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Title: Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on foot
Author: Sir Arthur Evans
Release date: May 27, 2024 [eBook #73712]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1877
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH BOSNIA AND THE HERZEGÓVINA ON FOOT ***
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BOSNIA AND THE HERZEGÓVINA
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
[Illustration: HERZEGÓVINAN REFUGEES AT RAGUSA. (See p. 428 seqq.)
TO THE RIGHT, TWO RAGUSAN PEASANTS.]
THROUGH
BOSNIA
AND THE
HERZEGÓVINA
ON FOOT
_DURING THE INSURRECTION, AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 1875_
WITH AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF BOSNIA
REVISED AND ENLARGED
AND A GLIMPSE AT THE CROATS, SLAVONIANS, AND THE ANCIENT
REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
[Illustration]
BY ARTHUR J. EVANS, B.A., F.S.A.
_WITH A MAP AND FIFTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND SKETCHES BY THE AUTHOR_
SECOND EDITION
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
1877
_All rights reserved_
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
Having obtained access to some new authorities on Bosnian history, I have
thought it desirable to make some additions to my ‘Historical Review’ in
the present Edition. I was the more anxious to do this as the brevity
with which I had expressed my views on the most important aspect of
Bosnian history—its connection, namely, with the early history of Western
Protestantism—has led in some quarters to strange misconception. In
setting my conclusions on this head in, I trust, a clearer light, I have
been greatly aided by the recent appearance of Herr Jireček’s _Geschichte
der Bulgaren_, which contains some valuable data from South-Sclavonic
sources touching the tenets and Church government of the Bogomiles, and
their missionary triumphs in Italy and Provence.
I have also added a few considerations on the present state of Bosnia,
the malign and artificial character of the Osmanlì government in that
province, and the reforms which it were most desirable that an united
Europe should enforce.
In doing so—though I, for one, was never so sanguine as to imagine
that the agreement of the great Powers was anything else than a hollow
pretence—I had found it convenient to assume that the Conference was
prepared to speak to Turkey in the only language to which she was capable
of listening. As I write, however, the divisions of Christendom, and,
more than all, the anti-Sclavonic jealousies of Austria-Hungary, have
baffled the efforts of diplomacy; and, after womanish expostulation and
pitiable huckstering, the representatives of Europe have been shown the
door by the Sick Man. The two alternatives apparently left to us are, to
England at least, equally pernicious and equally shameful—a Russo-Turkish
war, or a new cycle of tyranny, agitation, and revolt, ending where it
began, and involving the solution, it may be, of graver questions, than
the fate of one Empire.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The tour described in this book was not in the slightest degree due to
the Insurrection in Bosnia and the Herzegovina. It was planned before the
outbreak, and was first suggested by the interest which previous visits
to other South-Sclavonic lands had led me to take in the branch of that
race still under the Sultan’s dominion, and owing to a special curiosity
to see a race of Sclavonic Mahometans. My desire of visiting Bosnia was
further whetted by a day spent a few years ago beyond the Bosnian border,
and by the interesting problems suggested by the history and present
state of Illyria. While I and my brother, Lewis Evans, who accompanied
me throughout, were preparing for our journey, the Insurrection in the
Herzegovina broke out, so that it was undertaken rather in spite of than
by reason of that event. During our walk through Bosnia that country also
burst into insurrection; and as we heard many accounts from trustworthy
sources as to the origin of the outbreak, both in Bosnia and the
Herzegovina, I have ventured to give some particulars in the story of our
itinerary.
We were armed with an autograph letter from the Vali Pashà, or
Governor-General of Bosnia and Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces,
and owing to this were able to accomplish our tour without serious
molestation, though it must be confessed that we underwent some risks.
With a few short breaks we made our way through the country on foot,
which is perhaps a novelty in Turkish travel. Our only impedimenta
consisted of the knapsack and sleeping gear on our backs, so that we were
entirely independent; and being able to use our legs and arms and sleep
out in the forest, we were able to surmount mountains and penetrate into
districts which, I think I may say, have never been described, and it is
possible never visited, by an ‘European’ before.
If this book should do anything to interest Englishmen in a land and
people among the most interesting in Europe, and to open people’s eyes
to the evils of the government under which the Bosniacs suffer, its
object will have been fully attained. Those who may be inclined to ‘try
Bosnia’ will meet with many hardships. They must be prepared to sleep
out in the open air, in the forest, or on the mountain-side. They will
have now and then to put up with indifferent food, or supply their own
commissariat. They will nowhere meet with mountains so fine as the Alps
of Switzerland or Tyrol, and they will be disappointed if they search
for æsthetic embellishments in the towns. But those who are curious as
to some of the most absorbing political problems of modern Europe; those
who delight in out-of-the-way revelations of antiquity, and who perceive
the high historic and ethnologic interest which attaches to the Southern
Sclaves; and lastly, those who take pleasure in picturesque costumes and
stupendous forest scenery; will be amply rewarded by a visit to Bosnia.
There is much beautiful mountain scenery as well, and the member of the
Alpine Club who has a taste for the jagged outlines of the Dolomites and
the Julian Alps, in spite of a certain amount of attendant limestone
nakedness, may find some peaks worthy of his attention towards the
Montenegrine frontier. It would not be difficult to mention routes of
greater natural attractions than that we followed, and I may observe that
the falls of the Pliva, which we did not see, have been reckoned among
the most beautiful waterfalls in Europe.
The first two chapters, written mostly while delayed in Croatia, refer
rather to the borderland of Bosnia, and may not be of general interest,
dealing much in costumes and antiquities. The last, which describes the
old Republic of Ragusa, may serve to show that the Southern Sclaves are
capable of the highest culture and civilisation. In the Historical Review
of Bosnia I have attempted to elucidate and emphasise a most important
aspect of Bosnian history—the connection, namely, between that till
lately almost unknown land, and the Protestant Reformation of Europe, and
the debt which even civilised England owes to that now unhappy country.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF BOSNIA xxiii
CHAPTER I.
AGRAM AND THE CROATS.
Slovenization in Styria—Regrets of a Prussian—Agram—Her
Sclavonic Features, Hero, Art, and Architecture—Flowers
of the Market-place—Croatian Costume—Prehistoric Ornament
and Influence of Oriental Art—South-Sclavonic Crockery,
Jewelry, and Musical Instruments—Heirlooms from Trajan or
Heraclius?—Venice and Croatia—Croatian Gift of Tongues—Lost
in the Forest—A Bulgarian Colony—On to Carlovatz—The Welsh of
Croatia—Croatian Characteristics—Carlovatz Fair—On the Outposts
of Christendom 1
CHAPTER II.
THE OLD MILITARY FRONTIER, SISCIA, AND THE SAVE.
The Military Frontier, its Origin and Extinction—Effects
of Turkish Conquest on South-Sclavonic Society—Family
Communities—Among the House-fathers—Granitza Homesteads—The
_Stupa_—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—Contrast between Croats
of Granitza and Slovenes—The Advantages and Defects of Family
Communities—Larger Family Community near Brood—A little
Parliament House—Croatian Brigands—A Serb Lady—Turkish Effendi
and Pilgrim—Siszek—Roman Siscia; her Commercial Importance—Her
Martyr—Remains of ancient Siscia—Destiny of Siszek—Croatian
Dances and Songs—Down the Save—New Amsterdam—South-Sclavonic
Types—Arrive at Brood—Russian Spies!—A Sunset between two
Worlds—Marched off—Bearding an Official—A Scaffold Speech—In
Durance vile—Liberated! 42
CHAPTER III.
THROUGH THE BOSNIAN POSSÁVINA AND USSORA.
Insurrectionary Agitation among Southern Sclaves—Proclamation
of the Pashà of Bosnia—We land in Turkish Brood—Moslem
Children—Interview with the Mudìr—Behaviour of our
Zaptieh—Peasants of Greek Church—How these Christians love
one another—Arrive at Dervent—Interview with Pashà of
Banjaluka—Hajduks’ Graves—Rayah Hovel—Difficulty with our
Host—Doboj; its old Castle and Historical Associations—A
South-Sclavonic Patriot—First Mountain Panorama—The ‘Old
Stones,’ a Prehistoric Monument—Tešanj: its old Castle and
History—‘_Une Petite Guerre_’—Latin Quarter of Tešanj—Soused
by an old Woman—Influence of Oriental Superstitions on Bosnian
Rayahs—Argument with the Kaïmakàm—Excusable Suspicions 86
CHAPTER IV.
THE PILGRIMAGE ON THE FOREST-MOUNTAIN.
Through the Forests of the Black Mountain—The Flower
of Illyria—A Mysterious Fly—Enchanted Ground—The Fairy
Mountain—Great Christian Pilgrimage—The Shrine on the
Mountain-top—Christian Votaries in the Garb of Islâm—The
Night-encampment—How the Turks dance—Anacreontic Songs—An
Epic Bard, Poetic Genius of Bosniacs—Insolence of Turkish
Soldiers and their Ill-treatment of the Rayahs—Types at
the Fair—Aspect and Character of Men—_Chefs-d’œuvre_ of
Flint-knapping—Christian Graveyard and Monastery—Dismiss our
Zaptieh—Night on Forest-mountain of Troghìr—Wrecks by Wind
and Lightning—Scene of Forest Fire—Timber Barricades—Summit
of Vučia Planina—A _Bon-vivant_—Steep Descent—Night in a
Hole—Almost impassable Gorge—Egyptian Rocks—Repulsed from a
Moslem Village—Tombs of the Bogomiles—Arrive at Franciscan
Monastery of Gučiagora—Fears of a Massacre—Relations of
Roman Catholics with the Turks—Austrian Influence in
Bosnia—Aspirations of the Bosnian Monks 126
CHAPTER V.
TRAVNIK AND FOINICA.
A Turkish Cemetery—Arrive at Travnik—Taken for Insurgent
Emissaries—The ex-Capital of Bosnia—New Readings of
the Koràn—Streets of Travnik—Veiling of Women in
Bosnia—Survivals of old Sclavonic Family Life among Bosnian
Mahometans—Their Views on the Picturesque—Their Dignity,
oracular Condescension, and _Laisser-Aller_—Hostile
Demonstrations—Bashi-Bazouks—‘Alarums Excursions!’—Insulted
by armed Turks—Rout of the Infidels—Departure of Mahometan
Volunteers for Seat of War—Ordered to change our Route—A
Turkish Road—Busovac—Romish Chapel and Bosnian Han—The
Police defied—Our Mountain Route to Foinica—Ores and Mineral
Springs—Dignity at a Disadvantage—Turkish Picnic—The Franciscan
Monastery at Foinica—Refused Admittance—An ‘Open Sesamé!’—‘The
Book of Arms of the Old Bosnian Nobility’—Escutcheon of Czar
Dūshan—Shield of Bosnia—Armorial Mythology of Sclaves—The
Descendants of Bosnian Kings and Nobles—The Ancient Lords of
Foinica—The ‘Marcian Family’ and their Royal Grants—A Lift in
the Kadi’s Carriage—Traces of former Gold Mines—Mineral Wealth
of Bosnia—A ‘Black Country’ of the future—Why Bosnian Mines
are unworked—Influence of Ancient Rome and Ragusa on past and
present History of Bosnia, and on the distribution of her
Population—A fashionable Spa—Kisseljak and—Beds! 185
CHAPTER VI.
THE PANIC IN SERAJEVO.
Outbreak of the Insurrection in Bosnia—Roadside Precautions
against Brigands—Panorama of Serajevsko Polje—Roman Bas-relief
of Cupid—Roman Remains in Bosnia—_Banja_ and _Balnea_—‘The
Damascus of the North’: first Sight of Serajevo—Her History and
Municipal Government—Fall of the Janissaries—Dangerous Spirit
of the Mahometan Population of Serajevo—Outbreak of Moslem
Fanaticism here on building of the new Serbian Cathedral—We
enter the City through smouldering Ruins—Hospitable Reception
at English Consulate—Great Fire in Serajevo—Consternation of
the Pashà—Panic among the Christians—Missionaries of Culture:
two English Ladies—Causes of the Insurrection in Bosnia: the
Tax-farmers: Rayahs tortured by Turks—‘Smoking’—The Outbreak
in Lower Bosnia—Paralysis of the Government, and Mahometan
Counter-Revolution—Conjuration of leading Fanatics in the Great
Mosque—We are accused before the Pashà by forty Turks—Consular
Protection—The Fanariote Metropolitan and Bishops of
Bosnia—Their boundless Rapacity, and Oppression of the Rayah—A
Bosnian Bath—Mosques and Cloth-hall of Serajevo—Types of the
Population—Spanish Jews, and Pravoslave Merchants—Bosnian Ideas
of Beauty!—Opposition of Christians to Culture—Extraordinary
Proceedings of the Board of Health—The Zaptiehs—Continuance of
the Panic—Portentous Atmospheric Phenomenon—The Beginning of
the End 234
CHAPTER VII.
FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE HERZEGÓVINA.
Talismans and Phylacteries—Connection between the Geology
of Illyria and her Cabalistic Science—Roman Gems, and
Altar of Jove the Thunderer—Amulets against the Evil
Eye—On our Way again—The Gorge of the Želesnica—Pursued
by Armed Horsemen—Sleep under a Haystack—Chryselephantine
Rock-sculpture—Wasting her Sweetness on the Desert Air!—Mt.
Trescovica—The Forest Scenery of Mt. Igman—Transformations
of the Herb Gentian—Reminiscences of the Karst—No Water!—A
Race against Night—Strange Bedfellows—A Bosnian-Herzegovinian
House—We encounter Bashi-Bazouks—Cross the Watershed
between the Black Sea and Adriatic—First Glimpse of the
Herzegovina—Signs of a Southern Sky—Coinica, the Runnymede
of the Old Bosnian Kingdom—Great Charter of King Stephen
Thomas—Our Host: the Untutored Savage—Absence of Nature’s
Gentlemen—Democratic Genius of Bosniacs and Southern
Sclaves—The Narenta and its treacherous Waters—Iron
Bridge—Entertained by Belgian Engineer—Murder of Young
Christian by two armed Turks—Trepidation of our Host
and Preparations for Flight—Touching Instance of Filial
Affection!—A Village of Unveiled Mahometans—_Rhododactyls_:
Darwinianism refuted at last!—The Tragic Lay of the Golden
Knife—Magnificent Scenery of the Narenta Valley; Amethystine
Cliffs and Emerald Pools—A Land of Wild Figs and Pomegranates 285
CHAPTER VIII.
MOSTAR AND THE VALE OF NARENTA.
Amulets against Blight—A Hymn in the Wilderness—We arrive
at Mostar—Our Consul—Anglo-Turkish Account of Origin of
the Insurrection in the Herzegovina—The real Facts—The
‘_Giumruk_’—The Begs and Agas and their Serfs—The Demands
of the Men of Nevešinje—Massacre of Sick Rayahs by
Native Mahometans begins the War—Plan of Dervish Pashà’s
Campaign—Interview with the Governor-General, Dervish
Pashà—Roman Characteristics of Mostar, and her Roman
Antiquities—Trajan’s Bridge—Ali Pashà, his Death’s-heads and
Tragical End—The Grapes of Mostar—Start with Caravan for
Dalmatian Frontier—A Ride in the Dark—Buna and the Vizier’s
Villa—Bosnian Saddles—A Karst Landscape—Tassorić: Christian
Crosses and interesting Graveyard—Outbreak of Revolt in
Lower Narenta Valley—The Armed Watch against the Begs—A
burnt Village—On Christian Soil once more—Metcović—Voyage
Down the Narenta Piccola—Ruins of a Roman City—The Illyrian
Narbonne—Metamorphosis of Sclavonic God into Christian
Saint—The old _Pagania_—The Narentines and Venetians—Narentine
Characteristics—A Scotch Type—Subterranean Bellowings near Fort
Opus: The Haunts of a Minotaur!—Adverse Winds—Tremendous Scene
at the Mouth of Narenta—_La Fortuna è rotta!_—Our Boat swept
back by the Hurricane—A Celestial Cannonade—Sheltered by a
Family-Community—Dalmatian Fellowship with the English—Stagno—A
Romantic Damsel—Gravosa, the Port of Ragusa 326
CHAPTER IX.
RAGUSA AND EPIDAURUS.
Marvels of the Valle d’Ombla—Port of Gravosa—Rocky Coves and
Gardens of Ragusa—Ragusa Vecchia; Remains of Epidaurus—Monument
of a Roman Ensign—Mithraic Rock-sculpture—Plan of Canale and
the Roman Aqueduct—Antique Gems: the Lapidary Art in Ancient
Illyria—Epidauritan Cult of Cadmus and Æsculapius—Phœnician
Traces on this Coast—Syrian Types among modern Peasants—_Grotta
d’Escolapio_ and _Vasca della Ninfa_—Cavern, and Legend of
St. Hilarion and the Dragon—Mediæval Sculpture in Ragusa
Vecchia—The Founding of Ragusa—The Roman City on the Rock,
and the Sclavonic Colony in the Wood—Orlando saves the City
from the Saracens, and St. Blasius from the Venetians—Ragusa
as a City of Refuge—Visit of Cœur-de-Lion—Government of
the Republic—Sober Genius of Ragusans—Early Laws against
Slavery—Hereditary Diplomatists—Extraordinary Bloom of
Ragusan Commerce—The ‘Argosies’—Commercial and other
relations with England—Literature of Ragusa; she creates
a Sclavonic Drama—Poets and Mathematicians: Gondola and
Ghetaldi—The great Earthquake—End of the Republic—A Walk in
Ragusa—Porta Pille—Stradone—Torre del Orologio—Zecca and
Dogana—Ancient Coinage of Ragusa—Palazzo Rettorale—A Mediæval
Æsculapius—Monuments to Ragusan Peabody and Regulus—_Cappella
delle Reliquie_—Silver Palissy-ware by a Ragusan Master—Cross
of Stephen Uroš—Discovery of St. Luke’s Arm!—The Narrow
Streets of Ragusa: _Case Signorili_, and Hanging Gardens—A
Bird’s-eye View of the City—The Herzegovinian Refugees—A
jewelled _Ceinture_ from Nevešinje—The Fugitives taken!—Turkish
Influence on Ragusan Costume—Contrast between Ragusan Peasants
and ‘_Morlacchi_’—Refinement of the Citizens—Blending of
Italian and Sclave—The Natural Seaport of Bosnia—A Vision of
Gold and Sapphire—On the Margin of the Hellenic World—Shadow
and Night 379
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS.
HERZEGOVINIAN REFUGEES AT RAGUSA _Frontispiece_
GREAT SEAL OF TVARTKO, KING OF BOSNIA (see p. lxxi, note) _on title-page_
TOMB OF CATHARINE, last lawful Queen of Bosnia _To face page_ xxiii
CROATIAN TYPES ” ” 11
BOSNIAN TYPES AT SARAJEVO ” ” 277
WOODCUTS IN TEXT.
PAGE
Croatian Clothes-shop, Agram 4
Croat Woman in the Agram Market 9
Roman and Croatian Pottery 18
Croatian Pottery 19
Outlines of Croatian Musical Instruments 22
Outline of Tracery 23
Bulgarian Settlement 29
Bulgarian Profile 31
Sluin Woman 35
Croat Man 37
A Granitza Homestead 48
Stupa 50
Homestead of Family Community, near Brood, Slavonia 57
Plan of Common Dwelling 59
Head of Slavonian 85
View on River Save, looking from Slavonian Brood towards the
Bosnian Shore 88
Plan of Turbine Mill 95
Bosnian Girl of the Possávina 96
Diagram of Salt-mill 104
Old Castle of Doboj 105
The ‘Old Stones,’ near Tešanj 112
Castle of Tešanj 114
Turkish Café, Tešanj 117
Latin Maiden of Tešanj 120
Pots from Tešanj 121
Pilgrims at the Shrine, near Comušina 132
Types at the Fair 145
Bosnian Belle 148
Gun-Flint 153
Tree struck by Lightning 158
Rocky Gorge of the Jasenica 169
Mysterious Sepulchres, Podove 171
Ancient Monuments in Želesnica Valley 175
View in Travnik 192
Bosniac Mahometan Woman 195
Old Castle of King Tvartko at Travnik 203
Bosnian Armorial Bearings 218
Bas-relief of Cupid 237
Arrowhead Charms 291
Amulets against the Evil Eye 292
Mount Trescovica, from South-Eastern Spur of Mount Igman 297
Mount Bielastica 298
Plan of Bosnian Han 302
First Glimpse of the Herzegovina 304
View of Coinica 305
Unveiled Mahometan Women at Jablanica 322
Mostar Bridge 348
Christian Monuments, Tassorić 360
Graveyard at Tassorić 361
Women and Child, Stagno 376
Sculpture of Roman Standard-Bearer at Ragusa Vecchia 387
Head of Brenese Peasant 393
Virgin and Child 397
Palazzo Rettorale and Torre del Orologio, Ragusa 429
_Key to the Pronunciation of the Serbo-Croatian Orthography, adopted for
Illyrian Names in this Book._
Serbo-Croatian Letters Approximate Sound.
ž = French _j_.
lj = Italian _gl_.
nj = Italian _gn_.
ć = English _ch_.
c = _tz_.
č = German _tsch_.
dž = _dsch_.
š = English _sh_.
j = English _y_.
[Illustration: TOMB OF CATHARINE, LAST LAWFUL QUEEN OF BOSNIA.]
HISTORICAL REVIEW OF BOSNIA.
‘Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.’
About the middle of the fifth century, when Britain was passing
definitely into the hands of the English, and when on the Continent the
hordes of Attila were dealing the most tremendous blow that had yet
fallen on the Roman Empire, Sclavonic tribes overran Mœsia, Thrace,
Macedonia, and Illyricum, and pushed on to the Adriatic shores. From
this period the final settlement of the Sclaves in the area of what
is now known as Turkey-in-Europe may be safely dated.[1] Their first
ravages over, the Sclaves, who from their communal family-organisation
were little capable of formidable combination, appear to have easily
accepted Roman suzerainty. The new settlers were soon among the most
trusted troops of the Eastern Emperor, and at the beginning of the sixth
century the Sclavonic colony of Dardania gives Eastern Rome one of its
most renowned Emperors and its greatest general. The Sclave Upravda, the
son of Istok, is better known as the Emperor Justinian, and Veličaŕ as
Belisarius.
Thus were first cemented those peculiar relations between the Sclaves
and Byzantium which are still of supreme importance in considering ‘the
Eastern Question.’ The Byzantine government saw itself so capable of
dealing with the Sclaves, that when the Avar nomads, at the beginning of
the seventh century, devastated Illyricum, massacring alike Sclavonic
settler and Roman provincial, and sacking even the coast cities of
Dalmatia, Heraclius, as a masterstroke of policy, called in two new
Sclavonic tribes from beyond the Danube as a counterpoise to the Avars;
and the corner of the Balkan peninsula between the Save, the Morava, and
the Adriatic, was divided among the Sclavonic tribes, the Serbs, and the
Croats, who still throughout this area form the bulk of the population.
