training — The land question — Railways — Government hotels — Trade — The Press — Administration — Montenegrin aspira- tions — Taxation — Public health — Baron and Baroness Von Kallay — The future of the Occupied territory .... A(jE Turkish officialdom — Tiie spy system — Censorship of the Press — The foreign post-olftces — The currency — A bookseller's experi- ences — Yol tcskerch — Impediments to trade — The Sultan and his system — Cause of tlie Armenian massacres — Robert College — Turkish women — Brusa — Society at Stambtil — ^The dogs — Monte- negrin cavassi's — Fires — A householder's woes — Turkish time — Suburban resorts ......... 390-432 CHAPTER XIII. AN EXPERIMENT IN EMANCIP.\TION : BULGARIA. Bulgarian coinage — Bourgas — Philippopolis — Through the Valley of Roses to the Shipka Pass — Bulgarian surgery — The "Bulgarian Switzerland " — Missionaries at Samakov — The servant question — Sofia — New railways — The Sobraiije — Prince Boris — Prince Ferdinand— The politicians : Dr. Stoiloff, M. Grekoff, and M. Nacevic — Treatment of Mussulmans — Slivnica — Relations with Servia — King Alexander and his father — Servia and Austria- Hungary — Servian scenery — Nis — Belgrade . . . 433-478 CHAPTER XIV. THE GREAT POWERS IN THE NEAR EAST. Solutions of the Eastern Question — A Balkan Confederation — A Servian, Bulgarian, or Greek Empire — A reformed Turkey — A settlement by the Great Powers — The Eastern policy of Great Britain — Decline of British trade and influence — Growth of Ger- man power — France and Italy in the Near East — Austria-Hungary and Russia — The " sick man's " protracted death-agony . 479-509 Index 511 XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS STAMBUL ..... Frontispiece ATHENS ...... Vignette PAGE THE FOTbA, PISINO ..... 5 THE AMPHITHEATRE, POLA . . . -9 CASA ROSSINI, SEBENICO . . . . IJ THE LOGGIA, TRAU . , . . ■ ^3 SPALATO ...... 25 THE MARKET-PLACE, RAGUSA . . . -9 PALACE OF THE RECTOR, RAGUSA . . . 3I CASTELNUOVO . . . . . -37 CATTARO ...... 39 PALACE AT CETINJE. PRINCE NICHOLAS AND THE KING OF SERVIA . . . . . -48 PORTRAIT OF PRINCE NICHOLAS OUTSIDE BRITISH LEGA- TION ...... 57 POSTMASTER AND LANDLORD . . . -70 MONTENEGRIN BOYS ..... 76 DANILOVGRAD . . . . . . 80 COFFIN OF LAST BOSNIAN KING ... 88 CORPUS CHRISTI DAY AT MOSTAR . . -92 MOSTAR, HERCEGOVINA .... 93 xxi List of Illustrations PAGE MECCA PILGRIMS . . • • • -95 A MUSSULMAN WOMAN .... lOO SARAJEVO . . . • • 1-4 BARONESS VON KALLAV. . . . I26 ''a whole BOATLOAD OF MEN AND WOMEN" . . I32 MUSSULMAN WOMAN OF MOSTAR . . . 1 35 CHRISTIAN WOMEN AT MOSTAR .... I36 THE SOURCE OF THE BUNA .... I39 "a BOSNIAK CARRYING A RAM ON HIS BACK " . . I46 THE BAZAR AT SARAJEVO .... I48 "the SHADY TURN OF THE RIVER WHERE THE MUSSUL- MAN DELIGHTS TO DRINK HIS COFFEE " . . 151 STREET IN TRAVNIK . . . . . 154 IN THE BAZAR AT TRAVNIK . . . -156 JAJCE : THE OLD BOSNIAN CAPITAL . . . 158 PENANCE AT JAJCE . . . . . 160 "THE BEAUTIFUL MINARET . . . WHICH ADORNS THE FERHADIJA MOSQUE " . . . . 166 YRANDUK . . . . , . -175 CAJNICA ...... 180 PLEVLJE ....... 191 "the SERB WOMEN, WHO HERE WEAR . . . KILTS OVER THEIR LONG GARMENTS" .... I93 THE BAZAR, PLEVLJE ..... 195 OUR RAFT ON THE DRINA .... I98 OLD BRIDGE AT VISEGRAD .... I99 GIPSIES, VISEGRAD ..... 200 A STREET SCENE, VISEGRAD .... 201 xxii List of Illustrations PAGE CHILDREN AT VISEGRAD .... 202 OUR CARRIAGE AT PODROMANJA .... 204 OLIVE GROVE, CORFU . . . . . 215 ROYAL PALACE, FORMER RESIDENCE OF BRITISH LORD HIGH COMMISSIONER ..... 221 " ROUGH MOUNTAINEERS . . . WITH THEIR VAST CLOAKS OF frieze" ..... 224 "a humble HAN . . . SUPPORTED ON WHITE- WASHED pillars" ...... 228 palaeokastrizza, corfu .... 23o corfiote woman ...... 234 DELPHI ...... 248 THE CORINTH CANAL . . . . -251 M. DELYANNIS ...... 286 M. RHALLIS ...... 290 GENERAL SMOLENSKI (MINISTER OF WAR) . . 299 CANEA, AFTER THE RIOTS OF FEBRUARY, 1897 . . 32I THE QUAY OF CANEA ..... 322 MOUND AT CANEA (SHOWING FLAGS OF TURKEY AND THE POWERS) ...... 324 STREET IN CANDIA ..... 327 CHRISTIAN INSURGENTS AT ALIAKANOU . . . 33O RETHYMNO ...... 333 A MUSSULMAN PICNIC NEAR CANDIA . . . 336 SIR A. BILIOTTI AND COLONEL SIR H. CHERMSIDE WITH GROUP OF CRETAN CHIEFS . . . 34I CRETAN BOYS ...... 343 CANDIA ....... 345 A BAIRAM RAM : CANEA ..... 350 xxiii List of Illustrations PAGE CRETAN LADIES SHOPPING . • . 35^ VATHY : SAMOS ...... 353 POLICEMAN AT VATHY . . . . . 355 SAMIANS ....... 359 "SALONICA, SEEN FROM THE SEA " . . . 364 "THE FINE OLD ARCH OF THE EMPEROR GALERIUS " . 368 A JEWESS OF SALONICA .... 383 THE BRITISH POST OFFICE, GALATA . . . 396 "the lord of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE GOES FORTH TO HIS devotions" ..... 406 CARTS USED TO CONVEY MASSACRED ARMENIANS . . 4O9 "the great towers OF THE * CASTLE OF EUROPE'" 413 BRUSA ....... 419 RUSSIAN MONUMENT, SAN STEFANO . . -431 BULGARIAN BRIDE ..... 434 PHILIPPOPOLIS ...... 438 BULGARIANS DANCING ..... 442 BULGARIAN PEASANTS ..... 446 THE PALACE, SOFIA ..... 457 "the TINY PRINCE DRIVES OUT " . . . 461 BRIDGE OVER THE MARICA, SCENE OF THE PHILIPPO- POLIS MURDER ..... 464 JOSEPH HANEMIAN, THE MURDERED CLERK OF THE BRITISH POST OFFICE .... 492 MAP (in pocket a end of volume). XXIV Travels and Politics in the Near East CHAPTER I THE THRESHOLD OF THE NEAR EAST : ISTRIA AND DA LM ATI A OF the countless travellers who pass through Trieste every year on their way to the East, few have the curiosity to explore the peninsula, which runs far out into the azure-blue waters of the Adriatic and divides the great Austrian seaport from the lovely gulf of the Quarnero. Istria is still the least known of all the Austrian provinces, although the "discovery" of Abbazia by an enterprising railway company has in recent years attracted the attention of Viennese society to the charms of its eastern coast. But, in spite of the excellent service of steamers, which call at all the principal places on its shores, and the state railway, which traverses the interior from end to end, the Istrian peninsula is less familiar to British tourists than that of Sinai, and many educated Englishmen have never so much as heard its name. Yet no country in Europe presents such rapid and remarkable changes of scenery. At one point you have waving groves of laurel and smiling vineyards, with a climate which recalls that of the French Riviera ; at another, barren rocks and a total lack of vegetation remind you that you are in the domam of the bora, that terrible wind, which is the scourge of the Adriatic, which I B Travels and Politics blows railway trains off the track and sweeps away trees and unroofs buildings in its headlong course. The soil, too, is all the colours of the rainbow. White Istria, yellow Istria, red Istria follow each other in quick suc- cession, and, when lighted up by the rays of the setting sun, the red earth becomes a gorgeous purple, marvellous to behold. The Istrian railway, which slowly winds its tortuous path up the hills above the gulf of Trieste, enters the stony desert of the Karst, a region which for barrenness is unequalled in all Europe. Yet there is something quaint and ev^en attractive about these limestone boulders scattered hither and thither broadcast over the land, like missiles in some battle of the giants. We pass by deep ravines, formed by almost perpendicular walls of rock, with here and there a tiny chapel clinging on to the mountain- side, while, far below, the sea shimmers in the sunlight. And then the line turns down into the peninsula, and the quaint old towns of Istria, with names as picturesque as their situation, begin to appear. The fat fingers of a very loquacious lady, who is going to Pola, wave to and fro in front of the carriage window, as she discusses her family affairs with a new-found acquaintance, and prevent us from seeing as much of the view^ as we could w^ish. But a lucid interval fortunately intervenes as we approach Pinguente, once the seat of the margraves of Istria, who built the walls which still surround it. Perched on a hilltop, Pinguente seems the very ideal of those old Italian cities which Virgil has so graphically depicted as " piled by force on the summit of steep rocks " — congesta nianu pnvruptis oppida saxis. It was evening when we arrived at Pisino, the most interesting place in the interior of the peninsula, and we wondered whether a habitable inn existed in so primitive a spot, for we had read strange descriptions of Istrian 2 in the Near East accommodation. But our fears were speedily set at rest by a smart young fellow, who at once stepped forward and offered to escort us to the Aqnila Nera. The " Black Eagle " proved to be a comfortable inn, such as one finds in small Italian towns, where the linen was of spotless whiteness and the Istrian wine at 80 kreuzers (or IS. 4d.) a litre, as sound a vintage as the heart of man could desire. Our host, though an Istrian by birth, was, like some of his compatriots, an Italian by sentiment. He had, indeed, hung up in his parlour the inevitable portraits of the Austrian Emperor and Empress, which adorn every inn, however humble, throughout the length and breadth of the Monarchy. But his real interest was centred on a map of the seat of the war, then going on in Abyssinia, by the aid of which he was following the fortunes of the Italian troops with the closest attention. Indeed, some Italian extremists go so far as to include Istria in that " unredeemed Italy " which they hope one day to see comprised within the kingdom of Umberto. It is true that, though Istria has been in the uninterrupted possession of the House of Hapsburg ever since 1814, a large section of the population, amounting at the last census to 45 per cent., is Italian by race and language, just as it was in the days when, prior to 1797, Venice owned the peninsula. Three years ago the Italian element in Istria was particularly demonstrative against the Slavs, for here, as in Dalmatia, though in vastly different proportions, these two races practically divide the country between them. When it was decided that public notices at the Courts of Justice should be put up in both languages, and that jurymen should be expected to understand the two idioms, the indignation of the Italian party found vent in acts of violence. At Pirano the military had to be called out ; at another place the mob tore down the offending notice-boards ; and finally 3 Travels and Politics in the Near East the commotion was such tliat the Government dissolved the local assembly, which meets to discuss the internal affairs of the province. At the beginning of this year that body was convoked, not, as usual, at Parenzo, but at Pola. Since then, encouraged by a section of the Italian press, the agitation has gone on intermittently. But no sensible statesman in Italy regards the Irredentists as serious persons, or the cession of Istria as within the range of practical politics. We were aroused early in the morning by the sound of the bells, which were being rung with tremendous energy in the adjacent cainpaiiile. It was a great festival of the Church, and a long line of peasants, cap in hand and with their fingers devoutly clasped in front of them, defiled through the streets behind the priests, who were bearing the sacred banners before them. The men were excellent types of the Istrian people — stolid, phlegmatic fellows, who never manifest the smallest interest or curiosity in a stranger, though strangers are none too common in their country. In Sicily I have known a whole crowd of street loungers come up to my bedroom for the mere pleasure of hearing me order my dinner or pay my driver, while a single question, addressed to a bystander, would at once attract a host of inquisitive onlookers, each eager to kno'.v my business, and have a finger in it, if possible. But your Istrian is not of that sort. He goes on his way, perfectly regardless of the stranger within his gates. In his rough frieze coat and short breeches he looks intensely bucolic, but the huge earring, which he wears in one ear, gives him a dis- tinguishing characteristic which is quite his own. Pisino possesses in the Fo'iba a natural attraction, which is at present undefiled by the hoof of the tripper. If situated in Germany or Switzerland it would have long ago been disfigured by advertisements of chocolate, a 4 THE FOiBA, PISINO Travels and Politics cog-wheel railway, tin edifices from which to admire the view, and all the other abominations invented by tourist associations for the "improvement" of nature. Here the Foiba is left in its native wildness, and the visitor to his own devices. Suddenly, at the end of the main street, one comes upon a grand old donjon, dating from the eleventh century, whose walls are still emblazoned with the arms of the counts who once dwelt there, while a whole colony of swallows have made their nests beneath its hospitable eaves. The castle is built on a terrace of rock, and 300 feet below it the river F^oTba winds its way along the bottom of the ravine, and disappears in a deep chasm beneath the earth. Slowly and by a precipitous path we descended into the gulf and climbed over the boulders of rock, which mark the course of the stream, up to the mouth of the chasm. No human being has ever explored its inmost recesses and discovered where the river ultimately emerges from its subterranean channel. A young Austrian official. Count Mathias Esdorf, once made the attempt in a small boat, but with no other result than to inspire M. Jules Verne with the plot of one of his most exciting novels. In the French romance a prisoner escapes from his cell in the donjon, climbs down into the chasm and gains his freedom through the hole, or biico, as the natives call it, into which the F'oiba pours its waters. It is, however, supposed that the channel communicates with the fiord of Leme, which runs inland towards Pisino from the west coast of Istria. At any rate, objects thrown into the biico have been picked up near the estuary of the fiord. I have seen several of these mysterious underground passages in the Balkan Peninsula, where they are not uncommon, but only one of them, that near Mostar, can compare in grandeur with that of the Foiba. The view from below of the beetling rocks, rising perpendicular from the chasm, with the 6 in the Near East town nestling on the summit, the grey old walls of the donjon, and the distant roar of the waters beneath the ground, make a great impression, only partially conveyed to those who have not seen and heard them by the aid of a travelling photographer from Pola, whom we unearthed in a back-yard. It w^ould be difficult to conceive a greater contrast than that between this mediaeval spot, which has not changed since the days of its ancient counts, and the lovely watering-place of Abbazia, the gem of the Istrian coast. Centuries ago a Benedictine Abbey was founded there and gave Abbazia its name, but until the last sixteen years that now celebrated health resort, patronised by emperors and kings, and striving to rival Cannes and Mentone, was nothing but a few fishermen's huts. But in 1882 the manager of the Southern Railway Company of Austria, struck with the charms of the place, resolved to make Abbazia into a fashionable Curort. Large hotels, the property of the railway company, now rise amidst groves of laurel, with gardens running down to the bright blue waters of the bay. Shops and a colonnade hav^e been built to exhibit all the latest fashions of Vienna, and when we arrived at the little station of Mattuglie, which serves Abbazia, we realised at once from the photograph in the booking-office, which represented the meeting of the German and Austrian Emperors on the occasion of their visit in 1894, that the fortune of the place was made. But nothing could spoil the beauty of Abbazia, though its sweet simplicity was gone, and the scale of prices at its palatial hotels is somewhat different from the modest sum of 3 gulden, 27 kreuzers (or about 5s. 6d.), which we had paid for bed and a whole day's board for two persons at Pisino. The walk along the coast through luxuriant vineyards, the blue sea and sky, and, in the distance, floating as it were in the water, the islands of the Travels and Politics in the Near East Quarnero — broad Veglia, and long, rocky Cherso, where the old Argonautic legend placed the crime of Medea — this may, indeed, compare with the view from the Corniche over the Mediterranean littoral. No wonder that to an ardent yachtsman like the German Emperor Abbazia was specially attractive, or that the poetic Queen of Roumania chooses it as a favourite spot. In fact, were it not for the occasional blasts of the dreaded bora, the curse of the Austrian, just as the mistral is the bane of the French, Riviera, the place would be an earthly paradise. Comparatively small as it is, Istria presents in Pola yet another contrast, which after mediaeval Pisino and nine- teenth century fashionable Abbazia comes as a striking change. And, indeed, Pola is in itself a town of opposites, where the two extremes of ancient remains and modern naval works coexist side by side. For Pola is at once an Austrian Portsmouth and an old Roman town. Here a superb amphitheatre rises on the edge of the water, where the last new ironclad is lying at anchor ; here the Golden Gate and the Temple of Augustus have dockyards and arsenals as their neighbours, and the statue of Tegetthoff, the Austrian Nelson, looks down on the narrow, stone- paved streets, where Diana's ruined fane affords silent record of the past. The mailed figure of an Istrian margrave on the wall of the town-hall seems out of place among the naval officers, who are strolling in what was once the forum. But Pola is more prosperous now than it has been for centuries. The recent movement in Austria- Hungary for a development of the navy and the foundation of a newspaper this year for the express pur- pose of combating the old theory, which considered the Monarchy as essentially, and almost exclusively, an inland State, cannot fail to benefit the place, even though the Bocche di Cattaro are likely to divide with it in the 8 Travels and Politics future, even more than in the present, the privilege of a great naval harbour. Given fair weather, nothing can be more delightful than a voyage along the eastern shores of the Adriatic. There is none of the monotony of ocean travel in Dalma- tian waters, for, with one or two exceptions, the steamer's course is never out in the open sea, and even then land is always in sight. P'or most of the way you glide as in a river between the islands and the coast, threading mag- nificent fiords — but fiords beneath a Southern sky — or stopping beneath the grey walls of some mediaeval town, whose inhabitants, dressed in the most artistic of cos- tumes, throng the quays and fill the steep, narrow streets and old-fashioned squares, like the chorus in Italian opera. Dalmatia, it is true, lacks vegetation, and the eye is somewhat wearied by the eternal whiteness of her conical hills and stony uplands. But the colour harmonises well with the intense blue of sky and sea, and the brilliant scarlet costumes of the peasantry. In places, too, as between Trau and Spalato, at Ragusa, in the island of Lesina, and on the hills above the lovely Bocche di Cattaro, trees and shrubs grow luxuriantly, and the great success which has attended the efforts of the Austrian Government at planting the shores of the Bocche and a part of Istria during the short space of eighteen years proves that in course of time the bare Dalmatian coast may, with proper care, become green and fertile. Last year alone 3,219,000 new trees were planted in the Karst regions of Gorz and Gradisca at a cost of 9,782 gulden, so that in course of time the ravages of the Venetian shipbuilders and the destructive goats will be repaired. Dalmatia is, indeed, the Cinderella of the Austrian provinces, and she has been neglected in the past by the statesmen of Vienna. As a Dalmatian priest once remarked to me, " the Austrians regard Dalmatia as the other end of the 10 in the Near East world," and I am told that nearly all the roads in the country date from the brief French occupation between 1805 and 1814, when Marshal Marmont employed his soldiers in improving the means of communication. Indeed, far more has been done for Bosnia and the Hercegovina during the twenty years of the Austrian occupation than for Dalmatia in the eighty-four which have elapsed since she definitely became a part of the Monarchy. Politics have, unfortunately, had a great deal to do with this neglect. It is pitiful to read the bitter articles with which the Slav and Italian journals of Dalmatia attack one another, instead of uniting for the common weal and endeavouring to raise the material standard of the country. " Politics," said a very distinguished Dalmatian to me, " have been our ruin," and here, as in so many parts of the Monarchy, politics are entirely a question of race and language. But there are signs that Austria has at last begun to recognise the great value of the Dalmatian ports and the Dalmatian seamen. The Imperial navy is entirely recruited from the seafaring population of this coast ; the captains of the merchant marine are all Dalmatians, in many cases Bocchcsi, or natives of the Bocche di Cattaro, and the shores of that lovely fiord and the peninsula of Sabion- cello are dotted with white houses, where these veterans spend the evening of their days on the borders of that sea which they know so well. A British admiral once said that the Dalmatian sailors could alone compare with the men of our own eastern coast, thanks to the early ex- perience which they gain of the treacherous currents, the fickle breezes, and the intricate navigation of the Adriatic. For, though on all my visits that sea was as calm as a lake for days together, there are seasons when it well merits the epithet of "turbid," which Horace long ago applied to it. Woe betide the unskilled mariner who II Travels and Politics ventures out in those narrow channels when the bora is blowing. Their very names are indicative of bad weather, and one of them is significantly called the Canale di Mai Tempo. But Hadria, as I know him, has always proved mild and gentle. The Austrian-Lloyd and Hungarian-Croatian steamship companies, which divide between them the passenger traffic of the coast, do all they can to make the trip pleasant and comfortable. The vessels of both lines are well appointed, the officers are most polite, and the table is excellent. The only complaint which 1 had to make with the meals was that they were too long — a criticism which could not be applied to the berths. The wine is everywhere good in Dalmatia, and in some places, such as Sebenico, far above the average quality. Dinner on board is always a most sociable meal, even for travellers who cannot speak any language but English, for the cap- tain is sure to have been at some time or other in British ports, and has usually picked up a good many English words. I know one captain in the employ of the Austrian- Lloyd who speaks German, English, Italian, French, Serb, Turkish, and a little Albanian — the last a very rare accomplishment even for those who have lived in Albania. So proud was he of his acquaintance with our country and speech, that he used to keep Whitaker's Almanack on the dinner-table and read passages out of it for my edifica- tion. He could tell without reference to the precious volume the exact emoluments of every British Consul in the south-east of Europe, and I never saw him at a loss for a phrase, except when he endeavoured to translate into Austrian currency the income of the Duke of Westminster for the benefit of his first officer. I fancied that I traced his handiwork in the 12th and last rule of the steamship regulations which adorned the cabin. The English version of this remarkable announcement ex- 12 in the Near East pressed the belief that " Passengers, having a right to be treated like persons of education, will no doubt conform themselves to the rules of good society, by respecting their fellow-travellers and paying a due regard to the fair sex." The steamer from Pola soon passes the southern point of the low-lying Istrian peninsula, beyond which the lofty peak of Cherso, in the gulf of the Quarnero, is clearly visible, and begins its voyage among the hundred islands and islets which lie scattered along the north-east coast of the Adriatic. Lussin-piccolo is the place at which these vessels usually stop first — a fine harbour formed by two arms of the island of Lussin. The town, though christened "the small" to distinguish it from Lussin "the great," on the other side of the island, has now outgrown its name. It has long been an important seat of the ship- building industry, and during the last few years, thanks to its mild winter climate, has blossomed out into a fashion- able health resort. The presence of the Austrian heir- apparent here one winter at once drew attention to the charmsof the spot, and Lussin-piccolo is rapidly developing into a Curort, with a Froiidcnlistc, a circulating library, and a special German guide-book, all to itself. But the visitors, who come to enjoy the balmy air of Lussin- piccolo, must occasionally be English, for I noticed on the library shelves a copy of Sir Edwin Arnold's poems, not just the sort of reading which one would expect to find on an island in the Adriatic, and a susceptible Austrian lieutenant confessed to me that he had lost his heart to a young English lady whom he had met there. Meanwhile, Lussin "the great" has remained stationary, and her old V'^enetian houses and battlements show that her " greatness " is of the past. The traveller usually arrives at Zara, the capital of Dalmatia and the headquarters of the maraschino manu- 13 Travels and Politics factiire, very early in llie morning, and the arrangement is a good one, as it enables him to obtain his first glimpse of a Dalmatian coast town under the most favourable circumstances ; for the situation of Zara, always pictur- esque, is seen to the best advantage in the morning light, and it is then, too, that the country folk come trooping into the city with their fowls and their market produce. Built on a narrow tongue of land, Zara possesses two harbours, one on either side of the peninsula, and the steamers lie alongside the quay at the foot of the ramparts. A lion of St. Mark over the gateway, which leads into the town, reminds the visitor at the entrance of the seven centuries of Venetian domination, now gone for ever. Once inside the gate you might fancy yourself in Venice. It is true that the "high walls and great towers" which made the Crusaders exclaim, " How could such a city be taken unless our Lord Himself besieged it ?" have long since crumbled into dust, and the later fortifications, with which the famous Venetian engineer, Sammichieli, sur- rounded Zara, have been converted into peaceful pro- menades, where the natives take the air in the cool of the day. But the narrow streets and lanes, the well-paved squares, and the stone cisterns, suggest the City of the Lagoons. When you reach the Piazza dei Signori you might imagine yourself back in the Piazza di San Marco. There is the clock tower, just as at Venice ; there, too, is the loggia with the stone bench, where once the Venetian judges sat and administered justice, and to complete the comparison, there, as in Venice, is the principal cafe of the city, where maraschino is served out to you in tumblers, just as if it were taken from the cask. There is a touch of Venice, too, in the market-square, or Piazza deir Erbe, where a huge column, in ancient days a pillar of Diana's temple, surmounted by a broken-winged lion of St. Mark, towers above the stalls and the clatter of the 14 in the Near East market women, while near its base still swings in the morning breeze the iron chain, which once bound the tradesmen who could not pay their debts. Zara is even now the most Italian of Dalmatian cities ; it is there that // Ddlinata, the organ of the Italian party in Dalmatia, is published, and the proportion of those who speak Italian is larger there than in other places on the coast. The recent " discovery " of the Adriatic towns by tourist agencies has already had its effect upon the trade of Zara, and I noticed on my second visit, as an evidence of this increasing trafhc, that elaborately coloured postcards, containing pictures of, and greetings from, Zara, had within the last two years found a ready sale in the shops. Indeed, the rage for these AusicJitskaiicii is now such, that the most obscure places in the East seek to advertise themselves by this means. Even in Crete and in the Sandzak of Novi-Bazar I had them thrust upon me, and I shall not forget the excitement of a small and remote Bosnian town, when the first specimens, specially ordered by the principal official of the place, arrived from the engraver. The weather was magnificent, and the sky and sea of the most azure blue, when we continued our voyage, along the narrow channel of Zara, towards Sebenico and the South. We stopped on the w^ay at the tiny town of Zara Vecchia, noW' little more than a fishing village, but famous in Dalmatian story as the spot where, on the threshold of the twelfth century, Koloman, King of Hungary, had himself crowned King of Dalmatia and Croatia — the commencement of the long duel between Hungary and Venice for the possession of this coast. A little later the Venetians took their revenge by burning " the white city," or Biograd, as it is called in the Croatian tongue, and from that day it has never recovered its ancient prosperity. Farther on we anchored off the 15 Travels and Politics island of Zlarin, celebrated for its coral and sponge fisheries, and no less remarkable for the quaint costume of its women. It was curious to see these ladies coming alongside the steamer with their brown skirts suspended over their shoulders and gathered under their armpits, their white handkerchiefs on their heads, and huge ear- rings, usually of plain gold, in their ears. Closer examination disclosed the further marvels of their toilet — their black or green under-bodices, made without sleeves, and slashed so as to show a white shirt in front, and their girdles of red. Very picturesque they looked, as they stood in the boats and helped their husbands, while, as if to compensate for this elaborate costume, the garb of the small boys, who accompanied them, was simplicity itself — nothing more than a single piece of cloth, serving for coat and trousers alike, and fastened down the back with a row of buttons. Here, indeed, one feels that one has left the conventionalities of Western Europe far behind. Through a narrow channel, guarded jealously by an old Venetian fort, in whose dungeons political prisoners were wont to languish in days gone by, we entered the bay of Sebenico, next to Ragusa the most picturesque of Dalmatian coast towns. On the quay the host of the Hotel Pellegrino met us and conducted us through quite the most remarkable collection of passages that I have ever traversed, to our chamber. We began at the billiard- room, then crossed the scullery, passed by way of the pigsties and the pigeon-house, climbed a flight of outside stairs, explored the lumber-room, walked across a landing containing a meat-safe and stacks of empty bottles, in- vestigated a huge ante-room full of old chests and cup- boards, plunged into a short passage, and finally emerged in a vast bedroom decorated with pictures of the Virgin and the Saints, and commanding a splendid view of the i6 in the Near East bay. As our host put it in epigmmmatic Italian, approach was rrloomy, but the room very beautiful. " the " It LASA KU.^SIM, .sKUii.MCl). will be seen from this that the hotel at Sebenico is nothing if not roomy, and that the traveller will not have ry c Travels and Politics time to perform the gigantic journey to his apartment more than once a day. The food was excellent, although a commercial traveller had assured me on the steamer that Sebenico possessed only two dishes — lamb with peas and peas with lamb. But even so it would have been ahead of many parts of the Near East, where lamb, and lamb alone, is the sole item in the bill of fare. The wine of the neighbourhood is noted, and we sampled with much satisfaction the red vintage known as Tartaro, and the wine called locally maraschino, which is not to be confounded with the liqueur of the same name, but is like milk-punch in colour and very strong. Wine costs next to nothing in Dalmatia, and the beer is also good. Thus fortified, we set out to see the great sight of the district — the Kerka Falls, one of the finest spectacles of the kind in Europe. The road traverses a typical Dalmatian landscape — stones, stones everywhere and not a tree to be seen, with the blue Adriatic gleaming amid the grey limestone rocks. The only inhabitants were a few shepherds and goatherds, watching their flocks, and playing in quite Arcadian fashion on the bagpipes or the Pan's pipe, and here and there a woman, spinning as she walked along the road. Leaving our carriage, we struggled down a very rough path — inolto hriitta, our driver called it — to the mills at the foot of the falls. Amidst luxuriant vegetation, rare indeed in this land of stones, a splendid mass of water comes rushing down the rocks and gliding like a river of glass over a series of steps, while the flakes of foam cover the brushwood on either side. The Kerka Falls are, on a smaller scale, the Niagara of Europe, and will one day, when Dalmatia is more generally known to tourists, bring in a great profit to the natives. Already the waterfall has, like Niagara, been used for the generation of electricity, and it is curious to find so mediaeval a town as Sebenico lighted i8 in the Near East by electric light, the motive power of which is derived from the Kerka. But an even stranger contrast was that between our very European selves and the five strapping Dalmatians, all clad in the national dress, who lent us their pony for the ride up from the falls. The costume of the Dalmatians, physically one of the finest races in the world, is nowhere more picturesque than at Sebenico, unless, indeed, at Ragusa. Its most striking characteristic is a very small, flat, red cap, with black embroidery at the back and fringe hanging over the edge. This bercfto, as it is called, is fastened on the back of the head by means of a piece of elastic, and is so small that it affords absolutely no protection from the sun, which in the Dalmatian summer is of a fiery heat. Yet the dandies of Sebenico pride themselves on wearing the smallest possible size. The Dalmatian is, indeed, a very gorgeous person, with his string-covered shoes, or opaiikc, turned up at the toes, his blue breeches, slit at the back of the leg so as to display his bright-coloured socks, with his waistcoat of blue, adorned with two rows of silver buttons, and his short hussar's jacket of brown frieze, covered with red fringe and barely hanging on his shoulders. A striped purse of wool, a leather belt, and a bone-handled knife complete his costume, and, to make it still more theatrical, the true Dalmatian draws his beloved blade at frequent intervals and whets it as he strides along. During our stay at Sebenico we saw the natives in their very best attire, for the narrow streets were filled by a procession of Orthodox Serbs, headed by two high ecclesiastical dignitaries in robes of blue and yellow, each of the faithful carrying a long taper, which was doled out by a quaint old gentleman. Nothing can exceed the devoutness of the people here, for both the Catholic and the Orthodox churches were crammed with men. And Sebenico affords an appropriate, old-world 19 Travels and Politics background to these gorgeously apparelled natives. Although it is one of the termini of the solitary Dalmatian railway, along which two trains saunter leisurely each way every day, it has not greatly altered since the times of the Venetian doges, who for more than three centuries ruled over it. For Sebenico is essentially a Venetian town, although just a hundred years have passed over its grey walls since the lion of St. Mark gave way to the double eagle. The lion is, indeed, still rampant above the ancient doorway in the wall by which you enter the city. The quaint steps and vaulted arch, or sottoportico, which confront you inside, are Italian ; the narrow streets and handsome balconies have the unmistakable mark of Venice upon them. The magnificent cathedral, with the strange figures of Adam and Eve on either side of the doorway, was the work of two Venetian archi- tects ; and, hard by, the ancient palace of the Vene- tian governors, now converted into a club and cafe, still remains standing. The town is still crowned by the Venetian fort, which the Turks in vain besieged two and a half centuries ago. But the population of Sebenico, as of all Dalmatia, is to-day more Slav than Italian. It is true that the Italian party in Dalmatia is making efforts to regain its lost supremacy, and receives a certain amount of sympathy from the advanced newspapers in Italy. This year, for instance, the Italian Chamber was agitated because the Italian Consul at Spalato had, in his private capacity, subscribed to the Slav Society of Cyril and Methodius, the apostles of Christianity in the Balkan Peninsula, the former of whom has given his name to the Cyrillic alphabet. But the whole Italian population of Dalmatia, according to the last census, was only 16,000 out of 521,117, while the Serbs and Croats of the province numbered 501,307, or about 96 per cent, of the whole. It is therefore in vain 2Q in the Near East that // Dahiiata insists on the restoration of the Italian language to its old predominance. Under the heading of "Our Demands," this journal wrote ^ : "We demand the autonomy of the province, and that to the Italian nation- ality in Dalmatia should be given, above all in the schools, the place which belongs to it by the right of centuries." But the present policy of Austria in Dalmatia is to favour the Slav element, which forms the vast majority of the population and has become so important to her since the occupation of Bosnia and the Hercegovina. But at Sebenico there is considerable antagonism between the Slav and the Italian sections, for that place was famous for the high degree of Italian culture to which it attained in Venetian days. A statue of one of Sebenico's modern men of letters, Nicolo Tommaseo, was ready to be un- veiled during our stay there, and Italian is still the most useful language for the traveller, not only there but all along the Dalmatian coast, though German has made great headway at Kagusa, owing to the presence of German-speaking soldiers. But the future of these sea- port towns is indissolubly bound up with the development of the countries behind them, and these countries are all Slav. What is now most wanted is an extension of the railway system in Dalmatia, which is still completely isolated from the great lines of Europe. Even the single railway, 99^ miles long, that the country possesses, which runs from Spalato to Knin, with a branch to Sebenico, and which Austrians describe as a Sackbahn, because it goes nowhere in particular, would hardly have been made if it had not been for the important collieries of Dernis, behind Sebenico, whose brownish products cover the quays of this port whenever a steamer is due. There is ' May g, 1896. This paper appears twice a week. Two other Dalmatian papers, La Rassegna Dalmata and L'Avvisatore Dalmato, are published half in Italian and half in Croatian. A German monthly periodical, called Dalmaticii, and published at Vienna, is devoted to the commercial progress of the province. 21 Travels and Politics in the Near East now, however, a scheme on foot for extending this Hne to Novi on the existing railway, which connects Bosnia with Croatia, and thus making a communication between the interior and the coast. Moreover, the subsidies granted by the Government to steamship agencies have done much to benefit the Dahiiatian ports. But so long as Dalmatia, separated from Bosnia and the Hercegovina, remains a narrow strip of seaboard, its inhabitants will naturally turn their attention to the sea rather than to the development of their country. The Dalmatian Diet has, however, lately taken up the railway question, re- atToresting, the establishment of a tobacco manufactory and an industrial school as all urgent needs of the province. A few hours' voyage brought us to the most exact model of a mediaeval town that Dalmatia has to show. Trail is beautifully situated on an island, which is con- nected by two bridges with another island on one side and with the mainland on the other. The town itself is completely walled in, and over its hoary gateways the usual lion of St. Mark bears silent witness to its former masters. Within, the narrowest of streets, arched here and there, lead to a piazza, where a still finer winged lion at the end of a loggia keeps guard over the splendid cathedral of Trau. To the classical scholar Trau is in- teresting, as having preserved that most curious novel of antiquity, the " Trimalchio's Supper " of Petronius Arbiter. But its classical fame pales before that of Spalato, now, thanks to a swing-bridge, but one hour's steam from Trail, past a strip of coast the most fertile in all Dalmatia, where the " Seven Castles," small towns like the castclli of the Roman Campagna, peep out from the refreshing verdure in a climate, the best in Dalmatia, and seem to swim in the water. On a height up the country stands out the ancient castle of Clissa, the key of the old main Travels and Politics in the Near East road into Bosnia, which has stamped its name in letters of blood in the stormv history of these Illyrian lands. And then round a point the town of Spalato comes into view, the tower of its cathedral covered with perpetual scaffolding — for- on both of my visits it was thus dis- figured. Spalato is no longer entirely built inside the famous Palace of Diocletian, from which, by a slight corruption, it derives its modern name. It still, indeed, presents the unique spectacle of houses, streets, and churches, all massed together within the walls of what was one vast imperial mansion. But the new town has overfiow'ed beyond the walls, for Spalato is not only the largest town in Dalmatia, but is also rapidly growing, and has a great future as well as a great past. Hitherto it has suffered from the jealousy of Hungary, which has re- solved at all costs to prevent it from competing with the favoured Hungarian seaport of Fiume. It is for this reason that the Hungarians have steadily opposed Baron von Kallay's project of uniting Spalato by railway via Arzano with the Bosnian branch line, whose present terminus is Bugojno, and thus making it the dcbouchc of the occupied territory. Again and again this plan has been brought forward, but Baron von Kallay has this year been forced to admit in a public speech that it is not at present feasible. That there are considerable natural difficulties in the way of such a line is true : but, as everj'where in Dalmatia, the political obstacles are more serious than those imposed by nature. Once let this line be made, in place of the diligence route over Livno, which now alone connects Spalato with the Hiiitcvlaud, and the town will blossom out into considerable com- mercial importance. Smartly dressed men and women, fine big cafes and a theatre, in the auditorium of which we took our dinner according to a practice not un- common in this part of the world, all attest the modern 24 Travels and Politics development of Spalato ; and, having for centuries afforded material to plodding antiquaries, it seems likely to become, on a smaller scale, a Dalmatian Trieste. Winding about from the islands to the mainland and from the mainland to the islands, we pass Brazza, famous for its wine, and Almissa's ruined castle, once the boundary line betw^een the two Slav tribes of Croats and Serbs in the early days of Dalmatian history, and later the abode of the most dreaded pirates of the whole Illyrian coast. High among the mountains behind Almissa there existed, till the early years of the present century, the quaint Highland Republic of Poljica, which has been styled the " Illyrian San Marino." But, unlike the small Appennine Commonwealth,^ which still lingers on within the boun- daries of United Italy, Poljica has disappeared as a separate State from the map. The great French Emperor, who "bade spare" San Marino, that it might remain "a pattern of a Republic," swept away Poljica in a moment, and thus destroyed one of the most picturesque ana- chronisms of these South Slavonic lands which Austria had tolerated. But a much more important and inte- resting Republic perished at the same time and by the same hands. Ragusa is, from every point of view — from that of history, that of art, and that of natural beauty — the gem of the Dalmatian coast, and Ragusa lost her Republican liberties at Napoleon's command. There is preserved in the Ragusan archives a complete list of the Republican magistrates down to the year 1808, when the French forces put an end to Ragusan independence. Much that could have thrown light on the secret story of the Re- public's past — and in powers of intrigue the Ragusans were not inferior to their dreaded Venetian rivals — has perished in the flames, to which, on the approach of the French, ' Perhaps I may be allowed to refer to an account of San Marino, whicli I wrote in the Manorial Diploinatiqnc of December 8 and 15, 1894. 