The account given of this settlement by Constantine Porphyrogenitus[2] is
so mixed up with mythical elements that we can only accept the general
outlines. As might be expected from the analogy of our own history of the
conquest of Britain, the Sclavonic sagas, which seem to form the basis of
the Byzantine version, bring into the field certain leaders with eponymic
names;[3] but the old family life of the Sclaves asserts itself even in
these legends, and we read that the Croats were led to the conquest of
the Avars by a family of brothers and sisters.
The Croatian settlement seems to have been the earlier. The Croats came
from the countries beyond the Carpathians, and colonized the countries
now known as Austrian and Turkish Croatia, and the northern part of
Dalmatia. The Save formed a rough boundary to the Croatian nationality on
the north, the Verbas on the east, and to the south the Cetina.
The Serbs, then inhabiting a part of what is now Galicia, hastened to
imitate the example of the Croats, and took for their share the lands to
the east and south of that occupied by their brother race. They occupied
the whole, or nearly the whole, of the area now occupied by Free Serbia,
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Old Serbia, and the northern half of
Albania, and stretched themselves along the Adriatic coasts from the
neighbourhood of Spalato, where the river Cetina runs into the sea, to
Durazzo, then still Dyrrhachium. Thus, with the exception of the barren
corner called the Kraina, or Turkish Croatia, the whole of what is now
known as Bosnia, with which we have particularly to deal, belongs to the
Serbian branch of the Sclaves.
For long the history of what later became the Bosnian kingdom is
indistinguishable from that of the rest of the Serbs. The whole Illyrian
triangle was divided into a great number of small independent districts,
somewhat answering to the Teutonic ‘_Gaus_,’ called Župy. Župa means
‘bond’[4] or confederation, and each Župa was simply a confederation
of village communities, whose union was represented by a magistrate
or governor, called a Župan. The Župans in turn seem to have chosen
a Grand-Župan, who may be looked on as the President of the Serbian
Federation. We know little about the early Županships of the Bosnian
area, but a few of the petty commonwealths of the Serbian coastland, and
what later on became the Herzegovina, are mentioned by the Byzantine
Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, who wrote about 950, and the names
and situation of some in the Bosnian interior may be gathered from
ecclesiastical diplomas. Here and there we read of a ‘Ban’ (translated,
in Diocleas, by the Latin word ‘_Dux_’), who was rather higher than an
ordinary Župan.
These Serbian ‘Archons,’ as the Byzantine historians speak of them,
acknowledged the suzerainty of the Eastern Empire, and even, in some
cases (though doubtless to a less extent than the Croats), accepted
Byzantine dignities. Thus a Ban of Zachlumia accepted the titles of
Proconsul and Patrician. Later on, when Czar Simeon erected the new
Bulgarian Empire, Serbia was forced for a while to bow to the dominion
of the conqueror of Leo Phocas. In the tenth century the Serbs shake off
the Bulgarian yoke, and we now begin to hear of four Grand-Župans, whose
jurisdictions answer to Serbia proper, Rascia, Dioclea, and Bosnia. The
power of the lesser Župans was during this period being diminished for
the benefit of these greater potentates, who in Bosnia are generally
known as Bans. ‘The Bans,’ says the contemporary Serbian historian,[5]
‘ruled each of them in his own province, and subjugated the Župans,
receiving from them the taxes which beforetime had been paid to the
King,’ _i.e._ the sole Grand-Župan.
During the ninth and tenth centuries, while Bosnian-Serbian history is
still so obscure, that of the Croats had achieved some prominence. The
settlement of the Croats had, as we have seen, somewhat preceded the
Serbian. They bordered on the coast-cities of Dalmatia, where Roman
nationality and something of Roman civilization still lingered. Their
relations with Byzantium were more defined, and they had also for a
moment entered into the system of the renovated Empire of the West. Thus
the Croats were earlier imbued with Christianity than the Serbs, and
external influences were earlier at work to give their too acephalous
government greater unity than their inland neighbours, still under the
full sway of Sclavonic communism, could attain to. In the year 914 a
Croatian Grand-Župan, Tomislav, who, in virtue of his relations to the
Byzantine government and the Roman population of the Dalmatian cities,
had assumed the title of ‘Consul,’ begins to be known to foreign princes
as ‘King of the Croats.’ The successor of Tomislav is said to have
conquered the neighbouring Serbian Banat, which from the principal river
within its confines begins about this time to be known as Bosona, or
Bosnia. It even became a constitutional principle in Croatia that, when
the king died childless, a new king should be elected by the seven Bans
of the crown-lands, one of whom was the Ban of Bosnia.[6]
But this Croatian suzerainty was, as yet, premature. At the beginning
of the eleventh century the Greek Emperor Basil having completed the
slaughter of the Bulgarians succeeded in subjugating the Croats, and
the introduction of Byzantine Governors and Protospathars into Dalmatia
threw back Bosnia on to the support of her Serbian neighbours.[7] The
Bosnian Ban Niklas not only accepted the Serbian Grand-Župan Dobroslav
as his overlord, but aided him most efficaciously in annihilating two
Byzantine armies[8] in those gorges of the Black Mountain which, from
time immemorial, have been so fatal to the ambition of Stamboul.
Thus down to nearly the middle of the twelfth century, Bosnia continued
to own allegiance to her Serbian suzerains, and the claims of the
Croats to Bosnia continued to be little more than nominal till their
own country fell into hands more capable of enforcing them. But at the
beginning of the twelfth century the Magyars overthrew the kingdom of
the Croats, and in 1141 Geiza II. of Hungary completed the conquest of
Bosnia, or, as it is generally known in the Hungarian annals, of Rama,
from the little river of that name, flowing into the Narenta.[9] Still,
the Hungarian dominion does not seem as yet to have been much more than
a vague suzerainty. Bosnia, indeed, throughout the whole of this period,
seems to have stood aloof from all its neighbours. It might own a nominal
allegiance, now to Serbia, now to Croatia, now to Hungary, but it enjoyed
a practical independence. Its general isolation from the main current of
Serbian history may be gathered from the chronicler of Dioclea; and when
Manuel Comnenus reduced Hungary to a temporary subjection, his historian
Cinnamus was struck with the same phenomenon. ‘The Drina,’ says he,
‘divides Bosthna from the rest of Serbia. For Bosthna is not subject
to the Grand-Župan of Serbia, but the people were at that time under
their own magistrates, and used their own customs.’ The recent Russian
historian of the Serbs and Bulgarians[10] traces many of the later
misfortunes of Bosnia to this fatal estrangement from the other Sclavonic
lands.
The Hungarian alliance now makes this alienation irrevocable. Cinnamus
shows the close relations existing between Bosnia and Hungary at the
date of Manuel’s invasion when he goes on to say that ‘Boritzes,[11]
Exarch of Bosthna,’ aided the King of Hungary against the Greeks; and,
indeed, we know from other sources that the Bosnian Ban was himself an
illegitimate son of the Magyar king, Coloman. Manuel reduced Bosnia, with
Croatia and other parts of Hungary, for a while; but the Ban was not long
in recovering the province. The Hungarian connection was only cemented
the more firmly, and on Borić’s death, in 1168, his son, the new Ban
Culin, accepted his investiture from Bela III., and subscribed himself
henceforth _Fiduciarius Regni Hungariæ_.
The rule of Ban Culin is justly regarded as the brightest period in
the annals of Christian Bosnia. His first care on his accession was to
surround himself with trustworthy Župans and Voivodes, and during the
thirty-six years of his reign Bosnia enjoyed a profound peace. Under his
auspices and protection the merchants of Ragusa began to plant their
factories in Bosnia, and open out anew the rich mines which had been
left unworked since the days of the Romans. The very year after Culin’s
accession, two Ragusan brothers built a factory and opened mines on the
site of what has since become the capital of Bosnia.[12] Other mines were
shortly opened in the neighbourhood, and a fortress, called after the
Sclavonic name of their mother city, Dubrovnik, was built by the same
enterprising merchants to protect their industries. The same wise policy
encouraged another immigration, this time, of Saxon miners, who, like
the Ragusans, did much to lay bare the great mineral wealth of this and
the other Serbian lands, and who have left their traces in several old
German mining expressions still current among the miners and mountaineers
of Bosnia. These Saxons, or _Sasi_, settled chiefly in the towns, where
their influence was valuable in instilling something of the civic unity
of the free Teutonic burghs into the loosely compacted aggregation of
hovels that clustered round the fortified ‘grad’ of the Bosnian lord.[13]
Culin is said to have been the first Bosnian prince who struck coins, and
the general prosperity was such that to this day ‘the times of good Ban
Culin’ are invoked by the Bosniac when he wishes to express the golden
age.
But the patronage which Culin afforded to a religious sect that now
becomes prominent in Bosnia makes his rule of still greater importance,
and leads us to the consideration of a subject which has its bearings
even on English history.
The doctrine of the Two Principles of Good and Evil, which had its origin
perhaps in the sublime mythology of Persia and the eternal conflict of
Light and Darkness, held its own amongst the various Gnostic sects of
Christianity, scattered throughout the Eastern world, while the West was
content to slumber in comparative orthodoxy. In Armenia, where these
doctrines had certain affinities with the earlier religion, they seem
to have taken especially firm root; and here, as in the other border
states of the Byzantine Empire, heterodoxy went hand in hand with
patriotism. Considering the hostile relations in which both nations stood
to Byzantium, it is not at all surprising that friendly communications
should have subsisted between the Armenians and the Bulgarian Sclaves
whose country lay to the east of the Serbians. Further, it was extremely
natural that Armenians, for national as well as sectarian reasons,
should view with jealousy the progress of orthodox missionaries among
the Bulgarians, and should attempt to counteract it by organising a
propaganda of their own Manichæism.
Such was actually set on foot. How early this proselytism was first
commenced is doubtful, but it is certain that the Danubian Sclaves
were converted from heathenism _pari passu_ by Manichæan and orthodox
missionaries. The Byzantine Emperors, by their transplantation system,
gave the Armenians every facility for their work. In the middle of the
eighth century Constantine Copronymus, who had perhaps some sympathies
with the heretics, transplanted a body of Paulicians from Armenia
into Thrace, who we learn, on the authority of Cedrenus, spread the
Paulician heresy through those parts, then largely inhabited by the
Bulgarian Sclaves. At the end of the ninth century, when the persecution
of Byzantium had provoked the Paulicians of Armenia to assert their
independence, when ‘the Roman Emperor fled before the heretics whom his
mother had condemned to the flames,’ and Tephricé became the capital of
a free-state devoted to Gnostic Christianity, the missionary efforts of
the Armenians among the Sclaves was prosecuted with still greater vigour.
Petrus Siculus, who in 870 resided nine months at Tephricé as legate
of the Byzantine Government, to arrange for an exchange of prisoners,
discovered that a Manichæan mission was about to start from Tephricé to
the Bulgarians, and addressed his ‘Historia Manichæorum’ to the Bulgarian
Patriarch, with the express purpose of counteracting these baneful
efforts.
The fall of the Paulician free-state of Tephricé synchronizes with the
rise of the first Bulgarian Empire, and we can well imagine that the
refugees of vanquished Armenia found shelter among their Manichæan
co-religionists in the dominions of Czar Simeon, the hero of the
Achelous. From this period onwards the Paulician heresy may be said
to change its nationality, and to become Sclavonic. According to the
Bulgarian national traditions,[14] a certain priest named Bogomil spread
the Manichæan doctrines among the subjects of the Bulgarian Czar
who succeeded Simeon, Peter Simeonović. A more enlightened criticism
will perhaps see in the name ‘Bogomil’ only another instance of that
‘eponymic’ tendency of barbarous minds which refers to individuals events
and institutions which have really a more national character. In the same
Bulgarian document which professes to give the origin of their name,
they are connected with the Massalian heresy; by Harmenopulos and other
Byzantine writers they are made almost or quite identical with these same
Massalians, and with the Euchites, their Greek equivalent, and there
seems to be no reasonable doubt that the name Bogomile is really nothing
but a Sclavonic translation of the Greek and Syriac names for the sect.
The name of Massalians is derived from a Syriac word, signifying ‘those
who pray,’ and the Greek Euchites have of course the same derivation.
The Byzantine writer Epiphanius[15] has the credit of giving the right
etymology of the word Bogomile, in that he derives it from the Bulgarian
words _Bog z’milui_, signifying ‘God have mercy,’ an etymology which fits
in with that peculiar devotion to prayer which was characteristic of the
Bogomilian religion, which harmonizes with that of the allied sectaries,
the Massalians and Euchites, and which would be still intelligible to all
Sclavonic peoples, from the White Sea to the Ægean.
We need not, however, go so far as to deny that the Bogomilian heresy
took its characteristic shape under the direction of a Bulgarian
heresiarch. The historic existence of the first Bogomilian pope seems
sufficiently attested,[16] but the Bulgarian traditions name him
indifferently Jeremias and Bogomil, and it is quite possible that the
latter name was added at a later time by a confusion with the Sclavonic
homonym for Massalians and Euchites.
Through all the varying phases of Bulgarian history the Bogomiles, as
these Sclavonic Manichæans are now known, hold their own. It seems
certain that the Bulgarian Czars, in their struggle with Byzantium, did
not wish to alienate a powerful party at home, and we hear occasionally
ominous whispers that Bulgarian Emperors themselves leaned towards the
doctrine of the Two Principles.[17] The Bulgarian heresy was perpetually
fed from its Oriental sources by new Byzantine transplantations, and in
the tenth century the Emperor John Zimisces did much for the propagation
of Gnosticism among the Sclaves by transporting a more powerful colony
of Armenians than any that had gone before ‘from the Chalybian hills
to the valleys of Mount Hæmus.’ It is now that the Bogomilian heresy
begins to spread beyond the limits of Bulgaria, among the kindred Serbian
tribes to the west. Bulgaria, earlier civilized from her closer contact
with Byzantium, was exercising during these centuries a predominating
influence over the less cultured Serbs. From the Bulgarian missionaries
Serbia first received the seeds of her orthodox Christianity, and there
can be no doubt that proselytism was at work on the Manichæan side as
well. Add to this that a large part of Serbia fell at different times
under the Bulgarian dominion.
By the end of the tenth century the Bogomiles have taken firm root among
the Serbs. In the legend of the Serbian prince, St. Vladimir,[18] one of
his highest merits is that he was the zealous enemy of the Bogomiles. St.
Vladimir certainly included in his dominions parts of what is now the
Herzegovina, and, according to some accounts, Bosnia as well.
The events which now follow must have largely increased the number of
Manichæans in these and the other Serbian lands. Basil, ‘the slayer
of the Bulgarians,’ at the beginning of the eleventh century, finally
overthrew the first Bulgarian Empire. Towards the end of the same
century the Bulgarian heretics, now under Byzantine rule, were hunted
down by the orthodox Emperor. The Princess Anna Comnena[19] has left us
an account of the persecution of the Bogomiles by her father Alexius.
The Byzantine princess unblushingly relates the trap which the Emperor
condescended to set for the chief apostle of the sect, at that time a
certain Basil; how he artfully led on the heresiarch by holding out
hopes of conversion; how he invited him to the imperial table, and in
his closet wormed out of him the secrets of his sect; and then, suddenly
throwing aside the arras on the wall, revealed the scribe who had taken
down the confession of his heresy, and beckoned to his apparitors to
throw his victim into irons. The account which Anna Comnena gives of
this sect is valuable in spite of its scurrility. The princess calls
the Bogomiles ‘a mixture of Manichees and Massalians.’ She laughs at
their uncombed hair, their low origin,[20] and their long faces, ‘which
they hide to the nose, and walk bowed, attired like monks, muttering
something between their lips.’ Basil himself was ‘a lanky man, with a
sparse beard, tall and thin.’ From the account given of his confession
we have intimations of a belief in the phantastic doctrine, and what
was more shocking still, ‘He called the sacred churches—woe is me!—the
sacred churches, fanes of demons!’ When he saw himself betrayed by the
Emperor, he declared that he would be rescued from death by ‘angels and
demons.’ Anna Comnena would like to say more of this cursed heresy, ‘but
modesty keeps me from doing so, as beautiful Sappho says somewhere; for
though I am an historian, I am also a woman, and the most honourable of
the purple, and the first offshoot of Alexius.’ The ‘most honourable of
the purple,’ however, feels no hesitation in describing the holocaust
which her father made of all the Bogomiles he could catch, and more
particularly the roasting of Basil. This delicately sensitive princess
gloats over the preparations in the hippodrome, the crackling of the
fire, the breaking out of poor human nature as the victim comes nearer
to the scorching, the turning away of his eyes, and finally the quivering
of his limbs. One asks, in amazement, whether any religion that has
ever existed in the world has produced such monsters of humanity as
Christianity calling itself orthodox!
It may readily be believed that these persecutions drove the Bogomiles
to take refuge more and more in the Serbian regions, out of the way of
the orthodox savagery of Byzantium. There were moreover reasons which
diverted the current of heresy from that part of Serbia which became
afterwards the nucleus of the Empire of the Némanjas. The Serbian princes
who ruled over the territory now occupied by old Serbia and Montenegro
were faithful sons of the orthodox church, and directed their utmost
efforts to keep the shrine of St. Vladimir and the national patriarchate
of Dioclea free from the contamination of Manichæism. Thus a variety of
causes combined to direct the course of the new movement to the Serbian
races of Western Illyricum; and in the twelfth century—the century
immediately preceding the outbreak of Gnostic Puritanism in Western
Europe—Bosnia had become the head-quarters of what we may now call the
great Sclavonic Heresy.
Thanks to the publication of many South-Sclavonic archives, we are now in
a position to arrive at the tenets of the Bogomiles, from native as well
as from Byzantine sources; and, as I hope to show, both the Greek and
Sclavonic accounts of the sect which now plays such an important part in
Bosnian history harmonize to a very great extent. The best native account
that we possess of the Bogomilian heretics is to be found in the works
of a Bulgarian writer, one Presbyter Cosmas, who lived at the end of the
tenth century, just at the period when the heresy was striking root among
the Serbs and Bosniacs, and who wrote (in his native tongue) two of his
most important works against the Bogomiles—whom he considers ‘worse and
more horrible than demons!’[21]
One of the fundamental doctrines of the Bogomiles was, as has been
already implied, the belief in two Principles of Good and Evil. ‘I hear,’
says the worthy Presbyter Cosmas, ‘many of our orthodox congregation ask,
“Wherefore does God permit the Devil to exercise sway over man?” Verily
this is the first question which prepares the weak in belief for the
reception of the Manichæan heresy.’ The Bogomiles satisfied their reason
by supposing two conflicting self-existent principles of Good and Evil.
Matter and the visible world belong to the Spirit of Evil. ‘Everything,’
says Cosmas, ‘exists, according to the Bogomiles, of the will of the
Devil. The sky, the sun, the earth, men, churches, crosses, and all that
is God’s, they give over to the Devil.’ The evil in the world is thus
accounted for by supposing the Creation to be the work of the Evil One,
and it consequently followed that the Bogomiles looked on the book of
Genesis and the other Mosaic writings as inspired by this evil God, or,
as they knew him, Satanael. But beyond this visible world, of which they
could see only the dark and melancholy side, there existed, according to
the Bogomiles, another, invisible, heavenly and perfect, the creation of
the Spirit of Goodness and Light—Himself a perfect triune Being, from
whom proceeded nothing incomplete or temporary.
Cosmas distinguishes, however, two branches of the Bogomilian heretics.
According to the earlier sect, dualism in its most uncompromising form
prevailed.[22] According to a later offshoot of the Bogomiles, the Spirit
of Good had two sons, the elder of whom, Satanael, rebelled and created
matter, and that to rescue the world thus created from the dominion of
the Prince of Evil, God the Father sent down his younger son Christ to
enable men to combat the Ruler of this world.[23] Both sects, however,
were agreed in accepting the Phantastic theory of the Incarnation. The
antagonism between spirit and matter was too great to admit of the union
of the two. The body of Christ was a phantom, left in the clouds at his
ascension; and the Virgin was an angel and not the mother of God.
Cosmas denies generally their belief in any of the books of the Old
Testament or the Gospels; but this does not agree with the circumstantial
account of Euthymius Zygabenus, who from having been commissioned by the
Emperor to extract the tenets of his sect from the Bogomilian heresiarch
Basil, is certainly one of the best authorities. Further, it is disproved
by the whole conduct of the Bogomiles, which, as Cosmas himself shows,
was based on a too literal interpretation of the Gospels. According
to Euthymius,[24] the Bogomiles accepted seven holy books, which he
enumerates as follows:—1, the Psalms; 2, the Sixteen Prophets; 3, 4, 5,
and 6, the Gospels; 7, the Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the
Apocalypse. So far, indeed, as the New Testament was concerned, they
clung to the version of the orthodox Sclavic apostle, in which they
altered not a word.[25]
Touching baptism again, accounts are contradictory. Harmenopulos says
that the Bogomiles practised the rite, but did not attribute to it any
perfecting[26] virtue. On the other hand, the most recent investigations
into the observances of the Bogomiles of Bosnia show that strictly
speaking the rite did not exist among them at all, though they observed
something analogous to it. Only adults could be admitted into the
communion of the faithful; and, after they had first qualified themselves
for admission by prayer and fasting, the mystery of initiation was
performed, not by water—for did not water itself appertain to the evil
realm of matter?—but by the laying on of St. John’s Gospel. Thus Cosmas
is technically right in saying that the Bogomiles rejected baptism
altogether, though it is probable that he was merely calumniating them
when he added as a reason, that ‘they are afraid of the children to be
baptized; and if by chance they see small children, they turn away from
them as from carrion, and spit, and call them children of mammon, as
being creations of the Devil;’ still under the sway, that is, of the Evil
Creator Spirit. As regards Bosnia, at any rate, this is a foul slander.
So far were the Bosnian Bogomiles from spurning little children, that the
instruction of the young was considered a work worthy of the most saintly
of the sect.
They were staunch opponents of the prevailing Mariolatry. ‘They pay no
honour to the Mother of God.’[27] ‘As to the cross,’ says the Presbyter,
they say: ‘Wherefore should we bow to that which dishonoured God?’ and
they ask further, ‘if any man slew the son of a king with a bit of wood,
how could this bit of wood be dear to the king?’[28] They considered it
idolatry to bow down before the icons of saints. ‘They further revile the
ceremonies of the church and all church dignities, and they call orthodox
priests blind Pharisees, and bay at them as dogs at horses.’[29] ‘As to
the Lord’s Supper,’ continues the Bulgarian champion of orthodoxy, ‘they
assert that it is not kept according to God’s commandment, and that it is
not the body of God, but ordinary bread.’[30]
Their belief in the evilness of matter was productive, as such a belief
always has been, of much asceticism; which, if the concurrent testimony
of their enemies is to be believed, they carried at times to deplorable
excesses. ‘They show themselves,’ says Cosmas, ‘strong ascetics, for
they call the Devil the Creator of all things, and declare that it is
his Commandment that men should take wives, eat flesh, and drink wine.
Everything as it exists with us (the orthodox) is utterly rejected. They
give themselves up to a celestial life, insomuch that they call married
men and those living in the way of the world “Mammon’s Children.”’
The descriptions of Anna Comnena and the monk Cosmas bring before us
the familiar Puritan type, as it has reproduced itself in all ages.
They bowed their heads and groaned and pulled long faces, in the true
Roundhead style. ‘You will see heretics,’ quoth Cosmas, ‘quiet and
peaceful as lambs without, silent, and wan with hypocritical fasting, who
do not speak much nor laugh loud, who let their beard grow, and leave
their person incompt.’