26 in the Near East the conscript fathers committed their most compromising records. But across the history of the Balkan Peninsula the name of Ragusa is written in letters, not of blood, like that of most Balkan States, but of gold. For the Ragusans were the great traders of the Near East in days gone by. Their "argosies" — said to derive their name from the city which sent them forth — were in every sea ; their agents were in every corner of the land, and their lives and liberties were guaranteed wherever they went. Rough Bosnian kings and proud Servian tsars sued for their friendship in return for mining concessions, and "the most favoured nation clause" of modern commer- cial treaties finds an early parallel in the exceptional trading facilities accorded to them. The great earthquake of the seventeenth century, the memory of which still terrifies the citizens of Ragusa whenever a quiver shakes the white Dalmatian mountains or the trim capital of Carniola, is usually ascribed as the cause of the city's decay, though I am told by the highest local authority^ that the destruction wrought by that awful calamity was less serious than has been commonly supposed. Masses are still sung in commemoration of it, and a friend of mine once brought all the inhabitants into the streets by telling them that an earthquake was expected. But despite the ravages of these shocks, even now, the streets and gates and walls of Ragusa bear witness to its splendid past. To me no town in the whole East of Europe is so fascinating as this. Against its rocky coast the bright blue waves are ever beating, and I could well understand the patriotic enthusiasm of a much-travelled Ragusan officer who, after describing the beautiful places that he had seen in the course of his travels, exclaimed, " Abcr mein Meer gebe ich iiicJit niif!" Ragusa enjoys, too, as ' Prof. G. Gelcic, whose book. Dcllo S^'iliippo Civile di Ragusa, is a mine of information about Ragusa's art treasures. 27 Travels and Politics in the Near East its Slav name ot Dubrovnik, or " the place of oaks," implies, a vegetation rare in stony Dalmatia. Inside the gates the pigeons and the swallows are flying about by hundreds, and the market-square is alive with people, clad in the most picturesque of costumes. I used to rise every morning at daybreak at Ragusa to watcli the peasants in their national garb come into this square to do their marketing. Close as is Ragusa to the Hercegovinian frontier, it naturally attracts the natives of that old Turkish province, where, more than in any other part of the Near East, artistic dress has held its own against the hideous products of the slop-shop, with which the emancipated Oriental too often seeks to disguise his splendid physique. The women from the Hercegovina in long, dark coats, scarlet fezes with a flower behind one ear and white veils streaming down their backs may here be seen buying vegetables and then trudging off in their thick felt leg- gings, despite the summer heat. But they by no means monopolise the artistic treasures of this piazza. There are other women from the valley of Canali on the road to Cattaro, who vie with their Hercegovinian sisters in tiie picturesqueness of their headgear — a pleated white handkerchief, contrasting pleasantly with the scarlet and orange colours with which the Ragusan dames love to cover their hair. The men, too, are resplendent in blue and crimson, which show off to the utmost advantage their magnificent stature. The figure of the hero Orlando, which here, as at Bremen, adorns the town, might well have been moulded on that of some stalwart Dalmatian. But the glories of Orlando, and even the restoration of his sword some twenty years ago, are eclipsed by the greater fame of San Biagio — the St. Blazey of our own Cornwall — who has been in all ages the patron saint of Ragusa. If Orlando had the privilege of supporting the standard of the Republic, if the traders of 28 Travels and Politics in the Near East old converted his right arm from the elbow to the wrist into a measure, once known all over the Balkan as the braccio mgiisco, or " Ragiisan arm," it was reserved for San Biagio to hold the city of Ragusa in the hollow of his left hand. Thus holding his beloved town, the saint in silver gazes at the visitor to his church, while from many a niche in the city walls his figure in stone looks down serenely on the modern fortunes of his chosen people. Go into the old Palace of the Rector, the Government House of the Ragusan Republic, and you expect to see a group of mediaeval senators descending the stairs into the court- yard. But here all is still, and there is nothing save a silent statue — that of a shrewd Ragusan corn merchant, who saved his city from the anger of a mediaeval emperor, and asked as his sole reward not riches, for he possessed them already, not honours, for none was higher than that of Ragusan citizenship, but the towel which the monarch had tucked beneath his half-shaved, half-soaped chin. Out in the main street, where every house stands detached as a precaution against another earthquake, or up in the steep alleys with their rows of steps, one seems in Italy, were it not for the colour of the dress and the Croatian names over the shops. On an old door you may still see one of those iron knockers, of which the Ragusan patricians were so proud, and which a travelling Englishman once carried oft and hung on his London mansion, there to be recognised by the rightful owner. Ragusa is, indeed, essentially a Slav town, and the proportion of Slavs to other nationalities there is four to one. Her admirers have sometimes called her the " South Slavonic Athens," and in some respects the title is deserved. For here arose the " Ragusan school " of poetr}'', whose best representative, Gundulic, early preached the independence and unity of the Slavs, in his epic, Osinan, scenes from which now adorn his statue in 30 Travels and Politics the market-place. At no time, I am told, was Slav the official language of the Republic, which used sometimes Latin and sometimes Italian in its state papers, and had even to employ a Slav interpreter on an emergency, as one volume of the Kagusan records shows. But, though the best Ragusan families, some of whom still pride them- selves on their patrician origin, can still speak Italian, the names of the streets are now put up in Slav alone, and that is the tongue of the vast majority of the people. Small, indeed, as Ragusa is — at the last census it numbered 11,177 ^<'Lils — it possesses the dubious advantage of three separate clubs, the Italian, the Croatian, and the Serb, each representative of the three sections into which Dalmatia is unhappily divided. While the Italians and the Croats have the same Catholic religion but different languages yet the same alphabet, the Croats and the Serbs have practically the same language, except for the fact that the Croats emplo}^ the Latin and the Serbs the Cyrillic character, but in religion are separated by the wide chasm which keeps the Roman and the Orthodox Greek Church asunder, and which in South-eastern Europe has been one of the greatest drawbacks to national unity. As in the East ties of religion count for more than anything else, the Dalmatian Serbs are apt to be drawn towards the independent Serb communities outside the boundaries of the Monarchy. Ragusa received many a Bosnian exile when the old Bosnian kingdom fell before the Turks ; during the insurrection in the Hercegovina in 1875 she was the headquarters of the insurgents, and the eyes of Prince Nicholas of Montenegro are still directed at times towards the city, which ninety-five years ago his people, with their Russian allies, besieged. The Ragusan newspaper, Dubroviiik, does not hesitate to foster this feeling, and during my visit published letters from a correspondent at Mostar which were intended to be as 32 in the Near East distasteful as possible to the Austrian Government in the Hercegovina. A Ragusan, too, who had gone to Niksic, in Montenegro, lately founded a Serb paper with the ominous title of Nevesinje — the place in the Hercegovina where the insurrection of 1875 first broke out — for the purpose of fomenting a Montenegrin agitation in the occupied territory. The fate of this paper was, as I anticipated when I saw a copy, to be excluded from the Austrian post-office.^ It is amusing, too, to notice on the drop-scene of the theatre at Cetinje a picture of Ragusa, so that after a performance of the Prince's political drama, the Balkanska Carica, or Empress of the Balkans, the curtain may fall and display the " South Slavonic Athens" to the applauding mountaineers. The thoughts of the Croatian party in Dalmatia, on the other hand, are turned towards Agram rather than towards Cetinje. At present Dalmatia sends deputies to the Austrian Reichs- rath and has a diet of its own for provincial affairs, which meets at Zara. But the Croats desire the complete amalgamation of Dalmatia with Croatia, which at present enjoys a large measure of Home Rule from Hungary, and has a provincial assembly of its own at Agram. Just before I visited the Croatian capital a learned professor of Agram had made some sensation by demonstrating the historical rights of the old kingdom of Croatia over Dalmatia. As we have seen, Koloman, King of Hungary, united both Croatia and Dalmatia under his sceptre in 1 102, and before that date the Croatian rulers had, under one title or another, exercised power over the Dalmatian people. Another section of public opinion at Ragusa is in favour of reviving the Republic— an idea which is almost as unpractical as the dream of a great Serb Empire. The ' A similar fate has befallen a violently anti-Austrian book, Le Balkan slave ci la crise aiiMchieinie, lately written at Ragusa by M. Loiseau, brother-in-law of the Prince of^Montenegro's private secretary. 33 ^ Travels and Politics most probable, and also the most practical, solution of these questions is the ultimate amalgamation of Dalmatia with the occupied territory behind it. Until 1878 it was geographically isolated, except where it bordered on Croatia in the north, from the rest of the Monarchy, and was regarded, as an Austrian official once put it to me, in the light of a " transmarine colony." The famous visit of the Emperor Francis Joseph to Dalmatia in 1874, of which the Ragusans still talk, was, however, a new de- parture, and now, with the occupation of Bosnia and the Hercegovina, Dalmatia is no longer, in Mr. Paton's classic phrase, " a face without a head," and Bosnia and the Hercegovina "a head without a face." More especially will this be the case when the new railway, now in course of construction from Gabela, the next station to Metkovic on the Metkovic — Mostar line, to Castelnuovo at the entrance of the Bocche di Cattaro — is finished. This railway, which is primarily intended for military purposes, and, like the Bosnian line, will be of a small gauge, will pass by Ragusa, and a branch is to be made from the Ragusan port of Gravosa to Trebinje in the Hercegovina, which is a most important military point. It is a curious example of history repeating itself, that the outlet of this line should be at Castelnuovo, for that was the spot where Tvrtko I., I the first and greatest of Bosnian kings, founded in the latter half of the fourteenth century a town, which he intended to be the harbour of the whole interior. Under him and his predecessor, Stephen Kotromanic, Bosnia had for the first time a coast-line, and Tvrtko even added the style of King of Dalmatia to his other titles. But at his death this brief union of Dalmatia and Bosnia was quickly severed, and though Hrvoje, the great Bosnian king-maker of the early part ' For a detailed account of this I may refer to my article, " Bosnia before the Turkish Conquest," in Tlic English Historical Review, for October, 1898. 34 in the Near East of the fifteenth century, extended his authority over parts of the coast and some of the islands, it was not till the present generation that Dalmatia belonged to the same de facto master as the lands behind it. At two points alone, one in the Sutorina at the entrance of the Bocche di Cattaro, the other at the harbour of Neum behind the long peninsula of Sabioncello, did the jealousy of Ragusa cede outlets on the sea to the Turkish rulers of the Hercegovina, so that the confines of the Ragusan Republic might not march with those of her Venetian rival. But the new railway, when completed, should have other than purely military uses. Connected for the first time with the railway system of the Monarchy by way of Bosnia, Ragusa will then be able to derive far greater benefit from those gifts which nature has lavished on her. The heir-apparent to the Austrian throne re- marked last summer to a Dalmatian deputation, which waited upon him, that the natural beauties of the Austrian Riviera were superior to those of the French, but hitherto they have been strangely ignored. The surroundings of Ragusa are, indeed, delightful. Here, almost alone in Dalmatia, rich southern vegetation, the palm, the cactus, and the aloe may be seen flourishing luxuriantly. Take a boat across to the island of Lacroma, where our own Coeur-de-Lion, according to tradition, was shipwrecked on his return from the Crusades and vowed to erect a monastery in gratitude for his deliverance. Among the charming gardens of the Dominican brothers, which a single gardener keeps in artistic dis- order, the unfortunate Emperor Maximilian used to wander before he was tempted with the ofi^er of the Mexican throne, and in the cells, which he occupied as his apart- ments, a number of his English pictures still recall his memory. Here, too, another ill-starred Hapsburg, the late Archduke Rudolph, loved to stay, and his pet dog, 35 Travels and Politics now old and grey, greeted us as we strolled through the gardens with one of the monks. The loggia at the top of the monastery with its superb views on all sides might well attract the Archduke's widow, who often makes Lacroma her temporary home, and the two Dominicans, who live here and keep a school, are, indeed, to be envied. A " dead sea," into which the salt water enters by a subterranean passage, while in winter, chafing against this narrow entrance, it dashes right over the rocks into the basin below, completes the wonders of Lacroma. For the quiet exercise of religious duties no spot could be better suited ; for the world-wearied monarch, the scholar, or the monk, it should be a happy isle. Or ask your boatman to row you up the valley of the Ombla, past a deserted cloister with a garden straggling down to the stream, to the mills, where the waters issues from beneath a great rock and the ground is strewn with mulberries white and purple. Or, in the evening, walk out to San Giacomo, another of these mouldering monasteries, and enjoy the view back over Ragusa's rocky peninsula, where bastions and turrets stand out in the bright sun- light. Here, one feels sure, will be one of the winter resorts of the future ; here, already, a big hotel has sprung up since my first visit, and quick steamers are doing their best to bring visitors from Fivmie, and Pola and Trieste. But Dalmatia has one further treat in store for the lover of nature. No fiord that I have seen can compare with the Bocche di Cattaro, that magnificent haven, or rather series of havens, where all the navies of the world could easily lie at anchor. Austria has, indeed, fully recognised the value of this coveted possession, for which in the past so many nationalities have striven, and which is being developed by art into an even stronger position than it is by nature, for a mole is to be constructed across the mouth, and 3,000,000 gulden figured in this year's 36 in the Near East estimates for fortifications here.^ When one enters the gulf, Austrian forts are visible on either hand, as well as on the little island in the middle of the entrance. The walls of Castelnuovo's castle, no longer " new," next rise to the left in a climate where soon invalids will come to winter. As one penetrates farther within the recesses of the gulf, one sees a flotilla of Austrian men-of-war and torpedo-boats lying at anchor in the lovely bay of Teodo, and commanding the zigzag road which scales the frowning cliffs of the Black Mountain. Virgil must CAMELNL e)Vli. {From a Photo, by Miss Cliadwick.) have been thinking of some such series of winding gulfs and bays and channels when he wrote the lines : "Illyricos penetrarc sinus atquc intima tutus Regna Liburnorum." In one place the passage is so narrow that in olden times chains were stretched across it, btit no sooner is the strait passed than another large sheet of water opens out before ' An officer of engineers is said to have been arrested two montlis ago on a charge of having sold the plans to Russia for a large sum. 37 Travels and Politics in the Near East one's eyes, with Risano, the oldest town of the Bocche, to which in Roman times it gave its name, and the chief debonche of Montenegrin trade, at the end of it. To the right of two fairy islands, each with a church upon it, to which the faithful go on pilgrimage, a splendid bay extends up to the quay of Cattaro, nestling at the foot of the Montenegrin mountains. Along the shores on either side of the Bocche are pleasant hamlets with sweet- sounding names, the home of the ships' captains; and I shall never forget how once, when I entered the Bocche with a favourite captain, many a handkerchief waved from the white villages which peeped out from the trees as the popular commander saluted his friends and rela- tives from the bridge. On high-days and holidays the Boccliesi still appear resplendent in their crimson gar- ments, but at Cattaro costume has almost disappeared from the ancient streets and squares, save where outside the walls a Montenegrin stalks along on his way to the market. Nowadays, Cattaro is essentially a place of arms, and within its quaint old Venetian ramparts, on which the lion of St. Mark still keeps watch, there are swarms of military and naval men. For this is the Austro-Montenegrin, or in other words, Austro-Russian frontier, and it accordingly behoves Austria to keep con- stant guard at this extreme point of the empire. For one brief moment, in 1813, Cattaro was actually united with Montenegro, whose people had captiu^ed it with the aid of a British squadron. But Russia compelled her "little brothers" to hand over the haven to Austria — an event which is sometimes forgotten by those who reproach the Austrians for having taken Spizza. The first time that I arrived in Cattaro I, indeed, thoroughly appreciated, after an experience of the Albanian coast- towns, the remark of a Turkish official with whom I was travelling : " I'AiitricJic, c'est le couuncnccmciit de la civdi- 3« Travels and Politics in the Near East sdtioii." Cattaro, with its fine, spacious quay, its old Venetian buildings, and its public garden, where the band plays in the evening, strikes one as civilised indeed after the squalid shanties and rickety landing-stages of the harbours over which the Turkish flag still flies ; and if the food is not up to the usual Dalmatian standard one feels here that one is in Europe. Here and there an ancient house with its finely-carved balcony reminds one of the Venetian palaces, or the statue of a mailed warrior in a courtyard takes you back to the days of Cattaro's many sieges. High above the tow'n, at the apex of the triangle formed by the walls, stands the old citadel, perched on a spur of the grey mountain, which seems to push the little town into the gulf at its foot. Shut in by impenetrable walls of rock, Cattaro is moved by no breath of air, and in the hot summer days the temperature is terrible. But the situation is unique in South-eastern Europe, and in sublime grandeur would be difficult to surpass an3^where. No photographer can do justice to the charms of Cattaro and her fiords ; but those who have once sailed through them beneath the shadow^ of the tall cliffs, where the Austrian and the Montenegrin eagles meet, will not soon forget the scene. 40 CHAPTER II A PATRIARCHAL PRIXCIPALITY : MONTENEGRO LT NTIL the marriage of Princess Helena of Monte- ^ negro and the future King of Italy two years ago the European public knew little, and cared less, about the Highland Principality which for live centuries had maintained its independence against the Turks. Well-educated people in London drawing-rooms have asked me whether Cetinje was not the capital of Bulgaria, and whether the Montenegrins were not blacks. The reason of this indifiference was partly the isolated position of the country and partly the fact that, alone among Balkan States, the Black Mountain possessed no professional newspaper corre- spondents, except one laconic individual, whose tele- grams were of the shortest and most concise character. A Balkan statesman once observed that happy was the Balkan State, where journalists were unknown, and this form of happiness was for a long tune almost monopolised by Montenegro. One otttcial journal, the Glas Cniogorca, or J^oice of the Black Moitutaiii, expressed the opinions of the Prince upon the affairs of the day, and obtained a limited circulation in the Slav districts of the Monarchy. But until the Prince of Naples wooed and won the beautiful Princess, Montenegro, despite her past military glories and her almost unique form of govern- ment, was left to blush unseen, save by a few travellers and a handful of diplomatists. Indeed, when I first went 41 Travels and Politics to Cetinje, several of the latter, although they were accredited to the court of Montenegro, resided at Ragusa, preferring the civilisation of the "South Slavonic Athens " to the Spartan simplicity of the Montenegrin capital. But when the news of the Italian marriage took Europe by surprise, immense interest was suddenly displayed in this little Principality. Italian journalists visited Monte- negro in swarms, German photographers found the Prince and his people most artistic subjects, and tourists from all lands discovered, to their surprise, that the Near East is not quite so dangerous as many European capitals. Montenegro, in fact, awoke one day to find herself famous, and, so far as notoriety is concerned, the marriage of Princess Helena, followed by that of Princess Anna to Prince PVancis Joseph of Battenberg, has done more for the country than all the brave deeds of this nation of warriors. A change has naturally came over Montenegro since she suddenly became of interest to Europe. When I revisited Cetinje this year, I was struck by the alterations in the place. I do not mean mere agglomerations of new houses, although in the last four years the little capital has increased by about a third. Now there are more churches than ever, to the great delight of the Prince, who tells you with pride that his country possesses more churches in proportion to its population than " holy Russia " herself — the standard by which, in Monte- negro, everything is measured. Now, too, all the foreign representatives, whose number has been increased by the arrival of Greek, Bulgarian, and Servian agents, live on the spot and in houses of their own, so that the " diplomatic table " in the spacious upper room of the "Grand Hotel," where once European ministers and Montenegrin senators used to take their meals, is abandoned to young 42 in the Near East Prince Mirko's Swiss tutor — one of the standing institutions of Cetinje. The Crown Prince has now a separate estabhshment of his own, where he hves in state such as no Montenegrin heir-apparent has enjoyed before, and a mausoleum for the founder of the dynasty, erected on the occasion of the Bicen- tenary, and inaugurated hist year, crowns the summit of the Orlof^", or "Eagle" Hill, whence the Turkish soldiers fired on the Montenegrin cattle, and so kindled the desire to be done with the Turks for ever. But the changes which one notices most are not expressed by stones and monuments. One sees that Montenegro has reached that critical point at which most States of the Near East sooner or later arrive, when contact with " Europe " and " European " ideas begins to shake the inborn conservatism and primitive faith of a nation. Prince Nicholas, even by the admission of his severest critics the ablest of Balkan sovereigns, has hitherto solved the problem of reconciling the old order with the new, and so long as he lives Montenegro will go on in the way which he has so ably marked out for her develop- ment. The Gospodar, or " Lord," as his people call him, is, indeed, one of the most remarkable men of the day. He combines two qualities usually considered incom- patible — that of great practical common sense and that of a poet by the grace of God. No one can understand his character, and therefore the policy of his country, which entirely depends upon his will, without taking both of these characteristics into consideration. The Prince most emphatically knows on which side his bread is buttered, and his public acts are carefully calculated towards the improvement of his political position. If Russia offers him, as she has twice lately done, a ship- load of rifles and other materials of war, he thankfully accepts the gift, without greatly fearing the givers. If 43 Travels and Politics Austria — that Austria whom he fears and hates so much — provides him with subsidies for his roads and for the pubhc diHgence, which now carries the mails and passengers over them, he carries out the bibhcal precept of " spoiHng the Egyptians." When his old enemy, the Sultan, sends him cavalry instructors with characteristic sense of humour — for cavalry is useless in Montenegro — or promises him a yacht, which he cannot afford to keep up, he couches a letter of thanks in that diplomatic language of which he is a past-master. "J'aiiiic bcaiicoiip les Anglais," he once said to me, and I do not think that there can be any doubt of his and his people's admiration for Great Britain, though what precisely he expects to gain from British friendship is not clear. He told me that he had brought back from England dcs souvenirs ct dcs cspoirs, but of what these "hopes" consisted he did not explain. But ever since the British Government of 1880 secured him his second outlet on the sea at Dulcigno, the name of England in general, and that of Gladstone in par- ticular, has been extremely popular in Montenegro. Chancing to be in Montenegro on the morrow of the Prince's retiu-n from his first visit to London, which coincided with Mr. Gladstone's fatal illness, I found both Prince and people fully conscious of the loss which they had sustained. Nowhere in the Near East, not even in the Bulgaria which he helped to free, nor in the Greece whose cause he always pleaded, did our countryman's death evoke such demonstrations of sorrow as in Montenegro. The Prince once said, that had Mr. Gladstone visited his country the whole nation would have formed a guard of honour along the road from the frontier to the capital. He told me, when I last saw him, that never again would any foreign statesman do or care as much for the Black 44 in the Near East Mountain. He remarked, too, that if Mr. Gladstone had been in power in 1878, instead of Lord Beaconsfield, the Treaty of Berlin, if it had existed at all, would have been very different. The article which the dead states- man wrote in the Nineteenth Century about Montenegro twenty-one years ago was reproduced on his death at full length in the official journal of Cetinje, and column after column about his life was read by every mountain warrior who could procure a copy. But Prince Nicholas, although, like some other absolute rulers, he professes a preference for politicians of Liberal opinions, provided that they are not his own subjects, did not pin his faith on Mr. Gladstone alone. His daughters, during their winter sojournings on the Riviera, had met the Queen, and the charm of their unaffected manners at once won her sympathy. The Prince, who prides himself on his knowledge of English politics, about this time gave a handsome subscription of _^8o to the Indian Famine Fund. A little later the Queen bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the Victorian Order, and expressed the desire to see so picturesque and chivalrous a gentleman. The Prince visited her at Nice, displayed his usual charm of manner, his magnificent national costume, and his smooth, Parisian French. Soon after the world learned that another of his daughters was engaged to a Battenberg, and the Protestant marriage was celebrated at the British Legation at Cetinje. Then Prince Nicholas overcame his dread of the English Channel, and paid his first visit to England, whither his eldest son had gone to represent him at the Diamond Jubilee. Not merely the Queen and the members of the Royal Family, but the people of London, he told me, had welcomed him with the utmost kindness. Nothing, he said, had struck him more on his visit than the extraordinary fact — for such it must have 45 Travels and Politics seemed to a benevolent autocrat like himself — that in the most constitutional country in the world there was so much genuine respect for the Queen and the throne. The Prince's ideal of government is a Liberal autocracy in a Conservative nation ; reforms, according to his system of administration, all come from above and not from below, and his conception of his duty is to recognise and bring about such necessary changes as will civilise his people without making them lose their national characteristics. It was thus that he persuaded them to make roads, which hitherto they had regarded rather as a possible source of danger than as a commercial advantage. But he is fully alive to the excellence of our constitutional methods in a land so different in every respect from his own, although he assured me that he had not the slightest intention of bestowing such a doubtful advantage upon Montenegro. His satisfaction at the alliance of his daughter with the Prince of Naples is yet another proof of his shrewdness, for the average Montenegrins, whom one meets, and who judge men by their inches rather than their wealth or position, think less highly of the marriage than those who have more knowledge of the world. And, last year, when Greece threw down the gauntlet to the Turk, and for a moment it seemed as if Montenegro and the other Balkan States might join in the struggle, the Prince checked the natural desire of his subjects to go on the warpath, and earned the encomiums of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Foreign Ministers, who praised him for his " correct " attitude, the motive for which was undoubtedly the hope of favours to come. But the other side of the Prince's character must not be ignored. He possesses to an uncommon degree the common South-Slavonic love of poetry, and his master- piece, the Empress of the Balkans is not merely a remarkable piece of writing, which has earned for its 46 in the Near East author the title of " the foremost Serb poet," but is a poHtical document of much importance. Into this drama the Prince has put those grand ideas which every Serb imbibes with his mother's milk and cherishes dearly, however unpractical he may admit them to be in his calmer moments. The restoration of the old Servian Empire, which rose with Dusan and fell, I believe, for ever, on the fatal field of Kossovo five centuries ago, is one of the Prince's day-dreams. " The small States, among whose number we are," he says in this play, "ought not to be the counters of the Great Powers." Recent events have greatly accentuated his ambitions. He has followed with the keenest interest the recent racial troubles in the Monarchy, and believes that he may profit by them by attracting to his banner some of Austria's Slav subjects. The uncertainty of politics in Servia and the possibility of King Alexander's abdica- tion, coupled with the improbability of that sovereign's marriage in the near future, have opened up vistas of aggrandisement in that direction also. For Prince Nicholas, whose eldest daughter, now dead, married Prince Peter Karageorgevic, the pretender to the Servian throne, considers himself as one of the two chiefs of the Serb people. With King ]\Iilan of Servia he was never on good terms, and his feelings were reciprocated by that monarch. King Alexander he has visited at Belgrade and received at Cetinje, and the resumption of good relations between the rulers of the two Serb States led Prince Peter Karageorgevic to find that the Lake of Geneva afforded better scope for amateur photography than his father-in- law's capital, where I saw him some years ago. The solidarity of the Serb race is a favourite subject in after- dinner speeches, and in the homely Montenegrin inns you may see rough pictures of the old Servian tsars and the crowning of Stephen Dusan. But it may be 47 Travels and Politics in the Near East doubted whether the Belgrade pohticians would care, in any event — even that of the Obrenovic dynasty's collapse — to take their orders from Prince Nicholas, while it is quite certain that he could not govern the Belgrade politicians and his own mountaineers on the same system. With Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria he has exchanged enthusiastic telegrams, and the meetings of the two at Abbazia and Cetinje this year have been interpreted as an attempt to form an alliance of the three Slav States of the Balkans against Austria-Hungary. On the Turkish-side, in Albania and old Servia, his hopes of expansion are brighter, because it is a maxim of diplo- macy that, whenever there is a war in the East, the Turk shall provide the spoils for the combatants or the umpires. Besides, Prince Nicholas has managed the industrious Albanian subjects, whom he received twenty years ago, extremely well, and has accordingly shown his capacity for further acquisitions in that direction. He told me himself that these Mussulmans, one of whom sometimes accompanies him on his journeys, had never, even at Dulcigno, given him the least trouble, when he had once, n a notable instance, made it clear to them that bcikslilsh /was not an argument recognised by a Montenegrin judge. He emphasised also the complete freedom which they enjoyed, and eulogised their loyalty and industry under a proper government. The late skirmishes at Berane do not affect the matter, even if the Turks extend the present railway from Mitrovica to that point, as lately rumoured. For, as every Montenegrin will tell you, there is no fear now that the Turkish Government will molest Montenegrin independence, even though the increase of Turkish prestige by the late war has made it harder for Montenegro, as for the other Balkan States, to deal with the Porte ; the only difticulty is, as the President of the Council once said to me, that " the 49 i^ Travels and Politics Sultan fears, and cannot control, his Albanians." The consequence is, that from Albania and the Sandzak of Novi-Bazar bands of Christian refugees come over into Montenegro, as in old days from the Hercegovina, and the poor little Principality is expected to support them. But nowadays the vital question for Montenegro is not her relations with Turkey, but her relations with Austria- Hungary. With the disappearance of Turkish rule from the Hercegovina and the Austro-Hungarian occupation of that old Turkish province in 1878, the foreign policy of the Black Mountain entered upon a new era, for Austria-Hungary, in the words of Baron von Kallay, has " become a Balkan State." ^ Montenegro is naturally a very poor country, and in olden days the practice had grown up of making forays over the Hercegovinian border when food was scarce at home ; for the Herce- govina, though not the most productive of lands, is still fertile indeed by comparison with its neighbour. "You may think Bilek barren," said a Montenegrin to an Austrian official, " but it is a paradise to us who live at Cevo." In Turkish times these forays did not greatly matter, and were regarded by raiders and raided as all in the day's work ; but a civilised Power could not be expected to take the same lenient view of them, and what had formerly been an obscure frontier raid now became a diplomatic incident. Moreover, as the Montenegrin cattle are small, and the Austro-Hungarian import duty is calculated at so much per head, without regard to the size of the animal, a certain amount of smuggling takes place, which leads to bloodshed between the Montenegrin smugglers and the Austro-Hungarian guards. To these material dif^culties there are added those awkward historical memories, which disturb the peaceful develop- ment of Balkan States. Prince Nicholas does not forget ' Speech to the Budget Committee, June 12, 1896. 