These descriptions of their enemies must, however, be taken with this
reserve: they apply, as a rule, only to a small minority of the sect.
The Bogomiles, like most ascetic sects, were divided into two castes:
the simple believers, the _Credentes_ of the West, who formed the large
majority; and ‘the perfect,’ or those who by a long course of asceticism
had successfully mortified the flesh. In the thirteenth century, at
the most blooming period of their history, among the millions of these
sectaries were reckoned less than 4,000 of ‘the perfect.’[31] These
‘perfect’ called themselves in Bosnia _Krstjani_, _dobri Bošniani_,
_Svršiteli_, ‘Christians,’ that is, ‘good Bosnians,’ or ‘the elect,’
terms which reappear in a Romance guise in Italy and the Languedoc.
The ‘perfect’ were clad like monks in long black gowns; they condemned
themselves to perpetual celibacy; they abjured wine, nor tasted aught
but vegetables, fish, and oil; they forsook the ‘pomps and vanities of
this wicked world,’ and gave themselves up to devotion and good works.
The women (for this saintly minority included both sexes) taught children
or tended the sick, while the men acted as the spiritual guides of their
weaker brethren or preached the Gospel among unbelievers.
But it stood to reason that the great bulk of the Bogomilian flock could
never attain to this higher standard. In the abstract, no doubt, the
simple ‘believer’ accepted the doctrine which his spiritual guides were
careful to instil into him, that his soul was an angel fallen from above
and fettered in the prison-house of his body, and that only by perpetual
mortification of the flesh could he hope to set the celestial captive
free at last. But the laws of nature and society are perpetually holding
back religious extravagance from its logical consequences, and the simple
‘believer’ was content to govern himself by the more ordinary standard
of mankind. As in Provence and Italy, so in Bosnia, he dispensed himself
from the prohibition against drinking wine; and though the ‘perfect’
refused to bear arms and preached against war as devilish, the mass of
the heretics, Sclavonic as well as Romance, showed that on occasion
they could measure swords with the most orthodox. Though marriage was
contrary to their tenets, the Bogomiles took wives, the man, however, in
Bosnia only taking the woman on the condition that she was good and true
to him, reserving the right of dismissing her if he thought her conduct
unsatisfactory; an arrangement productive of laxity, and giving occasion
to the orthodox adversary of which he was not slow to take advantage.[32]
Yet, though in his manner of life falling short of the extreme asceticism
of ‘the perfect,’ the ordinary Bogomile, on the showing of his enemies
themselves, distinguished himself by his superior industry and thrift,
and put to shame the saintly idleness of more orthodox professors
by refusing to neglect his work on feast-days. Among the Bogomiles,
beggars were looked on with contempt.[33] The ‘perfect’ themselves
abhorred what was slothful in a monastic life, and the ‘heresiarch’
Basil set a good example by earning his living as a doctor. The simple
believer devoted part of the worldly goods thus acquired to the relief
of sick and indigent brothers, and also to the support of Gospellers
among unbelievers, but neither his industry nor his good works could
satisfy his conscience. The higher life of the ‘perfect’ was a perpetual
reproach to him. His soul seemed clotted with the contagion of a too
sensual existence, nor did his theology allow him a purgatory for the
imbodied and imbruted spirit. Standing on the threshold of another world,
and forced to choose between heaven and hell, the simple ‘believer’
considered it essential to his salvation that he should be admitted into
the ranks of the ‘perfect’ by a death-bed ceremony of initiation, which
reappears as _la Convenenza_ among the more Western Patarenes of Italy
and Provence.
The Bogomiles, in spite of their hatred of orthodox priests and temples,
possessed ministers and even conventicles of their own. In the earliest
accounts that have reached us we find at the head of the sect an elder
or teacher surrounded by twelve disciples, answering to Christ and the
Apostles. The half legendary accounts of the ‘pope’ Bogomil surround
him with such disciples; and Basil ‘the heresiarch’ has his twelve.
But as the Bogomiles spread beyond the limits of Bulgaria, each new
province, if we may so term it, added to the dominion of the faithful,
required a new elder or bishop. At the head of the Bogomilian flock in
Bosnia stood a _Djed_ or elder, answering to the _Episcopus_ or _Senior_
of the Albigensians, and under him came the Apostles, the _Strojniks_
(Western _Magistri_), of which there were two grades, the _Gosti_ and
the _Starci_, who again reappear as the _Filii_ and _Diaconi_ of Italy.
But there was no hierarchy, and nothing at all answering to a papacy;
‘the ecclesiastical officers were simply the representatives of the
congregation, and were chosen by their votes.’[34] Every one who ranked
among the ‘perfect,’ whether a man or woman, had the right of preaching.
Although in some parts the Bogomiles seem to have had no recognized
place of worship, and performed their devotions in their own huts, or
on some lonely heath beneath the open canopy of heaven, we have yet
sufficient evidence, both Byzantine and Sclavonic, that they often
possessed meeting-houses of their own. Their churches, according to
Epiphanius, were like boats turned keel uppermost, but some were of a
more ecclesiastical form. It appears that in Bosnia, as in the Languedoc,
their prayer-houses were plain sheds without tower, or bells, which they
called the trumpets of demons,—devoid of ornament or icons, containing
neither chancel nor altar, but a simple table covered with a clean white
linen cloth, on which was laid a copy of the Gospels.[35] Here they
assembled by torchlight and sang hymns of their own, called by the Greek
writer ‘Euphemies.’ Their service chiefly consisted of prayer, which
according to their creed was the only means of resisting the demon within
them, or of attaining salvation. The Lord’s Prayer was the only form used
by them, and this they repeated in their own house with closed doors,
five times every day and five times every night.[36]
Such are some of the main features of the Bogomilian heresy, as they have
come down to us, to a great extent, from the writings of their bitterest
opponents. Nor will anyone marvel that these doctrines should have spread
as they did among those Sclavonic races, who acted as the missionaries
of the first Reformation in Western Europe. It can hardly be considered
fanciful if we detect certain remarkable analogies between the belief and
observances of the Bogomiles and the primitive institutions, and even the
heathen religion, of the Sclaves. It has already been mentioned that the
Manichæan conversion began among the Bulgarians when they were still to
a great extent pagan. The same is true with regard to the spread of the
Bogomilian heresy among the Serbs, with whom heathendom held its own in
parts till the thirteenth century.[37] A remarkable uniformity presents
itself in the languages, beliefs, and institutions of all Sclavonic
nations; and if we may assert, from the analogy of the Baltic Sclaves,
that the Bulgarians and Serbs also divided their worship between their
Black God or Spirit of Evil, and their White God or Spirit of Good, it
follows that the Manichæan missionaries found the dualistic theology,
which lies at the bottom of so much of their doctrine, already existing
among the people they wished to convert;[38] while the propagandists
of orthodoxy must have discovered to their vexation that the Sclavonic
mind had been trained by superstition, as well as by what mother-wit it
possessed, to rebel against their stupendous dogma, that an All-powerful
Spirit of Good could create and tolerate the Spirit of Evil. Our
Presbyter Cosmas notices that this difficulty presented itself, even to
the ‘orthodox’ Bulgarians, and so lost is he in indignation at these
profane inquiries as to the devil’s paternity, that he forgets to answer
them.
An equally marked parallel is presented between the customs and church
government, if the expression is allowable, of the Bogomiles, and the
primitive institutions of the Sclaves. Their Presbyters answer to the
Sclavonic _Starescina_, the elders of the primitive family-community.
The Communistic doctrines which these heretics discovered in the New
Testament fitted in well with the equality and fraternity of the
Sclavonic home-life. They were essentially levellers, and their evangelic
religion was mixed up, as among the Puritans of Western Europe, with
political insurgency. In Bulgaria we seem to trace, in the opposition
of the Bogomiles to the powers that be, an alliance between them and
the champions of the Sclavonic democracy against the usurpations of the
Ugrian dynasty and nobles. ‘They rail,’ says Cosmas, ‘at the magistrates
and boljars (or nobles), and hold it a crime to do service for the
Czar. They say, moreover, to every servant that he should not serve his
master.’ The Bogomiles, it must be remembered, become a political power
in Bosnia just at the time when the ‘elders’ and Župans, who represented
the free institutions which the Sclavonic settlers brought with them, are
bowing before the Bans and a new, semi-feudal, nobility.
By the beginning of the twelfth century the Bogomilian heresy had struck
such firm root in Bosnia as to rouse the faithful sons of the Church in
Hungary and Dalmatia to armed opposition, insomuch that in 1138 Bela II.
was induced to make an incursion against the ‘Patarenes,’ in the country
between the Cetina and Narenta.[39] It was not, however, till the end of
this century that the progress of heresy in other parts turned the Pope’s
serious attention to the fountain-head of the ‘Bulgarian heresy,’ then
undoubtedly his Illyrian province. Nominally, Bosnia had long belonged
to the Church of Rome, which claimed Western Illyricum as an inheritance
from the Western Empire. Practically, what orthodox Christianity Bosnia
and the other Serbian lands possessed was of a strongly national
character, and derived, not from Roman sources, but from the missionary
efforts of the Sclavonic apostles, Cyril and Methodius.[40] But the
Church of Bosnia, though using the native liturgy and eschewing the
Latin language, acknowledged some allegiance to Rome, and the bishops of
Bosnia recognized the Archbishop of Salona[41] as their metropolitan.
In the year 1180 Culin himself is still considered a dutiful son of the
Church. But a few years later Culin ‘has degenerated from himself’ and
fallen into heresy, and together with his wife[42] and his sister, the
widow of the Count of Chelm, had given ear to the Patarenes, as Roman
ecclesiastics begin to call the Bogomiles who have now spread their
heresy into Italy and the West. The Pope, exerting pressure on Culin by
means of the King of Hungary, had the satisfaction of seeing him recant
in person at Rome.[43] But a few years later, in 1199, the Prince of
orthodox Zenta, which we may almost translate Montenegro, informs the
Pope by letter that Culin has relapsed into his errors, and that ten
thousand of his subjects are already infected with the heresy.[44] A
little later, we hear that Daniel, the bishop of Bosnia himself, has
joined the Patarenes, who shortly after destroyed the orthodox-Roman
Cathedral and Episcopal palace at Crescevo. From this time begins an
ominous interregnum in the Roman Episcopate of Bosnia.
It was in vain that the Pope appealed to the King of Hungary to punish
his heretic vassal. Culin was now too strong to fear even the Hungarian
arms; and at the very period when the hordes of De Montfort were
devastating Provence, the Banat of Bosnia offered an asylum to persecuted
adherents of the Bulgarian heresy throughout Europe. This is hardly
the place to show how essentially the first Protestants of Western
Europe, the Bulgares as they are called by orthodox writers of the age,
were spiritual children of the Sclavonic Bogomiles. The history of the
Patarenes and Albigenses of Italy and Provence, of the ‘Ketzers’[45] of
the Lower Rhine, who made their way even to our shores, lies of course
beyond the scope of this essay. Word for word, nearly all that has been,
with some pains, collected here, from Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Bosnian
sources, regarding the tenets of the more Eastern heretics, might be
paralleled by citations from Latin chronicles,[46] touching those who
broke the harmony of Western Christendom. Enough if, while describing
the belief and observances of the Bogomiles in Bosnia and Bulgaria,
we have alluded, here and there, to such striking similarities in the
details of church ministration and observances as show that the more
Western sectaries clung to their original Bulgarian model in its minutest
particulars. The doctrinal differences themselves which afflicted the
more Western offshoots of the heresy had, as we have seen, their roots
in a Bulgarian, perhaps an Armenian, soil.[47] Bulgarian elders sat in
Provençal synods, Provençal bishops consulted with Bosnian Djeds on
matters of faith. To the orthodox Sclave or Byzantine, there were only
Bogomiles in the Languedoc, and the Romish hierarchy named the heretics
of Bosnia from a suburb of Milan.[48] ‘The believers of the plains of
Lombardy and the South of France,’ to quote the words of the recent
Bohemian historian of Bulgaria, ‘kept up a regular intercourse with their
co-religionists in the Byzantine Empire, Bosnia and Bulgaria, and long
before the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders or the Turks, a
mighty but secret interchange of thought was at work between East and
West.’[49]
It was during the reign of Culin that this great Puritan movement
attained its widest dimensions, and it is from a contemporary of his,
the Italian Reniero Sacconi, who from a heretic became an inquisitor,
that we obtain the most satisfactory evidence as to the organization of
this early Protestant Church, and the solidarity of its various members,
Sclavonic, Greek, Romance, and Teutonic. The Church of the Cathari, as
he calls them, numbered then as many as thirteen bishoprics, amongst
which that of Bosnia or ‘Slavonia’ was not the least important. By
Culin’s time, the Bogomilian missionaries had succeeded in disseminating
their Armenian doctrines from Philippopolis to Bordeaux, and had formed,
if we may so term it, a middle kingdom of their own—a Lotharingia
of heterodoxy, extending in an unbroken zone through the centre of
orthodox Europe, from the Black Sea to the Atlantic. Nay, the ark of
the faithful, borne northwards and westwards on the free bosom of the
Rhine, had crossed the Channel, and penetrated, as it were by our
great English river, to the seat of English learning; and at the very
time when Protestant Christendom looked to the Ban of Bosnia as its
chief protector, his Angevin contemporary, our Henry II., was branding
Paulicians at Oxford.[50]
Rapid and astonishing as was the spread of these Oriental doctrines
through Latin Christendom, there seems no difficulty in accounting for
it when we remember the missionary zeal which the Sclavonic Bogomiles
had inherited from their Armenian teachers, and which led them, as
we have seen, to set apart funds for the support of Gospellers among
unbelievers. The same impulses which planted an Armenian faith among
the Sclaves are sufficient to account for the success with which the
new converts acclimatized what was now a Sclavonic faith amongst Greeks
and Latins. It is certain that the Bulgarian propaganda made use of
existing trade-routes by land and sea. This indeed is not the place to
enquire what part Bulgaria and what part Bosnia, what part the Save, the
Danube and the Rhine, the Po or the Adige, the commercial currents of the
Adriatic and the Mediterranean—what part Durazzo and the Egnatian Way,
what part Byzantium and Byzantine Lower Italy, may have severally and
collectively played in conveying the Bogomilian heresy to Toulouse,[51]
Milan and Cologne. On the whole the Bosnian influence may be regarded as
later and secondary. It is probable that the first wave of propagandism
was almost entirely Bulgarian, and followed in the wake of Greek
merchantmen. The great part played by Bosnia was rather that of asylum
for the persecuted, and promoter of the faith, in days when heresy had
been stamped out elsewhere with fire and sword. We have, however, precise
data as to the Bogomilian religion having been communicated to Dalmatia
through commercial relations with the interior of Bosnia,[52] and
doubtless, just as the Bulgarians, the South-Easternmost of the Sclavonic
races of the Balkan peninsula, first received their Manichæan Puritanism
from Armenia and the East, so the Bosnians, the North-Westernmost[53] of
the Balkan Sclaves, played at least a part in first communicating it to
Europe and the West.
It is from the pen of a St. Alban’s monk, and a letter of a bishop of
Porto, that we gain the most convincing testimony as to the influence
which, in the palmy days of Ban Culin, and the period immediately
succeeding, was exercised by Bosnia in directing the great Protestant
movement in Western Europe. Matthew Paris[54] relates that the
Albigensians of Provence and Italy possessed a pope of their own, who
resided in Bosnia.[55] This man created a vicar ‘in partibus Galliarum.’
The vicar of this Bosnian anti-pope, who resided at Toulouse, granted him
some lands at a place called Porlos, and the Albigensian heretics betook
themselves to their Bosnian pope to consult him on divers questions of
faith. Matthew Paris and Ralph of Coggeshale are certainly wrong in
converting this Bosnian elder into an anti-pope, and his vicar into
the parody of an orthodox bishop,[56] hierarchy of any sort being, as
we have seen, alien to the spirit of the Bogomilian as well as to the
Albigensian sectaries. Yet it is quite possible that a kind of informal
primacy was at this time accorded to the Bosnian _Djed_, and he may have
fulfilled such moderating functions, as interpreter in matters doctrinal,
as seem to have devolved, a century before, on the ‘heresiarch’ Basil.
The fact that this vicar had been originally sent to the Albigenses by
the Illyrian ‘antipope’ is a convincing proof of the direct missionary
connection between Bosnia and Provence, and the whole incident shows
that in the thirteenth century the Western heretics still looked to the
Slavonic East for the sources of true belief.
It was in vain that on Culin’s death the King of Hungary appointed a
Catholic Ban Zibisclave. It was in vain that in 1216 the Pope sent the
sub-deacon Aconcius to labour at the conversion of the heretics. The
Bogomiles only gained strength, and their faith struck firmer roots in
the neighbouring countries of Croatia, Dalmatia, Istria, Carniola, and
Slavonia. But Rome, in the Albigensian crusades, had already tasted
Christian blood, and resolved to have recourse to the same weapons in
Bosnia which she had employed so efficaciously in Provence. An Archbishop
of Colocz was at hand to play the part of the Abbot of Citeaux. In 1222
he entered Bosnia at the head of an Hungarian host, and used the sword
with such good effect that he had shortly possessed himself of the
provinces of ‘Bosna, Ussora, and Soy.’ Zibisclav, who had defected from
the true faith, saw himself reduced to abjure his errors and to fling
himself at the toes of St. Peter, and the Pope was graciously pleased
‘to embrace sincerely in the arms of his charity both his person and
his lands, and all the goods that he at the present possessed.’[57]
But Zibisclav’s subjects were not inclined to follow the example of
their Ban. On the contrary, they hardened their hearts, and in the very
year, 1233, in which this fond embrace took place, a Bogomilian ‘pope’
or bishop continued to flourish and exercise a powerful authority in
Bosnia. A new crusade was necessary. Coloman, the brother of the King of
Hungary,[58] was the De Montfort of the occasion, and in 1238 entered
Bosnia with a large army to exterminate the heretics. He extended his
havoc through the whole country, and even ‘purged,’ we are told, the
principality of Chelm, which answers to the south-western part of the
Herzegovina. From this period onwards the history of Bosnia for centuries
consists of little more than a series of such bloody inroads; but
there are here none of those details which secure for the heretics of
Alby the commiseration of mankind. Cities are sacked, but there is not
here a Beziers or Carcassonne; the first germs of a civilization are
trodden under foot, but these are not the full-blown roses of Provence;
troubadours of a kind there doubtless were here, too, but it was in
barbarous Sclavonic tongue, and not in the polished _Langue d’Oc_ that
they poured forth ‘their unpremeditated lay,’ and the sound of their lyre
died away among the mountains that gave them birth.[59]
Gregory IX. congratulates Coloman on ‘wiping out the heresy and restoring
the light of Catholic purity,’[60] but the Pope was quick in discovering
that these congratulations were premature. The Tartar invasion which
in 1241 weakened Hungary was the strength of the Bogomiles of Bosnia.
Nor, perhaps, did the slaughter of Ban Zibisclav and many of his bravest
adherents by the horde of Khan Ugadai much affect the subjects whose
creed and interests he had deserted. In 1246 Pope Innocent IV.[61] had
to stir up a third Bosnian crusade, the conduct of which was entrusted
to the Archbishop of Colocz—‘a man skilled,’ as was fitting in an
archbishop, ‘in all the science of war.’ He received a cross from the
Pope to fix upon his heart, and aided by the King Bela, of Hungary,
renewed the pious work. Many heretics were butchered, others were
cast into dungeons; and so great were considered the deserts of the
archbishop, that the Pope transferred the church of Bosnia from Spalato
to Colocz. But once more it was discovered that fire and sword had raged
in vain. Heresy continued to be so rampant in Bosnia that from 1256 the
episcopate of Bosnia, which had been renewed after the first crusade,
lapses a second time.[62] The papacy next resorted to persuasion, the
more so as during the last part of the thirteenth century the Hungarian
suzerainty was becoming less and less binding on Bosnia. About the year
1260 the Minorite brothers of the order of St. Francis of Assisi were
sent into Bosnia to aid the Dominicans, who had been already established
here.[63] At the end of the thirteenth century Bosnia passed for a while
under the overlordship of the Prince of Serbia, and Stephen Dragutine,
who was favourable to the Roman church, allowed two Franciscan brothers
to establish the Inquisition here in 1291.[64]
But at the beginning of the fourteenth century the Hungarians had once
more recovered their ascendency in Bosnia, and the Pope eagerly seized
the weapon of orthodoxy at his service. John XXII. directed two letters,
one to Charles, King of Hungary, and the other to Stephen, Ban of Bosnia.
The letters are almost identical in scope, and are interesting as showing
that Bosnia was still the stronghold and asylum of European heresy, and
as illustrating the peculiar character of these sectaries. The letter
to the Bosnian Ban is dated Avignon, June 1325.[65] ‘To our beloved
son and nobleman, Stephen, Prince of Bosnia,’—‘Knowing that thou art
a faithful son of the church, we therefore charge thee to exterminate
the heretics in thy dominions, and to render aid and assistance unto
Fabian, our Inquisitor, for as much as a large multitude of heretics,
from many and divers parts collected, hath flowed together into the
principality of Bosnia, trusting there to sow their obscene errors and
to dwell there in safety. These men, imbued with the cunning of the Old
Fiend, and armed with the venom of their falseness, corrupt the minds of
Catholics by outward show of simplicity and lying assumption of the name
of Christians; their speech crawleth like a crab, and they creep in with
humility, but in secret they kill, and are wolves in sheeps’ clothing,
covering their bestial fury as a means whereby they may deceive the
simple sheep of Christ.’
The true believers still need to be warned against the apparent meekness
and innocence of these men of the gospel! His Holiness seems almost to
be repeating the description of the Bogomiles given by the Bulgarian
Presbyter over three centuries before. ‘When men,’ says Cosmas, ‘see
their lowly behaviour, then think they that they are of true belief;
they approach them therefore and consult them about their souls’ health.
But they, like wolves that will swallow up a lamb, bow their head, sigh,
and answer full of humility, and set themselves up as if they knew how
it is ordered in heaven.’[66] Hypocritical meekness has been a ready
accusation in the mouths of opponents of puritanism in all ages; but
we may be allowed to see, in the slanders of foul-mouthed popes and
prelates, a tribute to the evangelic purity of the lives of those whom
they persecuted and traduced.
Once more ‘the Lilies of the Field,’ as in their figurative parlance they
loved to style themselves, are trampled under foot. In 1330 the King
of Hungary and the Ban combined to assist the Inquisitor Fabian; many
heretics were hounded from the realm, and the usual scenes of horror were
repeated. In 1337, however, heresy is again as rampant as ever in Bosnia,
and the Pope accordingly stirred up the neighbouring princes to another
Bosnian crusade, which was only averted by the address of the Ban Stephen.
Sometimes the monks condescended to work miracles to forward the work of
conversion. One, while addressing a congregation of heretics, ‘stepped,’
we are assured, ‘into a large fire, and with great hilarity stood in the
middle of the flames while he recited the fiftieth Psalm.’ We hardly need
the further assurance that many were turned from the error of their ways
by miracles like this, especially when it is remembered that the heretics
had the alternative of repenting, or repeating the experiment.