50 in the Near East that his remote forbears came from the Hercegovina, that many of his comrades he buried beneath its stones, and that the Hercegovinians are of the same Serb race as his own subjects. He has always coveted the land in which he fought against the Turks in 1876, and he still frets against a fate which he was powerless to prevent. Austria- Hungary now holds his Principality as in a vice. Her long row of fortifications hem in Montenegro along the Hercegovinian frontier. The heights above the Bocche di Cattaro are all commanded by Austrian cannon, and the most critical part of the road is held by an Austrian block-house. The road itself is so constructed just above this point as to be fully exposed to the fire of the men-of- war in the bay of Teodo below, and every year sees these precautions increased. The coast line, too, as far as the centre of the shore in the bay of Antivari is in Austrian hands, for Dalmatia, here reduced in many places to a narrow strip of a few hundred yards, shuts off the mountaineers from the Adriatic. The cession of Antivari to Montenegro in 1878 has been largely neutralised by the Austrian acquisition of Spizza, which commands the bay. While I was at Cetinje this summer the Prince was greatly disturbed by the sudden appearance of seven Austrian torpedo-boats in front of his villa on the bay — an event, probably accidental, but none the less ominous of what could be done in certain contingencies. Again, by her garrisons at three points in the Sandzak of Novi- Bazar, Austria-Hungary holds Servia and Montenegro apart, and is able to keep an eye on the Turk at the same time. And, finally, even at Scutari in Albania, she has the Albanians in her favour. As a diplomatist once said to me, " Montenegro is suffocated, for the Austrians surround her on three sides by their territory, and on the fourth by their influence, though the latter is a fact which w'e never mention, but which we never forget." But even 51 Travels and Politics this does not exhaust the whole of Austria's power over the Black Motintain. Without firing a shot, without drawing a sword, the Austrians could, by one of the ordinary devices of diplomacy, starve Montenegro out. They have but to imitate the policy, for which, with the linguistic approval of a German acquaintance, I once suggested the name of Scliiveinjieherpolitik. Whenever Servia is tiresome and restive, the discovery that swine- fever exists in that country, and that accordingly pigs, the staple industry of the kmgdom, cannot be exported to Hungary, is sufficient to quell all disturbance. Should it, for any similar reason, be found inexpedient to allow imports of food mto Montenegro — a plan actually adopted this summer by the Pasha of Scutari after the Berane troubles — that country would soon be reduced to the verge of starvation, and even now famines are by no means uncommon in the winter. The knowledge of all these things naturally rankles in the Prince's mind, and the splendour of the new Austro- Hungarian Legation at Cetinje has got on the nerves of the natives, who this summer could talk of little else. Matters are aggravated by the acrimonious Press campaigns which frequently go on between the two countries. Prince Nicholas, like many other public men, greatly exaggerates the import- ance of newspaper articles, which those who write them well know are forgotten by most readers as soon as they have been read. He accordingly takes to heart every gibe which a Vienna comic paper may level at him, and he complained bitterly to me of the newspaper attacks upon his government. On the other hand, his own journalistic inspirations are sometimes ill-advised, and he repented of his hasty message to a London journal, written, as he said, " on Court paper, when my baggage was buckled and I had no Englishman by my side," in which he quoted Mr. Gladstone's cry of " Hands Off ! " 52 in the Near East to Austria-Hungarv. The whole Press of the Monarchy took this up, and finally the official organ of the Austro- Himgarian Foreign Office, the Fremdenblatt, administered a severe lecture to the Prince. It may surprise English readers that a great Power like Austria-Hungary should take her small neighbour so seriously ; and, in fact, Russia herself hardly causes the statesmen of the Monarchy so much annoyance as Russia's outpost at Cetinje. I never thoroughly understood the reason, until one day a politician, who knew both Austria-Hungary and Montenegro well, explained to me the situation in a sentence : " If a dog tries to bite me, I can kill him ; but if a flea tickles me, what can I do ? " Montenegro is the flea, constantly tickling the Austrian giant, and one can easily understand, from the Austrian standpoint, the objections raised to the cession of Antivari and Dulcigno to the Principality, as being so many places where Russia can land arms, to be used against — her enemy. The truth of Mr. Gladstone's prophecy that " no Austrian eagle will ever build its nest in the fastnesses of the Black Mountain," the future alone can decide. For the present the salient fact of Montenegrin foreign policy is that Austria, the Erzfeiiid, not Turkey, the Erhfeind, is now dreaded at Cetinje. But Prince Nicholas is not wholly absorbed by ques- tions of high statecraft. Like most able statesmen, he finds time for small matters as well as great. Indeed, he has a hand in every department of administration, and knows everything that goes on in his dominions. When some friends of mine, staying at the "Grand Hotel," which his paternal care called into existence for the benefit of travellers, found the water undrinkable and the landlord deaf to their complaints, they went in person and laid the matter before his Highness. The Prince at once took the subject up, and issued the proper order for the inspection 53 Travels and Politics of the well. A mouldy Montenegrin ham, which had been hung over the water to cool, was discovered to be polluting the supply, and the landlord was reprimanded by his sovereign and told not to let it occur again. When one of the British Minister's children broke her arm in Ireland, the Prince, as soon as he heard of the accident, telegraphed desiring iine prompte giicrisoii a ma petite aiiiie. In the midst of a political conversation he paused to ex- press to me his admiration at the way in which our police- men managed the immense street traffic of London, although, as he put it, " there are more omnibuses in one big London thoroughfare than in all Paris." He showed also a just appreciation of the historical treasures of the Tower and Windsor Castle, which, with characteristic curiosity, he explored " down to the kitchens," and was greatly interested in the Sevres china, the relics of Napoleon I., and the bullet which killed Nelson. On one occasion, when he was leaving his country for a considerable time, he resolved to provide employment for his warriors, who strongly object to any form of work that is not warlike, and at the same time improve the wine trade of the Black Mountain. He accordingly summoned the chief men together and in their presence planted a vine-stock with his own hands, bidding them all go home and do likewise. Finding that the art of farriery was despised by the Montenegrin braves, he is said to have caused a smithy to be erected outside the palace, and there to have hammered a horseshoe for the benefit of his haughty subjects, who were thus convinced that what was good enough for their Gospoclar was good enough for them. A very early riser, he once called upon a slumbering diplomatist at six in the morning, and I saw him giving orders to his architect and laying the foundation-stone of a new church soon after daybreak. He usually gets through two hours' work before breakfast, as his time is naturally 54 in the Near East much occupied, F'or he is everything in Montenegro and, as a friend of mine once said, "a sparrow cannot fall from the roof without his issuing an Order in Council for its restoration." Besides, in one respect he resembles the German Emperor in that he is perpetually travelling about his country, in each town of which he has a villa. At Njegus, the home of the first Petrovic prince-bishop of Montenegro, the traveller on the way up from Cattaro will see his simple mansion, and he has similar establish- ments dotted about the Principality — near Podgorica, at Niksic, at Rjeka, and on the bay of Antivari. He never neglects to attend any national festival, and his hasty return from England was due to his desire to be present at the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Grab ovo, where his late father, Mirko, inflicted an overwhelming defeat upon the Turks. Unlike Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, whose Court is one of the most formal in the world, Prince Nicholas is not a great stickler for etiquette. I beheld his aide-de- camp bring into the salon of the hotel the Grand Cordon of the Order of Danilo for the Duke of Connaught, wrapped up in a boot-box, while a grave discussion took place in French as to the best means of sending it to England. You may see his Highness laughing and joking on the steps of his palace with his father-in-law, Peter Vukotic, a jovial Montenegrin warrior of the old school, one of the heroes of the war of 1876-7, who speaks only one language, Serb, and is the hero of a hundred fights. In the midst of a Court procession the Prince hailed the .postman, whom he spied in the distance, and stopped his carriage in order to seize his letters and newspapers. His portly form, under a vast umbrella, may be observed at the gate of the Russian Institute, an educational establish- ment for girls, in which he takes a keen interest. On the betrothal of his daughter to the Prince of Naples he 55 Travels and Politics allowed twelve stalwart mountaineers to seize him in his palace and carry him shoulder-high down the main street. Like his namesake, Nicholas I. of Russia, on a memorable occasion, he talks of the Princess as " my wife," and affably invites you to " take a potage " with her. There is no pomp, no circumstance about the palace, a comfort- able but quite unpretentious two-storeyed building, which opens straight on to the street. From the outside it looks like a French country house or a commodious Swiss hotel. A couple of sentry-boxes painted red and white, the Montenegrin colours, stand on either side of the flight of steps which lead up to the door. Several pcriaiiiks of the Prince's bodvguard, so called from the periaiiica, or " tuft of feathers," which they wear in their caps, are usually lounging about the entrance awaiting any orders that their sovereign may have for them. Passing through the hall and up the staircase to the first floor, you are ushered into a large reception-room, upholstered in dark red and ornamented with portraits of the Russian tsars and the Prince's uncle and predecessor, Danilo II, Out of this opens the Prince's study, on the walls of which hang portraits of the King and Queen of Italy. The Gospodar is, like the Queen of Roumania, a great believer in the national dress, and during his recent stay at Buckingham Palace he purchased his first dress suit. In " European " garb he would probably look very ordinary, but in his full, dark blue knickerbockers and his crimson jacket with flowing sleeves, the breast of which is covered with decorations, he looks every inch the Highland chief. Out of doors he wears the usual iVIontenegrin cap of crimson and black — crimson for the streams of blood that have flowed down these rocks, black in token of mourning for Kossovo's fatal field— which bears in one corner his initials, surrounded by five strips of gold braid, to signify Montenegro's five centuries of independence. 5^ in the Near East In his case the cap bears in the front the highest of the nine Montenegrin mihtary insignia. Like every one of his subjects, he carries in the silaf, or red morocco pouch at his variegated girdle, the inevitable revolver, without which no Montenegrin's toilet is complete. So long as he lives there can be no doubt that the picturesque national PORTRAIT OF PRINCE NICHOLAS OUTSIDE BRITISH LEGATION. (Fivni a Photo, by Miss La Tonche.) costume will be preserved. But the rising generation may not be able to resist the desire to imitate the Serbs of Belgrade and assume " European " garb, especially as the full native dress costs from 32 to 300 gulden {£2 13s. 4d. to £2^). The Princess of Montenegro always dresses as the women of Crnagora have done for genera- tions, but her daughters hate the native attire, and putt it on only once a year. I' noticed, too, among the younger 57 Travels and Politics men who had been to " Europe," a growing disincHnation to continue wearing it. It was only by asking it as a per- sonal favour that we could induce Tomo, the charming waiter of the hotel at Cetinje, to cast aside the frock-coat, which some Frenchman had bequeathed him, and resume his silafiind his revolver. A theory has been started that these huge revolvers and enormous leather belts which the Montenegrins carry at their waists, injure their stomachs and impede digestion, and Tomo was desirous to have, like the Prince, a small pistol of British make. At the Russian Institute, too, the mistress makes the girls don homely " European " dress, as soon as they enter as pupils, because she thinks that the more artistic national gar- ments divert their attention from their work. This question of costume is, in the Near East, of more than merely artistic interest ; for I have observed that the Oriental is apt to deteriorate morally when he assumes Western garb. An American poet has ridiculed the man who " puts off his religion with his Sunday pantaloons." The native of the Balkans seems not infrequently to "put off" his primitive faith and his simple ideas when he puts on a black coat. The frock-coated Balkan politician is not by any means the same ingenuous person as the peasant, who is of the same stock as himself, and the silk hat too often converts an unsophisticated son of the soil into a very poor imitation of a Parisian man-of-the-world. At present, however, there is no fear that the Montenegrin headdress will perish, and the English firm of hatters which asked our Minister as to the best means of effecting a sale of top-hats in the Principality might just as well have sent a sample of their wares to the Polar regions. As a specimen, however, of the absolute ignorance of, and indifference to, national customs, which our traders usually display in the Near East, the incident has its practical as well as its humorous aspect. 58 in the Near East Not only the future of Montenegrin dress but much more will depend upon the Prince's successor, whose character is sure to be largely influenced by his future con- sort. This question of providing the Crown Prince Danilo with a wife is a very difficult and delicate one for Montenegro, just as the choice of a spouse for the young King of Servia is a pressing problem for the other Serb State. Prince Nicholas has been one of the most success- ful match-makers of his time, and the King of Denmark alone has done better for the princesses of his house. When a visitor to Cetinje once told the Prince that his country was very beautiful and interesting, but that it appeared to have no valuable exports, his Highness replied with a twinkle in his eye, " Sir, you forget my daughters." But it is much easier, as the Prince has found out, to marry a Montenegrin Princess in Italy or Russia than to discover a wife for the heir-apparent. In the first place Cetinje is not a capital where many young ladies of fashion would care to pass the remainder of their natural lives. It possesses few shops, and those that it does possess are exclusively devoted to the sale of the simplest necessaries of existence. Four years ago it did not even boast a dentist, and that branch of surgery was represented in the Princi- pality by such persons as the Albanian tooth-doctor of Dulcigno, whose methods were once feelingly described to me by the Turkish Consul at that place. This Albanian — who, in the intervals of tooth-drawing pursued the calling of a blacksmith — made his luckless patient sit down on the ground with his hands tightly clasped round his knees, while he tugged and tugged at the refractory tooth till it came out. " If some of your philanthropic English travellers," slily added the Consul, " were to see such an operation they would write to the papers, protesting that they had witnessed a poor prisoner being tortured." Even the Princess, who was born in the country, once 59 Travels and Politics remarked, when asked why Cetinje had been preferred as the capital to other and better sites, that it was very convenient because it was so easy to get away from it to " Europe." There are " European " residents, indeed, who, after five years' residence protest that they would have no objection to five years more, and M. Piguet, the tutor of the Prince's family, has collected butterflies and played whist there for the last thirteen. But, outside the palace, the houses of a few officials, and the diplomatic circle, there is no society, and the means of giving entertainments, even with assistance from Cattaro or Ragusa, are limited. The Princess of Naples had to purchase her irousseau in Vienna, and when anything is wanted in a hurry at the palace a messenger must be sent on foot — for that for a Montenegrin is the quickest way — down the famous "ladder" of stones to the nearest Austrian town, seven hours distant by the carriage road. But, it may be said, why should not the Crown Prince marry, like his father, in his own country, if it is so difficult to find him a foreign bride ? But to this course there are social obstacles. Prince Nicholas, it is true, played as a boy with other Montenegrin boys in the streets ; his old mother, to whom he was devotedly attached, lived and died in a tiny house in a small village outside Cetinje ; and the Princess was the daughter of a homely, if very distinguished, ^Montenegrin. But the Crown Prince has been brought up as an heir-apparent, and was always treated by his tutor as such. Outside his palace two sentries are stationed, and when he drives out to take the air along the Cattaro road in the cool of the day an aide-de-camp accompanies him. He would accordingly regard the women of Montenegro as beneath him, while his father, as a young man, was merely primus inter pares. Prince Nicholas, too, has social as well as political aspira- 60 in the Near East tions, and is well aware that at the punctilious Court of Germany, for example, in the words of a German Court official, which were reported to me, he is not considered, even now, as hoffaliig. Compared with the Obrenovic dynasty in Servia, whose founder was keeping pigs only a century ago, the long line of the Petrovic princes and prince-bishops, which has never dabbled in trade, possesses, one would have thought, sutticient antiquity for even a German high chamberlain, quite apart from the fact that every Monte- negrin is by nature a gentleman. But the opinion has been expressed that a Prince of Montenegro will only be fit to associate with a German Kaiser when he has married into the great " European " family of princes. This, ac- cordingly, is what the Prince is anxious that his successor should do, and over four years ago he wrote a poem for the dedication of his eldest son's palace, in which he prayed that Prince Danilo might " lead a happy life with his loving companion." That " companion," who was not, it was added, to be, like his mother, a Montenegrin lady, has not, however, been found, and it is possible that, in the phrase of a Teutonic commentator, eiiie diiinine Deutsche will have to be the next Princess of the most poetic Principality in the world. Of the Crown Prince himself it is perhaps too early to write with much certainty. Prince Danilo is a passionate lover of the chase, and his exploits as a mighty hunter have been extolled, but not exaggerated, in an enthusiastic German pamphlet, which I was fortunate enough to have lent me at Cetinje. It is owing to his initiative that a close time has been instituted for various kinds of game, and, even for a Montenegrin, he is a deadly shot. After one of the shooting-parties in the mountains, in which the whole Court took part, his father expressed the wish that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York would visit 6i Travels and Politics Montenegro for purposes of sport ; and the son is an even keener sportsman than Prhice Nicholas. He gave a tennis-court to the British Legation, just as his father presented the British Minister with a stretch of fishing up-country, and in every way shows himself an amiable personality. He is also a close observer, and his father told me that he had been delighted to find London exactly as his son had described it. But if appearance be any criterion of character he hardly gives promise of being a great ruler, like his sire. He has iiot a strong face, and strikes one as being more " modern " than the average Montenegrin. Besides, the history of the Balkan Penin- sula teaches the melancholy fact that each nationality in turn produces some great man, who for a brief space makes himself the foremost figure of the peninsula and rapidly acquires a power which is as rapidly dissipated at his death. Bulgaria can point to her mighty Tsars, Simeon and Samuel, Servia cherishes the memory of Stephen Dusan, the Albanians have found a national hero in Skanderbeg, the Bosnian kingdom attained its zenith under Tvrtko L And so, in a lesser degree, Montenegro has come to fame under Nicholas I. But the absolute government, which the present Prince has so skilfully conducted for nearly forty years, depends entirely for its success upon the personality of the monarch. Now it is not so easy as outsiders imagine to administer a country so small as Montenegro ; for the Prince of such a peculiar State has to ignore the advice which Plato sagely gave to despots in all ages, to keep themselves as far as possible from the public gaze. But Prince Nicholas has lived all his life in the public eye ; his subjects know every fact of his career, they see him daily in the streets, they can seek his counsel and invoke his aid whenever they choose. Under these circumstances it is no small praise to the Prince's tact and charm of manner that 62 in the Near East he has succeeded in remaining a prophet in his own country and that by ahnost all his subjects he is regarded with unstinted veneration. As an example of this may be instanced the case of one of them, who was thrown into the depths of despair by being deprived for five years of the privilege of kissing his sovereign's hand as punish- ment for an offence. But now and again, as in one remarkable incident this spring, when a haughty Monte- negrin, against whom the Prince had decided in his capacity of supreme head of the judicial system, left the country in indignation and went to Russia, there is evidence that a younger and less experienced man might not be able to impose his will upon this proud race of mountaineers. Besides, it is difficult to imagine that even Crnagora will resist for another generation the temptation to become more " European." All that can be affirmed about it with safety is that the present Prince is emphatically the right man in the right place, and that the heir-apparent is not, so far as can be judged, a second Nicholas. The Prince's second son. Prince Mirko, inherits his father's poetical talents and has already composed songs and dance music ; the third. Prince Peter, a dear little boy, means, so he says, ** to be a soldier." The two unmarried daughters share their parents' good looks. Autocratic as he is, the Prince has ministers who carry out his policy. The President of the Council and Minister of the Interior is his cousin, the Voivode Bozo (a Serb form of Theodore) Petrovic, who has lately obtained European notoriety by his candidature for the governorship of Crete. The real facts about this candida- ture have never yet been published ; the truth was that the late Russian Minister to Montenegro, who disliked the Prince, proposed Bozo Petrovic in order to annoy his Highness, who was very glad that a body of strapping 63 Travels and Politics Montenegrin gendarmes should he sent to Crete, but was by no means anxious that his cousin should be moved from Cetinje to Canea. During the conversations which I have had with the President of the Council, he has struck me as a shrewd and capable administrator, and, like most of his contemporaries, he won many laurels, which he modestly wears, for his conduct as commander of the Army of the South in the Turco-Montenegrin campaign of 1876. M. Nicolas Matanovic, the Minister of Finance, approaches more nearly to one's idea of a European minister, not because of his excellent French — for that is a common accomplishment among the higher Montenegrin officials — but from his grasp of figures and his very diplomatic manner. M. Matanovic has on many occasions rendered important services to his country abroad, and three years ago was entrusted with the delicate task of expressing his master's thanks at St. Petersburg for the Tsar's gift of rifles and explaining at Vienna that they were a further guarantee of peace. One of the most interesting figures in the Ministry is that of the Voivode Elia Plamenac, the Minister of War, a bronzed veteran who has spent most of his life in fighting his country's battles, and whom I met four years ago, at a rather critical moment, at Podgorica, when he was on his way to discuss the Albanian frontier question with the Turkish Commissioner. His name, "the little flame," is emblematical of his career, for the fire, which he helped to direct in the last war, was, if small, extremely bright. To see the Court at its simplest one should be at Cetinje at Christmas-time. The quaint Serb proverb says, " If Christian had been good, he would have stayed at home on Christmas Day," ^ and the Montenegrins ' I have had to translate Bozo in the original by " Christian," so as to preserve the pun on Bozic — " Christmas Day." 64 in the Near East fully share this feeling of reverence for the great family festival of the year. Montenegro observes, like Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, the orthodox calendar, so Christmas at Cetinje falls on the 6th of January. For several days before, long logs of wood or tall young trees are dragged into the town and placed outside each house. It seems, indeed, as if *' Birnam wood " had " come to Dunsinane," for a young forest suddenly springs up before the palace windows and the gates of the Crown Prince's abode. When Christmas Eve arrives every householder throws the yule-log, or badnjak, on the fire, which is kept alive for three days and nights. The entrance-hall of every house and one room are covered with straw, and the princely family, like the rest, take their Christmas dinner sitting or lying on this natural carpet. Every orthodox family keeps open house that day, and Homeric banquets are served up, of which pigs, roasted whole, and sheep deftly carved with a Montenegrin claymore, form the principal part, while the air resounds with the crack of revolver-shots — here, as in most countries of the Near East, the favourite mode of expressing the people's joy. Of all the recent reforms in the Black Mountain, none is greater than the decision, arrived at three years ago, to celebrate the Bicentenary of the dynasty by the formation of a standing army. Hitherto the army had simply been the nation under arms, and every man of the Prince's warrior subjects, with the exception of the Mussulman inhabitants of Antivari and Dulcigno, who were exempt on payment of a capitation tax of 7 gulden a-head, was liable to serve in time of war. Even the women bore their part in campaigns by carrying provisions for the men, in the absence of a proper commissariat, and the Prince's sister was a perfect paladin of warfare. The only nucleus of a standing army which existed was the Prince's bodyguard of 64 periaiiiks, and no special 65 F Travels and Politics unifonn was worn. It was calculated in 1894 that, in the event of war, the Principality could put into the field, or rather on to the mountain, eight brigades of infantry, con- sisting of 35,548 men, and eight batteries of artillery, 608 strong. With the artillerymen and ofHcers in charge of depots, the total strength was 36,222 men. But the Prince, during his visit to the Tsar in the winter of that year, made such a favourable impression upon his name- sake, that the latter not only sent him a number of time- expired Russian non-commissioned officers to act as military instructors, but a Russian vessel, laden with 30,000 rifles, not, however, of the newest make — a fact, which somewhat damped the enthusiasm of the Monte- negrin people. The next steps were the erection of barracks at Cetinje and the foundation of a military college under the superintendence of native officers, who had studied abroad, at Podgorica. To these barracks, which are the largest public buildings of the little capital, a battalion is sent for three months' training, and then succeeded by another, so that in this way every Montenegrin will have three months' drill every ten or twelve years. The soldiers wear special caps, and the second Russian gift of arms in the present year has pro- vided them with more weapons. But experts doubt whether Montenegro will greatly gain by these military changes. In the first place, the Montenegrin is an admirable fighter in guerilla warfare, but has had little experience of regular campaigns. He is brave to the last degree — only one Montenegrin was captured alive in the last war — and ready at any moment to die for his Prince; but bravery is not everything in modern warfare, and it is doubted whether a regular army of these mountaineers would be of much use against trained soldiers, especially if the war were carried on beyond the limits of their own rocky country. Moreover, a high military authority has 66 in the Near JEast pointed out that the extension of Montenegrin territory since the last war has made the country less easily defensible than before. Roads, too, beneficent as they are in times of peace, may prove to be dangerous in time of war, and it must not be forgotten that the future enemy whom the Montenegrins may have to fight is of a very different calibre from that of their ancient foes whom they have worsted in a thousand battles. The Prince once said that the next war would be, so far as he was concerned, a bloody one; and the Montenegrins are warriors of very different stuff from that of which Greek soldiers are made. But in one respect they resemble the Hellenic army, in that they do much better as freelances among their native mountains, of which they know every hole and cranny, than in a pitched battle, where their crimson dress alone would, in that white landscape, make them an easy target for artillery. The Prince is very proud of his achievements as a road- maker, and the 156 kilometres (or 97^ miles) of excellent driving roads which the Principality now possesses are all his work, while 60 kilometres (or 37^ miles) are in course of construction, and sixty more are fairly good. It is now possible to drive from the Montenegrin frontier above Cattaro into the heart of the country at Niksic by way of Cetinje and Podgorica, and what is now chiefly wanted, as the Prince pointed out to me, is a road from Niksic, 40 kilometres in length, as far as the Austrian boundary in the mountains behind Risano, which would greatly develop the trade of that region. The Austrians have much encouraged and assisted the Prince in his efforts at opening up the country, for obvious commercial and strategical reasons. From 1881, when the late Arch- duke Rudolph inaugurated the splendid serpentine from Cattaro along the face of the mountain by driving up it 67 Travels and Politics in a magnificent coach, Austria- Hungary paid to the Prince a yearly subsidy of 30,000 gulden (;^'2,5oo) for this purpose. Six years ago, however, during one of the perennial Press campaigns between the two countries, the Monarchy stopped this subsidy, for which, in the opinion of its statesmen, Montenegro had latterly done very little road-making. The result was what was ex- pected. The Gins Criiogorca moderated its language, and more work was put into the roads. The greater part of the Austrian subsidy is, for very practical reasons, given in materials, such as spades, picks, carts, and blasting- powder, but even so the Montenegrin Government cannot accomplish very much, partly because it has such small funds at its disposal, and partly because spade labour does not commend itself to the sons of Crnagora, Original in this, as in most of his arrangements, the Prince usually waits till a " famine year " comes round, and then distributes the supplies of grain, which he has obtained from Russia, on condition that the recipients earn his charity by working on the roads. In addition to this, all male inhabitants of districts through which roads pass are compelled to give four days' labour twice every year, or to pay 4 gulden (6s. 8d.) towards the repairs of the roads. Until three- years ago the Princi- pality was unique among the States of the world in that it possessed no public conveyances of any kind. But Austria-Hungary here again stepped in, and agreed to pay a subsidy of 8,000 gulden {£666 13s. 4d.) a year towards the expenses of a diligence for mails and passengers between Cattaro and Cetinje. The arrival and departure of the two vehicles which perform this duty are now events of every day at Cetinje, and the drivers show that, if the Montenegrins can shout like the war-god in Homer, they can also tootle on the horn in a manner not unworthv of the White Horse Cellars. 68 in the Near East But paternal government has left a curious mark upon the rules and regulations of the diligence. Article 13 of this document provides "That the traveller is entitled to the seat marked upon his ticket, but the respect due by the young to the old requires that the former should always yield the best places to their seniors." Of his postal arrangements the Prince has, indeed, every reason to be proud. Montenegro earlv joined the Postal Union, and her Post Office is well managed, and in every respect the opposite of the miserable Turkish postal arrangements. There is a telegraph to all the principal places in the country, and telegrams are not, as so often happens in Turkey, delayed a week in transmission. I once sent from Santi Quaranta, a place which has since gained European notoriety from its bombardment by the Greek fleet in the war of last year, a telegram to Scutari in Albania, asking for some horses to be sent to the little Albanian port of Medua. I arrived at Medua on the following evening, only to find no horses there, and was subsequentlv informed that my message had not been received for six days after its despatch. But such things do not happen at Cetinje. The postmaster is a most artistic person, about as different as possible in appearance from all one's ideas of what a postmaster should be. Gigantic in stature even for a Montenegrin, he always wears the national costume and lays his revolver down on his desk as he postmarks your letters. To the philatelic mania of the day Montenegro has contributed two sets of Jubilee stamps and envelopes, one on the four hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the first Slavonic printing-press, the other on the Bicentenary of the dynasty. But the latter issue, picturesque as it is, did not realise the anticipated profit, and was only a month in actual circulation, owing to the prejudice of the best dealers against commemoration stamps. Another 69 Travels and Politics enterprise, the steamship service on the Lake of Scutari, which is partly in Montenegro and partly in Turkey, is, curiously enough, in the hands of an "Anglo-Monte- negrin Trading Company," established by a Mr, Hammer a few years ago, and shows each year an increase in the number of passengers and the quantity of goods which it carries. Every now and again there is talk of a railway in Montenegro. Article 29 of the Berlin Treaty POSTMASTER AND LANDLORD. (From a Photo, by Miss ChadivicU.) contemplated the construction of a line round the bay of Antivari in conjunction with Austria-Hungary, and a few years ago there were rumours, revived at the Bicentenary, of a Decauville railway. Other more am- bitious schemes have at times been evolved from the brains of Servian politicians, anxious to connect the two Serb States together. But, as the Finance Minister said to me, "It is no use to make railways in Montenegro, a country with a population of under 300,000 souls, 70 in the Near East because of its small trade." A Montenegrin line would not pay, and at present what is much more needed is an extension of roads into the eastern half of the Princi- pality. There virgin forests still await the woodman's axe, which can only be wielded with profit when some means of transport is provided for the wood. It was expected after the cession of the ports of Antivari and Dulcigno to the Black Mountain that there would be a considerable development of Monte- negrin trade through these outlets to the sea. " Give us a port," used to be the cry of the landlocked moun- taineers, " and we shall go ahead." But neither of these openings on to the Adriatic has come up to expectations. Both are exposed to the north and west, and Dulcigno in particular is a mere open roadstead, where the waves beat restlessly against the rocks and foam in and out of the caves, above which the old Venetian town stands in picturesque dignity. Eighteen years ago this old pirate stronghold made a wholly disproportionate noise in Europe by reason of the famous Dulcigno demonstra- tion ; but Count Beust's witticism, Dulcigno far nieiite, has certainly proved to have a great deal of truth about it. A distinguished ecclesiastic, " sent away from Bosnia," as he expressed it, " for political reasons, and now living at Dulcigno as a pensioner of Russia and Montenegro," dilated to me when I was there on the desirability of building a mole across the mouth of Val di Noce, a prettily wooded bay between Dulcigno and Antivari, where a small but safe haven could be formed. But here again the eternal question of funds would arise, and a similar difficulty would prevent the erection of a breakwater at Antivari. Besides, the latter bay is com- manded by the Austrian position at Spizza, the place which was awarded to Montenegro at San Stefano but given to Austria at Berlin. Spizza is not otherwise of 7' Travels and Politics much importance, though it looks very picturesque with the old-world fortress on the hill behind it and a twin fortress on the right-hand side of the harbour, but its strategical value makes its loss rankle in the mind of the Prince. Probably, for this reason, little has been done by the Montenegrins with the bay of Antivari ; besides, Montenegro is debarred by the Berlin Treaty from having a fleet, and the yacht Jaroslav, which the late Tsar gave the Prince, was a white elephant, and had to be returned. But recently this port has attained to considerable notoriety as the landing-place for those distinguished guests who wish to visit Cetinje without the etiquette of a formal reception by the Austrian authorities at Cattaro. Indeed, had the ruler of Montenegro been easily tempted by cash, this silent bay, on whose shores the Prince's villa, the post-office, and a couple of steamship agencies are almost the sole dwellings — for the ruinous town of Anti- vari is two miles inland, and remains much as it was after the cannonade of the last war — might have blossomed out into a second Monaco. For some years ago a body of speculators approached the Prince on the subject of building a casino, but his Highness retorted that he was Prince of Montenegro, and had no wish to become Prince of Monte Carlo, so the matter dropped. Antivari is, however, the nearest port to Bari in Italy, with which there is steamship communication, and since the Italian marriage there has been an increased traffic by this route. In order, too, to encourage the Austrian-Lloyd and Italian steamers, which call there, the Montenegrin Government allows them a considerable reduction on tonnage dues. Another difficulty in the way of Monte- negrin commerce is the constant blocking up of the river Bojana, which forms the effluent of the Lake of Scutari. This is in Turkish hands, and when it becomes choked, as it does every winter, the lake rises and floods not only 72 in the Near East Scutari, but the Montenegrin districts at the other end of this huge sheet of water, the largest in the Balkan Peninsula. Diplomatic notes are periodically sent by the one party, and promises periodically received from the other, but the state of things continues much as before. Trade, indeed, in Montenegro must always remain small, partly because of the natural dislike of the natives to business, and, even if that were overcome, owing to the natural poverty of the country as a whole. " When God made the world," says a Serb maxim, " the bag which contained the stones burst, and the stones all fell upon Montenegro." Large parts of the Principality resemble nothing so much as a vast sea of stones, a veritable steiiienies Mccr, in which here and there a tiny islet appears in the shape of a minute patch of corn, little larger than a tablecloth. The "new Montenegro," which was added to the Principality after the last war, is more fertile, but, as we have seen, is still largely undeveloped — and whence is the capital to come to develop it ? For in Montenegro a man is *' passing rich " on ^"50 a year, and what he can afford to spend he spends on his clothes and his weapons. Podgorica is the only place where any real trade can be said to exist, for Cetinje is entirely a town of officials. The work, too, being largely done by women, except in the case of the Albanians, who live in the country, and those Dalmatians who have settled there, is not such as it might be if the men put their shoulders to the wheel. Successive years show no improvement in the commerce of the country, though I have met Montenegrins who have been sent to Marseilles to study commercial matters. Austria- Hungary has, of course, the lion's share of the imports, but since the establishment of the '' Anglo-Montenegrin Trading Com- pany " Great Britain has done better than before, and 73 Travels and Politics easily occupies the second place, other nations being practically nowhere. Were more attention paid to the preparation of tobacco, which grows well in some parts of the Principality, and is usually bought up by the Austrian Regie, much better results might be achieved ; and flea-powder is so necessary in many parts of the Near East that that commodity, which is one of Monte- negro's staple exports, should command a wide sale. But here, at any rate, there is little prospect of "new markets" for British philanthropists ; for even her ammunition, like so much else, Montenegro receives gratis from the benevolence of Russia, while the natives have a prefer- ence for slii'Oi'ic over our alcoholic liquors. Prince Nicholas in conversation with Englishmen naturally avoids unnecessary reference to his close friendship with Russia, and I do not believe that he would for a moment accept the position of a Russian governor. But the Montenegrins are warm admirers of most things Russian, and in their houses and inns you will see pictures of the Tsar and Tsaritsa side by side with those of the Gospodar and his consort. No one can deny that Russia has done a great deal for the Black Mountain, and perhaps the fact that, in the words of the Serb proverb, '' The clouds are high and the Tsar a long way off," makes the Montenegrins more zealous for Russia than they might be if they were, say, in the geographical position of Roumania, or even Bulgaria. Into the precise pecuniary relations of the two "friends" it is impossible to enter, because, among other advantages of autocracy, the Prince has not to publish a budget, and can therefore keep his financial concerns to himself. But it is generally understood that the Principality receives annual subventions from the Tsar, who is also said to have provided a considerable sum for the dowry of the Montenegrin Princess, whom rumour at one time 74 in the Near East had marked out for his own bride. One of the most unquahtied benefits which the Russian Imperial family, has conferred on the Principality is the Russian Institute, a long building to the right of the hotel, where an accom- plished Russian lady is training up sixty girls, the largest number yet known in the history of the institution. About half of these pupils are natives of the Principality ; the others come mostly from Dalmatia and tlie Herce- govina. But I saw one Albanian girl among them, one student from Odessa, and one from Port Said. They all sleep on the premises, and their dormitories and class- rooms, which the lady superintendent showed me, are beautifully clean. The education is so good that the daughters of our minister received their early training there, and indeed this is one of the subjects in which the Prince takes a keen interest. He was himself educated in Paris, but holds that it is better to bring up Montenegrins in Montenegro, in which he is probably right. He has accordingly had his own family most carefullv educated at home, and provides good elementary schools for his subjects in most parts of the country. It is a curious sight to see the Montenegrin schoolmaster, who is not in the least like any other pedagogue in the world, instructing his class in geography and writing. Their maps and their copy-book headings about their sovereign do them credit, and a merrier or brighter set of lads it would be difficult to find than these children of the Black Mountain. No university exists in the country, and higher education must be sought at Belgrade. But Cetinje, small as it is, possesses a good public reading- room in the same building as the theatre, where the warriors in their superabundant leisure devour the news- papers of the Servian and Russian capitals, as well as the two organs which now compose the Press of the Princi- pality. Sometimes, too, the Prince provides them with 75 Travels and Politics literature in the shape of a new poem of his own, printed in letters of gold, and the eight battle-songs which he composed for the eight battalions of the new regular uvmY were as much admired as the famous ode to the sea which he wrote when his st.uidards for the tirst time waved on the shore of Antivari's beautiful bay, where a heap of Turkish cannon-balls and cannon, one of which M()XTENK(,R1\ BOYS. (Frjin a Photo, by Mr. C. A. .Milh-r.) once saw Sebastopol, still bear testimony to his prowess in the last war. Most visitors to Montenegro turn back when they have reached Cetinje, and have therefore little idea of the beauties of Montenegrin scenery bevond the superb views which they enjoy along the road to the capital. I have, indeed, seen few sights which can compare with the panorama of the Bocche di Cattaro as one mounts the serpentine and beholds one fiord after another opening 76 in the Near East out far below one. But the country beyond Cetinje has charms too of its own. To comprehend the full fascination of this limestone wilderness, one must walk or ride through it by moonlight. Then the gaunt rocks assume the most fantastic shapes. At one moment one seems to be approaching a populous town or a ruined castle ; and then, as one draws nearer, one perceives that the town is merely a vast mass of white rocks and the castle nothing but a crannied clit^". In springtime, too, the bright green foliage relieves the monotony of the limestone, and shows that even in Montenegro trees will grow. From the Belvedere, a picturesque summer-house, built at a corner of the road, about twenty minutes beyond Cetinje, there is a splendid view of the blue lake of Scutari, stretching far away in the distance, with the old Montene- grin capital of Zabliak perched on a hill in the foreground and the snow-capped Albanian mountains bounding the horizon. From here the road winds down to Rjeka, a little town beautifully situated, as its name, " the river," implies, upon a stream which is famous for its fish. These fish, called in Italian scoraiige, are considered great delicacies, and form one of the principal exports of Montenegro. It was near this picturesque place that the first book in the Slavonic language was printed, and the monastery is one of the oldest in the country. Having obtained candles and a guide, we ascended the stony valley of the Rjeka and penetrated the vast underground cavern from which that river issues. After we had been climb- ing for about half an hour over the huge boulders of rock which form the floor of the cavern, we arrived on the shore of an underground lake, similar to that over which visitors to the salt-mines near Berchtesgaden are ferried by the glare of pine torches. If Montenegro should ever become a haunt of tourists, the grotto of Rjeka, with its fine stalactites and its infernal lake, will make the fortune 77 Travels and Politics of some Montenegrin Charon. It is unfortunate that a place so beautifully situated as Rjeka should, like Antivari, be unhealthy and malarious in summer, though in winter it is patronised by the Prince as an agreeable change from the cold of the capital. From Rjeka, which boasts of a very fair inn, we drove for four hours to Podgorica along a wild and desolate desert of rocks which soon becomes almost as trying to the eye as the brilliant glare of an Athenian street or the dazzling whiteness of a Swiss glacier. Presently we descended into the plain in which Podgorica, the largest town in the Principality, is situated. By position Podgorica is destined to become on a small scale the Manchester of Montenegro. It is connected by an excel- lent road with the Lake of Scutari, and lies in a sheltered situation, as its name implies, "at the foot of a hill." Ceded to Montenegro by the Turks after the last war, it still retains the appearance of a Turkish town. In the old quarter may still be seen ancient Turkish houses, with their latticed windows and rambling balconies, while the chief mosque has a beautifully carved doorway. All day the bazaar in the main street is full of people, for the population of Podgorica is about 6,000, and politics and commerce are eagerly discussed. In former times the town was the scene of many skirmishes, and the fine bridge over the river outside it was particularly noted in the annals of this border - warfare. " 1V0//5 somincs toujours en guerre," said a native to me, and the remark exactly expressed the conditions of life at Podgorica some years ago. Even now the Prince is said to look upon an occasional frontier incident as good for public morals. Disputes not unfrequently arise out of rights of pasture which have been greatly complicated by the absurd delimitations of the Turco-Montenegrin boundary subse- quently to the Treaty of Berlin. The Boundary Com- 78 in the Near East missioners so drew the frontier in some places that a man's cottage was in one country and his back-garden in another, and a journey to cut a cabbage was sometimes followed by unfortunate results, for so long as an Albanian has cartridges he feels it his duty to use them, and thinks as little of taking the life of a man as that of a pig. The Montenegrins are naturally ready for a light, and these quarrels are greatly complicated by the survival of the blood-feud as a leading institution of Albania. In Monte- negro the Prince's predecessor stamped it out by his extraordinary firmness, and succeeded, at the cost of considerable unpopularity, in convincing his people that it was the business of the law and not of the individual to punish the murderer. But in Albania, despite the religious exhortations recently addressed by the Sultan to the Albanian chiefs, the blood-feud remains unchecked, and when once it has begun the only method of stopping it is for both parties to meet on the banks of a stream and throw stones into the water corresponding to the number of the slain. The flat ground outside Podgorica produces a good deal of corn, for wherever the Montenegrin women can snatch a few yards from the rocks they will turn them to good use. The fish, fresh from the river, were very fine and large, and it seems a pity that this country is so neglected by the British angler. But the most interesting feature of the neighbourhood is the old Roman town of Dioclea, which claims to be the birth- place of Diocletian, and is about a mile beyond Pod- gorica, in the angle of two rivers. A considerable part of the ancient remains has been excavated, and the site is well worth a visit, not merely from its Roman associa- tions, but because it was once the capital of the old kingdom of Dioclea, which played a considerable part in the Balkan history of the Middle Ages. From Dioclea we drove along through a beautiful avenue of tiowering 79 Travels and Politics acacias up the fertile valley of the Zeta to the busy little town of Danilovgrad. Travellers wiio have only seen the western part of the Principality have no idea that Monte- negro contains any fertile district, but the vale of the Zeta is rich in corn and vines, and the oak is once more visible on the hills. Before the last extension of territory this beautiful valley was the weak point of Montenegro , , ^ 0i^^'^ Y. '^^%M DAXILOVGKAO. (From a Photo, by Mr. C. A. Milla.) from a military aspect. It was here, if anywhere, that the mountain fastness was vulnerable ; for prior to the Berlin Treaty it was only about fifteen miles across from the Turkish territory on one side to the Turkish territory on the other, so that the eastern and western halves of the Principality could be cut asunder, and the usual Turkish plan of campaign was to despatch simultaneously one army from Albania and another from the Hercegovina. 80 in the Near p]ast Danilovgrad was alive with people as we drove up, and the open space between the shops and the river was crammed with rough-looking peasants from far and near who had brought their flocks and herds to sell. There were wild Albanians clad in sheepskins, with the white fez which is the badge of all their tribe stuck on their shaven heads. There were shepherds carrying their lambs on their should^i^rs, and goatherds, the meanness of whose dress contrasted strangely with the richly inlaid handles of their pistols, driving their goats before them. A knot of thirty soon gathered round us on the bridge as we stood there to take a photograph of this curious scene, for the camera is not yet common in the Black jNIoun- tain. Beyond Danilovgrad there is another of those curious phenomena of which the Foiba at Pisino is so remarkable an example. Here the river Zeta disappears beneath the mountain, and flows in a subterranean channel from which it emerges at the head of the valley below the famous monastery of Ostrog. This ancient monastery, object of pious veneration to every Montenegrin, amply repays the toil of climbing and slipping for three hours over the sharp, jagged rocks which are by a polite Action described as a bridle-path. Thither once a year the sturdy folk of the Black INIoun- tain go up, prince and peasant alike, and I saw Prince Nicholas and his whole Court leave Cetinje in a procession of five modest conveyances, quite in keeping with the patriarchal traditions of the country. For the monastery contains the bones of the famous Vladika, or Prince- Bishop Basilus, who took refuge in Montenegro from the Turks some time in the seventeenth century, and lived and died in this lonely spot. It was thundering and lightning, and the valley of the Zeta far below was hid in mist as we arrived at the lower monastery — for there are two — one on a rocky plateau on the mountain- 8i G Travels and Politics side, the other in a cavern of the chff, half an hour higher up. A ring at the beh was quickly answered, and we were ushered into a plainly furnished cell by a youth without shoes or stockings, who kissed my hand and after a profound bow went in search of the priest. It was extraordinary to notice the respect which the holy father evoked when he entered the room. Our Montenegrin guide went down upon his knees and did obeisance before him, and the juvenile attendant proceeded to go through a series of extraordinary antics and grimaces. He bowed and scraped and crossed himself, and saluted in military fashion, running about the room all the while in quest of refreshment for the guests. After the usual glass of brandy and cup of coffee the priest asked us who we were and whence we came quite in the Homeric style. As soon as the thunderstorm was over we started for the upper monastery, which we could just see protruding from the mouth of the cavern in the rock several hundred feet above us. Arrived at the entrance of this remote hermitage, we knocked at the gate, and a venerable man with flowing locks of snow-white hair, the very picture of the typical man of God in the old stories, came down the steps to greet us after the manner of the early Christians. He kissed us on both cheeks, to our great embarrassment, and then led us by the hand up a winding stair and along a stone balcony into his lonely cell. Refreshments were at once produced, and the hermit taking up two eggs dyed crimson like the pace-eggs w'hich we still see in the North of England at Easter, gave me one of them and requested me to hold it in my hand with the end upwards ; he then took another egg himself, and having made the sign of the cross upon his forehead and mur- mured a prayer in Serb, he struck the end of my egg with the end of his. Having thus cracked one end, he made me turn the other end of my egg upwards and repeated in the Near East the same operation with the other extremity of his own, after which he peeled my egg for me and invited me to eat it. This done, he led me by the hand into a beautiful little refectory ornamented with coloured portraits of the Prince, the late Tsar and Tsaritza, and containing a well- spread table covered with Turkish delight, almonds, raisins, prunes, and other delicacies. It was with the greatest pride that he showed me the books of the monastery, some of them being among the earliest pro- ductions of the Slavonic printing press at Kiev, the gift of the late Tsar. But the greatest curiosity next to the old hermit himself had been reserved to the last. \\^ith much solemnity my host produced a huge key from his pocket and led me by the hand towards the chapel, where repose the bones of the saint. The chapel is hewn out of a cavern in the living rock and the roof is so low that it is just possible to stand upright without knocking one's head. One side is occupied by a large chest covered by a richly ornamented cloth, which the old priest proceeded to remove with reverent hands. The box was soon unlocked, and on the lid being opened I perceived the mortal remains of the Vladika Basilus lying in his robes of state. The body was entirely covered up, but the priest permitted me to see the feet of the saint, and looked on with evident gratification, while my guide went down on bended knees and kissed a little crucifix which lay inside the chest. Then the lid was closed and we made our exit, going out of the narrow doorway backwards so as to avoid turning our backs upon the saintly shrine. It was not an easy performance, but as the priest and the guide set me the example I determined to go through with it. Outside in the rock there is a clear spring of water, and, strange to say, a tiny patch of earth about six feet square, where a vine has been planted and is trained against the mountain-side. A quainter spot it would be 83 Travels and Politics difficult to imagine, and it has more than once proved a place of refuge for the Montenegrins in time of trouble. Again and again the Turks have beseiged Ostrog and on one occasion 30,000 of them encompassed it for several months without success. The attacks from the valley below were easily repulsed ; the stones hurled down from the rocks above glanced off the sloping roof of the cave into the ravine far beneath, and although it was defended by only thirty Montenegrins the enemy had to retire. In more recent times the Grand l^oi'voclc Mirko, father of the Prince, held this natural fortress with only twenty-six men, and his defence of the place and his subsequent march to Cetinje with the loss of only one soldier, after emerging from the cavern " as black as a coal " are favourite themes with his son. In the last war, how- ever, the Turks captured the cavern and set fire to the monastery below. Bidding goodbye to the old priest we set out for the pass in the mountains where our carriage was to meet us and take us on to Niksic, where the road ends. The bridge over the river had been washed away, so that we had to take the horses out and make them swim the stream, while our driver shouted across the river for a raft. The distance for which a Montenegrin's voice will carry is most extraordinary, and some years ago when a murder was committed not very far from the Austrian frontier the whole army was mobilised in a couple of hours by means of scouts, who shouted from one cliff to arouse their comrades on the next, with the result that the miscreants were caught before they could escape over the border. Niksic, I think, has a future before it. The natural advantages of its position in a broad and well- watered plain would make it a better capital than Cetinje, which is much less central and has a much colder climate in winter. For some years past there has been talk of trans- 84 in the Near East ferring the seat of government thither, but the obstacle of expense has hitherto proved insurmountable ; besides, until a carriage-road is constructed clown to the Austrian frontier, from which a tolerable track has been made to the port of Risano, the trade of Niksic cannot be deve- loped, for at present everything has to be transported on the backs of mules over a mountain path. The capture of the place from the Turks in the last war after a four months' siege, conducted by the Prince in person, was considered a great feat of strategy, and his Highness is fond of talking about his "Homeric battles" under its walls. By its acquisition and that of Podgorica the keys of both ends of the Zeta valley have been placed in his hands. The old Turkish fortifications are now in ruins, and the Mussulman population is gradually disappear- ing, while a large new church, the biggest in the whole Principality, is a sign of the new order of things. The ride from Niksic to the sea is extremely fatiguing ; for ten hours we were in the saddle — a Turkish one — only stopping for a cup of coffee and a glass of cognac at a miserable han. One of the Prince's perianiks accompanied us as far as the frontier, and, like a true Montenegrin, preferred to stride over the rocks instead of riding. For miles and miles on every side there was not a house, and scarcely a tree to be seen. Everywhere the eye fell upon the eternal grey rocks, which seemed to stretch to infinity. The path, such as it was, consisted of loose stones and went on and on through a succession of valleys and rocky basins. Then we reached the summit of the pass and could see the stony desert of the Hercegovina, far away on the right. Emerging from a deep and rocky ravine, down which the horses scrambled, slipping at almost every step, we saw before us the plain of Grahovo, 85 Travels and Politics in the Near East the Waterloo of Montenegro. Thence to the Austrian frontier is a short ride, and next day we traversed the mountains of the Krivosije, whose warhke inhabitants gave the soldiers of the Monarchy so much trouble thirty years ago. Nestling at the foot of these mountains, now crowned with many a fort, we saw the town of Risano reflected in the waters of the Bocche di Cattaro. 86 CHAPTER III THE MODEL BALKAN STATE : BOSNL\ AND THE HERCEGOVINA WHEN, at the eighth sitting of the Berlin Congress, Lord Sahsbiiry proposed that Austria- Hungary should occupy the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and the Hercegovina, a new era was opened in the history of the Balkan Peninsula. Twenty years have now passed away since the Berlin Treaty regulated the political conditions of South-Eastern Europe, but of the various arrange- ments then made the most remarkable and, as subsequent events have shown, the most successful was that proposed by the second British plenipotentiary and embodied in the 25th Article of the treaty. The experiment, for such it was, is valuable, not only for its own sake but also because it is calculated to serve as a model for the future guidance of statesmen dealing with the Eastern Question. But before describing what has been accomplished under the auspices of Austria-Hungary in so comparatively short a space of time, it may be well to remind the Western reader of the initial difticulties which the government of Bosnia and the Hercegovina presented in 1878. Of all the Balkan lands that passed beneath the sway of the Turk, Bosnia and the Hercegovina were the last to be conquered and the least amenable to the adminis- tration of the Ottoman authorities at Constantinople. The social condition of the country had been one of «7 Travels and Politics feiicUilisni under the old Bosnian kingship, whose last representative fell in 1463 and now lies a grim skeleton in the Franeiscan Chureh at Jajce ; and it remained COFKIN OF LAST BOSNIAN KING. under the Turks what it had been in the days of Tvrtko 1. and his successors. The sole exception was that the Bosnian landowners embraced, as a rule, the 88 in the Near East creed of their conquerors, while their serfs continued constant to the Christian faith. Lord Sahsbury was therefore historically accurate when he told the Congress that these were "the only provinces of Turkey where the owners of the soil have, almost without exception, a different creed from the labourers." Called even to the present day in popular parlance die Turkcii, the Bosnian Mussulmans are m reality of the same race and speech as the Bosnian Christians and have almost to a man little or no acquaintance with the Turkish language. Like the Pomaks in Mount Rhodope and the Greek Moslems in Crete, they had religious but no racial affinities with the Turks ; yet, as is usually the case in the Near East, the ties of religion, especially when that religion has been adopted with the zeal of a convert, counted with the Bosnian Mohammedans for far more than the com- munity of blood. But the Bosnian nobles showed repeatedly, as the Albanians still continue to do, that they had no intention of allowing the Sultan's deputies to interfere with their privileges. Geographical and political circumstances tended to weaken the power of the Turkish officials and to strengthen the hands of the native magnates. The mountainous character of Bosiia ponosna, or "lofty Bosnia," its distance from Stambul, and the constant changes of the governors sent from headquarters, whose average tenure of office was but twenty months, and two of whom were actually recalled before they had ever set foot in the countrv, all prevented a complete conquest of these provinces. In a highlv aristocratic community like Bosnia, the head of an old family enjoyed far more respect, even though he were poor, than an upstart from Constantinople who had nothing to commend him but his ostentation and his office. Now and again we hear of a Turkish governor, like Usref, the conqueror of Jajce, whose word was 89 Travels and Politics supreme and whose religious endowments were " richer than those in any province of the Empire." But the general rule was that the native nobles were the re- positories of power while the Sultan's representative was a mere fleeting figure, here to-day and gone to-morrow. It was not till 1850 that the Bosnian magnates were constrained to allow the Turkish vali to fix his official residence at Sarajevo, and nowhere did the well-meant reforms of Mahmud II. meet with such stubborn resistance as from the fanatical Bosnian begs. Bosnia might be " the lion that guards the gates of Stambul," but it was a lion that had never been properly tamed by its Turkish master. No wonder, then, that one of the Turkish envoys, finding the grapes sour, left the council- board at Berlin with the remark that his Government had never been able to do aught with Bosnia and the Hercegovina during its 415 years of sovereignty, and that no one else could manage such a refractory people. But the Austrians speedily and triumphantly falsified these forebodings of failure. The task of carrying out the mission of the Berlin Congress was only temporarily impeded by the fanaticism of the Bosnian Mussulmans. Sarajevo, after a desperate resistance, fell into the hands of the Austrian forces, the Hercegovina was soon sub- dued, and the first four years of the Occupation sufficed to put an end to the reign of anarchy which four centuries of Turkish rule had failed wholly to quell. In 1882 Baron von Kallay appeared upon the scene, and with his advent the period of constructive work, which has gone on ever since, began in earnest. In addition to the Mussulman element of the popula- tion, the Austro-Hungarian Government had to reckon with two distinct parties among the Christians of the country. At the last census, held in 1895, the whole population amounted to 1,568,092 of which 42-94 per 90 in the Near East cent, were Orthodox, 2i"3i per cent. Koman Catholics, and 34*9 per cent. Mussuhnans. The Orthodox Serbs of Bosnia and the Hercegovina had racial affinities with Servia and Montenegro, who had gone to war against the Turks after the insurrection of 1875, and who expected territorial compensation as the reward of their efforts. Stimulated by Servian and Montenegrin journals, these feelings of kindred nationality are still apt to influence those who prefer the barren and impracticable glories of the "great Servian idea" to the solid material advan- tages which impartial European administration alone can bestow upon such a composite country. The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, who had long looked to Austria for aid and naturally welcomed her advent as that of a great Catholic Power, have felt somewhat disappointed that they, who form little more than a fifth of the population, have not been allowed to act as " the predominant partner " in the Bosnian firm. To my mind there can be no better proof of the even-handed treatment which these various confessions have received from the Government, than that such disappointments should be felt. Of this equality of religious bodies in the eye of the law some examples may be given. I witnessed on Corpus Christi Day, in front of the Roman Catholic Church at Mostar, one of the most extraordinary gatherings of peasants from the surrounding villages that can be conceived. All the worshippers appeared in the picturesque garb of the district, and the whole enclosure was one waving mass of white, which swayed hither and thither as the faithful fell upon their knees or rose from their prayers. The red, white, and blue of the Croatian flags was almost universal, and the military band played a stave of the Austrian national anthem. Yet Mostar is one of the three strongest Moslem centres of the whole country, and such was 91 Travels and Politics in the Near East the local fanaticism in Turkish times that down to the middle of the present century the Mussulmans refused to tolerate a Catholic priest in their town. Now the Mostar Catholics need no protection at their devotions. Again at Reljevo, near Sarajevo, I was present at the annual examination of the Orthodox Training College, where young Bosniaks, assisted b}- Government scholarships, are educated for Holy Orders. The old Orthodox Bishop of Mostar was greatly delighted at the way in which the CORPUS CHRISTI DAY AT MOSTAR. (From a Photo, by Miss Cliadwick.) candidates acquitted themselves, and punctuated their dissertations on Anglican theology and the Council of Bale with exclamations of " Dobro, dobro !" (''Good, good ! ") at frequent intervals. The Russian press is fond of com- plaining that the Austro-Hungarian authorities interfere with the liberties of the Orthodox Church, but a very marked improvement in the character of that body has been perceptible since the Occupation. Prior to that date, as in Bulgaria before the finiiaii of 1870, the eccle- 92 Travels and Politics in the Near East siastical appointments were all bought and the bishops recouped themselves for their outlay at the expense of their unfortunate dioceses. But although the Orthodox Church in Bosnia is still dependent upon the authority of the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople, an arrangement was made with him in 1879 by which his nominations to Bosnian bishoprics were subject to the approval of the Austrian Emperor. A general purification of religious life and a higher standard of theological attainments liave followed this change, and though difficulties some- times arise, as at Mostar last year, the Orthodox clergy is yearly becoming better educated — a great advantage in an Eastern country where religion plays such a large part in all the relations of hfe. The Mussulmans, too, enjoy in Bosnia the fullest liberty of public worship. In almost every Bosnian village the mosque and the church may be seen side by side, and the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer from the minaret of stone or wood, while the church bell invites the Christians to their devotions. One of the ornaments of the capital is the beautiful Sclieriatschiilc, or college for the education of Moslem jurists, which was erected by the present ad- ministration, where young Mohammedans are taught, by teachers of their own religion, the Scheri, or Mussulman law, and the Arabic language. Within its walls there is all the order of an English college, each student has his room and his shelves of books ; a tiny mosque opens out of the fountained courtyard, and a dining-hall is provided for the general use of the students. We noticed that forks were laid upon the table — an arrangement intended, we were told, to familiarise the students with "European" table manners, because they were fre- quently asked out to dinner. Close to, the Mussulmans have a reading-room of their own, where the latest papers from Stambul and their own organs in the 94 Travels and Politics Bosnian press are eagerly devoured, and for their special convenience the Government is building a new hotel at Ilidze, the watering-place of Bosnia. The Austrians willingly admitted those Turkish officials, who entered their service at the outset, to fill places for which they were qualified, so that they might not consider them- selves badly treated. 1 met one of these personages in a small Bosnian town, who, being no scholar, had been provided with a sinecure post as a policeman, and enjoyed the double advantage of an elegant leisure and a regular salarv. The administration also affords its Mohammedan employees every facility for making the pilgrimage to Mecca, and eighty to a hundred Bosnian pilgrims annually set out on the sacred journey with the joyful conviction that on their return they will be regarded by their co-religionists as saints, while at the same time they will be reinstated in their old posts. A doctor accom- panies the pilgrims, and in times of plague I have seen messages about their safety arrive in the Government offices at Sarajevo. In one case, where a minor official had disregarded the advice of his superiors and had sold all tliat he possessed in order to make the pilgrimage, his family was supported by them until his return. In the Town Council at Sarajevo, the members of which are elected in proportion to the numbers of the various confessions, there are twelve Mussulmans, and the present mayor, Mehmed Bey Kapetanovic, the head of one of the oldest Bosnian families, and a writer and speaker of talent, is, like his predecessor, a Mussulman, while his deputy is an Orthodox Serb. The mayor, who has held office for some years, has won considerable notoriety by his collection of several thousand national proverbs ; and a recent speech, in which he illustrated by a racy anecdote the greater security of life and propertv under the present dispensation, was a striking 96 in the Near East tribute to the Austro-Hungarian administration. F'inally, even the Protestants, who form only -23 of the whole population, are encouraged by the Government, which has granted a good site and made a substantial contribu- tion for a Protestant church at Sarajevo. The Austrians have handled the delicate question of religious education with great tact. There are in Bosnia and the Hercegovina, broadly speaking, two classes of schools — public schools supported by the Government, for all confessions alike, where instruction, including school-books, is absolutely free, and confessional schools for the separate religious communities, partly supported by the State. A parent is not compelled to send his children to school at all, but arguments are used by the local authorities to persuade him of the advantages of education should he desire to keep his offspring ignorant. It is left absolutely at the discretion of the parent to choose between a public school, where his child will consort with children of other creeds, and one of his own religious way of thought. But even in the non-con- fessional schools there is religious instruction, only it is given to the Mussulman children by Mussulman liodzas, to the Orthodox pupils by their owji Orthodox divines, and to the Catholic boys and girls by Catholic priests. Care, too, is taken to respect the racial prejudices of the Orthodox Serbs. Practically the only difference between the Croatian and Serb languages is the script. Both alphabets, the Latin and the Cyrillic, are current in Bosnia ; but the lesson-books used by the Orthodox pupils are printed in Cyrillic letters, and those studied by the others in the ordinary Latin characters. A similar motive has led to the invention of the term BosniscJi for the language of the country, so as not to offend the one party by calling it Croatian or the other by describing it as Serb. In all the public schools the native tongue is the vehicle 97 H Travels and Politics of instruction, and in the elementary schools, of which there are i88, the subjects taught comprise reading, writing, arithmetic, a book of literary extracts, and a short compendium of Bosnian history down to the time of the Occupation. The children, so a very experienced teacher told me, are very fond of learning, and like all the Southern Slavs have a special love of history, which has been transmitted from generation to generation in the form of ballads. As, during the Turkish times, there was little or no secular education, and even the well-to-do Moslems had to send their children to the Franciscan schools to be taught, many of the older people are unable to read and write, but it is no uncommon thing to find them learning laboriously with their children, and begging the schoolmaster to lend them a history book to study at home. The boys usually enter the public schools at seven years of age, and remain there four or five years. Their studies are stimulated by prizes, and as an instance, the master of a school, in a place of about four thousand inhabitants, is annually allowed 40 gulden by the Government, to be spent on prize books. Four classes form the usual division of both the boys' and the girls' schools, but sometimes, from lack of space, the four are reduced to two, or grouped together. Above the elementary schools there are two gymnasia, one at Sarajevo and the other at Mostar, a Realschulc at Banja- luka, a technical intermediate school and institution for the training of male and female teachers at Sarajevo, the lack of whom is still felt, but will be gradually supplied as time goes on. A military school for boys turns out a number of smart lads, who are one of the features of the capital. There is no university in the country, for, warned by the example of Greece, the Government is desirous not to flood so purely agricultural a country with a host of highly educated men, for whom there is 98 in the Near East little or no opening, and who would inevitably become discontented members of society. At the same time promising young Bosniaks are sent to study in Vienna at the public expense, on condition that they abstain from joining political associations. This desire to keep education apart from politics explains the selection of Vienna rather than Agram for this purpose. A somewhat similar policy — that of sending the natives to see some- thing of the Monarchy — has suggested the plan of posting Bosnian regiments at Buda-Pesth, Graz, and elsewhere in Austria-Hungary. This system is more expensive, it is true, than keeping the Bosnian soldiers at home ; but the Government considers that the broader views which the Bosniaks thus acquire are well worth the extra cost. As regards the confessional schools, I may cite the instance of a Serb seminary in the Hercegovina, where the children showed me their history books, which con- tained a complete synopsis of Servian history, in Cyrillic characters, from Stephen Nemanja down to Milan Obrenovic. It would be difficult to find a better in- stance of educational liberty, because the young Serbs are thus permitted by the Government to study the history of that " Great Servia " which the enemies of the Austrian Occupation desire to revive. The most re- actionary party in educational matters is composed of the Mohammedan women, who usually have the strongest objection to sending their daughters to school with the Christian girls, for fear lest they should be perverted from those strict usages of Islam which are nowhere so severely observed as in Bosnia. For while the Bosnian Mussul- mans are more conservative than those of other countries, the women are naturally more conservative than the men. Here veiling is practised with far more rigour than else- where in the Near East, and the contrast with Con- stantinople is in this respect most striking. Every effort 99 Travels and Politics is made to respect these customs, and at Sarajevo there is a special school, supported by the Government, for Mussulman girls. A high compliment has been paid to the Bosnian system of education by the Prussian Govern- ment, which last year sent one of its inspectors of schools to examine and report upon the educational system of the occupied territory. It will thus be seen that the aim of the Government from the first has been to make the education of the people thoroughly practical and technical, rather than theoretical and literary. To my mind this is one of the A MISSULMAX WOMAN. (From a Photo, by Miss Cliadicick.) chief advantages which Bosnia possesses over the other Balkan States. Greece, Servia, and to a less extent even the " peasant State " of Bulgaria, suffer from the evil effects of too much higher education, and too little technical training. In all these young countries farmers are more wanted than doctors and lawyers, and the greatest danger is the creation of a Gelehiicn-prolctariat, which takes to politics as a means of getting a living. IQO in the Near East Such is not the case in the occupied territory. Here the Austrians have sought to revive native industries, and improve native art on hnes not divergent from the national genius. Next year Londoners will have an opportunity of judging for themselves at the Bosnian Exhibition, which is to be held at Earl's Court, of the work produced here under Government auspices. One of the most interesting institutions in Sarajevo is the Government art workshop and school, where sixty persons are employed, all Mohammedans, some in giving or receiving lessons in metal-work, and others in executing highly finished designs in silver, copper, brass, wood, and other materials. With characteristic regard for the religious feelings of the pupils, a room has been specially fitted up as a mosque for the use of these Mussulmans, so that they can perform their devotions without leaving the building. A similar establishment is the Government carpet manufactory, where two hundred girls may be seen at work, and a speciality is the so- called Bez-ivebcrci for the production of the veils and dresses of the Mohammedan ladies — an industry in which six hundred workwomen are engaged, in and out of the building and its Mostar branch. Ladies assure me that this Bosnian work is of beautiful quality, and compares very favourably with the fabrics of Brusa and Constanti- nople, which in finish are very inferior to it. It need not be pointed out that the amount of employment thus afforded to the natives is very considerable, for these industries either did not exist at all in the Turkish days, or were conducted on the most humble scale. Moreover, the Government is doing everything it can to improve the condition of agriculture by the creation of model farms and similar institutions in different parts of the country. I went over the agricultural school at Ilidze, where nine- teen pupils are at present being educated in farming and lOI Travels and Politics the three R's, and whence, when their course is com- pleted, they go forth as apostles of practical husbandry to their own homes. It struck me as an excellent idea that their subsequent careers were carefully followed, for in too many educational establishments the pupil ceases to be of interest to his master as soon as he has left school. Close by is a model dairy, with sixty-six cows in its stalls, a large vegetable garden, and at some distance, near the source of the Bosna, an establishment for scientific pisciculture. At Prjedor, near the Croatian frontier, is a Government poultry farm. There are also model farms at Livno, Gacko, and Modric, and at the last-named place a certain number of village schoolmasters have every year a six weeks' course of practical agriculture. The course comprises almost every branch of husbandry, and as soon as sufficient schoolmasters have obtained this instruction they will impart it to the pupils in the two upper classes of the village schools. A Government station, for the improvement of viticulture, exists near Mostar, and has done much to improve the wine industry of the Herce- govma. But the Hercegovina possesses another natural product which has been greatly developed under the new ir<^iine. I allude to its excellent tobacco, the finest of which comes from Trebinje. I inspected the chief Government tobacco manufactory at Sarajevo — there are others at Mostar, Banjaluka and Travnik — and observed all the processes through which all the tobacco passes. This one manufactory emplovs three hundred girls — all Christians — and one hundred and fifty men — all Mussul- mans, because the latter are more accustomed to this. kind of labour than the Christian males, while no Mussulman woman would do such work. Here one sees all the twelve qualities of the native tobacco from the best Herce- govinian down to the worst Bosnian — for Bosnia is not so favourable to the growth of tobacco as the Hercegovina, I02 in the Near East and the plant is indeed cultivated at three places only in Bosnia proper — at Banjaluka, Foca, and Srebrenica. The output at the Sarajevo factory is 70 centners a day, and in addition to the large quantity of tobacco con- sumed in the country, there is now a considerable export to Laibach and Fiume for the respective halves of the Dual Monarchy. The paper — and most of the cigarettes have paper mouthpieces — is also made in the country at the paper-mill at Zenica. Efforts have also been made to improve the breed of horses and sheep in the country, and there is a stud farm just outside the capital. During the period of the Occupation, up to the last census, the Bosnian sheep had increased by 2,390,732, the goats by 924,926, the cattle by 655,264, the pigs by 430,354, and the horses by 78,458. These figures are, in a country like Bosnia, a very good index of the national prosperity. At the exhibition at Vienna this year special commen- dation was bestowed upon the animals which were exhibited in the Bosnian section. It is not the fault of the authorities if the natives do not improve their primitive style of cultivation ; but in this respect, as in everything else, the Bosniak is intensely conservative, and even on the edge of the model farms yon will find peasants whose agricultural implements and methods have changed little from those described by Virgil. The land question was indeed a difficulty scarcely less serious than the animosities of rival creeds, when the Austrians arrived in the country. Long before that time it had been a burning problem in Bosnia. It was the real cause of the insurrection of 1875, and had at repeated intervals before that date produced troubles and disorders among the people, which had spread over the border and caused constant friction between the Austrians and the Turks. On several occasions the former had to take upon themselves the duty of chastising the Sultan's 103 Travels and Politics unruly vassals, and at last matters came to such a pitch that the Austrian Government, in the interests of its own subjects, urged upon the Turkish authorities the necessity of land reform. In consequence of these remonstrances the Turkish law of Sefer 14, 1276 (September 12, 1859), was introduced, but like many other Turkish arrange- ments, this law was admirable in theory but a dead letter in practice. Upon their arrival in the country, however, the Austrians made it a living reality and it still remains in force, having proved itself, after twenty years' experience, to be, in the phrase of a very competent authority, " a golden law for the peasant." The system, w'hich re- sembles the Metayer principle of Southern Europe, is as follows : The landlord, or aga, and the cultivator, or kiuet, share between them the produce of the soil, in a propor- tion fixed by the custom of the district. The kiiiet has first to pay a tithe in cash to the Government, and one- third, one-fourth, or one-fifth, as the custom may be, in kind to the aga ; but on his cattle he pays nothing to the aga, and in Bosnia, as we have seen, cattle form a very important item of the national income. The aga, on the other hand, is bound to provide and keep in repair the kiiief's farm buildings. If the former wishes to sell, the latter enjoys the right of pre-emption, and the Laiidesbaiik, founded some three years ago with a capital of 10,000,000 gulden advances money at 6^ per cent, to those who desire to exercise this right but have not the requisite amount of spare cash for the purpose. The last census proved that a considerable number of cultivators had become possessors of their own holdings, and that the agricultural population consisted in about equal proportions of kiiiefs and peasant-proprietors. But the peasant-proprietor is not always better off in the long run than the unenfranchised knief, for the latter cannot be evicted unless he either fails to pay the share due to his 104 in the Near East aga or leaves his land uncultivated ; the peasant-pro- prietor, on the other hand, may lose the roof over his head as the result of a bad harvest. Suitable as this system is to the peculiar circumstances of Bosnia, it has not wholly satisfied either party ; indeed, if it had, that would be a proof that it had favoured the one at the expense of the other. The occupied territory, it must be remembered, is largely agricultural, and the Bosnian and Hercegovinian peasants have an earth-hunger not less intense than