Nor were there wanting, we are told, miraculous tokens in the sky to
manifest the displeasure of heaven itself at these scoffers at Catholic
verity. The mountains whither the Bogomiles had been driven by the pious
zeal of Ban Stephen were struck by celestial fire. ‘Upon the eve of St.
Catharine, 1367, a mighty heavenly flame appeared in the East, with an
intense light terribly apparent to the whole globe. At that time they
say that the loftiest mountains of Bosnia, with all rocks, cattle, wild
beasts, and fowls of the air, were miraculously consumed, so that they
were reduced to a plain; and there dwell the Patarene Manichæans, and
say that God burnt up those mountains for their convenience, because He
loved their faith.’[67] In fact, neither the Bogomiles nor the new Ban
Stephen Tvartko, who favoured them, seem to have been the least appalled
by this phenomenon. Only two years after this miraculous conflagration,
Urban V. writes to the King of Hungary to complain of the Ban of Bosnia,
‘who, following in the detestable footsteps of his fathers, fosters and
defends the heretics who flow together into these parts from divers
corners of the world as into a sink of iniquity.’[68] The Bans of Bosnia,
even when Catholics themselves, seem to have been forced by the strength
of national feeling into an attitude at least of toleration towards the
Bogomiles, and their position in this respect has been aptly compared by
Hilferding to that of the Bulgarian Czars.
During the troublous times of the Bosnian kingdom the Bogomiles increased
in strength, and, what is extremely significant, the heretics of Bosnia
begin to play a part in the revival of the Protestant movement throughout
Europe. We do not know what part the Sclavonic heretics of Bosnia may
have taken in preparing the minds of their Czechian brothers for the
religious revolt of which Huss and Jerome of Prague were the leaders
and exponents. But we do know that from the first intimate relations
existed between the Bogomiles of Bosnia and the Hussites; in 1433 four
Bogomilian or Patarene bishops made their way from Bosnia to the Council
of Basil,[69] and shortly after, in 1437, the Romish bishop Joseph
complains that Bosnia was swarming with Hussites and other heretics.
We have, moreover, very strong indirect evidence that the movement in
Bosnia was at this time directed by men of learning and ability. In 1462
Pius II., being much alarmed at the progress of heresy in Bosnia, and
‘hearing that there was a great want there of men skilled in philosophy,
the sacred canons, and theology,’ sent thither ‘learned men from the
neighbouring provinces,’ and especially the brother Peter de Mili, a
native of Bosnia, and four fellows. These five ‘had studied in the best
Cismontane and Transmontane Universities under the most learned doctors.’
The Pope, moreover, gave orders that some of the largest convents should
be converted into schools for literary studies.[70] We may conclude with
confidence that learning was required in Bosnia to cope with learning.
But the preparation of this polemic artillery was cut short by an event,
the effects of which are even now distracting Christendom. In the year
following that in which his Holiness laments over the continued progress
of heresy in Bosnia, the whole country passed in the short space of
eight days irrevocably under the dominion of the Infidel. The continued
crusades, the persecutions of the Inquisition—fire, sword, exile, and
dungeon—had done their work. The Protestant population of Bosnia had at
last deliberately taken its choice, and preferred the dominion of what
it believed to be the more tolerant Turks to the ferocious tyranny of
Catholic kings, magnates, and monks. There never was a clearer instance
of the Nemesis which follows on the heels of religious persecution.
Europe has mainly to thank the Church of Rome that an alien civilisation
and religion has been thrust into her midst, and that Bosnia at the
present day remains Mahometan.
At the very moment when the Turks were threatening the existence of the
Bosnian kingdom, the King, then Stephen Tomašević, and priests, aided
by the magnates and aristocratic party in the State, were pushing the
persecution of the Bogomiles to an extreme which perhaps it had never
reached before. In the year 1459 King Stephen turned his feudal arms
against the inoffensive Bogomiles at home, and hounded out as many, it
is said,[71] as forty thousand, who took refuge in the Herzegovina, with
their co-religionist, the Duke of St. Sava. Others he sent in chains to
Rome, where it appears they were ‘benignantly converted’—whatever that
means. But the expulsion of forty thousand did little to diminish the
strength of the Bogomiles in Bosnia. In 1462, as we know from the Roman
archives, heresy was as powerful as ever in Bosnia. Already, twelve years
before,[72] the Bogomiles had invited the Turks into Bosnia as their
deliverers; in 1463 the invitation was repeated, a successful negotiation
was opened with the Sultan, and, on Mahomet II.’s invasion, the Catholic
king found himself deserted by his people. The keys of the principal
fortress, the royal city of Bobovac, were handed over to the Turk by
the ‘Manichæan’ governor;[73] the other fortresses and towns hastened
to imitate its example, and within a week ‘seventy cities defended by
nature and art’ passed into the hands of Mahomet. Bosnia, which may be
described as one vast stronghold, refused to strike a blow in defence of
her priestly tyrants.
Perhaps enough has been said to show the really important part played
by Bosnia in European history. We have seen her aid in interpreting
to the West the sublime puritanism which the more Eastern Sclaves of
Bulgaria had first received from the Armenian missionaries. We have seen
her take the lead in the first religious revolt against Rome. We have
seen a Bosnian religious teacher directing the movement in Provence.
We have seen the Protestants of Bosnia successfully resisting all the
efforts of Rome, supported by the arms of Hungary, to put them down.
We have seen them offering an asylum to their persecuted brothers of
the West,—Albigensians, Patarenes, and Waldenses. We have seen them
connected with the Reformation in Bohemia, and affording shelter to
the followers of Huss. From the twelfth century to the final conquest
of the Turks in the sixteenth, when the fight of religious freedom had
been won in Northern Europe, Bosnia presents the unique phenomenon of a
Protestant State existing within the limits of the Holy Roman Empire,
and in a province claimed by the Roman Church. Bosnia was the religious
Switzerland of Mediæval Europe, and the signal service which she has
rendered to the freedom of the human intellect by her successful stand
against authority can hardly be exaggerated. Resistance, broken down in
the gardens of Provence, buried beneath the charred rafters of the Roman
cities of the Langue d’Oc, smothered in the dungeons of the Inquisition,
was prolonged from generation to generation amongst the primeval forests
and mountain fastnesses of Bosnia. There were not wanting, amongst those
who sought to exterminate the Bogomiles, Churchmen as dead to human pity
as the Abbot of Citeaux, and lay arms as bloodthirsty as De Montfort;
but the stubborn genius of the Serbian people fought on with rare
persistence, and held out to the end. The history of these champions of
a purer religion has been written by their enemies, and ignored by those
who owe most to their heroism. No Martyrology of the Bogomiles of Bosnia
has come down to us. We have no Huss or Tyndale to arrest our pity.
‘Invidious silence’ has obscured their fame,
Illachrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longâ
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.
Protestant historians, fearful of claiming relationship with heretics
whose views on the Origin of Evil were more logical than their own, have
almost or entirely ignored the existence of these Sclavonic Puritans.
Yet of all worn-out devices of _ad captandum_ argument this assuredly
is the most threadbare, to ignore the transitions of intervening links,
and pointing to the extremes of a long concatenation of causes and
effects, to seize upon their differences as a proof of disconnection.
In the course of ages the development of creeds and churches is not
less striking than that of more secular institutions. Bogomilism
obeyed an universal law; it paid the universal tribute of successful
propagandism; it compromised; or, where it did not compromise, it was
ruthlessly stamped out. The Manichæan elements, most distasteful to
modern Protestants, were in fact the first to disappear.[74] In its
contact with the semi-pagan Christianity of the West, the puritanism of
the Gnostic East became, perforce, materialized; just as, ages before,
Christianity itself, an earlier wave of the same Eastern puritanism had
materialized in its contact with the undiluted heathendom of the Western
empire. To a certain extent Bogomilism gained. It lost something of its
dreamy transcendentalism, something of its anti-human vigour, and by
conforming to the exigencies of Western society, became to a certain
extent more practical. Thus by the sixteenth century the path had been
cleared for a compromise with orthodoxy itself. The Reformation marks the
confluence of the two main currents of religious thought that traverse
the middle ages, in their several sources, Romish and Armenian. No doubt,
from the orthodox side, which refused to reject all that was beautiful
in the older world, which consecrated Greco-Roman civilization and
linked art with religion, the West has gained much; but in days of gross
materialism and degrading sacerdotalism, it has gained perhaps even more
from the purging and elevating influence of these early Puritans. The
most devout Protestant need not be afraid to acknowledge the religious
obligations which he owes to his spiritual forefathers, Manichæan though
they were; while those who perceive in Protestantism itself nothing more
than a stepping-stone to still greater freedom of the human mind, and
who recognize the universal bearings of the doctrine of Evolution, will
be slow to deny that England herself and the most enlightened countries
of the modern world may owe a debt, which it is hard to estimate, to the
Bogomiles of Bulgaria and Bosnia.
After the Turkish conquest of Bosnia the history of the Bogomiles in
those parts becomes obscure. That they still existed in the revived
Banat of lower Bosnia we may gather from a passage in the ‘Annals of
the Minorites,’[75] to the effect that in 1478 the city of Jaycze
was ‘polluted by heretics and schismatics.’ Many who had resisted the
propaganda of Rome appear to have found in the iconoclastic puritanism
of Islâm a belief less incompatible with their own. We have direct
evidence that it was the Bogomiles who chiefly swelled the ranks of the
renegades.[76] Many, doubtless, when they found how hard were the masters
they had called in, were provoked to their old attitude of resistance,
and perished for their obstinacy. They are generally said to have died
out, and the Bosnian monks of the order of St. Francis, who, in 1769,
supplied the author of ‘Illyricum Sacrum’ with an account of the present
state of that country, declare that there are no traces left of them.
This, however, is not the case. During the recent insurrection, over
2,000 Bogomiles from Popovo, a single district of the Herzegovina, took
refuge in the hospitable territory of what was once the Republic of
Ragusa.[77]
To return to the more secular aspects of Bosnian history. Much still
remains to be elucidated by Sclavonic historians with regard to the inner
government of the country, the rise of the semi-feudal nobility, and the
complicated relations of parties. Here it would be hopeless to attempt
anything more than the merest outline, giving prominence only to a few
episodes of general interest. The Hungarian overlordship is occasionally
broken by a Serbian, and Stephen Dūshan, who, in the middle of the
fourteenth century, revived the Czardom among the Balkan Sclaves, seized
the pretext of a claim on the Principality of Chelm to overrun Bosnia,
and add its dominion to his titles. For an interesting monument of this
period I may refer the reader to the account of the Book of Arms of
Bosnian Nobility, drawn up in the year 1340 by order of the Serbian Czar,
which we saw in the Franciscan Monastery of Foinica.[78]
But this Serbian suzerainty vanishes with the dreams of Stephen Dūshan.
Shortly after his date the Bans of Bosnia become so powerful that they
are able to annex the two important Serbian provinces of Rascia and
Zenta, which answers to the modern Montenegro, and to proclaim themselves
virtually independent both of the Serbian and Hungarian monarchies. In
1376 the Ban, Stephen Tvartko, was strong enough to extort from his
uncle, King Louis of Hungary, permission to assume the royal style—the
King of Hungary only reserving the _suprema dominatio_.[79] After half a
year spent in preparations, Tvartko, accompanied by his lords spiritual
and temporal, and by four representatives from each important town,
progressed from his residence of Sutiska to the Monastery of Mileševo,
the foundation and burial-place of his uncle and predecessor, but the
greater glory of which was that it contained the tomb of the Serbian
Apostle, St. Sava. There he was crowned by the hands of the Metropolitan,
and assumed the title of Stephen Tvartko, by the grace of God King of
Rascia, Bosnia, and Primorie.[80]
Stephen Tvartko distinguished his rule by his wisdom and toleration.
Though himself leaning in his belief alternately to Greek orthodoxy and
Roman Catholicism, he displayed a generous toleration of the Bogomiles;
he did much to encourage trade and commerce, and was indeed, after Culin,
the first Bosnian prince who struck coins.[81] He succeeded in quelling
the insolence of his great nobles who had burst out into rebellion, under
the leadership of his brother, and the attendance at his coronation of
four representatives from each of his great cities would alone be a
striking proof that Bosnia was advancing on the path of constitutional
liberty, and was not by any means alien to the civic and industrial
impulses of fourteenth-century Europe. Nay, it is certain that, in spite
of the prevalence of Bogomilism among the masses, and of the artistically
blighting influence of an iconoclastic religion on a rude society, arts
of a more æsthetic kind were penetrating among the Bosnian mountains.
Nor was it only in the illuminations of heraldry, the embellishment of
gold and silver work, and the superb embroidery of sacred vestments that
these more refined influences asserted themselves. That munificent patron
of South-Sclavonic Art, the present Roman Catholic bishop of Bosnia, has
collected in his palace of Diakovar, a series of paintings by Bosnian
artists of this and the succeeding century, which reflect the Giottesque
revulsion from the wooden Byzantinism which preceded it, and show that
Bosnia bade fair to produce a school of artists who might hold a place in
the galleries of Europe.[82]
_Dîs aliter placitum!_ Already, through the passes of the Balkan the
storm was howling nearer and nearer that was to annihilate the budding
gems of culture and free government in Bosnia. In 1353,—five years before
Tvartko’s accession to the Banat,—under Suleiman, the son of Orchan, the
Turks had first set foot in Europe. In twelve more years their ravages
had spread to Attica, the Palæologi had pawned their crown jewels,
and the Turkish Sultan had transferred his residence from Broussa to
Adrianople. The tide of invasion poured along the Pontic shores, across
the plains of Thrace, and was bursting through the iron gates of Hæmus.
The Crescent already floated on the holy city of Bulgaria, the Marica had
run red with the blood of Serbian chivalry, and turbaned warriors had
scaled the salt steppes of Albania; the people, in the plaintive words of
their heroic poetry, ‘were scattered abroad like the fowls of the air,’
and Macedonia was resigned to wolves and vultures. Meanwhile, Bulgaria,
already half conquered, was split up into the two rival Czardoms of
Tirnovo and Widdin; Serbia, by the death of Czar Dūshan, had lost the one
man capable of restraining anarchy at home, or of marshalling the forces
of the nation against the Turkish invaders, and the great empire of the
Némanjas had shivered into a hundred fragments.
Thus it was that in the hour of disunion and despair Serb and Bulgar
alike turned to the new and rising kingdom that their Bosnian kinsmen
had established in the Illyrian West. Tvartko was now at the height
of his power, and included under his sceptre more extensive dominions
than any Bosnian Ban, or King, before or after. He had seized the land
of Chelm, the later Herzegovina, which had belonged to former Bans
of Bosnia, till exchanged for Primorie with the King of Hungary; and
added to it the two old Serbian Župas of Canali[83] and Tribunja; he
had extended at least a suzerainty over the Principality of Zenta or
the Black-Mountain; and by 1382 appears to have reduced the whole of
Dalmatia, with the single exception of the city of Zara. Tvartko ruled
already from beyond the Drina to the islands of the Adriatic, and from
the Save to the lake of Skodra, but his ambition aimed at nothing short
of re-establishing the empire of the Balkan Sclaves under a Bosnian
sceptre, and of ruling, it might be, over wider realms than the greatest
of the Némanjas. For these mighty schemes not only did he seem qualified
by his personal abilities, but by connection and descent. His first wife,
Dorothea, was the daughter of the Bulgarian Czar, Sracimir of Widdin;
on his mother’s side he traced his descent from Stephen Dragutin; and,
on the extinction of the Némanjids, claimed to be the rightful heir of
the Serbian Kings and Czars.[84] In Croatia he had allied himself with
the nobility in their opposition to their Hungarian suzerain, with the
object of incorporating that province in his own dominions, and extending
his frontier to the Drave.[85] Thus the appeal of the Sclavonic princes,
Serbian and Bulgarian, who felt themselves powerless to repel the Turks,
not only roused the Bosnian King to a sense of his own impending danger,
but flattered his ambition. He hastened to respond to the appeal, by
gathering an army of 30,000 men and advancing in person against the
Infidel. For a moment that fatal spell of isolation which had held Bosnia
so long aloof from the fortunes of neighbouring and kindred people is
broken through, and she stands forth against the Turks at the head of a
great confederacy of the Southern Sclaves, whose members were scattered
from Silistria to Durazzo, and from Thessalonica to Belgrade. Joining his
forces to the Serbian host collected by the ill-starred Knez Lazar, King
Tvartko took advantage of the absence of Sultan Amurath in Asia, to fall
upon his army near Pločnik on the Toplica, and inflicted on it such an
annihilating defeat that scarce a fifth escaped the sword or captivity.
Amurath was furious, and hurried from Asia to avenge the disaster.
Tirnovo fell, and the sight of a captive Czar struck terror into the
Bulgarians. Tvartko despatched an army under his brave General, Vlatko
Hranić, to the aid of the Sclavonic confederates, and for the last time
Bosniac, Serb, Croat, and Bulgarian, joined their forces against the
Infidel. Only two years after the rout of Pločnik, on June 15, St. Vitus’
day, 1389, on the ill-omened field of Kóssovo was fought one of the great
battles of the world, decisive even in its indecisiveness.
Nothing but a brilliant victory could have galvanized into unity the
ill-compacted alliance of the Sclaves. We need not dwell upon the
incidents of the fight.[86] How the hero Miloš met the wassail taunts of
treachery by rushing to his doom and stabbing ‘the Turkish Czar Murad’ in
his pavilion; how the head of the Serbian Knez Lazar was held aloft by
its grey hairs to glut the glazing eyes of the Turkish Sultan; how the
Bosnian Voivode, metamorphosed into his Herzegovinian successor,—‘ducal
Stephen,’ struck down nine Pashàs and sank himself before the tenth; of
the lightning charge of Bajazet, the thunder-stroke of his iron mace,
the crowning treachery of Vuk; or how, long afterwards, the Serbian
wayfarers on the Field of Thrushes found the body of their sainted King,
and Knez Lazar was borne at last by priestly hands ‘to beauteous Ravanica
in the mountain forest,’ there to lie amidst his kindred in the convent
of his rearing: all this, with many a legendary aftergrowth, lives as
fresh in the minds of the Southern Sclaves as if it were of yesterday.
There is not a name in that heroic muster-roll which is not a household
word wherever the Serbian tongue is spoken. Epic lays of the fatal day
of Kóssovo are still sung every day to throngs of peasant listeners by
minstrels of the people, whose rhapsodies, set to the dolorous strains of
the ghuzla, resound in a great national dirge along the willowed banks of
Save and Danube, through the beechwood glens of Bosnia, the dark recesses
of the Balkan, the mountain strongholds of the Czernagora, till, far away
across the Illyrian desert, they find an echo in that caverned waste
of rock that frowns above the blue waters of the Adriatic. The battle
of Kóssovo has grown and grown on the imagination of oppressed peoples
who only realized its full significance long afterwards. Tragic and
romantic as were the actual incidents of that great contest, they stand
out against the disastrous twilight that succeeded, in fantastic and
supernatural relief, lit up by the lurid conflagrations of after ravages.
At the time, we have the most direct evidence that the battle was
regarded by one at least of the principal actors as a great victory for
Christendom. Amurath was slain, the Turks had retired from the field of
battle, and the brave Bosnian General had returned to his sovereign with
unbroken forces. Tvartko wrote word to the citizens of Traù and Florence
that he had once more triumphed over the Infidel, and Te Deums of
thanksgiving for the success of the Christian arms were celebrated in the
cathedral of Notre Dame and in the presence of the king of France.[87]
Yet the death-knell of the Serbians and Bulgarians had already sounded,
the last confederacy of the Southern Sclaves was broken up, the imperial
aspirations of the Bosnian King were dashed for ever, and the doom of
Bosnia itself was but postponed.
The battle of Kóssovo was the turning-point in Tvartko’s fortunes. His
intrigues in Croatia, and a victory obtained over the Hungarian arms in
Dalmatia, roused the Magyar King, Sigismund, to vengeance, and Tvartko,
prevented himself by bodily weakness from taking an active part in the
hostilities, saw his allies defeated, his province of Ussora overrun,[88]
and himself reduced to renew his homage.
In 1391 Tvartko dies, of vexation, it is said, at these reverses, and is
succeeded by Stephen Dabiscia, otherwise known as Tvartko II., and he
again in 1396 by Tvartko III.[89] The greater part of the long reign of
this King, which lasted forty-seven years, is distracted by perpetual
wars, connected with the disputed succession of the Hungarian crown. It
is extremely difficult to trace out the aims of the different parties
who are now disputing for mastery in Bosnia. At one time Tvartko III.,
who seems, like his father, Tvartko I., to have aimed at Croatian
annexations, appears at the head of an insurrection of Bosnian and
Croatian magnates against Sigismund of Hungary, and in 1408 is defeated
and captured under the walls of his historic Castle of Doboj,[90] where
the conqueror executed 180 Bosnian and Croatian nobles. Tvartko, though
forced to resume his allegiance, was suffered to retain his crown, and
for many years we find him maintaining his position in league with the
party of Sigismund among the Magyars, and generally by the support of
the Bogomiles, and the popular party who seem to be identical with them.
When the Magnates and their auxiliaries of the Neapolitan and Dalmatian
faction sought to oppose him and set up a rival king, Tvartko carried
out his national policy still further by sending a message to Vladislaus
Jagellon, the Polish claimant of the Hungarian throne, in which he
offered him his homage and begged for assistance on the plea of the
common origin of the Poles and Bosniacs.[91]
In this universal confusion the Turks first make good a footing in
Bosnia. Already in the reign of Stephen Dabiscia, Bajazet had advanced
into the county of Chelm and established stationary quarters at a spot
become memorable in the most recent times as the scene of the first
outbreak of a revolt which has shaken Turkish dominion in Bosnia to its
foundations—Nevešinje.[92] But in the factious contests which distracted
the reign of the third Tvartko, each of the competitors for dominion
outbade the other for Turkish help, and it was by the direct invitation
and under the actual leadership of a turbulent noble that the Turks first
gained sufficient footing in Bosnia to establish there a Sandjakate. The
whole story is worth repeating, as it singularly illustrates the state
into which this unhappy country had fallen. At the time there were two
kings in Bosnia; Tvartko, who had now made his peace with Sigismund
and ruled over the parts of Bosnia along the Drina and the Serbian
frontier, and Ostoja, who owed his elevation to the Neapolitan faction of
Ladislaus, and whose territory embraced the maritime parts and a tract
roughly answering to the later Herzegovina. Between the Eastern and the
Western kingdom lay a more or less neutral wedge of country which had
been carved out by King Sigismund and formed into a Hungarian Banat under
the great Croatian noble Hervoja Horvatić, whose dominion included the
city of Jaycze, and anticipated in its extent that Banat of lower Bosnia
which, at a later time, Mathias Corvinus recovered from the Turkish
conqueror. Hervoja, who assumed the title of Chief Voivode, and even
Prince, of Bosnia,[93] and who shifted his allegiance, as the whim seized
him, from Tvartko and Sigismund to Ostoja and Ladislaus, happened on one
occasion to have honoured King Sigismund with his presence at his court.