that of the Irish farmer. The Austrians were accordingly besieged on their arrival by cries from the Christians, that the Mussulmans had "robbed them of their lands," and by demands for a general division of the soil among the poor. The outcry sounded plausible enough at first, but diligent investigations proved to the officials that this " robbery," if it had ever been perpetrated at all, dated from the early days of the Turkish rule, and was therefore centuries old. The Austrian authorities therefore resolved to make the best they could of the existing law without risking one of those agrarian revolutions which redress an old wrong by committing a new one. The position of the peasant is now a certain and assured one, while in the Turkish times he was practically the slave of his landlord, and, worst of all, the exactions of the tax-farmers were such that he seldom kept for himself more than a third of his crop. It was this last iniquity which occasioned the outbreak at Nevesinje in 1875, which was primarily directed, not against the Sultan but against the local authorities and against the Mussulman landowners. The aga, on the other hand, now complains that the cultivator can no longer be treated like an inferior being. But both sides have gained confidence in the impartiality of the Government which allows assessors chosen from the various religious persuasions to assist the judges with their local experience in the settlement of their agrarian 105 Travels and Politics disputes. Under the Turkish rule the huet was always at a practical disadvantage, in spite of the theoretical equality of all Ottoman subjects before the law, so ostentatiously proclaimed by Abdul INIedjid in the famous Hatti-cherif oi Gul-khane. No Christians were employed in the administration ; the police purchased their places, and reimbursed themselves by extorting money from those whom they were intended to defend ; and, in the words of the British Consul of that day, " all provincial authorities, with rare exceptions," acted, "according to the inspirations of their own personal interest." It would have been impossible to introduce the jury system into the occupied territory, because no Mussulman jury would sentence a Mussulman, and no Christian jury a Christian. So in criminal cases the Austrians have pre- ferred a system of assessors chosen from among the people, known as the ScJioffeusysteiii. But in civil matters, which are naturally more difficult, assessors are only employed in the least important cases. In some matters Bosnia is even ahead of the Monarchy, for the practice of oral instead of written proceedings existed here before it was adopted in Austria. When a bad season occurs, as was the case last year, there is a Cassa for making advances to the peasants. The Government buys corn for them and lets them have seed, not, however, as a free gift, according to the reckless Turkish method, but as a loan, so as not to pauperise them. F^or the Bosniak, owing to his long subjection to the Turks, lacks that moral strength and feeling which characterises those Balkan races which have never bowed beneath the Ottoman voke. Owing to the subdivision of land under the Turkish law, which distributes the testator's real property in equal shares among all his children, sons and daughters alike, the agas have frequently had hard work to make both ends meet, and they also can get assistance from the 1 06 in the Near East Laiidcshank. One great advantage of the Bosnian land tenure is that it prevents foreign speculators from buying up the land, and keeps it in the hands of the natives. Another advantage is, that all three parties concerned — the Government, the aga, and the kuiet — share profits and losses among them, according to the yield of the year. Possiblv as time goes on and the peasants become better educated, the old Turkish law may be altered ; but that will not be just yet. However, the Bosnian knict is better off than the Dalmatian or Sicilian peasant, and a " European," resident in the country for many years, has praised "the admirable sense of humanity and justice exercised by those who are at this moment the highest in authority." In the north of Bosnia there are some large Mussulman landowners, or hcgs, and the prizes which these sporting landlords give every year for the races at Prjedor, to encourage the breed of horses, are only second in importance to those awarded annually at the race-meeting at Ilidze. The Austrians have had to create practically everything in the occupied territory, for what Crete, Albania, and Macedonia are to-day that was Bosnia in 1878 ; and nothing was more urgently needed than some decent means of communication. In no respect has the decline of Turkish administration been more marked than in its incapacity to make and keep up roads. The great Turkish Sultans of the past were, like the Romans, celebrated as road-makers, and in the Roman times three great thoroughfares connected Bosnia and the Herce- govina with the Adriatic. But, as everywhere in Turkey, the roads were allowed to fall into ruin, and if an energetic monarcli or minister sent a sum of money to a provincial governor for road-making, it invariably stuck in the governor's pockets. Thus in 1878 there was an almost impenetrable barrier between this romantic 107 Travels and Politics country and the civilisation of the West. Miss Irby/ who has given so many years of her Hfe to educa- tional work among the Southern Slavs, tells how, when she visited Bosnia shortly before the Occupa- tion, the only means of reaching Sarajevo from the frontier at Brod was the post-cart of the Austrian Consulate which passed once a week each way and took two days and a night or more on the journey. As the vehicle had no springs and the road was truly Turkish, resembling nothing so much as the bed of a river, the delights of the journey may be imagined. The father of a friend of mine was in charge of the first waggon that went from Metkovic to Mostar. The sole piece of railway in the country was the fragment of Turkish line from Dobrlin on the Croatian border to Banjaluka, which was intended to be the first instalment of a great highwa}^ to Salonica, but which, like so many Turkish undertakings, remained a magnificent torso ! At the time of the Occupation grass had grown on the track, and Bosnia was still without a single train. The Turks had ordered iron in London for bridges over the Narenta, but this, too, the Austrians found strewn about the country on their arrival. At the present moment the Bosnian and Hercegovinian State Rail- ways, including the Imperial and Royal Military line from Banjaluka to Dobrlin, consist of exactly five hundred English miles of line, the fares are low, and a 4th class has been provided for the use of the peasants. One of the most interesting features of Bosnian travel is to see the doors of the 4th class opened at the stations, and the natives (die Eiiiliciiiii- scJicii, as the Austrians call them) descending and ascend- ing in the most picturesque of costumes. Two things are now wanted in connection with the railway system. ' '■ Travels in the Slavonic Provinces of Turkej'-in-Europe,'' i. 2 108 in the Near East When the Bosnian line was built, it was intended for military purposes, and was required to be quickly and cheaply constructed. It was therefore made on a very small gauge, so that passengers and goods have to be transhipped at the frontier at Brod, the one normal gauge line being that from Banjaluka to Dobrlin. A new station has lately been opened at Brod, but even that does not obviate the disadvantages of the nocturnal change of carriages at that place, while goods suffer considerably from transhipment. The second want in the country is a direct railway communication with Dalmatia, the natural coast-line of the occupied territory. The Hercegovina, it is true, touches the sea at two points, on the Bocche di Cattaro, near Castelnuovo, and on an arm of the Adriatic near KIek, but the harbour of Neum is of no use, and at present the only direct route by rail to Dalmatia is the line to Metkovic on the Narenta, whence steamers ply to the Dalmatian coast, down the Narenta Canal, constructed by the Austrians, as the stone monument at Fort Opus relates, " between the years 1881 and 1889." It is now proposed to connect the Herce- govina by rail from Gabela, the next station to Metkovic, with Ragusa, Gravosa, and Castelnuovo. This line, which will be a small gauge and is primarily intended for mili- tary purposes, is to be completed in three years, and another military railway is contemplated from Gravosa to Trebinje, a most important strategic point. The former plan of continuing the Bosnian line from Bugojno to Spalato has been temporarily shelved, owing to the natural difficulties of the mountain route, and still more perhaps to the opposition of Hungary, who does not wish to see her port of Fiume injured by the competition of Spalato. Another suggestion is to extend the existing Dalmatian railway from its present terminus at Knin to a junction with the Banjaluka-Dobrlin line at Novi, At any rate it 109 Travels and Politics is imperative, in the interests alike of Dalmatia and Bosnia, that some direct railway communication should be made between the coast and its natural Hiittoiaiid. It should be added that the portion of the main line from Zenica to Sarajevo has been so laid that it could easily be adapted to the ordinary European gauge,and there is a plan of making a new broad-gauge line next spring, direct from Buda-Pesth by way of Samac to Sarajevo. In almost every part of the country where there is no railway the Government has a post or diligence service, so that Bosnia and the Hercegovina are now the easiest of all the Balkan lands in which to travel. Here the wretched liaii, which is all the accommodation that can be found in the country districts of Greece or Bulgaria, is replaced in the prin- cipal places by Government hotels, commodiously built and let to some landlord, often an old soldier who took part in the campaign of 1878. This interesting and novel experiment in State Socialism was necessary, owing to the uncertainty of the Austro-Hungarian occupation at the outset. It was naturally improbable in the early days that capital would be invested in a country which might revert to the Turk. On the other hand, it was imperative to provide accommodation for offtcials and men of business, so the Government took the matter up and built hotels of its own. In Sarajevo, however, private enterprise has enabled the authorities to dispense with this arrange- ment, and at Brcka on the Save, the headquarters of the Bosnian plum trade, which is one of the specialities of the province, a private individual has, at the suggestion of Baron von Kallay, erected a large hotel. At all the Government hotels there is a fixed tariff for everything, and the traveller is thus spared the constant higgling, which is usual in the East. Elaborate rules are drawn up for the guidance of the landlord by the Bczirksvorsteher, or head of the district. It may be of interest to give some 110 in the Near East specimens of these rules, which I copied down in the Government hotel at Alostar, and of which the following is a translation : — ■ " GOVERXMEXT HOTEL IX MOSTAR. Regulations. 1. The management of the Government hotel, including the restaurant, is conducted exclusively by the landlord for the time being, and the whole establishment is at his orders. 2. Any complaints on the part of the guests in respect of insufficient cleaning of the private and public rooms of the hotel, or impoliteness of the attendants, are to be brought before the landlord for immediate consideration. 3. Stairs and passages must be cleaned at 7 a.m and 3 p.m. in the summer months, and at 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. during the rest of the year. After these hours there must be no knocking nor dusting on the stairs or passages. Each visitor's room is to be properly cleaned within 2^ hours, at the most, after it has been vacated by the visitor. 4. In order to avoid any danger of fire, all the doors leading to the roof are to be closed and their keys entrusted to the porter. Under no circumstances, except the utmost necessity, are lights to be taken into the attics. 5. At II p.m. the principal entrance of the hotel is to be closed, and persons can only enter it after that hour through the cafe on the garden side. 6. The staircases of the hotel must be kept lighted all night. 7. It is forbidden to take dogs into the private rooms, and the fabric and furniture are recommended to the care of the travellers, who are liable to make good any damage done. Ill Travels and Politics 8. Excessive noise, by which the night's repose is dis- turbed, is prohibited, and it is the duty of the servants to speak in a low voice in the corridor, and to shut the doors slowly and cautiously. 9. In order to show proper consideration for the night's rest of the visitors, it is requested that, except in cases of emergencv, no use shall be made of the electric bell for the purpose of summoning the chambermaid or the boots. 10. Under no circumstances can the landlord be com- pelled to tolerate in the hotel, or offer accommodation to, persons suffering from an infectious complaint, or desirous of using the hotel for immoral purposes, or else causing general annoyance by their unwarranted demands. 11. Every visitor is bound at once to till in legibly the notice of his arrival, required by the police." Where no hotel exists, rooms can generally be found at the Gcndarnicrie-posteii, where strangers, officers and officials on service pay 60 kreuzer, or 15., officers of the lower rank only half that sum. The increased means of communication and the estab- lishment of hotels have had the natural effect of intro- ducing the commercial traveller to the country in large numbers. Baron von Kallay pointed out in his account of the occupied territory two years ago, that " with few and unimportant exceptions, all articles imported came from Austria-Hungary," A study of our Consul-General's annual reports proves the truth of this statement, though in some respects, such as the trade in salt and the manu- facture of sugar, Bosnia is practically self-supporting. The country has, from time immemorial, been celebrated for its salt, and one of the earliest events in its history was the quarrel betw^een the old lllyrian inhabitants over the salt springs, from which later on the Romans derived con- 112 in the Near East siderable protit.' Under the Turkish rule this, like most other natural resourees of Bosnia, was never properly developed, for the ot^cials placed in charge of the salt works of Siniinhan, near Dolnja Tuzla, found it more profitable to themselves to keep the output low and eke out their salaries at the expense of the Government. With Austrian administration all that has been changed, and Bosnia no longer needs to import sea-salt from the Dalmatian coast. Similarly, the Government sugar factory at Usora now almost meets the demands of the inhabi- tants, while petroleum also is produced in sufficient quantity at Brod. British imports are comparatively few, and so long as British merchants continue to send out their circulars in their own language and to express their prices in their own currency they will have no chance of success. As a partial result of the competition caused by the visits of commercial travellers from the Monarchy, the normal rate of interest, which used to be 12, 15, or even 20 per cent, in the Turkish days, has now sunk to 8 or 10 per cent. Some of the native shopkeepers, who previously had a monopoly, make a grievance of this, forgetting that this considerable fall in prices is also partly due to the far greater security of life and property under the new order of things. Even during the last two years I noticed an improvement in the shops at Sarajevo, which is now very well supplied with the necessaries and many of the luxuries of " European " capitals, while it is far ahead of Belgrade and Sofia in this respect, as well as in its picturesque situation and still-surviving Oriental character. Mostar and Banjaluka ■ It has even been proposed to derive "Bosnia" from tiie Albanian words meaning "land of salt," and " Hercegovina" from the Turkish phrase for a " land of stones." The usual derivations of the two names are from the river Bosna, in Latin Basanic, and from the German Herzog, because, in 1448, that title was conferred upon Stephen Vukiiic by the Emperor. Prior to that the Hercegovina had been known as the " land of Hum," or Zahumlje, from the mountain of that name. 113 I Travels and Politics are also well provided alike with Western and Eastern wares. There seems to be a fair sale of books, in both German and the vernacular, at all these three places, and the occupied territory has now a considerable number of newspapers in various languages. There is in German the semi-official Bosiiischc Post, which two years ago blossomed out into a daily paper, and is now also pub- lished thrice a week in the vernacular under the title of J^osanskd Posfu. It contains the latest telegrams, a feuilleton and several articles on political or economic subjects, and used formerly to be edited by a talented lady, Frl. Milena Mrazovic, who has published a very readable volume of Bosnian tales, illustrative of the native customs, under the title of Sclniii. Since her marriage she has retired from journalism, and her place is now filled by Herr Oscar Hirth. Another official organ is the Sarajc7'ski List, printed in the vernacular. The Bosnian Mussulmans have two organs, the Bosnjak, published in Croatian characters, and the Rclibcr, w^hich appears in Turkish. The museum at Sarajevo publishes an illus- trated magazine in the vernacular, the principal articles of which are translated into German and issued annually in a valuable scientific work, entitled, Wissenschaftliche Mittheilitiigen aiis Bosiiien mid der Hercegovina, of which, up to the present, five volumes have appeared. It is not too much to say that this work has supplied students of history, folk-lore, and kindred sciences with a vast number of new facts, for under the Turks antiquaries were looked on as either criminals, condemned for a cer- tain time to walk among the tombs, or madmen, and the antiquities of Bosnia and the Hercegovina were neglected. An Austrian official, who has spent many years in the country, tells me that in the early days after the Occupa- tion the natives regarded men of science as lunatics, and, on one occasion, when he sent a Bosniak as guide with 114 in the Near East an enthusiastic collector of beetles and butterflies, the man returned in alarm for the sanity of his charge. The Nada and the Bosaiiska Vila are journals devoted to light literature, and the Orthodox Church, the Franciscans, and the Archbishopric of Sarajevo all have their organs in the vernacular. A new quarterly represents educa- tional interests. Mostar has one weekly paper, and another is shortly to be issued there. Thus it will be seen that the Bosniaks fully share the South Slavonic craving for news of all kinds. During the Greco-Turkish war of last year the Bosnian Mussulmans took the deepest interest in the success of the Turkish arms, several of them volunteered for service, and I have seen in Moslem houses in the country pictures of the battles and portraits of the Turkish commanders. To this section of the community the Turkish labels on my baggage rendered me an object of interest as soon as 1 arrived on the platform at Sarajevo. Although Bosnia and the Hercegovina, which were historically separate, with occasional intervals, in pre- Turkish times, are still geographically and ethnologically somewhat distinct — for the Hercegovinian character differs in several important respects from that of the Bosniaks, just as that of the Montenegrin Serbs differs from that of the Serbs of Servia — the two provinces have been amalgamated together for administrative purposes by the present Government. The Austro-Hungarian system divides the whole country into six Kreise, or counties, which are composed of fifty-two Bezirke, or districts. The Kreise take their names from the six towns of Sarajevo, Mostar, Banjaluka, Travnik, Dolnja Tuzla, and Bihac, and are each placed under an official, known as a Kreisvorsteliev, while the districts are each adminis- tered by a Bezirksvorsfeher, or in small places by a Leitcr der Bezirksexpositiir. The Bezirksvorstelier is the 115 Travels and Politics head of all the various district officials, and the liciirks- niiit, in which his office is situated, is the centre of local government. It will thus be seen that the machine of local administration in the occupied territory is a very elaborate one, and a special publication, the BosiiiscJier Bote, is large!}' filled with the names of the officials. The country is administered with the utmost thoroughness, which forms an immense contrast after the slovenly government of the Turks. " We have written more in twenty years than the Turks in four hundred," said a local official to me, as he described how, just after the Occupation, at Zepce, he had found that an old bag of scrappy papers represented the whole of the Turkish archives. Every time that a document was wanted this bag had to be shaken out and its contents emptied on to the floor. Now all papers are filed and docketed, and "commissions" are issued for even the smallest matters, such as the death of a horse. I have heard it said that Bosnia is over-administered, and have met people who regretted the lax Turkish methods, when a single illiterate scribe took the place of the present trim and highly educated officials. But it is difficult to see how the country could have been systematically developed without the collaboration of a large staff of trained men. More- over, it is much cheaper in the long run to pay officials good salaries and thus secure honest administration, than to follow the usual Turkish practice of giving them little or nothing and leaving them to support themselves by robbing the Government, the people, or both. From a considerable experience of the Austro-Hungarian authori- ties, not merely in the chief towns and on the beaten track, but up country and off the ordinary routes, I have come to the conclusion that they resemble our own civil servants in their integrity, their absolute devotion to their duty, and their unflagging energy, while, I think, they ii6 in the Near East surpass the average Anglo-Indian official in their keen interest in the welfare of the people committed to their charge. Every official whom I met, from whatever part of the Monarchy he might have come, spoke the language of the people — a task which is, of course, lighter for the Austrian Slavs than for the Germans and the Magyars. There are in Bosnia examples of Austrian and Hungarian Barons, who might have obtained high posts in the Monarchy, but who have voluntarily sought service in this new and interesting country, where there was a far greater scope for their constructive faculties. Right up in the little country towns you will find gentlemen of the highest culture and the oldest family, who ''scorn delights and live laborious days," simply and solely for the sake of their work. One and all, these officials take the utmost pride, as they have every reason to do, in the achievements of the last twenty years, and nothing gives them greater pleasure than to show off the country to the stranger. One Ki'cis7'oi'stelicr, who fought in the campaign of 1878 and has since spent all his life in the occupied territory, told me that he would rather have his present work than any other, and spoke in the highest terms of the native intelligence and judgment of even the most illiterate Bosniaks. It is impossible not to be struck by the sympathetic attitude of the officials towards the people, without distinction of class or creed. " IlVr inilsscn uiit den Eiiilieiiiiisclieii liaruionircn," remarked to me a smart young officer, whose superior had rebuked him for excess of zeal in putting into force the law against fishing out of season. To respect the prejudices of the natives is the watchword of the administration, and it would be difficult to find a more remarkable contrast than that between the Russian methods in emancipated Bulgaria and the Austrian policy in occupied Bosnia. So fast has been the rate of progression that not a few officials complain 117 Travels and Politics of " nerves " as the result of overwork, and their functions grow every year. Many of the district officials have to cover a very wide area, and it is no uncommon thing to find them working early and late, in order to get through their business. The chiefs of the various departments have a happy knack of inspiring their subordinates with their own enthusiasm, and a strong conviction of Austria- Hungary's mission, as the apostle of culture in the Balkans, animates the officials, one and all. Already, too, the minor posts are beginning to be filled by the rising generation of Bosniaks, which has grown up since the Occupation. But, though the natives of Bosnia and the Hercegovina are better than most Orientals, it is said that they still share in the common Oriental defect, a lack of public spirit. For the average native of the East is perhaps more apt than the " European " to consider himself and his family first and the community a long way after those primary interests. Hence the Austrians regard it as still desirable to have a commissioner at the side of the local authorities, whose duty it is to see that the public money is not wasted. In time the natives may attain to larger powers of self-government ; but the example of Servia is not encouraging, and at any rate in Bosnia that time has not yet arrived. For my part, I am convinced that the only form of government suited to an Oriental people, lately emancipated from centuries of Turkish misrule, is a benevolent autocracy. Of all forms of political folly the worst is to bestow full representative government upon an Eastern nation before it has had any chance of obtaining a training in public affairs. Disastrous as such a procedure has proved in Greece, in Servia, and to a less degree in hard-headed Bulgaria, it would be worse in Bosnia, because of the mixture of creeds in the latter country. It is the impartial rule of Austria-Hungary, which keeps the various confessions ii8 in the Near East of the country at peace, while the Monarchy possesses resources, ahke in men and money, which no indepen- dent Balkan State, no fantastic " Servian Empire " could produce. Unity has never been a feature of the Southern Slavs, except at rare intervals, under the sublime influ- ence of some great man, whose successors were unable to hold his heritage together. Were the Austrians to withdraw from Bosnia the various creeds would be at each other's throats, and the last state of the country would be worse than the first. History and common sense both point to the present system as the best for the peculiar circumstances of this land. That Prince Nicholas of Montenegro should covet the Hercegovina — the land whence his ancestors came, the land where many of his subjects died sword in hand — is not un- natural. But it may be doubted whether the Herce- govinians, after twenty years' experience of the material blessings of Austro-Hungarian rule, would care to become his vassals. Even during the war of 1876-7 there was considerable jealousy between the leaders of the Monte- negrin and Hercegovinian forces, and no less doughty a warrior than the old brigand chief, Pero Radovic, whose image now adorns cigarette boxes, was on the point of drawing the sword against the men of Prince Nicholas. Every year it is announced that on St. George's Day (April 23rd) the Montenegrins will begin their crusade against the Austrians ; then St. Elias' Day (August ist) is chosen for the invasion ; and, finally, November 9th, is selected for the attack. These frequent cries of "Wolf !" have taught the Hercegovinians to disregard these notifi- cations, and since 1882, when there was a small insurrec- tion in the occupied territory, chiefly owing to the Mussulman dislike of serving with the Christians, public security has been undisturbed. The Austro-Hungarian forces, which this year were estimated at 18,881 non- 119 Travels and Politics commissioned officers and men, have been diminished without the sHghtest risk, and the country, as 1 know from my personal experience in journeying to and fro across it, is perfectly safe. Neither here nor in Monte- negro have 1 ever carried a revolver, and in neither land have I ever felt the want of one. Financially, Bosnia pays its way, as Baron von Kallay explained in his last budget speech ; and when a loan was brought out a couple of years ago for public works, it was at once covered. The budget for the current year shows a considerable surplus, which will probably be increased as a result of the harvest. It is a great financial advan- tage to the coimtry, that, unlike Cyprus, it has no tribute to pay to Turkey. It is said by some critics that the natives feel the burden of taxation much more than in Turkish times. To compare the two administrations in this respect is difficult, because the Turkish Government did practically nothing for its Bosnian subjects, and what it did was dear at any price. The present system of taxation consists, first, of the already mentioned tithe — in cash — to the Government, on the fruits of the field, but this does not press as heavily as might appear upon the cultivator owing to the fact that cattle and not crops form the staple industry of the country. There is a tax of 10 kreuzers, or twopence per sheep, the first ten sheep being allowed free. There is no tax on cows, but the tax on goats has been deliberately raised, not for purposes of revenue but in order to prevent further destruction of the woods by goats. The idea of the Government was to make it prohibitive by taxation to keep a flock of goats more than iifty in number. But in spite of the graduated taxation on goats the peasants still keep large flocks of them, preferring them to sheep as being hardier and requiring less attention. The figures already quoted of 120 in the Near East the increased numbers of these destructive animals prove that this taxation has not in the least crippled this branch of farming. The Government, warned by the awful example of the bare Dalmatian mountains, is anxious to preserve the fine Bosnian forests, and its success has been proved by the recent request of the Servian authori- ties to Baron von Kallay to send them an ofticial from the Bosnian Woods' and Forests' Department for the benefit of their own country. Nor can any one who crosses the Bosnian frontier into the Sandzak of Novi- Bazar fail at once to mark the difference between the state of the trees on the Bosnian side and the charred trunks or blackened stumps to which Turkish ignorance or indolence has reduced what was once a waving forest. The Government also derives a considerable revenue from the salt monopoly, and from the mines which are almost exclusively in its hands or in those of companies in which it is interested. The mineral wealth of Bosnia was known as far back as the Roman era. Roman authors extolled the Bosnian gold, of which as much as 50 lbs. were obtained in a single day, and a special functionary presided over the administration of the Bosnian gold- mines. As Mussulmans object to mining and the Orthodox were chiefly employed on the land, the iron ore of Bosnia was entirely worked by the Catholics before the Occupation. The latest returns show a considerably increased output of most of the Bosnian minerals. In Turkish times, of course, as a Bosnian peasant told me, the taxes were collected onlv once in ten years, and even then it was possible to escape pay- ment by means of those arguments against which the ill-paid Turkish official is seldom i)roof. But it must be observed that whereas now the peasant has discharged all his liabilities to the Government as soon as he has paid his tithe, in Turkish times, when these taxes were 121 Travels and Politics farmed out the exactions of the tax-gatherer were such that the peasant seldom kept for himself more than a third of his crop. Even if the harvest were a bad one, as was the case in 1874, the tax-gatherer did not on that account diminish his demands, while redress was prac- tically impossible. Those who prefer the irregular collec- tion of taxes, the lack of law and order, the blood-feud, and all the other delights of the Middle Ages have but to go beyond the Austrian military posts in the Sandzak and they will find what they seek. In one other respect — the health of the people — the traveller will notice a marked contrast. Before the Occu- pation, small-pox, that scourge of the Near East, com- mitted terrible ravages in Bosnia, as it still does in Novi- Bazar and other parts of Turkey, and the number of elderly people who are pitted with pock marks is con- siderable. The director of the fine new hospital at Sarajevo, of which Professor Virchow has spoken so highly, informed me that in his experience there had been no case of small-pox in his wards and practically none since the population was vaccinated. Vaccination is not compulsory, but it is very popular with the natives who fully comprehend its advantages — in fact the hos- pital, which receives about 3,400 patients a year, is much appreciated by Bosniaks of all creeds. As I walked through the wards, which contain three hundred beds, I saw Mussulmans lying comfortably cheek by jowl with Christians ; while I was told that the Mussulman w^omen, who can, if they choose, have a screen to keep them from the gaze of their Christian sisters, make no objection to occupying the same wards with the females of other confessions. This is another hopeful sign for the future. Alcoholism, unfortunately, has become more common than it was, especially among the Mussulmans ; there were two fresh cases of it the day that I visited the 1 22 ill the Near East hospital, and it is curious to hear that nervous com- plaints are not infrequent among this primitive people. The drainage works at Sarajevo, which are now being carried out, will improve the health of that town. It should be added that in all the eight district hospitals of the country and in the large hospital at Sarajevo the natives are treated free of charge, while in the lattei institution paying patients can receive superior accommo- dation in one of the fourteen separate pavilions which compose the building. At present all the thirteen doctors of this institution come from the Monarchy, but native doctors will soon be available. As in the Turkish times there was only a small hospital in Sarajevo, this foundation constitutes a great improve- ment. The progress of the last sixteen years has been largely due to the energy and judgment of Baron von Kallay. Not yet sixty years of age, he has played many parts. A Hungarian by birth, he early devoted himself to the study of Slav languages, and during his eight years' sojourn at Belgrade as Consul-General, he not only collected the materials for an excellent history of the Serbs, but made himself acquainted with the character of the Servian people. When, in 1878, the Hungarians opposed the Occupation of Bosnia and the Hercegovina, because they did not wish to increase the Slav population of the Monarchy, he strongly defended the new policy which he had already foreshadowed in a newspaper. Appointed in 1882 Common Minister of Finance for the two halves of the Monarchy and head of the Bosnian Administration, he was on familiar ground, for he had already visited Bosnia during his appointment at Belgrade. Assisted by a "Common Ministry for the affairs of Bosnia and the Hercegovina " which has its seat at Vienna, and of which Herr von Horovic is 123 Travels and Politics in the Near East departmental chief, and by a staff of officials in Bosnia itself, Baron von Kallay has laboured unceasingly for the civilisation of the country. He possesses an intimate acquaintance with its topography, and a yoiuig official told me that when Baron von Kallay appointed him to an out-of-the-way post he gave him offhand a complete description of the neighbourhood. He makes periodical tours of inspection, and has ridden the length of the mountainous frontier of Montenegro and the Hercego- vina. Probably no other statesman of the Monarchy understands the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula so well, and in his choice of officials he has been actuated by the desire to obtain specialists as far as possible. The military head of the Government, Baron Appel, has as his Civil-adlatus Baron Kutschera, who came to Bosnia seven years ago, in consequence of his large previous acquaintance with Turkey. Baron von Benko, the Sectionschcf 7\.i Sarajevo, was an old comrade at Shanghai of Baron von Calice, the present doxcn of the diplomatic body at Constantinople, and has had eighteen years' experience in Bosnia and the Hercegovina, where he was appointed at his own desire. Another interesting figure of the official world is Baron von Mollinary, the Krcisvorsteher of Sarajevo, who, as head of the tourist club, has done more than any one else to make the beauties of Bosnia known to strangers. Baron von Kallay's work has been greatly aided by his wife, who is, not without reason, called " the Queen of Bosnia." She passes a considerable part of each year in Bosnia, and her receptions at Ilidze form the centre of society. In her salon representative men of all creeds meet, and officials and natives assemble together. I saw at the race-ball which she gave one of the leading Mussul- mans of Sarajevo dancing the Hungarian Csdnlas as well as the national Kolo, while the Chief Rabbi of the Spanish I2q Travels and Politics Jews — for, like Salonica and Smyrna, Sarajevo has a considerable number of Jewish inhabitants, whose fore- fathers emigrated from Spain in the sixteenth century — sipped his coffee in the midst of Catholics, Orthodox, and MADAME VOX KALLAY. Mohammedans. Baroness von Kallay is absolutely de- voted to her husband's work in Bosnia, and as she speaks the vernacular, as well as Magyar, German, 126 in the Near East French, and English, she is well equipped for the great social position which she tills and which may be com- pared with that of a Viceroy's wife in India. She is an extremely practical lady, takes a keen interest in the hospital, and expressed to me her belief in the mistake of some Balkan peoples in sacrificing their material pro- gress to politics, " which bring nothing into the kitchen." She is naturally proud of the success achiev^ed in the occupied territory, and told me how gratified she had been by the desire which the King of Greece had once expressed to her in Vienna, of visiting a country about which he had heard so much.'' She understands better than most people how to attract the Mussulman women, who come readily to the receptions, which she organises for them, in order that they may see something of " European " ways. Like every one else in Bosnia, she is wrapped up in the country, where she and her daughters pass so much of their time. No function is complete without her, and one sees fountains dedicated to her and springs called by her name of " Vilma." Although the Emperor takes special interest in the development of Bosnia and the Hercegovina, in which he sees a compensation for the loss of Lombardy and Venetia, he has, for diplomatic reasons, avoided visiting the occupied territory, except on the occasion when he crossed the Save at Brod in 1885 at the spot where his forces had entered Bosnia seven years earlier, and where, in 1697, Prince Eugen of Savoy had started on his dash- ing march to Sarajevo. But the late Archduke Rudolph, who was greatly beloved by the Southern Slavs, travelled in Bosnia and the Hercegovina, and other members of the house of Hapsburg have also been there. What ' The King of Servia a couple of months ago, after visiting the Bosnian section of the Exhibition at Vienna, paid Baron von Kallay a warm compliment on the progress of Bosnia. 127 Travels and Politics the future may bring fortli it is hard to say. But to me it seems at once unjust and unpractical that Austria- Hungary should not be allowed one day to reap the reward of her labours in the occupied territory. She has expended large sums of money and a great store of energy in reclaiming this beautiful land from barbarism. Africa, according to the old saying, began at the Pyre- nees ; Europe, before 1878, began at the Save and the Una. What we have accomplished in Egvpt, what in less measure the French have achieved in Tunis, that has Austria-Hungary performed in these wild Turkish pro- vinces. That Bosnia and the Hercegovina should now be allowed to go back to barbarism is an absurdity of which even the "Concert of Europe" would not be guilty. Baron von Kallay said two years ago that " if the state of affairs existing prior to 1878 were to be suddenly restored in Bosnia it would make the whole population thoroughly unhappy." A return to Ottoman rule being thus out of the question, there are only two alternatives, to the Austro-Hungarian rule. One, the erection of Bosnia and the Hercegovina into an inde- pendent Balkan State is contrary to all the lessons of their past history and would lead to a renewal of those religious quarrels between the various sections of the population which stained with blood the turbulent annals of the old Bosnian kingdom. The other, the creation of a great Servian Empire, of which Bosnia anc the Hercegovina w^ould form a part, or parts, is one r those fantastic day-dreams, which are repugnant alike the teachings of Balkan history and the dictates o. common sense. Under no other Government, which is at all within the range of practical politics, would Bosnia and the Hercegovina be so well off materially as under that of Austria-Hungaiy, and the question now remains, whether the Occupation will last much longer, or 128 in the Near East whether annexation will shortly be proclaimed. For a time, undoubtedly, the present system worked better than any other would have done. If it somewhat checked the import of private capital, it had the advan- tage of postponing the question, to which half of the Monarchy the new province was to belong — to Austria or to Hungary. The Hungarians have certain historical claims to its possession — and history counts for more in the Near East than with us — for they early tried to obtain a footing in the country, and in 1135 we find one of their kings, Bela II., for the first time styling himself " King of Rama" — the name of a river in Bosnia, which Magyar chroniclers applied hrst to the surrounding district and then to the whole land. From that time onward, who- ever the actual possessors of Rama might be, it was always included among the titles of the Hungarian monarch. The Hungarian sovereigns continued to in- terfere in Bosnian affairs, and, as in Montenegro to-day, so in Bosnia there was no national coinage until the fourteenth century. Even when the rest of the country had been conquered by the Turks, Hungarian viceroys lingered on in the baiiats of Jajce and Srebrenik for nearly two generations. Towards the end of the seven- teenth century the house of Hapsburg remembered the ancient claims of the Hungarian Crown and ten expeditions one after the other culminated in that J of 1878. The Hungarians, although then hostile to "''the Occupation, have since become sensible of those .'•ights of which Count Andrassy spoke in 1869. ; Another solution, the creation of a " Great Croatia," which would include both Dalmatia and Bosnia as well as Croatia, under the House of Hapsburg, is not within the range of practical politics. But the respective claims of Austria and Hungary for the possession of Bosnia might be obviated by its erection into a Reiclis- 129 K Travels and Politics in the Near East land, on the analogy of Alsace-Lorraine, which would belong to the Monarchy as a whole, not to either half of it. It is the opinion of commercial men whom 1 have consulted, that the trade of the country would be im- mensely developed by annexation, while politically a fii'm and final answer would be given to the intrigues against the Occupation. In foreign politics no policy is so suc- cessful as that of ihe fait accompli. At present rumours are constantly being circulated in Montenegro and Servia that Bosnia is about to be annexed, and the twentieth anniversary of the Occupation, coinciding with the Emperor's Jubilee, has this year increased the agitation. Were the country once amalgamated with the Monarchy these disquieting rumours would be effectually silenced. But in any case, whether Austria-Hungary annexes the country or no, the clock of civilisation cannot be put back in Bosnia and the Hercegovina. 130 CHAPTER IV THROUGH THE OCCUPIED TERRITORY IF any one had predicted twenty years ago that the Hercegovma, the scene of the terrible insurrection of 1875, the wildest and least known of all the Turkish provinces, was destined to become a peaceful haunt of tourists, he would have been derided as a dreamer by every one who knew the country. But facts, as usual, have falsified the forecasts of diplomacy, and to-day, after twenty years of Austrian administration, the occupied territory is the newest and not the least charming " play- ground of Europe." At the present time there are practically three ways of entering the country. There is the railway route from Vienna by way of Brod, there is the line from Agram to Banjaluka, and there are the steamers from Trieste, Fiume, or Gravosa. It is also possible to go by diligence from Spalato over the Dinaric Alps, through the scene of the terrible Dalmatian earthquake of this summer, down to Livno in Bosnia, and so on to the railway at Bugojno. But the last route, although extremely beautiful, is less used than the other three. For those who wish to com- bine a visit to Dalmatia with a tour in the occupied territory, Ragusa is undoubtedly the best starting-point. P'rom the Ragusan harbour of Gravosa a tiny little steamer takes you over an azure sea sprinkled with islands, past the famous plane-trees of Cannosa and the old station of the Ragusan fleet at Mezzo, to the harbour of Stagno 131 Travels and Politics Grande, on the peninsula of Sabbioncello, once the seat of a bishopric and a pirate stronghold from which the early sovereigns of the Hercegovina used to ravage the Italian coast opposite. A rickety omnibus crosses the isthmus in half an hour, and drops you at the harbour of Stagno Piccolo on the other side, a little town almost as ruinous as the fortifications which surround it. Here another tiny steamer awaits the traveller, while a whole boatload of men and women, in the picturesque native, dress, are " A WHOLE UUATLOAD OF MEN" ANU \\ OMEN. (From a Photo, by Miss Chadivick.) setting sail for their work on the mainland. The steamer stops at one or two places on the long peninsula, and then goes straight across and enters the mouth of the Narenta Canal, Up the muddy waters it pants along, while weird-looking aborigines, descendants of those old Xarentans who struck terror into the hearts of the old Roman legionaries, and were the worst pirates of the whole coast, paddle their primitive coracles in the wash. We had heard much of the dangers of the foul air which is said to arise from these swamps, but since the marshes 132 in the Near East have been drained and tlie sluggish Narenta forced into a single channel, quinine is superfluous and malaria is less deadly, and claims fewer victims at the river towns of Fort Opus and Metkovic. The latter place, which is the terminus of the steamer, has grown considerably in importance since the canal was made. It is here that the Bosnian and Hercegovinian State railway begins, and five minutes in the train bring you over the Dalmatian border into the Hercegovina. The military character of the line is at once apparent: the smart railway guard wnih his picturesque fez gives you a martial salute as he examines your ticket ; the obsequious porter, clad in all the colours of the gorgeous East, who carries your port- manteau makes a profound obeisance over the kreuzers which he receives. Xo passports are now necessary for travellers in the country, and all that is required of you is to fill in your Meldezettel as soon as you arrive at the hotel. As for the tiny carriages of the State railway, they are fitted up with all Western comforts — only the fourth class, which is provided for the poorest natives, is of that horse-box variety still dear to some English companies. It is true that the train stops — and some- times stops, as the Austrian officers say, "a Bosnian minute" — at every station, but then no one wants to hurry in the East ; besides, there is so much life and colour on a Hercegovinian platform. There being usually only one train a day each way, the whole popu- lation comes down to see it. A dancing-man, who performs antics like a bear, will perhaps amuse the travellers while they wait ; the water-carrier, too, is a constant figure at every station, and does a large business with the Mussulman inmates of the fourth class. It is as good as a play to see the latter coming forth in solemn procession at the end of their journey, each man carrying the tiny roll of carpet on which he has been sitting in the 133 Travels and Politics train. At the larger stations the natives may be seen squatting on their heels on the platform devouring their food and rolling their cigarettes. The scenery, too, as the train ambles along, is of striking beauty; here, for instance, is Pocitelj — '' cine ivalive Perle," as an enthusiastic traveller calls it — -a perfect gem of a town, perched like some Moorish robbers' nest in a semicircle on the grey clififs above the green Narenta. Before the Occupation Pocitelj lived up to its appearance, and its inhabitants were the terror of their neighbours ; but law and order now reign supreme, and it is only on the Montenegrin frontier that an occasional affray with smugglers reminds the older generation of the bygone Turkish days. But the charms of Pocitelj pale before the delights of Mostar. An old Turkish poet has sung in enthusiastic verse of '' the perfumed air, and the bright, clear water, the laden fruit trees, and the trim gardens " of the Herce- govinian capital. " From Mostar," cries Dervish Pasha, " sprang mighty heroes of sword and pen, from Mostar, the home of all the arts and sciences." No other city can match the beautiful span of the famous old bridge from which the town derives its present name. Antiquaries may dispute as to the origin of this graceful structure of stone, beneath which the narrow Narenta rushes past the rocks on its way to the sea. But whether it be Roman or Turkish work, a few centuries more or less cannot detract from, or add to, its incomparable charm. Below, the swallows are flying by hundreds in and out of the crevices in the cliffs, while from the tall, tapering minarets on either bank the imiezziu may soon be heard calling the faithful to prayer. In the neighbouring bazar the Mussulman Bosniaks are washing their hands and feet and making ready for their evening devotions. Here, earlier in the day, you will find the East and the West elbowing one another — smart Austrian officers and strap- 134 in the Near East ping Hercegovinians, Albanians with their braided white trousers and shaven heads, tall Montenegrins from over the border, and a sprinkling of Dalmatians, easily distin- guishable from the rest by their tiny scarlet caps. A peculiarity of Mostar is the costume of the Mussulman MUSSULMAN WOMAN" OF MOSTAR. women, whose liuge blue cloaks cover the head with a projection in front like a vast poke-bonnet. Among the Mussulmans of Bosnia and the Hercegovina poly- gamy never obtained to the same extent as in the rest of the Ottoman Empire, and one wife is considered a fair allowance for even a Bosnian beg. For example, in the 135 Travels and Politico district of Visegrad, a very large one, there are only three Mussulmans who have more than one wife. On high- days and holidays you may see a crowd of Christian women from the surrounding villages, clad in white knickerbockers, thick, woollen, parti-coloured leggings, and opauke, or even bare feet. Over the knickerbockers they wear a long white garment of coarse striped cotton, I lll^lsriAX \\(1\1IX AT MciSTAlv'. (From a Photo, by Miss CImdjvick.) and over that again a Zouave embroidered in colours. When walking or working they usually tuck up the long garment into their girdles. Their headdress consists of a flat fez, covered in front with coins — a decoration called in the vernacular sirif. Over the fez there is an embroi- dered muslin or net veil, and round their necks more coins and glass amulets. Others, again, vary the headdress by weariiig a fez entirely covered by black silk fringe. The 136 in the Near East weekday attire is made of darker materials. Mostar, which is not more than about five centuries old, and was of no importance till the Turkish times, has grown considerably since the Occupation. At the last census it numbered 17,010 inhabitants, about half of whom were Mohammedans, and it is one of the strongest Mussulman towns in the country. A friend of mine who visited it before the Occupation tells me that it was one of the dirtiest towns in Turkey, and had no better accommo- dation for strangers than was afforded by a few wretched caravanserais, where the beds swarmed with vermin and the daylight poured in at the roof. But smce 1891 the place has possessed an excellent hotel, built by the Government, commanding a beautiful view of the river. The porter, a veteran of the campaign of '78, meets you on the railway platform, and tells you the number of your room before you have left the station. But the great disadvantage of Mostar is its climate, for, placed as it is between two bare hills, it is scorching in summer, and when the boi'a blows it is almost impossible to go out. I have fortunately had no personal experience of tiie papadaci, a peculiarly venomous kind of mosquito, of which the inhabitants are fond of talking. An official who had spent fifteen years in the place told me, how- ever, that planting had greatly improved the climate since he first came there. There are several very pleasant excursions within easy reach of the town. When the heat of the day was over, and the sun no longer scorched the bare rocks of Mount Hum, we drove behind a capital pair of Hercegovinian horses along the plain which stretches southward from the town. Our driver, clad in the picturesque native dress with a many-coloured cunimerbiind twined round and round his waist, pointed to the flourishing establishment for the improvement of viticulture and fruit-growing which we passed on the 137 Travels and Politics in the Near East road. A little farther on, an ancient stone cistern by the roadside testified to the care which the Turkish rulers of the Hercegovina had devoted to the storage of water in the fiery summers. At Blagaj, the old capital of the land at a time when Mostar, as a national ballad says, was " only a hamlet," we left the carriage and walked under the guidance of two sharp-eyed lads along the narrow path between the cliff and the stream. These native urchins are as sharp as any London street arab ; in a moment they divine the wishes of the stranger, and I had but to make a sign to set them scouring the hillside for flowers and twigs of pomegranate and myrtle. The grey rocks were all ablaze with the scarlet glow of the pomegranate, while masses of white clematis hung festooned on the bushes. A sudden bend in the path dis- closed a gigantic rock rising perpendicular from the stream, which flowed clear as crystal from a cavern at its base. A multitude of birds glided ceaselessly over the water or flew in and out of the countless crannies in the limestone clift', while the fish darted to and fro in the rapid current of the Buna. Nestling under the shadow of the rocks at one side of the cavern, hard by a ruined mosque is a tiny house, the goal of many a pious Moslem's footsteps, containing the tombs of a Mohammedan saint and his faithful servant. On the wall above, the scimitar and battleaxe of the holy man still remind the pilgrims of the unbelievers whom he slew, while every evening the custodian religiously places a jug of water and a towel by the coffin for the saint's ablution. Every morning, so they told us in awestruck tones, the towel is moist and the jug half empty. To a wooden verandah overhanging the stream a skiff is moored, in which, to the immense delight of our two small companions, 1 pulled myself inside the mouth of the cavern. Huge stalactites hang from thereof and almost kiss the deep-blue water, and in the distance 138 Travels and Politics far under the mountain one hears a noise as of thunder. No one has ever navigated this subterranean stream, but the local legend tells how one day a shepherd threw his staff into the Zalomska river, which disappears in the earth some thirteen miles away, and how his father, a miller at Blagaj, found it floating in the Buna. Father and son communicated with one another and resolved to profit by this freak of nature. Every day the shepherd slew one of iiis master's sheep, threw its carcass into the Zalomska, and so despatched it to his father, who fished it out of the Buna a few hours later. At last the owner of the flock became suspicious, set a watch upon his shepherd, and one day caught him in the act of throwing a dead sheep into the stream. That evening the miller saw in the waters of the Buna, instead of the usual sheep, the headless trunk of his son. High on the rocks above the source of the Buna there stand the majestic ruins of " Stephen's Castle," or Stjepa- nograd. There, four centuries ago, Duke Stephen Kosaca, from whose ducal title the Hercegovina derived its German name, defied all comers, till his own son made him a captive in his own impregnable stronghold. " Here do I sit a prisoner, Stephen Kosaca," says an old inscription, carved on a stone of the dismantled fortress, where now the eagles have their eyrie. Here, too, stood the Monte- negrin gunners, when the bitter cry of their bretlu-en summoned them to the Hercegovina in the great uprising of twenty years ago. To-day the old walls look down upon the new life and the modern spirit which Austria has infused into the land, upon the railway which leads to Metkovic, and the fine, broad road which goes towards Montenegro. Peace and industry now reign supreme where all was once bloodshed ; and the very dogs — long, lanky, kind-eyed creatures, very different from the curs of Greece and Asia Minor — fawn upon the stranger and 140 In the Near East would follow him back to Mostar, if he would accept their company. Here in the Orient there is no torture of animals such as mars a holiday in Southern Italy, and even the pigeon-shooting at Ilidze is now a thing of the past. The source of the Buna is not the only beauty of Mostar's surroundings. On Sunday evenings all the rank and fashion of the Hercegovinian capital, the dapper officers of the garrison with their wives and children, and the well-to-do Christians, Catholics and Orthodox alike, betake themselves to the lofty rocks an hour distant, from which the waters of the Radobolje rise and supply the town with water. The local legend tells how, in a time of great drought, an angel struck the rock at this spot, like another Moses, and when the people rushed to drink, cried out to them : "Kadi boljc" (" Make haste !"), whence the present name of the place. No one who has seen Delphi can help being struck with the resemblance of that famous spot to this unknown valley. But the innkeeper has followed in the wake of the occupying army, and the red vintage and excellent tobacco of the Hercegovina would make one believe that one was in some German Garteird'iiihschaff, were it not for the melancholy strains of the gnsla, that favourite one-stringed instrument of the Southern Slavs, which are re-echoed by the cliffs. Of the bygone glories of the ancient Servian tsars, of " the king's son, Marko," the greatest hero of the South Slavonic muse, of Kossovo's fatal field, and of the traitor Brankovic — so sang the singer, till the shadows deepened and the setting sun illumined with a purple glow the snow-capped range of the Velez Planina. But no one can have any idea of Hercegovinian moun- tain scenery until he has travelled along the line which connects Mostar with Sarajevo. For a great portion of the journey the road, the river, and the railway run side 141 Travels and Politics by side. In places the perpendicular cliffs have been blasted away, to make room for trains and vehicles to pass. At one moment you cross the foaming waters of the Narenta on a boldly constructed iron bridge, at another you are winding in and out of a tunnel hewn in the solid rock. For miles the narrow defile of the Narenta traverses the solitude of the mountains, where in the old days no Turkish tax-gatherer ever penetrated. In one lovely valley there dwells to this day a race of hermits whose village, called Dreznica, concealed hundreds of golden pieces bearing the image and superscription of the old Byzantine princes. Once upon a time, so the story goes, these anchorites gave a falcon of striking beauty to the Sultan, who made them free from taxes for all time. A little farther on, the rocks assume fantastic shapes such as one sees in the strongholds of the Dolomites. Here needles of stone point skyward, there vast mushrooms seem to be growing out of the cliff', ever and anon some mountain torrent rushes down from the mountain-side to join the Narenta ; and in one place the valley opens and the shining yellow barracks and a modern landcs ararisclies Hotel proclaim the spot to be Jabhinica, the new health resort which the Government has created in the heart of the Hercegovinian mountains. From the parklike grounds of the trim hotel you look upon the glaciers of the Prenj mountains— ■" snow-white meadows," as the aborigines picturesquely called them in the old Illyric — which contrast with the green plain and the flourishing cherry-trees around. Not many years ago a filthy Turkish halt stood in the place of this comfortable house, which is furnished throughout with pretty Bosnian rugs and hangings from the Government workrooms at Sarajevo. The landlady is a most excellent cook, and welcomes the traveller with a geniality which greatly adds to the pleasure of his visit. The bedrooms are spotless, the 142 in the Near East prices low, and the trout delicious. While the visitors' book is full of appreciation, the book for complaints is empty, and it is difficult to see how the cuisine and accommodation could be improved. In olden days Jablanica was a centre of the Bogomile faith, that curious, mystic heresy which defied the thunders of Hildebrand, and, by dividing the Christians against each other, made Bosnia an easy prey for the Turk. Scattered up and down the Hercegovina the tombs of the Bogomiles, great square blocks of stone, still tell of their numbers, and the Mussulmans of Jablanica are said to be their descendants. For here alone in Islam do the women go unveiled — a privilege which their Bogomile forebears reserved to themselves when they embraced the Mohammedan religion at the time of the Turkish conquest. Around this quiet valley the fight must have been very hot, for the hillsides are thickly covered with gravestones, and the banks of the Narenta from here to Konjica, the old frontier town of the Hercegovina, are one vast mausoleum of mediaeval warriors. It used to be thought that the Bogomiles were quite extinct as a sect long ago. But it is stated by a recent ecclesiastical historian that only a few years before the Austrian Occupation a family named Helez, living near Konjica, abandoned the '* Bogomile madness" for the Mohammedan faith. We saw ourselves a fine specimen of a Bogomile tombstone between Jablanica and this place. It was at Konjica, now the seat of the district authorities, that the parliament of the old Bosnian kingdom met in 1446 to pronounce sentence on these heretics who fled, to the number of 40,000, into the Hercegovina. The document embodying the resolutions of this grand council has been preserved and bears the name and seal of the king. It provided that the Bogomiles " shall neither build new- churches nor restore those that are falling into decay," and may be 143 Travels and Politics regarded as the death-warrant of the Bosnian kingdom. Nowadays Konjica is the starting-point for the steep climb up to the heights of Ivan, the watershed between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Slowly we pant up the cog-wheel railway, traversing on iron girders chasms of appalling depth, until we steam out of the tunnel at the summit and find that we have left the Hercegovina behind us. PYom this p(jint down to Sarajevo, about twenty-live miles away, the line for the most part descends through pleasant scenery. A short distance outside the capital a small branch diverges to Ilidze, wjiither the yellow and red carriages of the local trains carry their hundreds during the season ; and then the traveller finds himself at "golden Saraj," the centre of official life and society in this land. Modern Sarajevo differs not a little from the Bosna Saraj of the Turkish times. In the first place, the popu- lation has largely increased, and the Bosnian capital bids fan- to leave Sofia and Belgrade soon behind it in this, as in several other respects. At the last census Sarajevo contained, exclusive of the military, 37,713, of whom 17,074 were Mussulmans, 10,473 Roman Catholics, 5,855 Orthodox, and 3,994 Jews, the remainder belonging to other confessions. Inclusive of the garrison, this total reached 41,173. In order to accommodate this increased population, which had risen by 43*57 per cent, in the brief space of ten years, there has been a large amount of building in the town, and new quarters have sprung up which did not exist in the Turkish days. Hence the cost of house-rent, which was high in the early years of the Occupation, has now considerably fallen. The large plain, which extends westward and would have been preferred by some as the site of the new city at the time of the Occupation, affords ample scope for expansion, and the principal railway station has been placed at a 144 in the Near East great distance from the centre of the town, because it is considered that one day the capital will completely surround it. In point of situation, indeed, Sarajevo is the most favoured of all Balkan capitals. It is traversed by a small stream, called by the poetic name of the Miljacka, or "gently murmuring," which has been dammed up so as to increase the amount of water. Inferior in this point alone to the Servian capital with its two splendid rivers, Sarajevo has many other advan- tages which Belgrade does not possess. The town lies picturesquely in a hollow between two hills and is commanded towards the east by a castle, from whose bastions there is an admirable view of the old wooden Turkish houses and the modern European buildings. Unlike Athens and Belgrade, it possesses a considerable amount of vegetation. No doubt the modern part of the town has greatly grown at the expense of the Oriental, but Sarajevo is still the most Oriental city of the Balkan Peninsula. In Belgrade and Sofia you have nothing but brand-new edifices, while in Athens there is no alternative between the venerable ruins of antiquity and the modern German town constructed under King Otho. But at Saraj the West and the East meet, and the Oriental houses with their courtyards and gardens have not been improved out of existence as at Sofia. You may take a walk through the bazar or carsija, and imagine yourself in a purely Eastern town, while at a few minutes' distance the shops of the Franje Josipa Ulica transport you back to an Austrian city. In point of picturesqueness the Sarajevo bazar is unrivalled in the Near East. It cannot perhaps be compared with the suks of Tunis or the large covered bazar at Con- stantinople, because it is almost entirely in the open air. To see it at its best one should visit it on a market- day. Then the country folk come in from all the neigh- 145 L Travels and Politics bourhood with their wares, every one of them in costume. Here and there you may see a Bosniak carrying a "A BOSNIAK CARRYING A KAM ON HIS HACK. ram on his back, and I noticed one or two of the peasants panting and sweating beneath their Hving load as far as the castle, while the animals looked on with the 146 ill the Near East most sublime complacency. A good many of the mer- chants are Spanish Jews, who wear thick fur coats, Hke Svengah, in summer and winter ahke. They have picked up German remarkably well, and there is no difficulty in making purchases in that language — a fact which is all the more curious because they never showed much aptitude for the Bosnian idiom. Their women are easily distinguishable by their headdress, which consists of an unbecoming stiff silk cap trimmed round the edge with sequins and completely covering the hair. As in all Oriental bazars, each trade has a quarter devoted to its particular industry, so that all the shoe- makers are in one part and all the metal-workers in another. There is here far less of the bargaining which is inevitable at Constantinople, and I have known an instance where a salesman was absolutely indifferent to the sale of his goods, and declined to abate a single kreuzer of his price. At Sarajevo only the Bosniaks are permitted to have stalls in the bazar — a privilege which they much appreciate, and which is shared by all the confessions alike. Only one part of the bazar is under cover, and is almost entirely devoted to textile fabrics. In the midst of the bazar is the great beauty of Sarajevo — the famous mosque, called Begova-Dzamija, which was built by Usref, Pasha of Bosnia and conqueror of Jajce in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Usref was the real founder of Turkish Saraj, which under the old Bosnian kingdom had little importance, and of all his works this mosque is the finest. Standing in a cool courtyard, where the plash of a beautiful foun- tain never ceases, and a splendid lime-tree of vast age gives shade to the worshipper as he perform his ablutions, the Begova-Dzamija is typical of that repose which the Moslem so dearly loves, and of that cleanliness which in his religion is not second, but equivalent, to godliness. 147 Travels and Politics in the Near East Out in the courtyard, too, is a quaint old stone, the top of which is traversed by a groove exactly the length of a Turkish ell. The local legend says that a pasha, hearing how the merchants used various measures, set up this stone, that all might know the exact length of a Turkish ell, or cirsiii. To-day no such necessity exists, but this grooved block still bears the name of " the ell-stone," and reminds the worshipper of that injunction of the Koran which forbids the faithful to use false measures. An old clock-tower and some Mussulman graves, one of the founder, another of the late mayor, complete the picture, while over the way an old Mohammedan school still remains, a striking contrast to the spick-and-span ScJien'at- scJuilc which we have already described. Of the modern buildings the two handsomest are the new town hall and the Government offices ; the former, which stands on the bank of the river, has only been completed within the last few years, and is constructed in the old Bosnian style of architecture and in the two colours, red and yellow, which are those of the country. The rooms inside are extremely handsome, and one of them in particular is expressly adapted for public entertainments. The Govern- ment olBces at the other end of the town are large and roomy, and their ample corridors are filled every morning by groups of picturesque natives waiting to have inter- views with the authorities. Another valuable institution of the new era is the museum, which forms an historical and scientific epitome of Bosnia and the Hercegovina. Even persons to whom the name of museum is anathema cannot fail to be interested in the collection of figures dressed in the costumes of dififerent parts of the country and placed in appropriate surroundings. Here, amidst the old wood-carving of a harem, you may see the figures of Moslem ladies. Here, too, you have tall Herce- govinians, handsomely dressed Bosniaks, and an occa- 149 Travels and Politics in the Near East sional Albanian and Bulgarian — for the museum is chiefly, but not exclusively, devoted to the inhabitants and pro- ducts of the occupied territory. The collection of gems and coins is of much historical value, and the fauna and flora are very rich. This collection is indeed one of the sharpest contrasts between Bosnia and Turkey proper, for the Ottoman Government rarely pays the smallest attention to matters of this kind, and, like the dog in the manger, forbids foreigners to do for it what it is too lazy or too suspicious to do for itself. From a picturesque point of view Sarajevo, like Bel- grade and Athens, suffers from the electric tram, which traverses the Appel-Quai, along the right bank of the Miljacka, but this Western mode of locomotion has not been allowed to spoil the shady turn of the river where the Mussulman delights to drink his coffee in the garden of the Beiidhasi. It is near this part of the river that the town is most artistic. On the left bank tier after tier of wooden Turkish houses peer out of the greenery, with here and there a minaret rising above the foliage. Here, too, the river is not embanked, but left to nature, and instead of a level promenade there are charming contrasts between the undulating shore and the rocks which here and there rise direct from the river-bed. Formerly Sara- jevo, like all Turkish towns, possessed a large number of Mussulman cemeteries, whose gravestones stood at all angles, and whose neglected vegetation formed green oases between the houses — for as every one knows the Mussulman loves to live in close proximity to the last resting-place of his kinsman. This was one of the diffi- culties with which the Austrians had to deal when they entered the country, for these picturesque cemeteries were permanent obstacles to the expansion of the town. Gradually, however, this difficulty has been overcome : some have disappeared, others have been turned into gardens, 1^0 Travels and Politics but here and there one still comes across a few stones, while the hills above the town are still covered with Jewish and Mussulman graves. One historic monument has not been allowed to fall into decay — the Mosque of Ali Pasha, towards the entrance of the town, where the insurgents made a desperate resistance to the Army of Occupation on the memorable 19th of August, 1878, when Sarajevo fell, the second time in its history that the Bosnian capital, temporarily occupied by Prince Eugen in 1697, came into the hands of the Austrians. Mohammedan fanaticism now finds vent in the weekly exercises of the dancing and howling dervishes, which take place in the Sinan tekkeh, or cloister. When I visited this building I was first of all escorted into a cafe, where a number of people were sitting, playing cards and drinking coffee. Traversing a stableyard I reached the wooden gallery of the place in which the dervishes perform. I expected every moment that the gallery would fall down, as it was sup- ported by only one pillar on either side, and creaked and groaned with every movement of the spectators. There was also a latticed gallery for women. There were fourteen dervishes in the building, arranged in three lines of one, nine, and fom^ respectively. The leadei" in front kept bowing his head and kissing the ground, swaying his body, and every now and again uttering cries of " Allah ! " and " Mohammed ! " The others followed his example, one of them being alwavs late in his movements. This performance began a little after nine, and about ten we were told that there would be no dancing, as at least thirty dervishes were required for that. I afterwards found that the best of the dervishes had gone to the Exhibition at Buda-Pesth, so that here, as in Constanti- nople, their religious ecstasies have been turned into a show, to which the visitor is expected to contribute a small offering. 152 in the Near East Of all their improvements near the capital the Austrians are proudest of the watering-place which they have created at llidze, about seven miles distant. It is true that the sulphur-baths of Ilidze were known to the Romans, who built a town there, of which considerable remains have been discovered. In the Middle Ages, too, here was the centre of the Government, and the baths enjoyed considerable reputation under the Turks. But at the time of the Occupation the arrangements were of the most primitive description, so that the history of Ilidze as a bath may be said, like all other civilised insti- tutions in the country, to date from the present irgiiiic. A constant service of trains takes you out there during the season, and on Sundays and holidays le tout Sarajevo assembles at Ilidze. Special compartments are on this, as on all the lines, reserved for Mussulman women, and as a curious instance of Western progress I noted a special van for bicycles, which are very popular with the nativ^es. Three hotels and a restaurant provide for the visitors, and it is the fashion in the season to take supper there, or to reside there altogether, and go into town every day. A very low scale of charges has been drawn up with a view of inducing people to come from a distance — in short, Ilidze has now most of the attractions, without the high prices, of " European " watering-places. The inhabitants take special interest in the three bears, natives of the Bosnian mountains, whose cage is one of the features of the grounds. When we first saw them two years ago, Mali, the " little one," was much bullied by Misko, the tyrant of the three, and filled the air with his piteous howls, but this year we found him bigger and somewhat more courageous. Every visitor takes as a matter of course the drive of two and a half miles to the sources of the Bosna at the foot of Mount Igman. The natural beauties of this spring, which is clear as crystal, have 153 Travels and Politics been too much " improved" to my taste, and the artiticial embankments, bridges, and gardens might well have been spared. The swimming-bath in the other stream, the Zeljesnica, is a great attraction, and doctors extol highly the sulphur springs of the place. During the race week in June it is impossible to get a room in the hotels, and the presence of Madame von Kallay there gives the place social importance. From the present to the former capital of the country, which, previous to the middle of the present century, was STREET IN TNAVNTK. (From a Phoic. by Miss Chadwitk.) Travnik, is an easy journey of barely four hours by rail through beautiful country intersected by the yellow Bosna for the greater part of the distance. At two places in this valley, where now all is peaceful, the army of the Occupation had to fight its way twenty years ago. At the junction of Lasva we leave the main line, which follows the Bosna, and branch off to Travnik past one of the chief wood company's establishments. Travnik does not, of course, possess the political importance that 154 in the Near East it had when it was the residence of the Turkish Governor. But it contained at the last census a popuhition of 6,894, and is one of the purest Mohammedan towns in the country, although the Catholics are on the increase there. Should this branch line ever be prolonged to the Adriatic at Spalato, its commercial value would be much enhanced, and in the interval between my two visits I noticed a considerable advance in its development. Last year, for instance, the local authorities thought it de- sirable to build a new hotel, containing a theatre, an officers' casino, and a hall where entertainments can be given, so that it contrasts very pleasantly with most towns of the same size in England. But these modern improvements have not in the least detracted from its Oriental charm. No place in Bosnia is so famous for its Mussulman tombs — huge edifices fenced in with u'on railings and covered with canopies, like the immense state-beds of our ancestors. These tiirbcli, which are almost as large as houses, are, for the most part, the last resting-places of the Mohammedan governors of Bosnia. Another historic memorial of a very different kind is the Cafe Dervent, where the unfortunate Archduke Rudolph drank the Turkish coffee, for which the establishment is famous, during his visit to Travnik. The cup out of which he drank and the glass which, filled with water, invariably accompanies coffee in the Near East, are still preserved ; but the cafe itself seemed to me more and more ruinous and fly-blown each time that I sat down by the rushing stream in its shady garden. The gardens and the abundance of fresh water are, indeed, the delights of Travnik, whose name means " the grassplot," and whose situation is such as Mussulmans love. The long, straggling street, of which the town chiefly consists, is full on a market-day of the quaintest figures. Then many Catholics come in from the country, and you may see 155 Travels and Politics tattooed women among them, for in the district round Travnik and Jajce tattooing is by no means an un- common practice of the female CatlioHcs, although it is almost unknown in the other confessions, and not often observed in the case of Catholic men. It is supposed bv Dr. Gliick, a medical man, who has investigated the subject, that at the time of the Turkish conc^uest, when conversions to Islam were frecjuent, the Catholic priests hit upon this way of preventing their flocks IX THE BAZAK AT TKAVMK. {From a Photo, by Miss Chadwick.) from going over to the creed of the conquerors. Now that the necessity for such a precaution has ceased to exist the custom is still kept up, and old women usually officiate as tattooers. Another curiosity of the Travnik market was an important Mussulman, armed with a blue stick, who went about sampling the wares which the country folk had brought in. The old castle, which dates from the days of the Bosnian kings, looks down grimly on this variegated scene, while a new Jesuit academy and a modern Mussulman college point to the 156 in the Near East difference which exists between the rehgious toleration of the nineteenth, and the fierce theological conflicts of the fifteenth century. Here, too, one notices the con- trast between the extreme affability and pleasant manner of the Slav Mussulman and the aloofness of his co- religionist at Constantinople. Here there seems to be no dislike of the ScJiicabi — an elastic term in which the Bosniaks include not merely Austrians (even Austrian Slavs) and South Germans, but all " Europeans " — while there we are all Giaours, but the subjects of the Ale man Pddishdli are by far the most acceptable. Yet another Bosnian capital — the last stronghold of the Bosnian kings — lies beyond Travnik, and is the goal of every visitor. To travel through Bosnia without seeing Jajce would be unpardonable, for it is undoubtedly the gem of the country, and has a beautiful setting. Past a gigantic poplar hundreds of years old, beneath which a famous dervish lies buried, we traversed a smiling country and then climbed up a steep ascent to the summit of the pass. A pleasing landscape, sprinkled here and there with a Bogomile tomb, lies on the other side, and we are soon at the picturesque little town of Dolnji Vakuf, with its ancient clock-tower and old bridge. From this point one line goes off" to Bugojno, from which place a dili- gence runs through the beautiful valley of the Rama to Jablanica, while another traverses the equally charming valley of the Vrbas, and has its present terminus at Jajce. In old Hungarian days the Keglevic family, to which the defence of Jajce was entrusted, commanded this valley with a castle, the ruins of which have survived the Turkish conquest. But nowadays this region is of small strategic importance, and since 1895 there have been no soldiers at Jajce. Of all the towns in the Near East few have such a beautiful position as this last capital of the Bosnian king- 157 Travels and Politics dom, where the hist native ruler of Bosnia sought in vain a refuge from the invading Turk ; where for two genera- JAJCK : THE OLD BOSXIAX CAPITAL. tions more a Hungarian garrison held out, as the farthest outpost of Christendom ; where, according to the local legend, the Evangelist Luke is said to have been buried 158 in the Near East beneath the Italian tower that bears his name ; and where perhaps the finest waterfall in Europe crashes in thunder from the rocks on which the town is perched into a swiftly running stream below. Round the egg-shaped castle hill, from which the place derives its name of the " little egg," rather than from a fancied resemblance to the Castel dell' Uovo at Naples, cluster the black and white wooden houses, embowered in the foliage of the walnut-trees, while the slim Italian campanile of the ruined church looks as if it were out of place in so Oriental a setting. Down in the bazar, outside the old gate, the Bosnian peasants, in their white clothes with red turbans wound round their heads, are chaffering over the wares. Stalwart Dalmatians, in sheepskins and fragmen- tary scarlet caps, are buying whetstones for their scythes, and the Catholic women here, as at Travnik, with their hands and arms tattooed, are chattering in the old gate- way over tlieir children's ailments or their new aprons. These striped aprons, made of wool, and almost square, distinguish the women of Jajce from those of the rest of Bosnia. Here the Catholics and the Moslems are in about equal proportions, and, as is usually the case in Bosnia, these two confessions get on much better together than the Mohammedans and the Orthodox. Even before the Austrians came the Mussulmans of Jajce used to send their children to learn their letters in the Franciscan school, and such is the influence of the Franciscan monks, who have played an important part in the history of the country, that we saw one Sunday a peasant wom.an crawling on her knees round the church, followed by a boy, either in fulfilment of some vow or as a penance for some misdeed that they had committed. We saw, too, a girl kneeling durmg the whole service outside the door, and learnt that this was a common punishment for offences against morality. Within the church scores of 159 Travels and Politics men were kneeling, with their quaint pigtails hanging down from their close-shaven heads, as is the fashion in many parts of this country. And, grim relic of the past, beneath a glass case at the side of the building reposed the skeleton of the last Bosnian King, Stephen Tomasevic, the skull severed from the neck, just as it was cut off by the treacherous Sultan's orders over four centuries ago. The King had relied upon the pardon offered to him, and had given himself up to Mohammed II.'s lieutenant, who brought him as his prisoner to the Sultan at Jajce— the PEXAXCE AT JAJCE. [From a Pholo. by Miss Chadivtck.) same place whence, a little earlier, he had hurled defiance at his conqueror. But the captive King was an encum- brance to the victor. A legal excuse was speedily invented for an act of treachery which justice brands as inexcusable. A learned Persian pronounced the pardon to be invalid because it had been granted without the previous consent of the Sultan. Mohammed thereupon summoned Tomasevic to his presence on the spot still called the ** Emperor's meadow." The captive came, and 1.60 in the Near East as he approached within reach the hthe Persian drew his sword and, with a spring in the air, cut off the head of the last Bosnian King. According to another account Tomasevic was first flayed ahve. By the Sultan's com- mand the fetva, in which the Persian had composed the captive monarch's sentence, was carved on the gate of Jajce, where as late as the middle of the present century could be read the words : " The true believer will not allow a snake to bite him twice from the same hole." The body of Tomasevic was buried, by order of the Sultan, at a spot only just visible from the citadel of Jajce. Curiously enough, just ten years ago Dr. Tru- helka, the distinguished archaeologist from Sarajevo, discovered on the right bank of the river Vrbas the skeleton of the King just at the spot where tradition described it to have been buried. The skull was severed from the trunk, and two small silver Hungarian coins, known to have been current in Bosnia in the fifteenth century, lay on the breast-bones. Since that date it has found a resting-place in the Franciscan church. Up on the castle hill another famous Lord of Jajce, Hrvoje, the " kingmaker " of these parts in the pre- Turkish times, the " most respected man between the Save and the Adriatic, the pillar of two kings and king- doms," had built a mausoleum for himself in the famous catacombs which are one of the sights of the Bosnian royal burgh. What Warwick, "the kingmaker," was in the history of England that was Hrvoje in the annals of mediaeval Bosnia. An ancient document has preserved the features of this remarkable man, whose gruff voice and rough manners so disgusted the polite nobles of the Hungarian Court. By the flickering light of a torch one can still descry his coat-of-arms — the helmet, the shield with the lilies, and the sword-wielding hand. It was here that he bade an Italian architect build him a castle, and i6i M Travels and Politics his power extended to the Adriatic as far as Spalato and Cattaro ; while the shrewd Ra^usans wrote to him that "whatsoever thou dost command in Bosnia is done." The castle is now deserted, and the old walls are aban- doned to the lizards and the red admirals ; while from the ramparts one looks down on the trim school house where the boys of all creeds alike now meet for their lessons. From one of those towers a Magyar and a Turk fell into the abyss below in the struggle for victory during one of Jajce's many sieges. On yonder greensward down bv the waters of the Vrbas once danced the maidens of Jajce on a moonlight night to draw away the attention of the besieging Ottoman army from the tactics of the crafty defenders. Here in the meadows above the falls are those inobilibiis poiuaria vivis of which Horace sang at Tivoli. Swiftly rushing in a series of miniature rapids, under a rambling wooden bridge, in and out of green islets of vegetation, the green waters of the Pliva leap suddenly a waving mass into the yellow waters of the Vrbas, which flow through a deep gorge a hundred feet below. A huge rock, which was at some time hurled down by the force of the water, is covered with the spray, which rises and extends as far as the town- park on the other side of the Vrbas. Even the hideous iron edifice which has been erected, most inappropriately, as a memorial of that most artistic of princes, the late Archduke Rudolph, cannot spoil the natural magnificence of this spectacle. Nor, it is to be hoped, will the electric works, which are intended to utilise to some extent the water-power of the Bosnian Niagara, detract from the charms of this beautiful fall. Any damage done to Jajce would be irreparable, and the Government has shown so much sense in preserving the natural beauties of the country that it would hardly permit such an act of vandalism. 