Hervoja, who added a bullying manner to a body of bovine dimensions, was
haranguing the assembled magnates, Hungarian and Bosnian, in his usual
tones, when a certain Paul Chupor, Ban of Slavonia, broke in upon his
lordship by bellowing like a bull. This was too much for the gravity of
court ceremonial, and King Sigismund himself could not help joining in
the general laugh. But Hervoja, in a frantic rage, left the court, and
hurried back to his Banat, vowing vengeance against the Hungarian King,
his Bosnian liegeman King Tvartko, and every baron who followed their
banners. Seizing the opportunity when both of them were away in Germany,
he called in the Turks and took the command of the invading horde in
person. In the absence of the two Kings, the magnates of the country,
with his mortal enemy, Paul Chupor, at their head, united their retainers
to oppose him. Hervoja defeated their army, and having the luck to take
his old insulter prisoner, had him sewn up alive in a bull’s hide and
thrown into the river, with the characteristic jest, ‘When thou wert a
man thou didst speak with a bull’s voice; take now thy bull’s hide as
well!’
The Turks after devastating the country, destroying Varch Bosna near
the site of Serajevo and penetrating into the district of Sala in lower
Bosnia, refused this time to content themselves with plunder, and
established their first Sandjakate in Bosnia. Hervoja, seeing himself
thrown over by the Turks, who found him no longer useful as a cat’s-paw,
and deserted by his own adherents, shut himself up in his family castle
at Cattaro, and worn with vexation, perhaps remorse, died the same
summer. The two Kings, Tvartko and Sigismund, succeeded on their return
in gaining a victory over the Turks, slaying the Sandjak Ikach, and
freeing Bosnia for a while from the occupation of the Infidel. But the
anarchy within continued, and in 1430 culminated in the spectacle of
three rival princes, each of them claiming to be King of Bosnia! In 1435
the death of his two rivals left Tvartko III. once more sole king; but
shortly after that date the part of his dominions which answers to the
modern Herzegovina separates itself from the rest of Bosnia, and forms
for a while an independent principality.
The County of Chelm, variously designated as the Banat of Zachlumje and
the land of Humska, had been originally incorporated in the Banat of
Bosnia by the Ban Stephen[94] in 1326. We have seen it exchanged for
Primorie with the King of Hungary, and re-annexed by the first King of
Bosnia, who granted it as a fief to his brave general Vlatko Hranić. His
grandson, who from his birthplace Cosac, was known as Stephen Cosača, or
Cosaccia,[95] took advantage of the weakness of Tvartko III. to transfer
the immediate suzerainty of his county to the Emperor Frederick IV., who
in 1440 created him Duke, or, as his Sclavonic subjects who had borrowed
the German word expressed it, _Herzega_, of St. Sava.[96] This, and the
further title of ‘Keeper of St. Sava’s Sepulchre,’ he derived from the
tomb of the patron saint of Serbia in his monastery of Mileševo.
The Herzegovina, or Duchy, as this country now begins to be called,[97]
included, besides the old county of Chelm, the coastland district known
as Primorie, and extended from the borders of Rascia to the neighbourhood
of Zara.[98] Stephen Cosaccia fixed as the seat of his government
the important point where the old Roman bridge still spans the river
Narenta, and the City of Mostar still looks back to Radivoj Gost, his
_Curopalata_ or ‘Mayor of the Palace,’ as its founder.[99]
During the last years of Tvartko’s reign Bosnia enjoyed the peace she
so much needed. The King who had inherited many of the good qualities,
though not perhaps the martial ardour and masterful ambition of
his father, the first Tvartko, won the hearts of his people by his
even-handed justice. He heard complaints himself, sitting in the gate,
as the Prince of Montenegro does at the present day, and decided the
cases set before him with wisdom. Before punishment could be inflicted
on anyone judgment had first to be pronounced by the Starosts or Elders
of the realm, and the verdict had first to be submitted to the approval
of the people. Business of state was conducted by the King in Council,
and his chief advisers were the Bans of Jaycze and Bosna. In Tvartko’s
days, we are told, no flatterer dare approach the Court. The Bogomiles
enjoyed toleration, and Tvartko himself and the chief barons of the
realm, including the Count of Popovo and Trebinje, the despot George of
Serbia, and Sandalj Hranić were adherents of the sect. The Franciscan
Missionaries, to whom directly or indirectly a very large share of the
troubles of the Bosnian kingdom was due, were confined to the districts
where they were already settled, and compelled to limit their exactions
to a more restricted sphere; Tvartko even profited by a quarrel that
broke out between them and the superior of their order, to place them
under his direct jurisdiction.[100]
Stephen Thomas succeeded Tvartko ‘the Just’ on the throne of Bosnia in
1443. He was an illegitimate son of Ostoja and a Ragusan lady, Voiacchia,
and was raised to the throne by the Bogomiles to whose communion he
belonged. True to the policy which prompted the Puritan population of
Bosnia to seek a counterpoise against Catholic Hungary in their fellow
Puritans, the champions of Islâm, King Stephen Thomas began his reign by
promising a yearly tribute to the Sultan. But the Papal party had rightly
reckoned on the weakness of Thomas’s character; and the subtle genius of
the Apostolic legate, Thomasini, whom the Pope had sent to effect his
conversion, knew only too well how to play upon his fears and cupidity.
Stephen Thomas was illegitimate; the lawful son of Ostoja, Radivoj (or
Gaudenzo) had returned from Turkish exile and put in a claim on the
Bosnian crown; the Papal party had powerful weapons at their command in
the Duke of St. Sava, then a staunch Catholic, who refused allegiance and
invaded Thomas’s territory, and in the King of Hungary, who as suzerain,
declined to recognize the title of a heretic prince. Thomasini offered to
legitimate Thomas and his heirs, to obtain for him a consecrated crown,
to reconcile his rivals and his suzerain. The King of Bosnia yielded,
abjured his Bogomilian heresy, and was baptized into the Catholic fold.
Thomas, who had hitherto hesitated to take the style of King in his
official acts,[101] was formally crowned in 1444. His homage was accepted
by the Hungarian King Ladislaus, and his rival Radivoj was pacified with
the grant of the Banat of Jaycze.
In Bosnia itself this abjuration of the national faith produced the most
deplorable effects. The Inquisition raised its head, the Franciscans
were again rampant. The Bogomiles saw themselves betrayed by the King
of their own creation. The great vassal of the Bosnian crown, Stephen
Cosaccia, Duke of St. Sava, who in the first blush of Thomas’s conversion
had been induced to return to his allegiance, and whose goodwill had
been further courted by Thomas taking his daughter Catharine to wife,
now began to find it politic to cut himself adrift from the Papal party,
and to bid for complete independence of the Bosnian Crown by posing
as the protector of the Bogomiles. Meanwhile, beyond the border, the
great battle of Varna had been fought, the Hungarians routed, and their
King slain. As the danger of Turkish conquest drew nearer and nearer,
the most bigoted champions of the Roman Church might see the danger of
throwing the Protestant population into the arms of the invader; and
the most sanguine of the Christian Puritans, viewing the fate of their
brothers in Bulgaria, might shrink from accepting the dominion of their
Mahometan counterparts. In the Diet, or Great Council of the Realm,
which King Stephen Thomas assembled at Coinica, we may see a last effort
to check the growing anarchy, and unite the discordant elements of the
realm. I have given an account of the great charter of King Stephen
Thomas while describing the scene of the ‘Conventus’ of Coinica.[102]
In it the constitutional relation of the Duke of St. Sava will be found
defined, and the clause which enacts ‘that the Manichæans build no new
church nor restore the old,’ but which omits to prescribe any further
penalties or to fulminate any of the usual anathemas against them, seems
to me to imply that even the Bogomiles were to be accorded comparative
toleration.[103] But passions ran too high, anarchy was too inveterate
in Bosnia, for this attempt at internal pacification to succeed. In
the Papal legate, Thomasini, King Stephen Thomas had ever at his side
an evil genius, who inclined him more and more towards the path of
persecution. With the Turk at the door King Thomas, who was known to
the Roman Catholics as the ‘pious,’ once more lent the support of the
civil arm to the Inquisition. The Bogomiles turned for protection to the
Turks, their only possible ally, and, four years after the ‘Conventus’ of
Coinica, invited them into the country. Stephen Thomas, a tyrant towards
his own subjects, showed himself a craven before the foe, and purchased
an ignominious peace from Amurath by agreeing to pay him 25,000 ducats a
year. But the Turkish suzerainty became more and more galling, and the
fall of Constantinople in 1453 finally roused him from his lethargy.
Four years after that event he issued from his Palace of Sutisca, near
the Castle of Bobovac, an appeal to the whole Christian world for help
against the Infidel.[104] This was addressed to the Pope, the King of
Arragon, the Doge of Venice, the Duke of Burgundy, and other Christian
princes. But the days of the Crusades were gone by, and the appeal of
the King of Bosnia met with no response, save that the Pope sent him a
consecrated standard and a cross.
Meanwhile the death of the brave John Hunyadi, and the paralysing civil
war in Hungary, left the Bosnian King without his one ally. The Turkish
ravages now extended to the heart of Bosnia. Already, in 1449, Turks
were settled in the country between the Drina and Ukrina stream,[105]
on the main line of communication between Bosnia and Hungary; now, the
neighbouring Pashàs and Agas begin to drive a regular traffic in Bosnian
slaves. A half mythical atmosphere surrounds the last days of the Bosnian
kingdom. It is said that the craven Thomas, fearing to resist the Turks,
entered into a secret league with them. We are told by contemporary
writers that Mahomet himself, disguised as a Morabite, made his way
in company with two real members of that order, into the royal palace
of Sutiska,[106] that King Thomas showed him all honour, and solemnly
entered with him into that sworn brothership so hallowed amongst the
Southern Sclaves, the _Pobratimstvo_. Whether such a meeting actually
occurred, or whether the whole story was the invention of domestic
enemies, there can be no doubt that the poltroonery and tergiversation
of Thomas had alienated even that Catholic faction on which since his
abjuration of Bogomilism he had relied. Signs of defection already
appeared, and the King turned the arms that he should have employed
against the national enemy, to reduce a refractory Croatian vassal. It
was while besieging his castle, encamped on the field of Bielaj, that
King Stephen Thomas was assassinated, if report spoke truly, by his
step-brother Radivoj and his illegitimate son Stephen.
The parricide Stephen Tomašević at once usurped the throne, though
Stephen Thomas is often regarded by Bosnians as their last king. The
Catholic and anti-Turkish party were now triumphant, and the new King
began his reign by an appeal to the feudal nobility of Bosnia to meet
him with their retainers equipped for battle against the Infidel, on
the field of Kóssovo. This summons is dated Pristina, June 3, 1459,
and is one of the last records of feudal Bosnia. The Barons, Prelates,
Nobles, Voivodes, and magnates of the realm,[107] are summoned by
name. The Župans[108] of Rascia and of Serbia, with their banners and
retainers, the Ban of Jaycze, the Ban of Ussora, the Duke of St. Sava,
and the lesser nobles, are marshalled before us on parchment. The King
appeals to their orthodox bigotry, and seems to take an illustration
from the fire-drakes of Sclavonic folk-lore. ‘What faithful Christian,’
he asks, ‘and zealous lover of the orthodox faith can restrain his
tears when considering the capture of Constantinople?’ He calls on the
Barons aforesaid ‘to meet us on the field of Kóssovo in June, for we
ought in a body to advance against the dragon, lest he spit forth over
us his venom.’[109] But King Stephen Tomašević inherited his father’s
poltroonery, with more than his father’s bigotry. We do not know that
he ever met the Turks at Kóssovo; but we know that this same year he
turned the arms of his orthodox Magnates against his unoffending Bogomile
subjects, and hounded 40,000 of them from the realm. His brave generals,
Paul Kubretić and Tomko Mergnjavić, defended severally the line of
the Drina and the Rascian frontier with success, but the surrender of
Semendria which the Hungarians had intrusted to his safe-keeping, to
the Turks, had irritated Mathias Corvinus and the powerful Hungarian
faction among the Magnates, and this dissatisfaction was intensified by
Tomašević throwing himself and his kingdom at the feet of the Papacy,
which, however, wisely refused to accept it. Meanwhile it was no secret
that Mahomet was preparing for his great invasion of Bosnia.
The King of Bosnia who had already secured the alliance of the Venetians
and Scanderbeg, turned once more to the Pope, if not to gain him fresh
allies, at least to sanctify his efforts, and to breathe into his
followers the enthusiasm of a new crusade. The ambassadors of Tomašević
appeared at Rome in 1463, and were received in solemn conclave by the
Pope. They read to him and the spiritual senators assembled an appeal
drawn up by the Bosnian King’s own hand. The speech, for it is nothing
less, has been preserved, and is the last monument of Christian Bosnia.
In turns it is argumentative, insinuating, and solemn; selfish personal
ambition is blended in a remarkable way with a real appreciation of the
gravity of the situation, and the far-reaching consequences of a Turkish
conquest of Bosnia to Hungary and Christendom; and the King as he warms
with his harangue forgets the official plural of a royal style and lapses
into the impressive individuality of a prophet.
‘Most Holy Father, we, Stephen Tomašević, King of Bosnia, send this
embassy unto thee, for that Mahomet hath conceived this summer to fall
upon our realm. Already hath he gathered together his array of war; nor
is our strength sufficient that we should stand against him. In our
grievous necessity we have turned to the Hungarians and the Venetians
for succour; and George, the Prince of Albania, hath promised us his
help. Now, therefore, have we also turned to thee, O most Holy Father.
No mountains of gold do we ask of thee, but this alone, that our enemies
and our true friends should know that we have thy protection. If so
be that the Bosnians know that they fight not alone, then will their
courage be the keener; whereas the Barbarian will fear to attack our
land, the passes wherein are difficult, and the fenced cities well nigh
impregnable. Eugenius, thy predecessor, promised our father the throne,
and that he would establish some bishoprics in Bosnia; but our father
refused to accept this treaty, lest peradventure he should magnify the
hatred of the Turks against him; for that he himself was newly converted,
and the Manichæans were not yet pursued the realm. But I was christened
in the true faith, I learned Latin in my childhood, and have remained
steadfast in my Christian belief. I fear not therefore what my father
feared, and therefore do I entreat thee that thou wouldest send me a
crown and the holy bishops. Let this be for a monument that thou wilt
not forsake me or my realm. If the enemy breaks in, a crown received
from thy hands will be unto my friends as an earnest of victory, and
for a terror to my foes. In my father’s lifetime, thou didst issue thy
commands that the Crusaders, assembled in Dalmatia under the overseeing
of the Venetians, should help him, but this pleased not the Venetian
Senate. Bid them now that they come to my aid, if haply thou shalt find
more obedience, forasmuch as they have turned from their former designs,
and they shall make war against the Turks. This moreover do I pray, that
thou send thy legate unto Hungary, that so he may set before the King my
grievous necessity, and may spur him on to join his arms with mine.
‘By such means the realm of Bosnia may yet be preserved; otherwise it
falls to pieces: for insatiable ambition knows no bounds. But if so be
that I am subjugated, the hereditary foe will fall upon the Hungarians,
and having subdued the Dalmatians, Istrians, and Carinthians, will turn
his arms also against Italy. The first fury of the storm threatens me,
after me the Hungarians and Venetians and other peoples must bend before
it, nor will Italy remain secure. Such are the foe’s designs. I have
learnt them, and therefore do I communicate to thee this intelligence
that thou mayest not lay drowsiness to my charge, nor say that these
things were not foretold. My father too had foretold to thy predecessor
and to the Venetians the fall of Constantinople. He was not believed, and
Christendom lost one city of the Cæsars, the Patriarch’s seat and the
pride of Greece. Of myself only do I now prophesy. Believest thou me?
then succour me, and I am delivered; otherwise I perish. O thou who art
the father of Christendom, give counsel and help!’
The Pope in reply recognised the truth of King Stephen’s warnings, and
promised to place the arms in Dalmatia at his disposal, to build the
desired cathedrals in Bosnia, and send the bishops. The consecrated
crown he held in readiness, but would not send it without the consent
of Mathias, Stephen’s suzerain, with whom he recommended him to make
friends. Let Stephen prevent Mahomet’s invasion by occupying the passes;
Hungary and Venice would fly to his assistance.
But while King Stephen Tomašević was pleading for new bishops from the
Pope, another negociation was being transacted between his oppressed
subjects and the Sultan. While the infatuated king was boasting that he
had purged his realm of the Manichæan heretics; these very sectaries
who, in spite of the expulsion of 40,000 three years before, still
formed apparently the large majority of the population, though forced to
dissemble their opinions, seeing themselves threatened on the one hand
by a new Romish influx, on the other by invaders indeed, but Puritans
at least like themselves, turned to the Turks. By the mouth of their
spiritual chiefs the negociation with Mahomet was successfully completed.
The Bogomiles promised to transfer their allegiance from their Romish
sovereign to the Sultan, Mahomet on the other hand engaging to insure
them free toleration for their religion, freedom from taxation, and other
privileges.[110]
In 1463 Mahomet crossed the Drina and poured into Bosnia an army, the
cavalry alone of which was exaggerated by the terror of the natives
into 150,000 horsemen. On June 14 a Turkish Pashà appeared at the
head of a large force beneath the walls of Bobovac, the ancient seat
of Bosnian Bans and Kings. The Sultan himself came up next day, and
the governor[111]—a ‘Manichee,’ we are told, ‘who had feigned to be a
Christian’—forthwith, with the consent of the garrison, who it is to be
supposed were equally disaffected against the Catholic rulers, opened
the gates to the Turk. Thus passed into the hands of Mahomet a fortress
of the greatest strength, and supplied with provisions for a two-years’
siege. The King of Bosnia, panic-stricken at the loss of his royal city,
and seeing himself betrayed by his own subjects, shut himself up with his
treasures in Jaycze, another royal city, as strong by its position and
fortifications as Bobovac; but feeling himself still insecure, at the
approach of the Pashà fled with his treasures to Clissa on the coast of
Primorie, where, after forty days’ siege, on condition of his life being
spared, he surrendered himself to Mahomet, together with his treasures,
the accumulated hoards of five kings, amounting, it is said, to a million
of ducats.[112]
The crafty Sultan utilized, we are told, the King’s authority to obtain
possession of the remaining strongholds of Bosnia. He extorted from
him writs to the governors of the different cities, ordering them to
give up their keys to the Turks. All obeyed. The Protestant population
of Bosnia did not need the royal mandate; they looked on the Turks
rather as deliverers than foes, and in the short space of eight days
seventy cities, ‘defended by nature and art,’ opened their gates to the
Sultan’s officers.[113] Then at last the Christians of Bosnia discovered
that they had betrayed one tyranny to make room for a worse. The King,
Stephen Tomašević, having served his turn, was barbarously executed by
his perfidious captor. Accounts differ as to the exact manner of his
death; but it matters little whether he suffered the fate of Marsyas,
St. Sebastian, or Charles I.; and poetic justice is satisfied, if we
may believe the statement that the parricide king met his doom on
the same field of Bielaj where he murdered his father.[114] The most
eminent nobles who had not escaped to Dalmatia were transported to Asia,
thirty thousand of the picked youth of Bosnia were taken to recruit the
Janissaries, and two hundred thousand of the inhabitants were sold as
slaves.
By a strange irony of fate the blow fell hardest on the cities, where
the Bogomilian faction lay.[115] How terrible was their calamity the
example of Jaycze, the chief city of the realm, and Clissa, the last
refuge of Bosnian royalty, abundantly display. The burghers of Jaycze,
relying on the Sultan’s pledge to respect their municipal freedom, their
ancient privileges and their property, had gone forth to welcome him
within their gates. But no sooner was the city in his possession than the
treacherous Osmanlì, not content with arresting the chief nobility of the
realm and the king’s brother and daughter whom he found within the walls,
seized on the children of the leading citizens for distribution among his
Pashàs and Agas, and enrolment in his new body-guard. The fate of Clissa
(or Kliuć) was still more overwhelming. The Turkish Beglerbeg divided the
townspeople into three parts. One of them he adjudicated to his troops
as booty; another portion, the youths and children, he set apart for
enrolment in the Janissary guard; and the remainder, but not, we may be
assured, either the young or the beautiful, he left to pay tribute for
their desolated homes.
That it was nothing but the sheerest intolerance that drove the Bogomiles
to welcome Turkish rule in Bosnia is conclusively shown by the different
attitude adopted by their co-religionists of Herzegovina. This can be
accounted for by no ties of personal loyalty to the reigning Duke.
Stephen’s whole career might well have inspired the most vehement
repugnance among subjects more tolerant to human weakness than is
the wont of Puritans. Stephen Cosaccia was by all accounts a selfish
voluptuary, careless of religion, described as fickle as the wind, and
reckless as he was ambitious. He had seized his son’s wife, a beautiful
Florentine, and when his son and the outraged Duchess saved themselves
from perpetual insult by taking shelter within the hospitable walls of
Ragusa, had brought disasters on the land by his insolent pretensions.
The Ragusans, indignant at his demand for the extradition of the
fugitives, his claims on part of their territory, his raising the
salt-tax, did not content themselves with impeaching their rebellious
senator of high treason, but invaded Herzegovina, took his treasure
castle of Blagai and ducal city of Mostar, and hardly needed the double
intervention of Pope and Sultan to reduce him to an humiliating peace
and the payment of a war indemnity. Stephen Cosaccia changed his creed
with as much facility as he changed his consort. In the beginning of his
reign, when Bosnian kings leaned to Bogomilism, it had suited his policy
to bid for Papal favour and raise his County into a Duchy by playing the
part of a faithful son of the Church. But when the King of Bosnia had
made his peace with Rome, when all hopes that he may have cherished of
placing the Bosnian crown upon his own head were finally dashed, when
further a Papal legate had presided at that diet of Coinica by which
his dependence on the Bosnian kingdom was formally cemented, Stephen
Cosaccia began to think that, after all, more might be gained by fishing
in the troubled waters of Puritan disaffection. He veered round once
more and henceforth poses as the protector of the oppressed Bogomiles
of Bosnia. When the persecutions of Stephen Tomašević drove 40,000 of
these sectaries from the kingdom, they found a refuge in the duchy;
and, neither for the first nor the last time in history, a tyrant and a
libertine became the acknowledged patron of Puritans and levellers.