162 in the Near East Not far away are the beautiful lakes of the Pliva, between which the decisive battle between the natives and the army of Occupation took place. The green cones of the mountains — for here as everywhere the Balkans are conical in shape — reflect themselves in the water, and all is still and peaceful save for an occasional and very primitive boat. Beyond, in the village of Jezero, or "the lake," the Mussulmans are sitting over their thirtieth cup of coffee, smoking their cigarettes until such time as the iiiiiezziii shall next call them to their devotions from his simple wooden minaret. They are talking of the Bosnian pilgrims gone to Mecca, of the horse-races just over at llidze, and of the late skirmish on the Turco-Montenegrin frontier. Here and there an Austrian official or a " European " visitor enters the tourist-house, which is pleasantly situated in a garden on the bank of the stream, and orders a dish of the trout for which Jezero is so famous. An Englishman once talked of fixing his abode here, and a fisherman or an artist would find it a pleasant residence. But as soon as the electric tramway is made from Banjaluka to Jajce this charming district will be overrun with tourists. The Romans, who considered communication between the coast and Banjaluka very important, made one of their three great roads in this country to pass through Jezero ; but until three years ago there was no direct communica- tion with Banjaluka, and such as there was took fourteen hours. The highway which now traverses the magnificent defile of the Vrbas between Jajce and Banjaluka has been justly called the "Via Mala" of Bosnia. Following the course of the Vrbas, even in places where there is barely room for aught else than the river between the cliffs on either bank, sometimes penetrating a tunnel hewn in the solid rock, sometimes covered by some projecting mass of stone, which serves as a natural shelter from the rain 163 Travels and Politics or snow, the road pursues its course of forty-five miles. After stopping for a nionient to take a last look at Jajce we drove on past a tiny Franciscan church, which the local legend believes to have been transferred thither in the night from the other side of the valley, and which every 24th of June welcomes a crowd of pilgrims of more sects than one. Tunnel after tunnel follow'S, and now and again some foaming mountain torrent joins the stream and gives us a glimpse of some unexplored side valley, where even the sure foot of the chamois hunter would find no path. Once, when travelling along this road with the landlord of the flourishing hotel at Jajce, I found him ecstatic over the possibilities of sport in these regions. He pointed with a wave of his hand in one direction, and explained that there was nothing but chamois- — allcs hiiiicr Gciiiscii ! Then he indicated another wood-covei'ed hill, and informed me that it was swarming with bears alone— «//t'5 /;///- Bd'rcii. At the halfway house at Bocae, where a fountain, in- scribed " T';y/o Vilina : 1894," testifies to the visit of Madame von Kallay in that year, we had time to climb up to the ruins of the old castle, which commands a superb view of the valley on both sides. But the finest scenery of this drive was yet to come. For between Bocae and Banjaluka the road enters a very narrow defile, the approach to which was guarded in olden times by another castle, the ruins of which are still standing, said to have been inhabited by the great Hrvoje himself. This defile is nearly two miles long, and the road has been blasted through the perpendicular rock on the river's edge. When one emerges from it one finds oneself out in a level country, which lasts all the way to Banjaluka. But we had other attractions besides that of the scenery on our journey. We met crowds of peasants returning from the Whitsuntide fair 164 in the Near East at Banjaluka in the peculiar costume of the district — the women wearing many coins and richly embroidered jackets, the men clad in turbans and sheepskin coats, worn with the fleece inwards, and adorned outside with tin spangles arranged in elaborate patterns. This work on leather, used also for belts, saddles, &c., is a speciality of Banjaluka. Next morning we strolled through the fair : a very busy scene, where there was a great variety of costume, some of the women's dresses being particu- larly gorgeous. But in spite of the general merrymaking the salesmen were very stolid, making no attempt to puft" their wares or induce customers to buy. Banjaluka is one of the three most important towns in the occupied territory, and even before the Occupation had acquired a considerable importance as the terminus of the one railway which then connected Bosnia with '' Europe." Its name, " The baths of St, Luke," point to an early, if legendary, origin, of which we have already had an example in the tower of St. Luke at Jajce. Its proximity to the Croatian frontier made it an important strategic point for the Turks. Again and again it wit- nessed combats between the two armies, and earlier in the present century the " Dragon of Bosnia," one of the most picturesque heroes of the country, unfurled here the green flag of the Prophet against the Sultan and his officials. To-day Banjaluka has been greatly Euro- peanised, although it still preserves the wide, straggling street, the mosques, and the bazar of an Eastern town. Space here counts for nothing : the hotel covers an acre or so of ground, and the street seems as if it would never end. To the artist Banjaluka is chiefly interesting because of the beautiful minaret, certainly the finest in the country, which adorns the Ferhadija Mosque, so called from the Turkish Governor, Eerhad Pasha, who built it out of the ransom which he had exacted for a 165 "THK BEALTirUL MIXAKET .... WHICH ADORNS THE FEKHADUA MOSQUE Travels and Politics in the Near East distinguished Austrian captive. At the picturesque suburb of Gornji Seher, "the upper village," the Mussul- man may be seen at his ease, drinking his coffee at the roadside cafes, or going to the baths where once the Romans discovered the hot springs. On the other side of the town the Trappist monastery affords a very different aspect, and the cheese which the worthy monks produce is well known in every part of Bosnia. From Banjaluka to the Croatian frontier by railway — the only normal gauge line in the whole country — the distance is only sixty-nine miles. But, although 1 have once followed this route, I found it much less interesting than the journey across the hills and down to the valley of the Bosna. The north-west corner of Bosnia is, indeed, rich in pasture, and is well watered by the Sana and the Una, so that the people are in many respects better off here than in other parts of the country. As we passed along we traversed fields of kukitvuc, or maize, one of the staple products of Bosnia and Servia, and here and there saw a fine-looking beg riding a well-groomed steed. One place on the route, called Prjedor, will doubtless one day become a convenient centre for the farm products of this district, while another town, Novi, is likely before long to be an important railway junction, just as in the last century it was a coveted military position by reason of its situation at the meeting-place of the two rivers Sana and Una. From this point onward the latter river forms the boundary between Bosnia and Croatia, and when we had crossed it we saw the last minaret on the Bosnian bank rising from out of the picturesque town of Kostaj- nica, half of which is in Croatia and half in the occupied territory. In olden days many a conflict took place here on the " military frontier " between the Austrians and the Turks. But Croatia and Bosnia are almost merged now, and, except for the lack of the Mussulman element, 167 Travels and Politics one might almost imagine oneself back in Bosnia for some distance further. Were it not that the Croats wear hats, their costume is not greatly different from that of the Christian Bosniaks, while their language is practically the same. But at Agram we are back in the dull West, amidst all the advantages of European civilisation, while the presence of Bishop Strossmayer at the palace on his way to a watering-place alone reminds us of the Eastern question now behind us, in which he has been a con- siderable factor. To reach the Bosna valley from Banjaluka is somewhat dit^cult without going back upon one's tracks, for there is no direct line joining these two parallels. But we dis- covered that we could drive to a place called Pribinic, forty-five miles distant, whence we could be conveyed along a private railway belonging to a wood company down to Usora on the main line. We could get hardly any information about the route, which no one seemed ever to have travelled ; but, armed with a letter of intro- duction to the manager of the wood company, we set out on what seemed to be a tour of discovery. We drove through the finely wooded valley of the Vrbanja to a small place enjoying the grandiloquent name of Varos, or "town," and stopped for lunch at a very picturesque village known as " Catholic Kotor." Here to our surprise we found an excellent inn kept by an Austrian, who was absolutely amazed at the idea of any one pre- ferring to visit his village instead of going to see the Buda-Pesth Exhibition. Although visitors are scarce, the inhabitants, in true Slav fashion, paid absolutely no attention to us, but were all engaged in endeavouring to catch fish with huge nets. No power on earth could persuade Misko, our driver, to spend less than two and a quarter hours at this place, although we represented to him that we wished to arrive at our destination before 1 68 in the Near East dark, nor when we had started could we induce him to drive his horses at anything much beyond a walk, although the road was excellent during the first part of the journey. In the glades of this woodland country the pigs were feeding in herds with the sheep just as I have seen them in Servia. Then a dense beech forest, which extended for several miles, shut out all the view. I have rarely seen stems of such huge circumference, which go straight up, often without a branch, to an immense height. Down below we could hear the Vrbanja roaring in its bed, but could not see it. Here and there a kola, the local waggon of great length and without springs of any kind, which is sometimes offered to you as an alternative to the carriage of civilisation, passed us on the way. After passing the summit the road soon became frightfully bad ; for it had been raining hard, and the heavy kolas, laden with wood, had worn huge ruts in the roadway. To add to our difficulties darkness came on, and as our carriage had no lights, at last we stuck on a huge stone in a rut, and it was long before the driver could remove it. By way of further impeding our progress he insisted on using his brake all the way, remaining absolutely deaf to our remonstrances. At last we got out and walked at im- minent risk of twisting our ankles, for we could not see six inches before us, and the ruts were vast. Through the dark wood the fires of the wood-cutters gleamed picturesquely, while their weirdly clad figures completed the scene. We stumbled on as best we could, leaving our carriage to creak and groan behind us, and at last reached a gendarme's post. Then the moon rose and the road became better, so that after a drive of twelve hours, which ought to have been seven, we arrived as Pribinic at ten o'clock. On entering the first house I found Herr Weichsel, the manager of the wood business, enjoying his evening pipe with a number of other Austrians. The 169 Travels and Politics only bedroom in tlic inn was full, but our friend at once got us a clean and excellent bedroom in an adjoining house. Next morning we discovered that Pribinic con- sisted of a few houses, all made of wood, and was the centre of the trade in wood, which is first sawn into small pieces, and then brought down from the forests in kolas or on the backs of ponies. We had been some- what surprised on the previous evening at being asked by which train we would prefer to travel, but we found that the wood trade is so extensive that several trains a day are required to convey the wood down to the main line. It is said that this company has the largest works of the kind in Europe ; for, in addition to the trade in timber, it distils alcohol and other products from the wood — a process which greatlv interested the Austrian Emperor v.'hen he visited the Bosnian pavilion in Vienna. We had expected to travel with the timber, but found that a so-called Salomvagc'ii, a comfortable carriage with a stuffed seat all round, like the second- class compartment on a Greek railway, had been pro- vided for our accommodation and tacked on to the end of a long wood train. In this fashion we made a trium- phant entrance into Usora, twenty-five miles distant, after a most comfortable journey of three hours along the river of that name. Anv natives who desire to travel — and there are six intermediate stations where they can be loaded on with the wood — are stowed away in an open truck or else ride, as we saw one woman and a fowl doing, on the step. As there is no regular passenger traffic, and persons can only use the line by permission, the money which we tendered for our fares was refused. Usora, although it gave its name to an important mili- tary district, or Baiiat, in the old history of Bosnia, is now only interesting on account of the Government sugar fac- toi'y, while Doboj, close to it, is a much more picturesque 170 in the Near East place. From the old ruined castle of Doboj, which was captured by Prince Eugen on his memorable march to Sarajevo, one has an admirable view of the battlefields of 1878 and of the Bosna and Spreca valleys, through the latter of which a branch line runs to the manufacturing town of Dolnja Tuzla, and the salt works of Siminhan. But from every point of view the most interesting place in this part of the country is the little town of Maglaj, on the right bank of the Bosna, rather less than an hour from Doboj. jMaglaj, with its quaint wooden bridge, its black and white wooden houses, and its disused fortress, seems to-day the very picture of peace. But it was here that the blackest act of treachery during the whole cam- paign of twenty years ago was perpetrated. I have heard the story of the massacre of Maglaj told many times, so great is the impression which it has made. On the 3rd of August, 1878, this horrible event occurred. A body of hussars arrived at IVIaglaj, and were received by the fanatical Mussulmans of the place with the utmost defer- ence, the head man of the place even handing over, as a token of submission, the keys of the fortress. Trusting in the apparent friendliness of the natives, the hussars rode on to Zepce, about twenty-two miles farther, to look for forage, intending to return as soon as their quest was completed. Meanwhile the Maglaj Mussulmans armed themselves to the teeth and lay in ambush on the left bank of the river in some Iniiis, between which and the stream the returning hussars were bound to pass. Un- suspicious of their doom the cavalry returned, but when they had reached the fatal spot the people fired upon them and killed them almost to a man. I have heard two stories, both from Austrian officers, which give different accounts of the sequel. According to one, a laconic tele- gram arrived at the Austrian headci[uarters from Vienna with the words, " Burn down Maglaj ; level it with the 171 Travels and Politics ground." Accordinif to tlie other version, orders were given to abstain from indiscriminate punishment. So far was this carried out that one sergeant, who cut off a child's arm, was, on the complaint of the mother, at once shot by order of the commanding officer, as an example of that justice which General von Filipovic had promised in the name of the Emperor-King a few days before. The boy was still living in 1884, and for all I know may be still. No one who visits Maglaj now can fail to be struck by the change in the little place. A monument has been erected to the hussars, and we saw their graves, overgrown with vegetation, in a peaceful little cemetery. Close by the cemetery we were invited to witness a game of tennis on a cinder court just outside the new barracks. It is not every day that you can see a real live Bosnian tf^if playing tennis ; the popular conception of a Mussulman is that of a lethargic person who considers it beneath his dignity to take violent exercise of any sort, and sits all the afternoon contentedly sipping his coffee and smoking his pipe in mute amazement at the tremendous energy of the Franks. But your Bosnian beg differs in this respect, as in many others, from the Turkish landed proprietor, to whom he corresponds in point of position, and among Bosnian begs those of Maglaj are among the most advanced in their ideas. *' FortscJirittlcr" — such was the commentary with which a little Austrian lieutenant introduced Rifat Beg and his brother, the Mayor of Maglaj. The little lieutenant, Mali, as the natives were wont to call him, had a way of patting the tall, strapping beg on the back which caused that worthy individual and the rest of the company unbounded amusement, and as his knowledge of the vernacular was about equal to the beg's very slender acquaintance with German, the partnership between them was conducted on the quaintest methods. To make the jargon of tongues still 172 in the Near East more confused, the scoring was in Englisli, and it was comical to hear the beg and his diminutive companion in arms shouting out "fifteen," " deuce," "out," "net-ball," " thirty-forty," and the rest of it in the strangest of accents. More remarkable still, one of the players on the other side was a typical Englishman, to judge from his gait and figure, who yet could speak hardly a word of our tongue, which he had not heard for fifteen years. The son of an English father and a Hungarian mother, he had entered the Civil Service of the Monarchy and was now Bczirksvorsielicr at this little Bosnian town. He told me in one of the seven languages which he knew that he was trying to rub up his long-lost English by means of Cosiiwpolis, which he had ordered for the purpose from the bookseller at Sarajevo. Rifat Beg soon showed that he was the best player on the ground. As he warmed to his work, he actually threw aside his fez and played bare- headed — a thing unknown in most Oiiental lands — and his service was terrific. Every now and then, as a proof of his "advanced" ideas, he took a drink of fresh Sarajevo beer. Meanwhile the privates stood behind the court, two at each end, and fielded the balls. Our friend the beg, having polished off his adversaries at tennis, proceeded to hold forth on the other great pastime of which Maglaj — and Maglaj alone of all Bosnian towns — can boast. By a curious accident this is the only place in the country where the ancient sport of hawking still survives. August is the month when the begs take forth their falcons in quest of game, and Rifat told us that he had a lot of these beautiful little birds, all females, for the males are too fierce and tear the quarrv. He first caught the young birds in nets by means of a white pigeon or a magpie as decoy. He then trained them up in the way they should go, fastening a piece of leather on to the young birds' feet, accustoming them to ^73 Travels and Politics in the Near East sit upon his fist, putting bells upon their legs, and then when they were quite tame allowing them to practise upon sparrows. Then at last the real business begins, and the falcons are taken out to catch bigger game. They are not hooded, as was the custom in England in former days, but are given full liberty as soon as they have been taught. When once they have seized their prev, usually a quail, the falconer runs up, covers the quail's body with his hand, and deftly cuts off the head, which the falcon carries off, leaving the body in its master's possession. In the early years of the Occupation there were also considerable numbers of wolves on the hill just above Maglaj, but the soldiers shot them off because they killed the peasants' sheep, and as a price is set upon their heads their number has greatly decreased. On arriving at the Maglaj railway station we were much entertained by the apparition of the town jester on the platform. This fellow — a good-for-nothing, good- humoured Bosniak, who spends most of his time in loitering about the station and doling out water to the fourth-class passengers — had lately been presented by the waggish mayor wnth a parti-coloured suit, half red, half yellow, with a huge pink patch at the seat of his breeches. The object of our excursion was Vranduk, a small village situated above a bend of the Bosna, which is one of the most ciunous spots in the whole country. The station is on the right bank of the river, the village is on the left, and the only means of reaching it is a boat constructed out of a hollow tree. By means of shouts, taken up by some children on the opposite bank, we succeeded in summoning the boatman. This worthy requested us to sit down in the bottom of this primitive boat — there were no seats — and skilfully ferried us across the swollen stream, which the heavy rains had made as yellow as the Tiber. We then scrambled up a narrow path to the 174 Travels and Politics top of the hill, on which the wooden houses of Vranduk are clustered exactly like so many swallows' nests. The place seemed absolutely deserted, for all the men were away minding their herds on the hills, and the few women whom we saw hid their faces and fled at our approach. There was no place where we could get food or drink, and no hospitable Geiularmeriepostcii, for that had been removed to the next village, live miles away — in fact there was not even a Mussulman cafe like that at Maglaj, the proprietor of which had pounded for us the most delicious coffee in the hollow of a tree, according to the custom common in Bosnia. A band of children, however, quickly guessed that we wished to see the sights, and one of them ran and fetched the key of the old castle, a lovely old ruin the inside of which is now converted into a garden full of trees ; from the old battlements we had a commanding view of the river on either side. We realised at once the important strategical position of Vranduk in former days, which earned it its name of "the gate of Bosnia." The road now goes right underneath the castle by means of a tunnel, which bears the name of the Emperor. We could find, however, no traces of the well which is said to go down to the level of the river. The inhabitants seem to live almost exclusively on Indian corn, which is stacked in large wicker edifices of rectangular shape fastened together with pieces of wood. Thanks to the kindness of the stationmaster, whose whole apartment, including the chandelier, bore evidence to his marvellous talents as an artist in fretwork, we were enabled to refresh ourselves while he discoursed on the great and unexpected develop- ment of the traffic on the line. We then returned to Maglaj, and went back next day to Doboj. From there to the frontier at Brod there is nothing of great interest, except the beautifully situated little town of Dervent. As one approaches the Save the country becomes flat, but still 176 in the Near East preserves its Oriental character until the river is crossed. Then one feels oneself transported all of a sudden into another and a much more commonplace world. Slavonia has fine grassy plains, it is true, which stretch as far as the eye can reach ; but there are no more bright costumes at the stations, where every one goes about in the dull, serious garments of Western civilisation. And when, at the end of this journey, I reached Belgrade, I found that the Serbs of the Servian capital were far less artistic than those of the occupied territory. 177 N CHAPTER V 'TWIXT AUSTRIAN AXU TURK : THE SAXDZAK OF XOVI- BAZAR OF all the arrangements made by the Berlin Treaty the most remarkable was that part of the 25th article which entitled Austria-Hungary to "keep garrisons and have roads" in the district, or Sandzak, of Novi-Bazar. This district is situated between Bosnia, Servia, Monte- negro, and Turkey, forming, theoretically at any rate, a part of the Ottoman Empire, but occupied militarily at three points by Austro-Hungarian troops. It is therefore, perhaps, the most anomalously governed part of Europe, with the possible exception of the present " temporary " administration of Crete, The best means of reaching it is from Sarajevo, whence a military post performs the journey to Plevlje, the chief of the three occupied towns of the Sandzak, a distance of ninety-nine miles, in about two days, while a private carriage takes a little longer. We left Sarajevo early in the afternoon, in one of Sarajcics vehicles, and drove up the defile of the Miljacka, past the "Goat's Bridge," which is one of the favourite drives of Sarajevo. In the Napoleonic days the route between Salon ica and Sarajevo, by way of the Sandzak of Novi-Bazar, was one of the main arteries of commerce ; for during the Continental Blockade pro- visions were carried this way on the backs of mules. Even to-day there is an immense traffic in wood in carts 178 Travels and Politics in the Near East drawn by bullocks. The first village, Han Pale, contains some pretty villas among its splendid beech woods, one of them belonging to the British Consul-General. As we drove along we saw yellowhammers on almost every bough, and as it grew dark the fireflies fiitted through the gloaming. On a fountain at which our two horses. Pram and Misko, wished to drink, the inscription, ^' Kako ti si?" ("How art thou ?") greeted us, and reminded us that it is the fashion in the vernacular to address everybody in the second person singular, a mode of address which our Bosnian driver always used to me, even when he "raised me to the peerage" by styling me " Herr Baron." We spent the first night at Praca, a quiet little village with a very clean inn, which boasts of a Roman sarcophagus in the grounds of a mosque opposite. On the hill above the village we saw for the first time the initials of the Austrian Emperor, " F. J. I./' in large wooden letters. It is a common practice in this part of the occupied terri- tory, and at the Austrian stations in the Sandzak, to erect these letters in wood, or to mark them out in stones on the hillsides, where they are illuminated on his Majesty's birthday and other great occasions. After a couple of hours' drive through a magnificent beech forest we reached Han Bare, the summit of the pass, where a fine Bogomile tombstone was standing, according to the driver a hundred years old— his usual phrase for great antiquity. The most splendid view is usually to be had from the next stopping-place, Ranjen-Karaula ("the watch- house of the wounded"); but it was so misty that we could barely see the outlines of the grand Montenegrin mountains, the highest of which. Mount Dormitor, was quite hidden. About midday we reached Gorazda, a little town which lies in a complete hole, and is very hot. The blue Drina flows past it under a new iron bridge, built, as the inscription says, in 1891 ; in fact civilisation 179 Travels and Politics has made great progress at this spot. There is a very good hotel here, in the dining-room of which is a thrilHng picture of the surrender of Maglaj, and one shopkeeper in the bazar describes himself as " Civil iiiul Miliidr Snajder" — a praiseworthy attempt to spell the German word for tailor in the Croatian alphabet. We then climbed up through the woods, and reached, towards ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^n T^^* F ■ •m^ *> 1$. i W^'t-.m:^. ■.^W'M B ^K, -Jt '^c^-Wl IP,. . ■ s' ' *WL Hmj Hfepl^^iPk' ^^ Br^ ^ .,.1 \ ^ ,?NpP^'' T«? n &r.^-' W k ' . •■ i CAJXICA. (/•'/•cHH ii P/;t)/i). /•_)• -U/ss Cliachi'icl;.) evening, the pretty Alpine town of Cajnica, situated on the edge of a deep ravine, in a beautifully bracing atmo- sphere. The Bczirksvoi'stclicr, Baron von Nagy Barcsa, a Hungarian ex-hussar officer, showed us the sights of the place. He took us over the new Servian church, which is very rich, having a capital of 50,000 gulden {£^,16']), drawn from the pilgrims who flock there at the Festival 180 in the Near East of the Assumption of the Virgin (August 27th) and on her birthday (September 8th), called the great and the small festivals of Mary. So great are the numbers of the worshippers that a large buikhng has been erected in the courtyard of the church for their reception. The new church contains a famous picture of the Virgin and child, with John the Baptist in the background, said to be by St. Luke. The old church, close to the new one, is very small, and is now almost unused, though it is memorable for the girdles of the Servian women whose husbands had been slain by the Turks, which were hung there -as soon as the slayer had been killed. The Bezirksvorsiehcr then took us to the chief mosque and to two tilrbcli, in one of which is the tomb of the great Bosniak, Sinan Pasha, who was a native of this place. Cajnica is a very good specimen of what has been accomplished by the officials. The opponents of the Occupation are fond of saying that a certain number of places, on the beaten track, have been worked up to a high pitch of civilisation, in order to impose upon the visitor. Russia, it may be remembered, initiated this plan, and Potemkin ordered the erection of model villages on the route by which Catharine II. was to travel. But the road from Sarajevo to the Sandzak is probably the least frequented by foreigners of any in the country, and no journalist had vieijted it since Herr von Mack, of the KiihilscJic Zc it 11 110^ two years ago, yet I found that in all the places along the route just as great progress had been made, in comparison to their size, as at the more frequented spots to which tourist agencies take their excursions. Here at Cajnica, for example, the Bezirksvorsiehcr has laid out and planted, opposite his office, a public garden, and made a path through the woods, past the ice-cold spring called the Appel-Ouelle. In his official capacity he has six different authorities 181 Travels and Politics under him, and takes especial interest in the building of the new and larger school which is to supersede the present one. For in this small town there are already a hundred children of all confessions in the public school, in addition to those who frequent the Serb educational establishment. He is beginning to find that his offices are too small for his ever-increasing work, for, as he said, " Our duties increase, our bureaux remain the same." He has at his own house, where I was his guest, a fine collection of Bosnian embroideries, some ancient pottery, and Roman remains, of which Bosnia is still full, and a splendid bear-skin as well as a stuffed baby bear. His talents as an organiser were put to a severe test four years ago, when he provided food and entertainment in the wilderness of Glasinac for the Anthropological Congress, which numbered two of our own countrymen among its members. Leaving Cajnica next morning we reached, after a two hours' drive through splendid forests, the frontier between Bosnia and the Sandzak, a place called IMetalka-Sattel, ii8 kilometres (or about 74 miles) from Sarajevo. As its name in German denotes, Metalka - Sattel forms the "saddle" between the two hills on either side of it, one of which on the right is crowned by the Austrian, the other on the left by the much smaller Turkish, barracks. An Austrian toll-bar crosses the road at the frontier, where we descended from our vehicle and went off to lunch at the Austrian barracks. Two lieutenants, in the temporary absence of their captain, did the honours. These two are known among their acquaintances as der weitschonste, unci der ziveitschuiistc, Lieutenant von Metalka, although no one has been unkind enough to specify which is which. The military doctor from Cajnica, and two Austrian ladies from Plevlje, made up the party, and the view from the arbour was very beautiful. After 182 in the Near East lunch one of the lieutenants took us to the house of the Turkish Customs official, a very affable personage, with whom the Austnans get on very w^ell and who, in the course of his eight years' sojourn at Metalka, has picked up a considerable amount of German. Of course the Turk insisted on giving us coffee and cognac, aijd passed our baggage without opening it ; while, as a token of the excellent relations which exist between the Austrian military, and the Turkish civil, authorities at the frontier, the lieutenant and he marched off arm in arm as we departed. But before going any further, it is desirable to state the conditions under which this remote district of European Turkey has been governed for the last twenty years. The same article of the Berlin Treaty which entrusted Austria - Hungary with the Occupation of Bosnia and the Hercegovina, gave her also the right of occupying military points in the Sandzak — a word which means literally in Turkish " a flag," but is used figuratively by the Turks to denote a district. " As the Government of Austria-Hungary does not wish to burden itself w'ith the government of the Sandzak," so runs this article, "the Ottoman administration shall continue to act there as before. None the less, Austria-Hungary reserves to herself the right of keeping garrisons and having military and commercial roads throughout the whole extent of that part of the old vilayet of Bosnia, so as to secure the new political situation and the freedom of the population." But, although this arrange- ment remains fully in force, the present situation is settled by a Convention, dated April 21, 1879, and entitled, "Convention entrc I'AutricJic-Hongric ct la Turquic, a I'cgard cic Novi-Bazar." Article 8 of this Convention provides that: "The presence of the troops of H.M. the Emperor and King in the Sandzak, shall not in 183 Travels and Politics any way hinder the functions of the Turkish adminis- trative, judicial, or financial authorities of any kind, which will continue to act as in the past under the exclusive and direct orders of the Sublime Porte," Article 9 provides that nowhere in the Sandzak shall the Porte place irregular troops. The most important part of the Convention is the Annexe, which runs as follows: " It is understood that in the actual circumstances, the Government of Austria-Hungary has no intention of placing garrisons except at three points, situated on the Lim, between the frontiers of Servia and Montenegro. These points shall be Priboj, Priepolje, and Bielopolje. The number of troops at present destined for the service of these garrisons shall not exceed the number of 4,000 to 5,000 men." The Annexe goes on to state that, if circumstances should require it, Austria-Hungary may place troops at other points of the Sandzak, by giving notice, according to a form provided in article 7. The only exception to this is the case in which Austria- Hungary should desire to place troops "s///' Ics points dn Balkan de Ragosna." In this case she must make a direct arrangement with the Porte. Almost as soon as this Convention was signed, Bielopolje was changed for Plevlje, and the Austro-Hungarian troops never went to the former place at all, but came direct to Plevlje on September 10, 1879. There are now under 2,000 Austro-Hungarian troops in the whole Sandzak, placed at the three above-mentioned points, and at a few watch-posts between them, e.g., Boljanic and Gotovusa, between the frontier and Plevlje ; Jabuka between Plevlje and Priepolje, and Uvac beyond Priboj. It will be observed that the most important words of the Annexe are " actual " {" actnelles" in the original French), and "at present" {" actnellenient " in the French, and " I'orldnjig" in the German version). Austria-Hungary 184 in the Near East has only one civil official in the Sandzak, who is called colloquially Consul, but whose real title is Ciril-coiii- iiiissar. This official, who has been longer in the place than any one except the Turkish Pasha, and has therefore almost unique knowledge of its conditions, exercises considerable judicial powers. He has full jurisdiction in all civil cases, as he was kind enough to inform me, where both parties are Austro-Hungarian subjects. In civil cases, between an Austro-Hungarian and a Turkish subject, the Turkish tribunals have legal jurisdiction, provided that the Civil-coiiniiissar is present at the trial ; but, as a matter of fact, Turkish subjects prefer to come to the Austrian Commissioner. In criminal cases, where both parties are Austro-Hungarian subjects, the Com- missioner has jurisdiction, if the matters are of small importance, such as an insult, or a blow on the ear ; but in bigger criminal cases the Commissioner draws up the pre- liminaries at Plevlje and then sends them to the home of the accused person, in the Monarchv, where they are tried by the local criminal court. Finally, in mixed criminal cases between a Turkish and an Austro-Hungarian subject the same theory and practice prevail as in mixed civil cases, i.e. the Turkish Court has legal jurisdiction ; but as a matter of fact, the parties usually prefer to go before the Commissioner. The Austrians have a military post of their own, for which Bosnian stamps are used. There is also an Austrian wire, but this is only available for mili- tary men, and when I wished to despatch a message by it I had to write it out beforehand and ask an officer to send it for me. There is, for ordinary purposes, the Turkish telegraph, and parcels for Plevlje have to pass through the Turkish custom-house there, which is managed on the same happy-go-lucky principles as everywhere else in Turkey. Time is absolutely no con- 185 Travels and Politics sideration, and one day is as good as another to the Turkish official. The Austrian officers, however, who enjoy exceptional privileges to compensate them for their exile in the Sandzak, are exempt from payment of customs dues, and the Turkish eight per cent is much less troublesome than the delay usually caused by the necessity of paying it. Both currencies, Austrian and Turkish, pass in the Sandzak, the medjidieh, having however, as in other parts of Turkey, a variable value for all non-official payments. It is worth twenty-six piastres at Plevlje and twenty-two at another place, while for official payments it is taken at nineteen piastres. The piastre is reckoned at eleven kreuzers. A glance at the map will convince the reader of the importance of this Austrian outpost in the Balkan Penin- sula, Whether it be considered as a wedge between Servia and Montenegro, or as a stepping-stone on the way to Salonica, the Austrian position in the Sandzak possesses great strategic importance. It will be observed that the number of soldiers which the Monarchy is entitled to keep here, is entirely dependent upon the circumstances of the moment. At the present crisis in Balkan politics, those circumstances are more likely to arise out of friction between Austria-Hungary and Mon- tenegro, that from any immediate desire to take up the policy of Count Beust and " run down to Salonica." I have discussed this point with a great many persons, Austrians and others, who are resident in the Balkan Peninsula, including inhabitants of Salonica. Of course I found among them considerable divergence of view ; and for my own part, as I hope to show in a later chapter, 1 consider it for the real interest alike of Salonica, of Macedonia, and of Western Europe, that this route to the Indies should be in the hands of the only civilised power which is sufficiently strong and suffi- i86 in the Near East ciently near to hold it. But I have reason to heheve that for the present and the immediate future, the Austrian Government will not go beyond its present out-posts in the Balkan Peninsula, as against Turkey. It has of course, by virtue of the Berlin Treaty, the right of going as far as the farther end of the Sandzak, close up to the terminus of the Macedonian railway at Mitrovica. If the Austro- Russian agreement, about which so much has been written, be really a fact, and the two rival empires have really agreed upon their respective spheres of influence in the Balkan Peninsula, Austria possesses at Plevlje a starting-point from which she can go forth on her mission as an Eastern Empire. But personally I must confess that I have no great faith in the permanence of arrangements based upon international agreements. Supposing, as seems pro- bable, that the Austro-Russian agreement really exists, its validity will no doubt continue just so long as suits the convenience of Russian policy in the Near East. There are Austrian officials who think that the Monarchy gains no material advantages from this purely military colony in the Sandzak, and who even regret that their Government has extended its military power so far. But the main idea of the military occupation in Novi-Bazar was not so much to defend Bosnia from the Turks, whose mission as a conquering power seemed in 1878 to be, and pro- bably still is, over, as to keep the two Serb states of Servia and Montenegro apart. For these two countries the Sandzak possesses great political and historical value. Servian writers are fond of reminding us that their remote ancestors inhabited, not merely Servia and Montenegro, but Bosnia, the Hercegovina, and the Sandzak as well. It was here too that Stephen Nemanja, one of the greatest names in Servian history, formed the nucleus of his power; and this district, which, in those days included, 187 Travels and Politics under the name of Rascia, the modern Turkish vilayet of Kossovo as well, was alwa3^s regarded as the appanage of the Servian heir-apparent. It was in the famous monastery of Milesovo, not far from Priepolje, that the remains of S. Sava, the apostle of the Serbs, were deposited. The constantly recurring idea, which this summer has been considerably discussed, that in the event of a termination of the reigning dynasty in Servna the two Serb states should be united under Prince Nicholas of Montenegro, is rendered absolutely futile so long as the Austrian troops are in the Sandzak. Had the Treatv of San Stefano been carried out, in this as in other respects Montenegro would have gained and Austria- Hungary would have lost. But at no other point is the famous definition of the latter power as the " Sentinel of the Balkans " so accurate as in the Sandzak, which is certainly the most critical position in the whole peninsula, and one of the most beneficial to the preservation of European peace. The Austrians themselves are under no illusions as to the feelings of the inhabitants of the Sandzak towards them ; the natives, mostly Serbs, who have not forgotten the Treaty of San Stefano, are liable to be moved by the promptings of national feeling or of nationalist agita- tion against the " European " garrison. When we were there, there was some fear of disturbances, and the lieutenants at the isolated posts never went out without firearms. Between the Turkish authorities and the Aus- trians very friendly relations prevail, and this lack of friction, just where it might have been anticipated, is largely due to the tact and experience of Ferik Suleiman, the Turkish Pasha of Plevlje, who has held that delicate position for eighteen years — in fact almost ever since the Austrians came. But although there is so little difficulty with the Turks, the Austrians believe that thev are i88 in the Near East regarded as intruders, whose benefits to the trade of Plevlje are fully recognised, but whose departure would be acceptable to the Ottoman authorities and subjects. Wherever the Turkish Empire is concerned, anomalies seem to be so inevitable that this particular anomaly of the Austrian garrisons co-existing with a Turkish civil administration is likely to continue until the next great liquidation of the Balkan Peninsula. It should be added that with characteristic ingenuity the Turkish authorities have kept up their dignity by creating a separate Sandzak of Plevlje out of the three points occupied by the Aus- trians, and have reconstituted the rest into a new and smaller Sandzak of Novi-Bazar which contains the town of that name. '' Europeans," however, still give the latter name to the whole district. From the frontier at Metalka-Sattel to Plevlje is exactly twenty-five miles, and there is an excellent road all the way. One notices as soon as one crosses the frontier that one has reached Turkish territory, for the country has become, through the carelessness of the Turkish authori- ties, bare and stony, though a hundred years ago it is said to have been covered with wood. There are small rocky basins in the ground, just as one sees in Montenegro, and here and there an occasional hau is the only sign of human habitation. At the first Austrian post, called Boljanic, an ofBcer at once stepped out to meet us, clicked his heels together and said that lunch was ready. When we told him that we had already lunched, he insisted on our at least drinking the Samian wine which is one of the privileges enjoyed in this remote corner of Turkey. At first sight it would be difficult to conceive of anythuig more lonely than the position of an officer posted at a solitary hamlet like this. He is usually here for a year at a time, and except for the soldiers whom he has under his command, he has no society on the spot. 189 Travels and Politics But he has one great mitigation of his ionehness in the fact that there is communication by telephone between all these stations and with Plevlje. In this way each officer is able to hold long conversations with his friends, of which we had many examples. As we were sitting in the lieutenant's room at Boljanic, a message came by tele- phone from Plevlje to ask where we were ; and after replying, he told us that he had heard of our arrival at Gorazda on the previous day by similar means. After Boljanic, the country is perfectly bare, as all the trees had been burnt off to the stumps, just as if an army had ravaged the country. The barrenness of the country would alone have sufficed to explain the curious inscrip- tion cut in German on a stone, " Mciisch, audi Jiier cirgcrc click iiichl!" (''Man, even here vex not thyself!") But the officers say that the inscription was placed here because the road winds in serpentines at this point, so that the rear of an army had the vexation of seeing the van apparently a short distance above them, while at the same time they well knew that they had to make a long detour in order to reach the summit. Traffic there is hardly any ; only goats can get a living in this bare country. One misses too the cheery salutation of "Dobor dan " {" Good-day ") with which the peasants greet one in Bosnia ; for here the natives pass one in gloomy silence, being naturally suspicious of any one who is not wearing a uniform. The next Austrian post, Gotovusa, is in a less desolate situation than its predecessor and com- mands fine views of the mountains. The neighbourhood seems also to have considerable botanical merits, for the officer in command there politely handed two elaborate bouquets of wild flowers to the ladies of my party, which he had specially prepared for them. Like his comrade at Boljanic, he declared that he never felt dull, for he studied a great deal and was a great naturalist. 190 in the Near East Certainly his spirits did not seem to have suffered from his temporary isolation. Here, too, in the midst of our conversation the telephone began to tick, and a message arrived from the last station to know if we were there, followed by another to the same effect from Plevlje. It was obvious, therefore, that even in the wilds of the Sand- zak the whereabouts of the traveller could be ascertained at any moment by means of the telephone ; and when during our visit the telegraph wire was found on one PI.KVl.JK. (From a I'liolo. by Miss Vliadicuk.) occasion to have been cut by some mischievous person, the precise spot where the telegraphic communication had been broken was speedily ascertained by means of the telephone. It is of course, from a military point of view, essential that these advanced posts should be connected with Bosnia. After Gotovusa we descended rapidly, and after crossing the " Appel Bridge " we saw the towers of the Plevlje aqueduct and arrived at the comfortable rooms provided for strangers in the officers' quarters. 191 Travels and Politics The town of Plevlje, or Taslidza, to give it its Turkish name, is by far the most important of the three points occupied by the Austrians, and even in Roman times was the site of a considerable settlement known as Sapua, which w^as connected by a road with the Adriatic coast. Plevlje, which has greatly grown since the Occupation, consists of two entirely distinct parts — the Austrian can- tonments on the slope of the hill as you enter from the Metalka road, and the Turkish town which lies in a complete hollow. All the hills around are perfectly bare, but are picked out in several places with the initials " F. J. I." (in one place surmounted by a double eagle) and the crescent and star, in white stones. Tiie only shade in the place is that provided by the trees of the park which the Austrians have laid out, and before they came Plevlje was destitute of vegetation. The barracks of the Austrian and of the Turkish soldiers are, of course, quite distinct. The town is of considerable size, and there is a good Turkish bazar. The inhabitants are all either j\I()hammedans or Orthodox, except four Catholic Albanian families who attend the Austrian church and are said to be very devoted to tiie Austrians. These Albanians do a good trade in the little silver filigree coffee-cups and ornaments which they alone make, and which are usually on sale outside the officers' casino. One of the most remarkable features of the town is the Serb women, who here wear curious short kilts over their long garments. The centre of military society in Plevlje is the officers' casino, a large roomy building, where one evening, on the occasion of a military inspection, we saw some sixty officers sit down to mess. The hall was decorated with flags — the Turkish among them in honour of a recent visit of the Pasha — with pictures and busts of the Emperor and Empress, and with devices, all the work of the officers, made out of fir-branches. There is a stage 192 in the Near East at the end of the room where gipsy music is performed during dinner ; one of the performers being a left-handed soldier who enjoys a high reputation in the country. The stage is at other times used for amateur theatricals, and dances are held in this room. For Plevlje, remote as it is, possesses a considerable amount ot military society. There are no less than twenty-four ladies there, mostly from Vienna, as the present regiment, largely composed of Hungarians and Roumanians from Transylvania, spent five years in the Austrian capital before it came for three "THE t-ERB WUMEX, WHU HERE WEAK . . . KILTS OVER THEIK LONG GARMENTS." (Front a Photo, by Miss Cliadwick.) years to Plevlje. The sudden change from the Austrian capital to this place was no doubt much felt at first, but Plevlje enjoys the reputation, as one ofticer remarked to me, of a true marriage-market, and the girl who comes to Plevlje is certain speedily to find a husband. The General, Baron de Goumoens, Chamberlain of the Emperor, who is in command of the troops is, curiously enough, of Scotch descent, for his ancestors hailed from either Glasgow or Stirling. The Pasha whom we visited with the Austrian Commis- 193 o Travels and Politics sioner at the konak is a man of fifty-six, but looks older. He received us in full uniform outside his house, and took us into his sitting-room, furnished with two book-cases, in one of which I noticed a French translation of Lord Palmerston's private correspondence. The Pasha, who speaks French, is rather nervous in ladies' society, although his manners are charming. He sat on the edge of his chair while we smoked cigarettes and drank coffee and syrups. He has no wife, but lives with his old mother, and has probably stayed longer in one post than any other Turkish official, for the usual practice of the Sultan is to move important functionaries from one end of the empire to another, lest they should gain too much influence. He took us over the Turkish barracks, which adjoin his small konak. The soldiers are mostly Anatolians, but some are Albanians, as is the Pasha himself. They looked fine, healthy fellows and are said to be well-fed, but, as is usual with most Turkish employes, their pay is never forth- coming, and their turn-out was horribly bad. Those who have only seen the Turkish soldier in Constantinople sometimes have the pleasant delusion that his undoubted bravery and fine physique are accompanied by a smartness and neatness such as we are accustomed to in European armies. But go to the provinces, to Crete or to Novi- Bazar, and the soldiers of the Pddislidh are seen to be very different, so far as their outfit goes. In these last two places one naturally notices their defects of dress and drill all the more because one sees them side by side with well- dressed and well-drilled European troops. Of course, the provision above mentioned which excludes Turkish irregulars from the Sandzak, has had a most excellent effect upon the state of that district, which has thus been spared the performances of the Bashi-Bazouks, so active in Crete. Apart from its political and strategic importance, Plevlje 194 in the Near East possesses, in the Serb monastery of Sveta Troica, or the Holy Trinity, an historical monument of considerable interest. The monastery, which is situated about twenty- tive minutes from the town, in a bend of the mountains, is quite hidden from view by the trees of the ravine until one is close upon it. One of the monks, who entertained us there, told us that there were fifteen of them altogether, and on the occasion of any great national or religious festival, the great courtyard and the rambling wooden balconies above it are crammed with people. In the THE BAZAR, PLEVLJE. (From a Photo, by Miss Chadiuick.) courtyard are the monuments of the abbots, and an old church which contains some quaint mediaeval frescoes emerging from the whitewash. There are also old pictures of several ancient Servian rulers, such as Uros, Milutin, and Helena. The church also contains the pastoral staff of S. Sava, which was bought from the Turks by some devout Serb when they pillaged the monastery at Milesovo, a few miles away, and brought here. Half underground in the courtyard we saw a small library, which boasted a curiously illuminated Serb Bible, with some extraordinary 195 Travels and Politics pictures ; but most of the books seemed to be modern and all of them were mouldy with the damp — for here, as in most places in the East, the monks seem to know and care very little about literary matters. From Plevlje to the terminus of the Macedonian line at Mitrovica, it takes four days to ride over a very rough country. I am told that the Turkish officials are not desirous of carrying out the original plan, and continuing this line to Plevlje. On the Contrary, they prefer to place as many obstacles as possible in the way of travellers. For example, the road which formerly existed between Priboj and Priepolje was purposely placed under three separate Turkish authorities so that traffic over it might be made as hard as officialdom could make it. When a great inundation destroyed this section of the road at the end of 1896, nothing was done to make good the de- struction ; and though the Pasha, like all Turkish officials whom I have met, was "just telegraphing" or "had just telegraphed " to have it repaired, I suspect that it will be long before any carriage will be able to perform the circular route from Plevlje, lud Priepolje and Priboj, back into Bosnia. The importance of direct railway communication from Salonica, by means of an extension of the present line from Mitrovica, through the Sandzak to Sarajevo, it would be difficult to exaggerate. There are consider- able natural difficulties to be overcome, but the political obstacles are probably greater at present. One day, however, but not under Ottoman auspices, as a former Sultan dreamed, Plevlje will be a station on the " quick route" to India, and Brindisi will have ceded to Salonica the privilege, which she has enjoyed since the days of the Romans, of being the chief port of departure for the East. Of one thing we may be certain, that the Sandzak is bound to play an important part in the history 196 in the Near East of the future, just as it did in that of the past. But under whose auspices, those of Austria-Hungary, or those of the two Serb states on either side of it ? — that is the question. But that the Turk will ever recover his full and exclusive overlordship of this at present anomalous district, I do not believe. For one has but to talk to the Ottoman officials in Albania, to find that they regard the wave of Turkish conquest as spent in Europe. The Sandzak is, at present, its high-water mark ; but no one considers the present situation as final. The French proverb, Cc n'cst que Ic provisoirc qui vcste, has been tolerably true so far of the arrangements made for the Near East at the Berlin Congress. Yet no diplomatist regards them as the final settlement of an almost eternal question— to whom shall the Balkan Peninsula belong ? Bidding good bye to our hospitable friends at the casino, who, on the last day of our stay, drank to the health of the two ladies as "the only Englishwomen who had ever visited Plevlje," we returned to the Bosnian frontier, and, after a short delay, caused by the desire of the captain that the ladies should visit an old Mussulman woman, we drove down through the dark woods, illum- inated by fireflies, to Cajnica. On our arrival we found that the Bezirksvovsichcr had arranged for us, during our absence, an excursion on a raft down the Drina from Gorazda to Visegrad. These Flossparticu, as they are called, are a peculiarity of Bosnia. The river Drina flows through the occupied territory, and for a considerable part of the way forms the boundary between Bosnia and Servia, finally joining the Save. It is thus an excellent means of conveying wood from the Bosnian forests down to Belgrade, or even further, the raftsmen returning on foot. When the state of the water is favourable, it is customary to form large rafts of the wood, partly composed of sawn planks, and partly of rough beams of timber. 197 Travels and Politics When travellers are invited to make the journey in this way, a seat of planks is provided in the middle of the raft on which they can sit, or if necessary stand, while the raft is temporarily submerged when passing the rapids. During the Turkish times, these rapids were much worse than they are now ; for a scheme which had been drawn up for blasting the rocks away was pigeon-holed for a number of years in some Ottoman bureau. The men in charge of the raft are generally two in number, and stand OUR RAFT ON THE DRINA. (From a Photo, hy Mifs Chadwick. at either end grasping the handle of an immense rudder. They are usually Mussulmans from the little town of Foca, which lies some distance above Gorazda. We had also a third native on board, who earned his passage by taking a turn at one of the rudders, and who skilfully jumped off the raft at a place on the shore near his destination. We embarked just below the bridge at Gorazda, and glided slowly down the stream, every now and then racing hurriedly along as we shot the rapids. The men amused themselves in the intervals of steering 198 in the Near East by throwing pieces of wood at the wild ducks which were constantly swimming or flying over the river, and as the heat became more intense, lay down on their stomachs and lapped up the water like dogs. For the greater part of the way the Drina flows between high cliffs covered with trees, and w^hen we reached the mouth of the green Lim, the two rivers composed together a considerable stream. We stopped at one small Mussulman village called Medjedje, where we landed a barrel of wine for the gendarmes stationed there, and then went on to Visegrad, OLD BRIDGE AT VIS^:GRAD. (From a Pliolo. hv Miss CJiadwick.) having been seven hours on the water. We landed at the foot of a conical hill which has considerable fame in the local legends, on account of the tower of " the King's son " Marko, the favourite hero of the Servian ballads, who is said to have been imprisoned there for nine years, and then to have sprung at one bound across the river. The ruins of the tower are still standing, and near the water's edge one is shown the footprint of the hero and his horse's hoof-marks. 199 Travels and Politics Visegrad is now only a small place, for it has not yet recovered from the inundations of two years ago, when the Drina swept away 156 houses and rushed right over the old bridge, one of the finest Turkish monuments in Bosnia, built by a distinguished native of the place, Mehmed Pasha Sokolovic, or *' the falcon's son," a member of one of the oldest Bosnian families, who attained to high rank in the Turkish service. It was con- structed in consequence of the frequent lamentations of (ilPSIES, VISEGRAD. (Fivni a Photo, by Miss Chadunck.) the people, who were unable to cross the river ; and still bears two long Turkish inscriptions on the subject. In the middle of the bridge there was formerly a small edifice, which has been removed, and almost the entire coping of the bridge was destroyed two years ago — as if to belie the South Slavonic saying, " firm as the bridge at Visegrad" — and has since been repaired. The town is being gradually rebuilt, and its position only six hours distant from the Servian frontier, which is clearly visible, assures it an important trade with that country. The 200 in the Near East Montenegrins who desire work in Servia, but who generally fail to obtain it, pass and re-pass through Visegrad every year. The population is half Mussulman, half Orthodox, and there is only one Roman Catholic in the whole town, a curious instance of the remarkable disproportion of the three principal confessions which one finds in various towns of Bosnia. We finally quitted the raft at Visegrad, and set out to drive back to Sarajevo. The climb up from the valley of the Drina is tremendously steep, and as the sun was A STKKET SCEXK, VISKGKAU. [Front a Photo, by Miss Cliadwick.) blazing, and as there was hardly any shade, w-e were not sorry to arrive at Han Semec, the inn at the top of the pass which is kept by a loquacious Jewess from Galicia, who talked incessantly about her six children and deplored that there was no school for them there. Thence to Rogatica the road was all downhill, and the situation of the latter place amply repaid us for the trouble of reach- ing it. It is, indeed, one of the prettiest places in the country, for it lies, as one might expect of an almost en- tirely Mussulman town, in a leafy valley watered by abundant streams. Out of its population of 3,300, only 201 Travels and Politics 300 are Christians, and it is thus one of the most con- servative towns in Bosnia. Thus the Mussuhnans have strenuously refused here to allow their daughters to go to school with the Orthodox girls, and have opposed the erection of a new girls' school on that ground. In times of fasting, too, the Mussulman mayor goes round to the cafes to see that none of the faithful are smoking, or even inhaling the smoke of the infidels' cigarettes ; any offender is severely punished. Yet in spite of this severity CHILDREN AT VISEGRAD. {From a PJwto. by Miss Chndivich.) on the part of the Mussulman majority, the small Chris- tian minority, which is entirely composed of Serbs, lives peaceably with the other section of the community. Here, too, the Mussulmans are noted for their learning, and many of them are begs. In fact, Rogatica boasts of having produced a former SJicik-ul-Isldiii, or head of the Mohammedan hierarchy at Constantinople, who founded a mosque here called after his name. A more interesting mosque, however, is that " of the Mufti," in the courtyard of which is a fine Roman tomb— for a Roman road used, at one time, to pass through this place, and Roman 202 in the Near East remains have been found in large quantities here. The Mussulmans, with their usual disregard for classical an- tiquities, calmly added two steps of masonry to this ancient piece of stonework, so that in bad weather, when it is too wet to go up to the minaret, the muezzin can mount on to it and call the faithful to prayer. Another stone of a very different kind is a huge Bogomile monu- ment, bearing a very long inscription in Cyrillic letters, which is built into the wall of the new Orthodox church. The builders of this edifice, by way of showing their impartiality, have committed another horrible act of vandalism by cutting in two a fine Roman plaque representing a man and a woman, and putting one piece on either side of the door. Other Roman stones have also been employed by the masons, and the gardens of the barracks and the charming little public garden contain several more. The latter grounds have been beautifully laid out on the bank of a small stream called the Rakitnica or " Crabs'-brook," and are really a model of what a small public garden should be. It is here that the Moslems delight to come and take their ease over their coffee, sup- plied from a Turkish kavaiia, while in the evening they may also be seen performing their ablutions at the spring called Toplik, which flows out of the rocks near the old Roman road. After leaving Rogatica we came to the vast prehistoric burying-ground of Glasinac, which is one of the archaeo- logical wonders of Bosnia, but of which the average man would see nothing, if he were not aware beforehand of its existence. Only a few heaps of stones here and there mark the level surface of the plain where four years ago the Anthropological Congress held a meeting. The theory is that the bodies were laid upon the ground, without burial of any kind, and that stones were piled upon them as a tomb — a practice which was common 203 Travels and Politics enough among other prehistoric peoples. We passed two monuments of modern interest, both of which com- memorate the battles of twenty short years ago. A little farther on we arriv^ed at Podromanja, a huge white barrack standing alone in a treeless plain, and so called because it lies "at the foot" of the Komanja range of mountains. The position is one of considerable import- ance, for not only does the main telegraph wire from Vienna to Constantinople pass along this road, but also OUR CAKRIAGE AT PODROMAXJA. (Front a Photo, hy Miss Chadivick.) the building commands the country in all directions. The captain, two lieutenants, and a Catholic priest, on his rounds, entertained us at lunch and presented us with picture postcards of this out of the way place, on the understanding that we should send them some with views of England. After a climb and a drive between meadows purple with vast masses of campanula, we reached the pass of Naromanja, an Alpine spot. On the other side we had a superb view of the country ; here and there a shepherd was piping to his flock in quite idyllic fashion, 204 in the Near East and an occasional village of wooden houses diversified the plain till we rejoined the Sarajevo road at Han Der- venta. Of all the journeys which I have made through the occupied territory — and I have travelled through seven hundred miles of it, and most of the distance more than once — this was perhaps the most interesting. One saw here, better than elsewhere the daily life of the people, while the forest and river scenery is perhaps finer than elsewhere in the countrv. 205 CHAPTER VI BARBARISM AND CIVILISATION : THE ALBANIAN COAST AND CORFU IT is a great change from the Dahnatian, or even from the Montenegrin, ports to the Albanian harbours which fringe the Adriatic. Albania is one of the riddles of the Eastern question. It seems incredible that a fine country, with at least two harbours possible of develop- ment, and within a few hours' steam of Italy, should be the most uncivilised land in the Balkan Peninsula, and that for centuries no " European " power should have made any serious attempt to acquire it as a colony. The Turkish Government has merely nominal authority over the country, and I remember well, when a few years ago the Turkish Minister in Montenegro desired to visit the Albanian town of Scutari, he could find no one who was willing to drive him, for fear of those bullets of which the Albanians always carry such a quantity. Here the real power is not vested in the Governors sent from Constantinople, but in the native chiefs whose word is practically the only law current in the country, and whose recommendations are more efficient than any Turkish teskcreh for any traveller visiting the country. One British consul told me that when, some years ago, he travelled in Albania, he found the company of his wife the greatest safeguard, for the Albanians, though perhaps somewhat idealised by Byron, do not shoot women, or 206 Travels and Politics in the Near East men in their company. It used to be said that Italy had certain designs upon this country. In the first place, a large number of the Albanians are Roman Catholics, and the Roman Catholic clergy has considerable influence among them. Then, Signor Crispi is of Albanian descent, and this fact was not lost sight of when he guided the policy of Italy, in the south of which there are several Albanian colonies. But Albania, like most of the Balkan lands, is split up between contending religions, and it may be doubted whether the Mussulman Arnauts would not strongly resist the attempt of a Christian power to annex their country. Moreover, since her African disasters Italy is hardly strong enough to cope with one of the most warlike nations in the world, Austria is also regarded as a possible candidate for the reversion of Albania, and the Catholic Albanians are, in many places, on the side of that power. Some of the Mussulmans too, since they found that their co-religionists were well treated in Bosnia, while the PddisJidJi was slack in his payments to them when they served in the ranks of his army, are said to have turned their eyes in that direction ; but Austrian officers have told me that in their opinion it would be a very difficult matter to conquer Albania, and at any rate such a project is not within the range of practical politics. A curious fact about the Albanians is their inability to form any close national union among themselves. With the single exception of their legendary hero, Skanderbeg, they have never produced a great man who could rally the whole people round him. In 1880 it is true, at a time when the Albanians were alarmed at the proposed extension of Montenegro at their expense, an Albanian league was formed which was partly spon- taneous, and partly perhaps the result of arguments more or less substantial supplied from Constantinople. This year, too, an Albanian propaganda was being carried on 207 Travels and Politics in Rome by an Albanian leader, who was desirous of forming some sort of independence for his country. In the meanwhile, Albania, whose people are probably the oldest inhabitants of the peninsula and have even been identified by some with the ancient Pelasgi, remains in a state which would be scandalous for a negro republic. There, in the words of the philosopher, " one man is a wolf to another." Human life is of absolutely no value whatever, and roads are almost entirely lacking. Yet the Albanian possesses excellent qualities. In Mon- tenegro and the Hercegovina he works industriously for his living. His physical courage is undeniable, and in the case of the Albanian Mussulmans, this natural courage is increased by the teachings of their religion, which makes them seek eternal happiness in a warrior's death. I shall never forget the devotions of an Albanian chief on the deck of a steamer, performed with the utmost unconsciousness before the other passengers. Of all the Sultan's soldiers, the Albanians are the best, and among the various races of the Balkan Peninsula they have no equals in military prowess, save their hereditary enemies, the Montenegrins. But, if the Arnauts are a guard, they are also a terror, to the PddishdJi, and that timorous, if crafty, sovereign has not the power, if he has the will, to reduce Albania to a state of order. Thus what might be one of the finest countries in Europe, is left in a condition such as nowadays dis- graces few Central African tribes. An occasional philo- logist, anxious to study the difficult Albanian language, a chance sportsman, and a few explorers, may traverse Albania, and an enterprising Englishman has built a house at Scutari, where he spends a part of the year. But with these exceptions, the land of the Skipctar, as the Albanians call themselves, is almost a terra incognita, a waste land in an age when all the great powers desire to 208 in the Near East find new countries for their superfluous sons and new markets for their unnecessary wares. The first Albanian port at which the steamers stop on the way to Corfu, is called by the grandiloquent name of San Giovanni di Medua. One day, perhaps, the place may do something to deserve such a title ; for every now and then a newspaper correspondent at Constantinople reports that the long-projected line is to be made from Medua to Scutari-in-AIbania, of which it is the natural port, and then continued to Servia and possibly Roumania. Land-locked Servia would then find her long-sought outlet on the sea at this unpretending spot, instead of at Salonica — the dream of the Servian enthusiasts — or among the Dalmatian fiords, as was the idea before the Occupation of Bosnia placed a solid wedge between Servia and the sea. It is quite natural that Servia, the only country in our continent, except Switzerland, which has no sea-board, should feel the want of a haven of her own, whence she can export her pigs, which are now almost exclusively sent through the Hungarian frontier town of Semlin. But it is very doubtful whether the Sultan will grant permission for such a line to be made, or whether, even if he consents, his orders will be carried out. At any rate, during all the centuries that the Turk has been owner of Albania, he has not succeeded in making such a simple thing as a carriage-road between Scutari and Medua. I could find no difference whatever in the condition of the latter place, when I re-visited it after an interval of four years. There had been grandiose talk in the Turkish papers about the employment of several hundred soldiers on the road ; but the British Consular cavass, who had come down with those of the French and Austrian Consulates at Scutari to fetch the Consul's letters, told me that it still took eight hours' hard riding to reach that important 209 p Travels and Politics town. In what other countr}' in Europe except Turkey, could such a state of things exist ? The result is, that this naturally fine harbour, perhaps the best in Albania, which suffers but little from a sandbank near the shore, is left almost abandoned. The Austrian- Lloyd steamers have the practical monopoly of the coasting trade, which is largely composed of skins and logwood, and nothing is done to open up the interior by making better com- munication between it and the sea. All is now miserable at Medua. One wretched han represents the sleeping accommodation for a traveller, compelled to spend the night there on the way to Scutari. A few rickety cottages, a barrack on the hill, where the ragged Turkish soldiers are drilling, and the cosy house of the Lloyd agent — here, as at all the Albanian ports, the one vestige of civilisation — such is the Medua of to-day. One splendid sight, indeed, it possesses — the superb men of the Mirdite tribe, all armed to the teeth. Of course, every one carries weapons here ; but these Mirdites are the proud owners of old swords, pistols, and flint-locks which would delight the heart of a collector. Fierce as these warriors are, they take it as a compliment when any one desires to examine their armoury, which they transport about with them, and allow a stranger to handle their weapons with the same easy nonchalance with which, under other circum- stances, they would shoot him at sight. When, however, some Albanians from Medua came off to our steamer in a boat, and demanded instant employment from the captain, a regular fight with the oars ensued, and only the presence of mind of that officer prevented swords being drawn and pistols fired. A rougher looking set I have rarely seen than these furious boatmen in their sheep-skin coats, which gave them, indeed, the appear- ance of beasts rather than human beings. If Medua be one of the Turks' many lost opportunities, 2IO in the Near East Durazzo, the next place on the coast, is a terrible example of fallen greatness. As one walks through the poor and ill-paved streets of this decayed town, followed by some Turkish spy, suspected by every ragged soldier that one passes, one can scarcely realise that this was once the flourishing Dyracchium, the starting-point of the great Egnatian road to Constantinople, which Cicero chose as his place of exile because it was '* so conveniently near to Italy," which once saw Cresar and Pompey disputing the mastership of the world on the plains outside its walls, which was much later the coveted goal of great Bulgarian conquerors, and which witnessed the strange adventure, and owned the temporary sovereignty, of a French prince- let in the confusion of the dark ages. A paltry town of five thousand inhabitants is all that is now left of so much greatness, and the most interesting thing at Durazzo is its ruins. For there, rather than in the squalid shops, you will find some connection with its past. Here and there on some old house fine pieces of sculpture have been stuck into the brickwork, and, in the ancient gate in the walls, on the country side of the town, I noticed several beautiful specimens of sculpture, one, very perfect, representing a centaur, but all washed over with the bluish lime of the Turkish official. The prevalence of Italian, too, as the language of the traders, shows that the old communication with Italy is kept up. But so long as the Turkish flag waves over the crumbling fortifications of Durazzo, where the fig tree alone is flourishing, the great days of the town's past will not return. There is talk, indeed, of a railway from Monastir, in Macedonia, the terminus of the present Salonica-Monastir line, to Durazzo, or to Valona, the next harbour along the coast. Since the late war, the omnipotent Germans have urged the obvious military advantages of this means of connection between the -^gean and the Adriatic. In 211 Travels and Politics fact, some years ago the line was surveyed, at the instiga- tion of the late Baron Hirsch, from a commercial point of view. The surveyors then reported that it would not pay, and the experience of Baron Hirsch's other Turkish railways has not been encouraging — to the Turks. So Albania is likely for some time to remain without a railway of any kind ; indeed, even if the Turkish Govern- ment were willing, the native chiefs would probably object, just as they objected to the existing line from Salonica to Mitrovica, which was only allowed to be made on condition that it did not pass near their particular preserves. Durazzo has nothing else of interest, unless it be the picture of the Madonna in the church of Santa Lucia, which is said to be a portrait of the late Austrian Empress — a likeness which did not strike me when I saw it. Valona, or Avlona, which is the largest place between Durazzo and Corfu, is a much more cheerful town. The harbour, sheltered to the south by the end of that rather insignificant range, the '' Acroceraunian " moun- tains, which Horace prayed that Virgil might escape on his travels to Greece, and which Shelley found a sonorous ending to a verse, is a large one, and is further protected by the islet of Sasseno, which, although forgotten by some geographers, is in reality the northernmost possession of the Greek kingdom. The landing-place is a mere collection of sheds, chiefly important as a scnin for the Albanian capital of Joannina; the town of Valona is half an hour's walk inland, and seems to be a fairly flourishing Turkish mart, prettily situated amid trees and meadows, where the white-befezzed Albanians were busy with the hay. A large house on the left, on which the storks were perching, attracted my attention, and I found on inquiry, that thereby hung a tale. Its owner, a rich local magnate, suspected by the Govern- 212 in the Near East ment at Constantinople, was summoned to put in an appearance at the capital. Fearing to go by land, lest he should be murdered on the way, he escaped by a sailing-boat to the nearest Italian port of Otranto, whence he made his way by sea to the Turkish capital, only to discover that he was expected to remain there as the prisoner or the guest — the terms are almost synony- mous — of the Pddishdli. When I returned to Valona, I found his house falling into decay, so I conclude that he is either dead or in the same dubious position as before. Of course, such cases are extremely common, from Ghazi Osman Pasha, the prisoner of Yildiz, downwards. Even our inoffensive party attracted the greatest suspicion at Valona, and a Turkish soldier, who saw our camera, thought it his duty to follow us from the town to the landing-place, and was not satisfied till he had accom- panied us on board the steamer. From Valona southward stretches an iron-bound coast without a tree and almost without a habitation, until one reaches the poor little town of Santi Quaranta, so called from a ruined chapel of the " Forty Saints," which, after an almost unknown existence of many a long year, suddenly obtained historic reputation in the Greco-Turkish war of 1897. tor the bombardment of this unimportant hamlet, which consisted before the war of a few houses, an old semicircular fort near the shore and a bigger new one on the hill above it, commanding the road to Joannina — for this, like Valona, is a <