Thus, when Mahomet turned his arms against Herzegovina, the Bogomiles
showed their gratitude to their ducal benefactor, by rising _en masse_
in his defence. They occupied the mountain passes, and while the craven
Stephen shut himself up in his capital Mostar, and drowned his anxieties
in his usual dissipation, his brave Puritan adherents kept the Turks at
bay on the frontier. One pass, however, had remained unoccupied. The
Turks burst through it and beleagured the ducal city. The Bogomiles,
however, still fought bravely, and made such successful sallies and flank
attacks upon the enemy that the Turk saw himself obliged to raise the
siege. The rest of the country, however, was overrun, many castles of
the Count of Popovo and Trebinje[116] taken, and this great magnate of
the duchy slain. The Duke saw himself forced to raise his tribute and
send his son Stephen as a hostage to the Sultan. Two years later, in
1466, Stephen Cosaccia died, and his duchy was shared by his two sons,
Ladislav, who inherited the ducal title, and Vlatko. But Herzegovina
had only gained a respite from complete subjugation.[117] Twenty years
after the overthrow of the Bosnian kingdom, in 1483, the Beglerbeg of
Bosnia fell upon the Duchy of St. Sava, the two Christian princes were
dispossessed, and the whole country incorporated in the Sandjakate of
Bosnia. A renegade member of the ducal house, that Stephen whom the first
duke had sent as a hostage to Mahomet, rose under the name of Ahmed Pashà
to be grand vizier, and is known in Turkish annals as Herzekoglu.[118]
Amidst the universal ruin, the wife of the last lawful king of Bosnia,
Stephen Thomas, is singled out by the grandeur of her misfortunes, and
I have been tempted to collect a few details which may shed some halo
of romance round the unhappy Catharine. After the murder of her husband
by his bastard son Stephen and her brother Radivoj, Queen Catharine
had lingered near his tomb in the Church of St. John at Sutisca, the
burial-place of Bosnian kings, sheltered in the adjoining convent which
her own and her husband’s piety had reared,[119] and doubtful whether
most to fear her husband’s murderer or the terrible Sultan, who was
advancing, avowedly, to avenge her. In the sacristery of the Convent
of Sutisca, the Franciscan monks still treasure an antique picture, in
which Christ appears in person to the kneeling king Stephen Thomas; and
legend says that it was in the monastery of his rearing that this vision
befell the husband of Queen Catharine. Here, amidst all these sad and
solemn memories, the widowed queen was engaged in embroidering some
sacred vestments, when the news of the rapid advance of Mahomet, perhaps
the sudden betrayal of the royal stronghold of Bobovac itself, only five
miles distant, startled her from her pious task. In the sacristery of
Sutisca, with the picture of King Thomas, the Franciscan monks showed
long afterwards[120] ‘a stole and a part of a chasuble embroidered in
gold threads by a needle in a wonderful way, and delectable to the sight,
which is said by immemorial tradition to have been the handiwork of Queen
Catharine, the wife of King Thomas, who sleeps at Rome, and which she
left unfinished when she fled.’
She, a woman of delicate health, the widowed Queen of Bosnia, the
daughter of the Duke of St. Sava, on her mother’s side[121] tracing her
lineage from the imperial race of the Comneni, fled away on foot through
the passes of the Dinaric Alps, down the valley of the Narenta, across
the inhospitable limestone desert that stretches, now as then, between
her father’s stronghold of Mostar and the sea, to Stagno, the old seaport
of Bosnia. There she found a small boat, which carried her across the
gulf to the hospitable haven of Ragusa. At Ragusa she seems to have
resided several years; but in 1475[122] she set forth on her pilgrimage
once more, and passed the closing years of her life in the shelter of a
Roman convent, distinguished by her charitable works, her meekness, and
the patience with which she bore her misfortunes,[123] but haunted even
there by the craven conduct of her son Sigismund, who had renegaded to
the creed of Mahomet. In 1477 Queen Catharine died, and was buried in
the Church of the Virgin of Ara Cœli, in which by her orders a monument
was reared to her memory.[124] There, beside the feudal escutcheons of
her husband’s kingdom and her father’s principality, on a foreign soil,
and in a Roman sanctuary, reposes, as is fitting, the effigy of the
exiled Queen of Bosnia, the last monument of the feudal kingdom, and of a
dynasty essentially alien to the people over whom it ruled.
After her death two of her family appeared before Pope Sextus IV., and
presented to him her will, in which she bequeathed her kingdom of Bosnia
to the Holy Roman Church; adding, however, the condition that if her son
should return from the Turks, ‘and the vomit of Mahomet,’ he should be
restored to his father’s throne. As a token, her representatives handed
over the Sword of the Realm, and the Royal Spurs, ‘which the Pontiff
benignantly received, and ordered them to be placed, with the will, in
the Apostolic archives.’[125]
Meanwhile Mathias Corvinus was taking more effectual measures to recover
at least a part of Bosnia for Christendom and Hungary. Within three
months after the execution of Stephen Tomašević he had taken the field,
and in a short time recovered twenty-seven cities with almost the same
rapidity as that of Mahomet’s conquest. The whole of lower Bosnia,
including what is now Turkish Croatia, the valley of the Verbas, the
Bosnian Possávina, the old Bosnian Banats of Ussora and Podrinia, were
for a while recovered.[126] In Jaycze the spirit of the citizens had not
been utterly crushed out even by the rigour of Mahomet and the Janissary
tribute. Wifeless and childless for the most part, her burghers had not
lost the hopes of vengeance and recovered liberty: they called on the
Magyars to deliver them, and after a seventy days’ siege the Turkish
garrison yielded to the combined efforts of the besieging army and
the citizens within. The great stronghold of the realm now received
a Hungarian governor, and was forthwith made the capital of the new
Banat of Jaycze, or as Mathias called it, to preserve the _jus_ of the
Hungarian Crown, the titulary kingdom of Bosnia.[127]
The ancient city of Jaycze, which now for many years becomes the Ilion
of Turk and Hungarian, and the bulwark of the Christian world, derives
its name, it is said, from its resemblance in form to an egg, the Bosniac
word for which is _Jaica_,[128] and it has thus been compared with the
Neapolitan fortress Castello del Ovo, reared by the Normans. Its high
walls are still to be seen, rising on a rocky height at the confluence of
the Pliva and Verbas; and during the days of the Bosnian kingdom it was
recognised as the capital of the realm, sharing with Bobovac the honour
of being the favourite residence of the Bosnian kings. Nor did Jaycze
owe this royal preference solely to an almost impregnable position. As a
pleasance the site is equally alluring, being environed by some of the
most romantic mountain and forest scenery in the country, and overlooking
not only the one Bosnian lake, but a waterfall which may compare with
those of Norway. Here rose the Minorite convent of St. Catharine,
enriched by many indulgences, obtained from Rome by the namesake of the
saint, the Queen whose melancholy fortunes we have just been tracing;
and here, after the fall of Constantinople, the body of St. Luke (the
greatest glory of Bosnia’s latter days!) had found shelter till the
invasion of Mahomet, when pious hands succeeded in transporting it to
Venice. There it was deposited by the Doge Cristoforo Moro in the Church
of St. Job: to the no small scandal of the neighbouring city of Padua,
which possessed a rival trunk of the Evangelist.
The history of Bosnia now centres around the fortifications of Jaycze.
The city was again and again besieged by Mahomet and Bajazet; but the
citizens, amongst whom we learn were a large number of Bogomiles,[129]
showed that, when under the inspiration of a sovereign like Mathias,
they knew how to fight, and, while the town held out, Hungarian armies
inflicted disastrous defeats on the Turks under its walls. In 1520 two
generals of Sultan Solyman II., the Bey of Semendria and the Pashà of
Turkish Bosnia, inflicted the severest blow on the Banat of Jaycze that
it had yet experienced. The great stronghold of Zvornik, the key of the
Podrinia, fell into the hands of the Turks, owing to the carelessness of
the governor, who had failed to provision it; and two other important
fortresses yielded to the panic, one Sokol, the other the rock citadel
of Tešanj,[130] the key of the province of Ussora. Jaycze, however, at
that time had for governor a stout old soldier, Peter Keglević, who had
received wounds at Terentzin, and the successful defence of this city
under his guidance is the last and perhaps the most romantic episode in
the annals of Christian Bosnia.
The Turks, finding all their efforts to take the city by open assault
futile, had planned a night surprise, and, to disarm the suspicions of
the governor, had retired out of sight of the city, as if to raise the
siege. But Keglević, who perhaps obtained his information from renegades
in the Pashà’s army, was made aware by means of his spies that the Turks
were constructing a large number of ladders. The governor accordingly
doubled the watch on the walls, lining them, where they were too low,
with foot soldiers; and was shortly made aware, by the same secret
sources of information, that the retreating Turks had doubled round, and,
making their way by stealth among the mountains and under cover of the
forest, were encamped in a retired gorge not far from the town, intending
to assault the walls by a sudden escalade in the hours before dawn. Peter
showed himself quite equal to the occasion, and told off immediately
a picked body of a hundred men to take their stand in the rear of the
Turkish ambush, with orders to fall on the infidels at a signal given
from a gun-shot.
Nor were Keglević’s resources exhausted by this stratagem. It happened
to be the eve of a feast-day, when the women and maidens of the town
would in times of security go forth, as they still do through the length
and breadth of Bosnia, to dance and sing on the forest lawns. Old Peter
called the girls and merry wives of Jaycze around him, and bade them
at earliest dawn to go forth, as if no foe were nigh, into the King’s
Mead,[131] as the meadowland about the town was known long afterwards,
and sing and play their shrillest—disarming their fears by telling them
that he would be at hand to help them.
Meanwhile the Turks, astir before sunrise for their planned attack, were
shouldering their ladders for the escalade—when the distant sounds of the
festal songs, and the Sclavonic dance-music, the plaintive note of the
Ghuzla, and the shrill piping of the Svirala, broke the silence of the
still morning air; and peering down between the forest trunks they espied
by the first faint light of dawn the maidens of Jaycze tripping the
light fantastic toe right merrily on the green slopes opposite. This was
enough! Down fall the ladders from their backs, and forwards scurry the
warriors, forgetful of everything but the sirens across the valley. Old
Keglević saw his opportunity, and sallying forth from the city, attacked
them with a picked body of men, while the ambushed horsemen, true to
the signal, swept down upon their rear. The Turks, in utter confusion,
distracted by the double onslaught, surprised, perhaps scarcely armed,
offered no resistance, and were cut down almost to a man.
The Pashà, furious at this disaster, attacked Jaycze shortly afterwards
with an army of 20,000 men, a long train of siege material, and eight
cannon of large calibre;[132] but Keglević held out, and Frangepani
advancing with an army of 16,000 men, defeated the Pashà and compelled
him to raise the siege. Seven years, however, after his splendid
defence of Jaycze, the brave old governor resigned his command, and
his successor, a careless and unwarlike man, lost the fortress almost
immediately. On the surrender of Jaycze in 1527 the remaining towns of
the Banat opened their gates to the Turks, and the whole of Bosnia to the
Save passed irrecoverably into the hands of the Sultan.
That the change was much regretted even by the Catholic population of
the country may be doubted. The history of the Hungarian Banat of Jaycze
is indeed less stained with religious persecutions than that of the
earlier kingdom, but much of that feudal tyranny which had contributed
in no unimportant manner to the conquest of Mahomet was still at work to
alienate the wretched Bosnian peasants. We have the convincing testimony
of an eyewitness, and a Doctor of the Roman Catholic University of
Bologna, that the rule of the Moslem was at this time looked upon as
less oppressive than that of the petty Christian Bans and Barons. ‘The
Bosniacs,’ says Montalbano, ‘are not so badly treated by the Turks, but
that those subject to Christian rule are not worse oppressed by their
own lords. And I myself have often seen no small multitude of country
people, having burnt their own houses in their despair, flee with their
wives and children and cattle and all that they possessed, to the country
under Turkish rule, for as much as the Turk extorteth little, save the
tithe. And therefore has it happened oftentimes that our armies in the
last Hungarian wars, when they have crossed the Ottoman border, find not
the Christian countrymen who, as they supposed, would be their friends
and helpers; or if so be they found them, they were hid in nooks, or
intent upon their flight; for no sufficient prohibition against outrages
and robberies is possible with the army. They think themselves well
off if haply their property and the honour of their women be left them
uninjured; whereas with the Turks, by reason of their great obedience,
these securities can be readily obtained.’[133]
Several desultory attempts have since been made on the part of the
Hapsburgs to recover it: by the Markgrave Ludwig of Baden, in 1688; by
Prince Eugene, in 1697, who pushed on as far as Bosna Serai itself, but
gained nothing by his hasty dash; and again in 1736 by the imperial
troops under the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen, which ended in the utter
rout of the Austrian army, amounting, it is said, to 80,000 men, and such
complete discomfiture, that Ali Pashà could boast that ‘not a hoof of
them was left behind.’[134] In 1790 Marshal Laudon took a few places in
Bosnia, but the French Revolution put a stop to these operations, and all
the towns captured in Bosnia were restored by the peace of Sistov.[135]
These later efforts may show that though the Emperor-King had resigned
his claim over Bosnia by the peace of Passarovitz in 1718, Austria, in
the last century at all events, had not resigned all hopes of recovering
the old fief of the Hungarian Crown.
There are very few materials[136] at hand for the history of Bosnia
after the Turkish conquest, and we have little but theories to explain
the extraordinary process of renegation which immediately set in, and
which has given us a Sclavonic race of Mahometans. From the earliest
days of the conquest the Turks inaugurated the policy of allowing all
those natives who would accept the religion of Islâm to retain their
lands and belongings, and we hear at once of a son of the King of Bosnia
and another of the Duke of St. Sava turning Mahometan. It is certain
that though the Catholic faction among the nobility was still powerful,
a large number of even the highest rank in Bosnia were infected with
the Bogomilian heresy; and it is probable that many rightful heirs of
ancient houses had been dispossessed for heretical opinions by the
dominant Romish caste, and were willing to recover their honours by at
least nominally abjuring their religion. By most, perhaps, the renegation
was intended to be only temporary; they ‘bowed in the house of Rimmon’
merely to retain their honours. Not a few of these renegade families have
preserved even to the present day many of their old Christian and perhaps
heretical observances; and it is whispered that there are still members
of the old Bosnian aristocracy only waiting for a favourable opportunity
to abjure Islâm. With the bulk of the people the desire of lording it
over their former Romish oppressors would often outweigh every religious
consideration. It has been hinted already that the Puritans of Bosnia
might find little repugnant to them in the service of the mosques, and
we may perhaps suspect that the Manichæism which looked on Christ as one
Æon, might accept Mahomet as another. Certain it is that a large part of
the population of Bosnia went over to Mahometanism, and those who would
deny that the majority of the converts belonged to the persecuted sect of
the Bogomiles, must account for the curious diminution since the Turkish
conquest of the heretics who immediately before it formed, as far as we
can judge, the majority, certainly the most influential portion, of the
population.
Strange as seems the comparative disappearance of the Bogomilian
religion since the Turkish conquest, throughout a large part of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, the more minutely we enquire into Bosnian history the
less insoluble does the problem appear. On the whole, the disappearance
of the Bosnian Protestants was not so much due to voluntary renegation,
though that played its part, as to a cause which I have already hinted
at. In the days of the Bosnian kingdom the strength of these sectaries
lay in the towns; and it was on the towns that the hand of the Turk
fell heaviest. The citizens of Jaycze, and Jaycze was then a peculiar
stronghold of the Bogomiles, like those of Kliuć, and like those of the
other fenced cities throughout the land, saw their children snatched from
them, to be forcibly converted to Islâm, and to return as Janissaries
and Mahometans to claim their heritage. Nay, more, we have the direct
evidence of an eyewitness and contemporary that the Janissaries were
largely recruited from the children of the Bogomiles.[137] At the end of
the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century there were still Bogomiles
in Bosnia; but how many of them were wifeless and childless! We have
historic proofs that the Bogomiles who existed in Jaycze in 1478 had
lost their heirs; their children were already Moslemized;—how many, we
may ask, outlived that generation? and how few could have survived the
consequences of the second captivity of Jaycze in 1527! In Herzegovina,
where at the moment of Turkish conquest the Bogomiles were proportionally
more numerous, and where their attitude, in contradistinction to their
Turcophile manifestations in Bosnia, had been one of open defiance to the
conqueror, their calamity must have been even more overwhelming; and if
the Turks bore so hardly on their Jayczan benefactors, what mercy could
have been meted to the Bogomilian defenders of Mostar?[138]
Whatever were the favouring causes of this wide-spread renegation, its
effect has been to afford us the unique phenomenon of Mahometan feudalism
and the extraordinary spectacle of a race of Sclavonic Mahometans.
This must be borne in mind at the present moment, for nothing is more
liable to confuse the questions at issue than to look on the Mussulman
inhabitants of Bosnia and the Herzegovina as _Turks_. Conventionally,
perhaps, one is often obliged to do so, and I must plead guilty in this
respect in the course of this work. But it should always be remembered
that, with the exception of a handful of officials and a certain
proportion of the soldiery, the Mahometan inhabitants of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina are of the same race as their Christian neighbours, speak the
same Serbian dialect, and can trace back their title-deeds as far. It is
a favourite delusion to suppose that the case of Bosnia finds a parallel
in that of Serbia; that here, too, an independent Christian principality
could be formed with the same ease, and that the independence of Bosnia
has but to be proclaimed for the Mussulman to take the hint and quit the
soil, as he has already quitted the soil of Serbia.
But, as I have said, the cases of the two provinces are altogether
different; in Serbia the Mahometans were an infinitesimal minority of
Osmanlì foreigners, encamped; in Bosnia, on the contrary, they are native
Sclaves, rooted to the soil, and forming over a third of the population.
Under whatever government Bosnia passes, it is safe to say that the
Mahometans will still form a powerful minority, all the more important
from having possession of the towns.
Nor must we omit another characteristic which marks off the Christian
Bosniacs from their Serbian neighbours. As Bosnia of old was the
debateable ground between the Roman Catholics and the Bogomiles, so,
to-day, she is distracted between the adherents of the Eastern and
Western Churches, who hate each other more cordially than the infidel.
It might have been thought that the disappearance of Bogomilism would
have resigned the country to the Catholics and Mahometans, for the
orthodox Greek element is conspicuous by its absence in the general
current of mediæval Bosnian history. But it was there nevertheless, and
in the eastern parts of the country was even then the dominant creed.
The conquest of Rascia by Tvartko I. brought a Greek province under the
Bosnian sceptre, and though the Bosnian hold on Rascia was slight, the
Greek Metropolitan appears at the Conventus of Coinica among the great
magnates of the realm. Since the Turkish conquest the Sandjakate of
Rascia or Novipazar has been incorporated in the Vilajet of Bosnia, and
by this means alone a large Greek-Church element has been added to the
present province. Nor, if we consider the history of Bosnia since the
Turkish conquest, is it difficult to trace the process by which even
in Bosnia proper and the Herzegovina, the Eastern Church has risen to
a dominant position. The Roman Catholics of Bosnia have at different
times during the last three centuries migrated in large numbers into
Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slavonia, where they found shelter among their
co-religionists, and it appears that the Greek population to the
South and East, who had less temptation to cross the borders of Latin
Christendom, have largely colonized the country thus vacated.[139] The
Roman Catholic population who remained, their ecclesiastical organization
broken up by these migrations, must in many cases have been absorbed in
the congregation of the intrusive Serbs, and indeed, as has been already
pointed out, the Roman Church in Illyria was to a great extent only Roman
in its higher organization.
The extraordinary phenomenon that presents itself in the history of
Bosnia under Turkish rule, is that till within the last few years it
has been simply the history of the feudal Kingdom, under altered names
and conditions. A Mahometan caste has tyrannised in place of a Popish—a
Turkish Vizier has feebly represented the Suzerainty of the Osmanlì Grand
Signior, just as of old we find Hungarian Bans or Kings representing the
Overlordship of a Magyar King. The survival of the feudal nobility has
been perfect. The great Bosnian lords, now calling themselves Begs or
Capetans, resided still in the feudal castles reared by their Christian
ancestors; they kept their old escutcheons, their Sclavonic family
names, their rolls and patents of nobility inherited from Christian
Kings; they led forth their retainers as of old under their baronial
banners, and continued to indulge in the chivalrous pastime of hawking.
The common people, on the other hand, have clung to their old Sclavonic
institutions, their sworn brotherhoods, their village communities, their
house-fathers; and have paid, and pay still, the same feudal dues to
their Mahometan lords as they did to their Christian ancestors.
But though in political affairs, language, and customs, so much of the
Præ-Turkish element has survived—though there are still to be found
many secret observances of Christian rites among Mahometans in high
places,—it would be a grievous error to suppose that the influence of
Islâm is superficial in Bosnia, or that their religious convictions are
not deep-rooted. On the contrary, the Sclavonic Mahometans of Bosnia,
occupying an isolated corner of the Sultan’s dominions, have not been
so liable to those external influences which at Stamboul itself have
considerably modified the code of true believers. The Bosniac Mussulmans
have had their religious antagonism perpetually roused by wars with the
unbelievers who compass them round about; they, more than the Levantine
Moslems, have borne the brunt of the long struggle with Christendom.
Add to this what the reader will have already perceived, that in Bosnia
fanaticism is an inheritance from Christian times; that the renegaded
Bogomiles have inherited the hatred they bear to the Christian rayah
both of the Eastern and Romish Churches, from the days when these rival
sectaries persecuted them without mercy.
Thus it is that Bosnia is the head-quarters of Mahometan fanaticism,
and that when, at the beginning of this century, Sultan Mahmoud II.
endeavoured to introduce his centralising innovations and reforms into
Bosnia, which also promised the Christians a certain amount of religious
liberty, he found himself opposed here not only by the feudal caste,
who rallied round the Janissaries, but by a race of Mahometans whose
religion had assumed a national character of a more fanatical hue than
was fashionable in the capital. The wars between the Giaour Sultan, as
the Bosniac Mussulmans contemptuously called the head of their faith, and
his refractory vassals, have been described by Ranke,[140] and need not
be dwelt on here. It was not till 1851 that Omer Pashà finally succeeded
in breaking the resistance of Mahometan feudalism in Bosnia, and
re-subjugated the country for the Sultan. Since that date the privileges
of the native nobility have been greatly curtailed, and Sclavonic
Mussulman and Sclavonic Christian alike have bowed before a new Osmanlì
bureaucracy.
That the state of the country has not improved since that date may
perhaps be gathered from the following pages. That at the moment of
Omer Pashà’s conquest some good was done by breaking the strength of
Bosnian feudalism, and setting a limit on the exactions of the native
Mahometan landholders, is undeniable. The most turbulent of the native
aristocracy were proscribed; the most galling of their feudal privileges
were taken from them, and the Christians who had helped the Osmanlì
in this second Turkish conquest of Bosnia received at the moment some
partial compensation at the expense of their former lords. But when the
Osmanlì ceased to garrison the country and prolonged his occupation
in a bureaucratic form, it lay in the very nature of things that he
should conciliate as far as possible those whose opposition was most
formidable to him, his co-religionists, namely, the Bosniac Mahometans.
Thus it is that since the period immediately succeeding Omer Pashà’s
conquest the state of the Christian population has suffered a relapse,
while in the Herzegovina, more especially, as I have shown elsewhere,
the tyranny of the old feudal caste has recrudesced, and the _misera
contribuens plebs_ of those countries has to bear a double burden of
extortion, from the landowner who represents the old régime and the
Turkish officials and middle-men who represent the new; so that now the
Christian rayah sees himself forced to serve two masters where he served
one before. The present Government of Bosnia consists of a small body of
foreign Osmanlì officials, speaking, in many cases, a language which is
unintelligible to the native Sclaves; ill educated, totally unable to
check the malpractices of their agents even when they themselves have
honest intentions. Though often, let it be said to their credit, less
bigoted themselves, they are altogether unable to place a restraint on
the fanaticism which is the sad characteristic of the native Mussulman,
and are well aware that, were they to attempt to introduce those reforms
which look so well on paper, the native Mussulmans would hound them out
of the country.
The more we examine the character of the Osmanlì government in Bosnia,
the more unstable, artificial and mischievous does it appear. The
centralization introduced by the ‘New Turks’ has struck at the roots
of many of the most promising elements which Bosnia had inherited from
the past, and the substitution of the authority of Osmanlì _préfets_, in
the place of the old municipal councils of the towns, may be cited as
a single example of the mischievous tendency of these innovations. The
chief argument of those who wish to see the rule of the Osmanlìs upheld
in Bosnia is that they act as a police to keep the peace between the
warring elements of the native population. It would not be difficult to
cite isolated instances where the Osmanlì has acted this part, and some
will be found in the following pages; but it will be found, as a rule,
that the Turkish rulers in Bosnia never put themselves out to control
the Mahometan element of Bosnia, except when under the surveillance of
European Consuls, or in their dealings with Franciscan monks, who are
virtually Austrian officials. On the whole, it would be more true to
say that the Osmanlì has prolonged his rule in Bosnia by playing on the
jealousies of castes and creeds.
The Osmanlì government in Bosnia is, and has been, a government of
_finesse_. It has no elements of stability about it, and nothing has
been more prominently brought out by the present insurrection than its
utter impotence. The foreign bureaucracy in Bosnia has seen itself
haughtily thrust aside by the native Mahometans. Its manœuvres have
utterly failed to conciliate the one class whose affections they were
designed to seduce, and at the present moment there is one point on which
the Mahometans and Christians of Bosnia are both agreed, and that is in
abhorrence of the rule of the Osmanlì. Nor should it be overlooked that
two of the greatest evils that at present afflict Bosnia are intimately
bound up with the continuance of Turkish rule. One is the use of the
Osmanlì language in official documents and in the law-courts; the other
is the direct contact into which Bosnia is brought with the corruption of
Stamboul. It is impossible that the rayah should secure justice in the
law-courts, or at the hands of the government officials and middle-men,
when his case or the contract into which he enters with the tax-farmers
must be drawn up in a language utterly unintelligible to him, and by
the hands of those who are interested in perverting the instrument of
the law to injustice and extortion. It is impossible that the material
resources of Bosnia, magnificent as they are, should be developed to
the good of her civilization, while the enterprise of Europe has first
to satisfy what is insatiable—the avarice of the Divan. The Bosniacs
themselves are still blessed with many of the virtues of a primitive
people, and left to themselves might secure honesty and justice in their
public officers. At present the Bosnian _employés_ must first learn their
Osmanlì language, and imbibe the secrets of Osmanlì government, at the
source and seminary of Turkish demoralization; and the alien bureaucracy
which results, acts in Bosnia as a propaganda of corruption.
Why not then sever a connection as malign as it is artificial? Why not
divorce Stamboul from Bosnia, and erect an independent State under an
European guarantee? The democratic genius of the people would suggest
a Republic as the best form of government, but the divided state of
the country would preclude such a government to begin with, and a
Principality after the model of free Serbia might combine Parliamentary
government with the coherence of a monarchy.
When it is recognised by what an extremely precarious tenure the Porte
holds Bosnia at present, and it is remembered that the chief aim of
the native Mahometans, as of the native Christians, is Provincial
Independence, even Englishmen may be inclined to accept the conclusion
that the present connection between Bosnia and the hated government
of the Osmanlì must be severed; the more so as the geographical
configuration and position of Bosnia—a peninsula connected only with the
rest of Turkey by a narrow neck—make it almost impossible to hold out
against a serious invasion, and put it always at the mercy of foreign
agitators.
Such a revolution may seem an Utopian dream; but when the purely
artificial character of the present government of Bosnia is realized,
it would be an impertinence to the confederate statesmanship of Europe
to suppose that it was unable to effect it. For the moment, however,
the ultimate form of Bosnian government is a question of secondary
importance to the paramount necessity of re-establishing order in that
unhappy land. At the moment that I write this, nearly 3,000 Bosnian
and Herzegovinian villages and scattered hamlets are blackened ruins,
and over 200,000 Christian refugees are starving among the inhospitable
ravines of the Dalmatian Alps. In the interests of humanity, as well as
of European peace, in discharge of responsibilities which no adroitness
of European statesmanship can disavow, an armed occupation of Bosnia by
civilized forces has become indispensable. When the Christian population
of Bosnia have been rescued from the grave that yawns before them, when
the robber bands of fanaticism have been disarmed, and the remnant of the
refugees enabled to return to what were once their homes; then it will be
time for the governments of civilized Europe to turn their energies to
securing the necessary reforms, and to re-establishing the administration
of the country on a sounder basis.
Discordant as are the political materials in Bosnia, fanatic as are
the Christians as well as the Mahometans, I feel convinced that there
exist elements of union in that unhappy country which might be moulded
together by wise hands. The wrongs of the Christians in Bosnia have
been intolerable, and I have shown my abhorrence of the present tyranny
with sufficient emphasis in the course of this book; but I may take
this opportunity of deprecating any sympathy with those who propose to
deal with the Mussulman population of Bosnia in a spirit of Christian
fanaticism. The whole history of Bosnia from the beginning has been
one long commentary on the evils of established religions. Whatever
terms the Great Powers may wish to impose on Bosnia and the Turks, let
England at all events exert her influence against any setting up of an
ecclesiastical tyranny. In the interests of all the warring creeds which
distract the country, let the secular character of the future government
be beyond suspicion. Let an European guarantee secure to the Mahometan
minority of Bosnia the free exercise of their religion and complete
equality before the law, and half the battle of conciliation will have
been won. But let it once be supposed that Greek popes under the tutelage
of Russia, or Franciscan monks under the patronage of the Apostolic
Monarchy which still sets at nought, in Tyrol, the first principles of
religious liberty, are to be allowed to lord it over the true believers;
once encourage the hopes of Christian bigotry and the fears of Islâm, and
the miserable struggle will prolong itself to the bitter end.
So far indeed from the sway of Christian denominationalism being in
any sense possible in Bosnia, it must be frankly admitted, distasteful
as the admission may be to some, that if an autonomous or partially
autonomous state be established, a preponderating share in the
government, saving European control, must for many years remain in the
hands of the Mahometan part of the population. True that much of the
present oppression is due to them; but they are the only class in Bosnia
at present capable of holding the reins of government; they are more
upright, and certainly not more fanatically bigoted, than the Christian
Bosniacs. The weight of hereditary bondage cannot be shaken off in a
day, and the majority of the Christian population are still too ignorant
and cringing to govern their hereditary lords. True, that the Bosniac
Mahometans are a minority; but it must be remembered that the Christians
are divided into two sects, the Greek and the Latin, each of which
regards its rival with greater animosity than the Moslem; nor can there
be any reasonable doubt that, in the event of the establishment of a
representative Assembly, or Bosnian ‘_Sbor_’, the Mahometans would secure
the alliance of the Roman Catholic contingent, and would by this means
obtain a working majority.
European surveillance is in any case an absolute necessity for securing
the introduction of reforms, but there are no other conditions more
favourable to its successful working than those above indicated. To
reinforce the government of the Osmanlì would of all solutions be the
most deplorable. It would be to give a new lease of life to all that
is worst in the present state of Bosnia. It would be a gage of future
anarchy and a perpetuation of corruption. I have far too much confidence
in the shrewdness of the Oriental mind to suppose for a moment that the
desired reforms would not be temporarily introduced under the eyes of
Europe. But the instant that supervision was removed, the instant that
the forces necessary for the enforcements of the reforms were withdrawn,
the Osmanlì government in Bosnia would relapse into what it is at
present,—a foreign bureaucracy, which, powerless to support the Sultan’s
authority against the Conservative opposition of native Mussulmans, is
reduced to pander to it. The old game of playing with the antagonisms of
castes and creeds would be revived, the reforms would disappear one by
one, and the smouldering elements of Christian discontent would once more
burst forth in a conflagration, which might eventually light up the ends
of Europe.
The great difficulty that statesmen have to contend with at the present
moment is how to obtain certain elementary securities for the honour and
property of an oppressed class of ignorant peasants, in the teeth of a
haughty and oppressive ruling caste. To reverse the positions of serf
and lord would be impossible. To bolster up a Christian government in
the country, and after depriving the dominant caste of what it considers
its hereditary dues, and stripping it of part of its possessions, to
place it forcibly beneath the yoke of those whom it despises as slaves
and abominates as idolaters, would need more supervision than Europe
would be willing to accord; nor is it likely that anything short of
perpetual armed occupation would succeed in enforcing such reforms, or in
preventing the prolongation of an exterminating civil war.
It is then of primary necessity to conciliate the Mahometan caste of
landlords and retainers, still hungering for abolished feudal privileges,
and the Mahometan bourgeoisie of the towns, who in days of bureaucratic
centralization sigh for their municipal privileges suppressed by the
Osmanlì. And such a means of reconciling the Mahometan population of
Bosnia to the new order of things can be found,—by sacrificing the
Osmanlì. Turn out the sowers of Bosnian discord. Do not prevent the
Mahometan gentry from taking that position in the country to which by
their territorial possessions, according to English ideas, they are
entitled. Let a native magistracy succeed the satellites of a foreign
bureaucracy; revive the civic institutions of the towns, and the
native Begs and Agas, as well as the descendants of the old municipal
_Starescina_, will be only too glad to come to terms with the Great
Powers.
The dominant caste in this way compensated, European supervision,
of whatever kind, would work with at least a possibility of success
in introducing the necessary reforms; nor, the period of probation
concluded, and European control removed, is there any need for taking
the pessimist view that the government of Bosnia would lapse into the
‘autonomy of a cock-pit.’ In the very nature of things the present
difficulties have brought the worst and most fanatical elements of Bosnia
to the surface, and in face of the ferocious deeds of Bosnian Ahmed Agas
and their feudal train of murderous Bashi Bazouks, the more sensible
and kindly side of Bosnian Mahometanism is liable to be overlooked. I
have already observed that it is wrong for Christians to build too great
expectations on the fact that many of the Mahometan nobles of Bosnia
still preserve some of their old Christian practices, and on occasion
take Franciscan monks as their ghostly advisers. Still the fact remains,
to show that from some points of view they are not irreconcilable, and
that the gulf between Christianity and Islâm is not so wide among the
more educated classes as it is no doubt among the town-rabble. The most
influential Christian in the whole country, Bishop Strossmayer, whose
liberalism commands European esteem, stands on a most friendly footing
with many of the leading Mahometan families in Bosnia, and when he visits
his Bosnian diocese has the satisfaction of seeing true-believers flock
to hear his sermons.[141] The brutal contempt of the Mahometan lord
for the rayah is by no means universal, and even in Herzegovina, he at
times so far conforms to the kindly democratic usage of the race as to
address his Christian serf as _brat_ or brother.[142] A few years ago
the native aristocracy of Bosnia showed by its secret negotiations with
the Serbian government that at a pinch it was not altogether averse to
making common cause with the Giaour. In the rural districts of Bosnia and
the Herzegovina religious animosity has never been so embittered as in
the towns. I have myself seen the tombs of the departed Christians and
the departed Moslems of a Herzegovinian village gathered together in the
same God’s acre, and separated only by a scarcely perceptible path. In
many parts the Mahometan peasants have suffered almost as much oppression
as their Christian neighbours, and during the present insurrection
there have been instances in which they have made common cause with the
Christian rayah.
If this religious antagonism can once be overcome, there seem to be
many hopeful elements left us even in Bosnia. The temperament of the
Southern Sclaves is preëminently kindly and easy-going, and nothing
but the interested wiles of the Osmanlì, to whom Bosnian union meant
his own expulsion, could have checked the development of a spirit of
toleration. We have in Bosnia a common language and a common national
character born of the blood; and that national character, whatever may
be said to the contrary, is not prone to revolution. It is slow, it is
stubborn, it is not easily roused, and it possesses a fund of common
sense which has led a keen French observer to compare the Serbian genius
with the English.[143] The Bosniacs are of a temperament admirably fitted
for parliamentary government, and what is more, owing to their still
preserving the relics of the free institutions of the primitive Sclaves,
they are familiar with its machinery. In their family-communities, in
their village councils, the first principles of representative government
are practised every day. Orderly government once established by the
commanding influence which powerful neighbours could exercise for
pacification if they chose, the development of the natural resources of
the country would follow as a matter of course. I have elsewhere alluded
to the fact that, besides supplying the Romans and the Ragusans in the
Middle Ages with incalculable wealth of gold and silver, the Bosnian
mountains are known to contain some of the richest veins of quicksilver
in Europe; that iron and other ores are abundant, and that the valley of
the principal river is one vast coal-bed. All these sources of wealth
and prosperity, and consequent civilization, are at present, as I show
elsewhere, inaccessible, owing simply to the corruption of Stamboul.
Besides such decentralizing reforms in the provincial constitution as
connect themselves with the discontinuance of the direct government of
the Osmanlì, it may be well to cite some of the more obvious measures
necessary to secure the order and well being of Bosnia. The present
insurrection, as I have been at some pains to point out, was in its
origin mainly agrarian, and no reform can be satisfactory which does
not secure the tiller of the soil a certain portion of it for himself.
The intolerance of all classes of the Bosnian population is the natural
offspring of the gross ignorance in which they are steeped, and it must
be confessed that the want of education is largely due to the clerical
character of the schools where they exist and to the malign teachings
of _odium theologicum_. ‘The result of the present system,’ says a
recent observer, ‘is evident and it is fatal. The Greek children under
the Higumen, the Catholics under the Franciscan priest, the Mussulmans
under the Ulema, go to school to learn to hate each other, and in fact
this is the only lesson which as men they take care to remember.’[144]
That a certain part of the revenues of the province should be set apart
for education of a purely secular kind is a crying necessity, and the
establishment of high schools at Serajevo, Travnik, Banjaluka, Mostar,
and other large towns under the auspices of the University of Agram,
but equally secular in their character, might be suggested as a good
way of remedying the want of higher culture. For the moral, as well as
the material, elevation of the rayahs of the Greek Church it is of the
highest importance that they should be liberated from the corrupt rule
of the Fanariote hierarchy, and it might be well to revive the national
Sclavonic patriarchate, not at Ipek but at Serajevo. To foster the
development of the great resources of the country, greater facilities for
obtaining concessions of mines should be accorded to foreign capitalists;
the completion of the Bosnian railway, and its junction with Roumelian
and Serbian lines, should be secured; and measures should be taken to
overcome the selfish financial policy of Austria, which shuts off Bosnia
and Herzegovina from the only two seaports, the narrow enclaves of Klek
and Sutorina, which still remain to them.
A few vigorous strokes like these levelled by the united strength of
Europe at the ignorance, bigotry, and industrial depression of this
unhappy land, could not long be without their result. It is a mistake
to suppose that Islâm really opposes itself to culture; and were the
means of obtaining a liberal education, free from the taint of Christian
bigotry, placed within the reach of the Mahometan Begs and burghers,
there is no reason to suppose that they would refuse their sons the
benefit of it.
On the whole, however, it is safe to assume that the influx of Western
civilization into Bosnia would tend to strengthen the Christian
element. The fatalistic temper of the Mahometan dominant caste cripples
their commercial energies. As the natural resources of the country
were developed, wealth would fall more and more into the hands of
the Christians, and the balance of political power would infallibly
incline in their favour. In the course of a generation they might
assume the reins of government, which, as I have pointed out, in
spite of their numerical superiority, they are at present incapable
of holding. The way would thus be paved for a closer union with the
Christian border-provinces of kindred blood, Serbia and Montenegro,
and Bosnia might ultimately form a province of a great South-Sclavonic
confederation, extending from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, which should
act as a constitutional bulwark against the encroaching despotism of the
North.
To suppose that the freedom of the Sclaves of the South, of the Bosniacs,
the Serbs of Old Serbia, and Bulgarians, will, when accomplished—and
sooner or later there is no doubt that it must be accomplished—add to
the strength of Russia, because in language they are somewhat similar,
is as if anyone should have opposed the liberation and unity of Italy on
the score that it would be aggrandizing France. If the French ever had
designs on Rome they are infinitely less likely to arrive at them now
than when an Austrian Archduke governed in Lombardy, and Bomba ruled at
Naples. Granted that the Russians have designs on Constantinople, are
they more likely to gain it from a decrepit Power which can scarcely hold
its own provinces, or from a new Power or Powers endued with all the
vigour of young nationality? To leave a country like Bosnia, isolated
from the rest of Turkey, surrounded by free States, to perpetuate
agitation within its borders, is only to weaken what remains of Turkey,
and to play into the hands of Russia. Cousinship is not always a gage of
amity; and the day, perhaps, is not far distant when the Sclavonic races
of the Balkan Peninsula will look upon Russia as their most insidious
foe.
BOSNIA AND THE HERZEGÓVINA.
CHAPTER I.
AGRAM AND THE CROATS.
Slovenization in Styria—Regrets of a Prussian—Agram—Her
Sclavonic Features, Hero, Art, and Architecture—Flowers
of the Market-place—Croatian Costume—Prehistoric Ornament
and Influence of Oriental Art—South Sclavonic Crockery,
Jewelry, and Musical Instruments—Heirlooms from Trajan or
Heraclius?—Venice and Croatia—Croatian Gift of Tongues—Lost
in the Forest—A Bulgarian Colony—On to Karlovac—The Welsh of
Croatia—Croatian Characteristics—Karlovac Fair—On the Outposts
of Christendom.
As the train from Vienna descends into the valley of the Drave a change
becomes perceptible in the scattered cottages and hamlets that fly
past us. The dark wooden chalets of the Semmering valleys, that recall
Salzburg and Tyrol and more distant Scandinavia, give place to meaner
huts, less roomy, lower, paler, more rectangular. Rich maroon-brown beams
that seem to have grown up with the pines around, dark projecting eaves
that overhang the time-stained fronts as the shadowy fir-branches the
primeval trunks—all these give place to wattle and daub and chilling
whitewash. The eaves are now less prominent; but if the houses are
comparatively browless, there is a pair of window eyelets under the
trilateral gable, and their physiognomy is recognised at once. These
are the huts you have seen far away on the Sclavonic outskirts of
Hungary. You have seen them dotted about Bohemia and the sandy plains
of Prussia; you have seen them magnified and embellished into the old
palaces of Prague. As we approach Marburg we are entering in truth
on another world—a Sclavonic tongue begins to be heard around. Those
mountain-chalets were the high water mark of the Germanic sea.
For the tide has turned. Marburg, a few years ago reckoned a German
town, is now almost entirely Slovenized. The tradesmen—nay, the
well-to-do classes themselves—speak Slovene in preference to German.
A fellow-traveller told me that since the Austro-Prussian war Slovene
instead of German had become the language of the schools. Cut off from
her German aspirations, the Austrian Government has seen the necessity
of making friends with the Sclavonic Mammon; and, as she distrusts those
members of the race who, like the Czechs and Croats, cherish memories of
independent kingship, her statesmen have cast about them for a Sclavonic
race free from any misguiding ‘Kronen-tradition,’ and have consequently
been exalting the horn of the Slovenes, who inhabit Southern Styria and
parts of Carinthia and Carniola, at the expense of the Germans of the
towns, and partly even of the Carniolan Wends, whose language is akin to
the Slovene. The painful impression produced by this turn of the tables
on the Germans—who look on Austria as a mere warming-pan for themselves
in Eastern Europe—is amusingly betrayed by a recent Prussian traveller,
Maurer, who visited Marburg in 1870. ‘Another ten years,’ says he, ‘and
Marburg will be as Slovenish as its immediate surroundings.... It was
extremely painful to me (äusserst peinlich) to see the children at
Steinbrück going to or coming from school with books in which the text
and objects were Slovene; although these little ones, even the smallest
of them, had our language at their fingers’-end so completely that they
seemed never to have spoken any other.... We must not spare ourselves
the realisation of the bitter truth that the greater part of Styria and
Carinthia, and the whole of Carniola, Gorizia, Gradisca, and Istria, with
the avenue to the Adriatic, are lost to us. Even supposing the whole
of Southern Germany to have been fused with Northern, and the German
element in Austria either under compulsion or of its free will to have
followed the already torn away Bohemia and Moravia’—(the Berliner looks
on the annexation of the Czech kingdom as a mere work of time)—‘even
then we should have neither the might nor the right—though it matters
less about the right (!)—to break forcibly through Illyria to the
Adriatic. And yet our dreaminess and disregard of the facts before us
made us look on Trieste and these former lands of the German Bund as our
inheritance.’[145]—These poor Prussians!
But the Slovenes are left behind—as the train hurries along the willowed
valley of the Save we find ourselves among a population less European
in its dress, and soon arrive at Agram, the capital of Croatia, where
we discover a fair hotel in the High Street. The aspect of the town at
once strikes the stranger as other than German. What are these long, low,
rectangular houses but slightly enlarged reproductions of the Sclavonic
cottage? Here is the same pervading pallor, the twin eyelet windows,
circular here, and pierced in the trilateral gables like owl-holes in an
old barn. The gables themselves—more modest than the generality of those
in Teutonic towns—seem to shrink from facing the street. Outside some of
the older houses is to be seen a wooden gallery, festooned perhaps with
flowers and creepers, on to which the room-doors open—it strikes one as
an approach to the Turkish verandah, the Divanhané. The headings over the
shops are almost entirely Sclavonic. Brilliant, quite Oriental, are the
stores where the gay Croatian costumes are hung out to tempt the passing
peasant. Picturesque are the windows, shut in by foliated bars and
gratings of efflorescent ironwork; strange, too, the doors and shutters,
crossed diagonally by iron bars of really artistic merit, decked at the
point of intersection by a heraldic rose, and the limbs of the Maltese
cross terminating in graceful fleurs-de-lys. Not that the object of all
these is primarily ornament. These quadruple bolts and locks, these
massive hinges and the holdfasts by them inside, which fit into sockets
as in our safes, and so prevent the door from being burst open by hacking
through the hinges from without—all these tell a different story. They
speak of times when the streets of Agram were not so secure as at present.
[Illustration: Croatian Clothes-shop, Agram.]
On an eminence rises the cathedral and spacious palace of the bishop,
enclosed, like so many churches of Sclavonic lands, in old walls with
round, cone-peaked towers—a southern Kremlin. Just below it is the
market-place, and in its centre the equestrian statue of the national
hero, the Ban Jellachitj, the poet-warrior who in the days of the Magyar
revolution led his Croats against their national enemy, and saved the
Austrian police-state when its fortunes were at their lowest ebb. He is
dressed in the picturesque hussar uniform of his country, with flowing
mantle and high-plumed cap, riding northwards on his pedestal, and
pointing his sword forwards towards the scenes of his triumphs over the
Magyars.
The town is divided into three parts, the lower town in which is the
market-place and main street, the height on which the cathedral stands,
and the upper town on which rise many large houses inhabited by the
resident bureaucracy, where is the Diet-hall, the Ban’s house and the
Museum, and looking down from whose airy terraces you see the lower town
stretched out like a straggling village below you, and are reminded
of the view of Buda from its Acropolis. The cathedral, in spite of
its bulwark of fortifications, has suffered much from the Turks, who
destroyed it, they say, three times; and inside from its own bishops,
who have defaced the gothic nave and aisles with whitewash and monstrous
Jesuitic shrines. Its exterior is, however, still partly fretted with
old stone panel-work, which recalls the Tudor ornamentation on the
schools of Oxford. From the top of the square tower expands a beautiful
panoramas—the silvery Save and its rich valley—the distant Bosnian
mountains fading into the blue sky; and in the other direction the dark
forest-covered heights of the Slema Vrh, which have given Agram her
Sclavonic name Zagreb—‘beyond the rocks.’ Except the cathedral, and
the finely-carved façade of the Marcus church, there are no buildings
of beauty or interest. The Ban’s residence was so completely devoid of
architectural pretensions, and so indistinguishable from the houses
round, that we should not have noticed it, but for a large black flag
thrust forth from one of its windows in honour of old Kaiser Ferdinand
the ‘good-natured.’ As is too generally the case in Hungary, the people
of Agram are far behind in æsthetic culture; the pictures in the Academy
here are few and curiously bad, and the one good painting was not by
a native, but a Czech artist. The Agramers, however, seem to have the
good taste to appreciate this, and photographic copies are to be seen in
the shop windows; rather, perhaps, owing to South Sclavonic patriotism,
than to respect for high art. The picture represents the funeral of a
Montenegrine Voivode or leader, whose body is being borne along a gloomy
mountain gorge from the battle-field; and the grandeur of the lifeless
hero, the dark, almost Italian look of the weeping clanspeople, are
executed with great fidelity to Czernagoran nature.
But living pictures, more artistic than the bronze statue of the Ban,
more graceful than the weeping Montenegrines, are around us here. The
market-place is a spacious studio. The beauty of the Croatian peasant
costume is almost unique in Europe—possibly only rivalled at Belgrade.
Seen from above, when the market-place is thronged, it looks almost
like a bed of red and white geraniums; it is these prevailing colours
which give the peasant groups a lightness and brilliancy which I have
seen nowhere else. What is remarkable is, that this brightness should be
shared in such equal proportions by men and women alike. In Serbia—even
in Turkey—the men are not so gay. The head-dress of the Serbian women
is perhaps at times more elegant—the colours of their dress are often
more varied; but what, after all, is a nosegay without a sufficiency of
white flowers? In the Agram market-place, not only the colours, but the
very materials, might have been chosen by an artist. What, indeed, is
the tissue of these diaphanous chemises and undulating kerchiefs, but
the mull muslin of our lay-figures? The women are, moreover, possessed
of such a faculty for throwing themselves into picturesque attitudes
that one would think they had a drop of Gipsy blood in their veins. In
such drapery, with such instincts, such taste in colours, what need have
they of novel modes?—they who have not yet improved away their form by
cuirasses of millinery—they who have none of the heavy shrouds of colder
climes to muffle them—whose simple fashions every breath of wind has
an art to change! The faces, too, are rarely vulgar; these are not the
coarse hoydens of a North-German market-place—on their features, in
their demeanour, one would fancy that many of them have inherited the
refinements of an older civilization; some soft Italian element, come
perhaps by way of Venice, descended perhaps from the old Roman cities of
these parts.
The head-dresses of these village ladies are varied, for every hamlet
has its speciality of costume. On some, from St. Ivan, the transparent
white kerchief falls about the bust and shoulders lightly as a bridal
veil; on others it takes a rosier hue, and is known as the _Rubac_. On
others, again, as those from Zagoria—who will have it that they are
great grand-daughters of Avars—it is drawn backwards over a long silver
pin, stuck horizontally across the hair, and depends over the back till
its variegated border and long fringe sweep the girdle. Seen from the
front this coiffure recalls that of the _Contadine_ of the Romagna.
In the summer months these peasants rarely put on their fur-fringed
mantles, which resemble those of Serb and Slavonian; sometimes they
wear a scarcely perceptible vest, but usually the sole covering of arms
and torso is simply a light homespun tunic with loose flowing sleeves
confined towards the wrist and then expanding again. In place of a
skirt they generally wear two wide overlapping aprons, one before and
one behind, which in a gale of wind may afford occasional studies for a
Bacchante! and over the front one of these hangs a narrower apron starred
with red asterisks, crossed by little zigzagging patterns, or by light
transversal bands of rose and lilac. But enough of such pallid hues! The
pride of their toilette is a brilliant crimson scarf, the _Pojas_, wound
round the waist, some of the folds of which are at times loosened and
hang down over the front apron in a graceful sling or outside pouch. Nor
does a single kirtle content them, magnificent as this is. Amongst all
the Illyrian Sclaves, south as well as north of the Save, I have noticed
this peculiarity, that they wear the two kirtles of classic antiquity.
Besides the zone round the waist, a bright scarlet fillet—the _Strophion_
of ancient nymphs and goddesses—is wound just below the bosom, and is
fastened with a bow in front as on the Thalia or Euterpè of the Vatican.
[Illustration: Croat Woman in the Agram Market.]
Round their necks hangs an array of what politeness would have me call
coral necklaces. Occasionally they wear silver ear-rings, silver
pendants on their breast, and rings on their fingers; but of gold and
silver jewelry they possess less than their neighbours beyond the Save;
the reason of this being the general absence of specie in the country,
which prevents them from studding their hair and tunic with glittering
coins—a habit which in Serbia alone withdraws some three-quarters
of a million from the currency. Many of them, especially the girls,
divide their hair into two long plaits, the ends of which they tie up
with brilliant ribbons; for the twin pigtails of maidenhood are far
more characteristically Sclave than German, and may be traced among
the Russians far away to the White Sea—indeed, this may well be one
of the tokens which betray the Sclavonic origin of so many soi-disant
Germans. For boots the Croat ladies either wear a curious kind of
sandal called _Opanka_, common to the men as well throughout the whole
Illyrian triangle, and not unlike the ancient Egyptian, made of gay
leather, red and yellow; or, must it be confessed?—they sometimes buskin
themselves in high-heeled Wellingtons! and though their aprons—one cannot
conscientiously speak of skirts—do not reach much below the knees, these
martial casings can hardly be looked on as a concession to prudery, for
after all they generally prefer to go about with feet and ankles in the
most graceful costume of all—that of Eden!
[Illustration: CROATIAN TYPES.
ST. IVAN. VLACH WOMAN FROM SLUIN. WOMAN AND CHILD FROM DRAGANIĆ. ZAGORJA.
VLACH MAN FROM SLUIN. SISZEK. MAN FROM NEAR AGRAM. LITTLE GIRL FROM
DOROPOLJA.]
To mention such very gorgeous gentlemen after the ladies really seems to
require some apology. Imagine some exotic insect—how else can the subject
be approached?—with forewings of dazzling gauzy white and underwings
of scarlet. The white tunic expands like wings about the arms, and
flutters from them in folds of gossamer; the bright scarlet vest—the
_Laibek_—studded like some butterfly with silver stars, is lightly closed
over the abdomen. These bright metallic knobs are generally arranged
crozier-wise in front, and on one side of the vest is a small pocket just
big enough to catch the corner of a rosy handkerchief—the same with which
the women are coifed—which on highdays hangs down and floats like a sash
about the flanks. A belt of varied leather-mosaic, called the _Remen_,
quaintly patterned like the Wallack belts, but not so broad, grasps
the tunic round the waist; and below this the tunic opens out again in
flowing petticoats, which often reach below the knees, but hardly to the
ankles, as those of some Syrmian peasants. A similar but narrower strip
of leather round the shoulder serves to suspend a woollen wallet of the
brightest scarlet tufted over with tassels; this supplies the want of
pockets, and is the inseparable companion of the Croat, insomuch that
every little boy is provided with a miniature _Torba_, as it is called.
Below the tunic expand loose trousers of the same homespun muslin,
flowing as those of the Phrygians of old or the Dacians of Trajan’s
Column, and sometimes terminating in a handsome fringe. The feet are
either shod with _Opankas_ or with Wellingtons, as the women’s, but are
more rarely bare.
When the weather is chilly, or when they are particularly desirous of
showing themselves off, a superb mantle—the _Surina_—is cast over the
shoulders, of a light yellowish ground-colour, decked with red, green,
or orange embroidery, sometimes of the most artistic devices. Sometimes
they are brown relieved with brilliant scarlet; but the real red mantles,
ground and all, occur only in the western regiments or divisions of the
Military Frontier, models of which are to be seen in the interesting
collection of national costumes in the Agram Museum, so that the old
German name for the Croats, _Rothmäntel_—‘Red-mantles’—is hardly
applicable to the whole race. There is another word to which Croatian
costume is said to have given birth with still less apparent foundation.
You may search the market-places in vain for anything approaching a
‘_cravat_,’ which is usually derived from _Krabaten_ or _Kravaten_, a
broad-Dutch word for Croats. But the high collars of these Croat mantles
may well have originated the word, though the signification from the
first seems rather to have been a bandage round the collar, or in place
of the collar, than the collar itself. For the fact that the word really
was taken from the Croats we have the evidence of Ménage, who lived at
the time of their first introduction into France. He says: ‘On appelle
_cravate_ ce linge blanc qu’on entortille à l’entour du cou, dont les
deux bouts pendent par devant; lequel linge tient lieu de collet. Et
on l’appelle de la sorte à cause que nous avions emprunté cette sorte
d’ornement des Croates, qu’on appelle ordinairement Cravates. Et ce
fut en 1636 que nous prismes cette sorte de collet des Cravates par le
commerce que nous eusmes en ce tans-là en Allemagne au sujet de la guerre
que nous avions avec l’Empereur.’ They are first mentioned in England
by Skinner, who died in 1667, who speaks of them as a fashion lately
introduced by travellers and soldiers. In Hudibras they are made to serve
as halters.[146]
Certainly the most European part of the present Croatian costume is the
black felt-hat, which oscillates between our broad-brim and what is
vulgarly known as a ‘pork-pie;’ but then the brim is used as a receptacle
for vasefuls of flowers, and is often surmounted by waving plumes, so any
such work-a-day resemblances are soon forgotten. Then there is another
variety of hat made of straw, with a conical peak, which recalls a more
distant parallel. When a Croat wears one of these, and perchance, as he
often does,[147] having doffed his belt, goes about in his long flowing
tunic and broad petticoat-like breeks, an uncomfortable feeling comes
over you that you have seen him before; and when you have searched the
remotest crannies of Europe in vain for his like, it suddenly flashes
upon you that it is no other than John Chinaman who stands before you!
Yes; there are the very peaks to his boots; there is the beardless face,
the long pendulous moustache, and in old days, when—as you may see by a
picture in the Museum—the Croat wore a pigtail, as his Dalmatian brothers
do still, a Celestial meeting him might have mistaken him for his double!
The patterns on these various articles of attire are striking in
character; they are hieroglyphics, hard to decipher, but long household
annals are written in them. I take it that pure ornament, as opposed to
imitation of natural forms, has gone through two stages of development,
which may be called the ‘Angular’ and the ‘Curved,’ of which the angular
precedes the curved, and stands to it in much the same relation as Roman
letters stand to current writing. During the Stone Age in Europe this
angular ornamentation seems universally to have prevailed. It continued
during the earlier Bronze Age, but towards its close the second phase
of ornamentation began to develope itself in some countries, and we of
the Iron Age have seen the old angular ornamentation almost supplanted
by its offspring. At the present day, one European people—the Lapps of
the extreme north—may still be said to remain almost in the first stage
of ornament; the hardness of their materials, the bone and wood on which
they mostly work, their little employment of metals and pottery, their
seclusion from the current of European civilization, have conspired to
keep them back. But it is more remarkable that a people of a more central
European area, and a more prolific land, should still linger on in the
transitionary stage between the old and new styles of decoration. Yet,
as far as my observation goes, this is the case with the Croats, and
generally with the Sclavonians of the south. They seem to be acquainted
with the beauty of the new style, but to cling with a peculiar fondness
to the angular ornamentation of their ruder forefathers. Thus, in the
women’s clothes, at least, nearly the whole of the embroidery is of
this prehistoric kind. The high collars of the Croat mantles, which
resemble those of the Lapps in form, resemble them also in pattern.
Many of the Croat women’s girdles are almost identical in pattern with
those I have seen among the Lapps of Lake Enare. In the Museum is to be
seen a large and curious collection of Croatian needlework, all of this
angular pattern—crosses, and lines, and zigzags. Here are also to be seen
carpets of rude character wrought by the homely looms of Slavonia, which
are curious illustrations of the perfection of the old style—complex as
the patterns are, they are all square or angled, and might any of them
be models for a mosaic pavement; their colours are green, red, yellow,
and white, less usually purple, and dark blue. But what is strange,
is to find side by side with these rude shapes the secondary form of
decoration in a highly developed state. The curved style of embroidery,
as it appears on some of the men’s mantles—and it is noteworthy that
it is confined almost exclusively to the men’s attire—is often a real
work of art, and the elaborate pear-shaped forms which it frequently
takes suggest the rich tendrillings of a Cashmere shawl. So abrupt is
the leap from the ruder kind of ornament generally used, that these
_chefs-d’œuvre_ of curvature seem to be rather importations from without,
than flowers of home growth. Nor does it seem difficult to trace their
origin, for they are very often reproductions of the decorations which
appear on the costly vests and jackets of the Turks. They are seedlings
from Stamboul—less directly, from Byzantium.
As in ornament so in general character, the Croatian dress resembles
that of all the Southern Sclaves, including the Roumans of Transylvania
and Wallachia, who, for ethnological purposes, may be looked on as
a Latinized branch of the family. In parts, indeed, it has been
Orientalized by the Turks; and it is noteworthy that just as the men’s
costume in Croatia shows the Oriental influence in ornament, so in
Serbia, Dalmatia, and the lands beyond the Save and Danube, it is the
men’s costume that makes the chief advances towards the Turkish. It is
possibly a symptom of the almost Oriental seclusion of those who have
to dread Oriental license. Often, when the husbands dress in completely
Turkish fashion, the wives preserve almost unaltered the old national
costumes; and it is owing to this, that throughout the whole South
Sclavonic area, enough of the original dress has survived to show the
common sisterhood of all. And of all, the Croat costume seems to be
the best representative of the old Serb—of the Sclavonic costume as it
existed in the days of the great Czar, Stephen Dūshan. Almost everywhere
else the men’s costume, at least, has suffered from Turkish influences.
Here, far better than in free Serbia, is the description applied to the
Serb laity in the old laws—the ‘dressers in white,’ still applicable to
the Croat men. At Belgrade it would be a meaningless epithet; at Agram
it is still true. The Croats, too, with their fine mantles and flowing
trouser and tunic, approach nearer to the primitive type of all—to the
soldiers of Decebalus—to the sculptures on the Column of Trajan—if indeed
we are to believe that the old Dacians were of Sarmatian stock.
The same South Sclavonic unity is apparent if we examine the pots and
pans which these old-world peasants are selling in the market-place.
There is hardly a form here which I do not remember in Wallachia,
in Bulgaria, in Serbia. But it may reasonably be asked, whether the
barbarous Serb races who settled in the Danubian basin in the fifth and
succeeding centuries could have brought with them such an array of highly
finished crockery as we see before us here? These narrow lofty necks
and luxurious handles are surely not an inheritance from fifth-century
savages. We do not find such among our Anglo-Saxon remains, nor even
among the relics of the more polished Franks. We must search amongst
Roman sepultures if we could find such in our own island, and indeed
this gives the clue to their origin even here. They have come to the
Sclaves of the South from a common source—the Eastern Roman Empire. Like
the coinage, like the rich architecture of the old Serbian Empire,
they betray Byzantine influences. The most conspicuous instance of
this is the _Stutza_ or _Stutchka_, as the Croats call it. This I have
seen myself nationalized and adopted by Wallacks, Bulgarians, Serbs,
Bosniacs, and Turks, over an area extending from the mouths of the Danube
to the Adriatic, and from the mountains of Bosnia to the Carpathians,
varying slightly at times in hue or form, but essentially the same. In
parts, even the original Roman word seems to have been preserved. In the
Bosnian mountains I found them still called _Testja_—doubtless the Roman
_Testa_.[148] This survival of the Roman vessel is shared by the western
part of the empire. The same shaped pot turns up in Spain and Portugal.
It is common to South Italy, and to this day large quantities of these
vessels are manufactured in Apulia and exported to the coast cities of
Dalmatia. I have seen Roman pots of this type dug up near Bucharest, at
Salona in Dalmatia, and at Siszek in Croatia, almost identical in shape
with those sold every day in the market-places of the respective modern
towns; and perhaps the best proof I can give of their likeness is, that
on showing a picture of one from Roman Siscia to a Croatian countryman,
he recognized it at once, and exclaimed ‘Stutza! Stutza!’ a name confined
here to this peculiar kind of vessel. A kind of earthenware drinking-cup,
which occurs in still ruder forms in Wallachia, is known here as _Scafa_,
which is almost identical with the Greek word for a bowl, σκάφη. To
call a _scaphé_ a _scaphé_, was the Greek equivalent for calling a spade
a spade; so the Croats at any rate can hardly be accused of not doing
that. _Scaphé_ is allied to another Greek word, _Scyphos_, signifying a
cup, and common to the Latins, insomuch that one felt inclined to quote
Horace’s lines to too bibulous Croats:—
Natis in usum lætitiæ Scyphis
Pugnare Thracum est.
[Illustration: Roman and Croatian Pottery.]
The other name by which this cup is known to the Croats and Illyrian
Sclaves, _Scalica_, is equally classical, and will recall at once the
Latin _Calicem_ and the Greek κύλικα. In form it has indeed degenerated
from the goblets of Olympus! but one need not despair of tracing its
pedigree from their graceless Roman corruptions. As to the Chalice of our
own and the Romance languages, though it is more like the classic _Calix_
in shape, it is not like these a living popular development, but, with
its name, a mere church introduction, a fragment of antiquity mewed up
for us in ecclesiastical reliquaries.
The other vessels to be found in the Croatian crockery-markets, if they
do not both in shape and name so obviously betray Roman influences, at
least in nearly every case bear witness to the common character of South
Sclavonic civilization. There is hardly a shape in the Agram market which
may not be found again at Belgrade or Bucharest.
[Illustration: Croatian Pottery.
1. Lónac (black-ware milk or water jug). 2. Péhar (reddish-yellow, for
wine, &c.). 3. Dúlčec (green glazed ware, for water, &c.). 4. Tégel
(brown with white bands). 5. Vessel used in Slavonia for slow boiling
(black ware). 6. Cylindrical jar, Slavonia. 7. Zamaclo (bright green
glaze). 8. Lid of same. 9, 10. Svična, or Čereapac, lamp and candle.
11. Whistle in form of a bird. 12. Scafa, or Scalica, drinking-goblet.
13. Dish, or plate (Zdillica, reddish ware with patterns inside). 14.
Earthenware sieve. 15. Raindl, or Raina, for cooking (red ware). 16.
Croatian glass. 17. Flašica. 18. Earthenware hand-stove (Rengla).]
If we pursue this science of the market-place and examine the rude
jewelry which the Agram maidens are wearing, or the musical instruments
which the countrymen have stuck into their belts or slung round their
shoulders, we are again struck by this double evidence of South Sclavonic
solidarity and the influence of Greco-Roman civilization. There are some
ancient Croatian brooches in the Museum at Agram on which is to be seen
the same filagree-work—the pyramids of grains, the spiral tendrillings,
which turn up again on other gold and silver ornaments—Frankish, Norse,
and Anglo-Saxon—and proclaim the common late-Roman origin of all. Like
those of our old English barrows, these brooches are bossed with gems set
in raised sockets. But here, unlike in England, this kind of work seems
never to have died out; it is perpetuated still in the ear-rings, studs,
and brooches of the modern Croats. The same Byzantine style reappears
among Serbs and Roumans, and we shall find it again among the Bosnian
mountains.
But how strangely classic are the musical instruments of the Croats!
What visions of bucolic shepherds, of fauns and dancing satyrs; what
memories of idyllic strains do they call up! Can it be merely that we
are overlooking the same Arcadian kind of life that the Greek poet might
have surveyed when he strolled forth beyond the walls of Syracuse? Is
‘the oaten stop and pastoral song’ the same, simply because the Croat
shepherd of the Save-lands is in the same stage of civilization as
was the rural Greek? Or are the pipes and lutes before us actually
heirlooms from the very shepherds of whom Theocritus piped on the thymy
pastures of Hybla?—the same with which Thyrsis and Corydon contended
on the green banks of the Mincius? It really almost seemed so. I asked
a countryman the name of his pipe, and to my amazement his reply was
_Fistjela_. The man did not understand a word of Latin, but this seemed
a very good attempt at _Fistula_, the pastoral pipe of the Romans, the
very instrument which Thyrsis vowed to hang on the sacred pine. The
old Pan’s pipe,[149] however, was a series of reeds waxed on to a stem
in decreasing order, while this was a single reed, though more often a
wooden pipe. It was also known as _Fuškola_.[150] Then there are the
double pipes, the Roman _Tibiæ_. A slight development has indeed taken
place. Instead of being held separate in the mouth, their ends are joined
by a mouth-piece. The V has become a Y, that is all. They are also
like the double pipes of classic times in being, as the ancients have
it, ‘male and female,’ for the number of holes being uneven in the two
branches—four in one and three in the other—one barrel is shriller than
the other, and their blended notes may still be called, as they were by
the Greeks, ‘married piping.’[151] Their name is _Svirala_, but in parts
of Serbia _Diplé_, which is evidently Greek; and yet if their origin can
be traced back to Hellenic times, it can be traced further back still to
the double pipes of the Theban monument, on which the Egyptian ladies of
Moses’ time are seen playing to their God Ptah.
Next, the Croats have a rude kind of flute possessed of the same Romance
name _Fluta_, the Wallachian Flaute, the Italian Flauto; and lastly,
the favourite instrument of all—the _Tamburica_, a simple form of lute
with a straight neck and oval body, and four strings, or rather wires.
Its name seems connected with the Persian drum or Tambûr; though in
form, but for its extra chord, it is almost an exact reproduction of the
three-stringed lute, the Nefer, which Thoth, their Mercury, is said to
have given to the Egyptians, which dates back at least to the time when
the Second Pyramid was built, which was handed on by the Egyptians to the
Phœnicians and Greeks, who knew it as Nafra and Pandoura, under which
name they gave it to the Romans.[152] Among the Latin peoples of the
West, at least, it never died out, and though at times changing its form
it has given the Italians their Pandora, the French their Mandore, the
Spaniards their Bandurria and Bandole,[153] and even to us our Bandoline
and—horresco referens!—the Banjo. Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s description of
the Egyptian Nefer will almost answer to describe the Croatian Tamburitza
of to-day. It had, he tells us, ‘a long flat neck and hollow oval body,
either wholly of wood or covered with parchment, having the upper surface
perforated with holes to allow the sound to escape. Over this body and
the whole length of the handle were stretched three strings of cat-gut,
secured at the upper extremity either by the same number of pegs or by
passing through a hole in the handle.’
[Illustration: Outlines of Croatian Musical Instruments.
1, 2. Fistjela, or whistles. 3, 4. Svirala. 5, 6, 7. Tamburica. 8, 9.
Fluta.]
It would be easy to show that the conical-shaped baskets, the _Corpa_,
which the Croat countryman on p. 4 has in his hand, is as like the Roman
_Corbis_ in form as it is in name, and may claim sisterhood with the
_Corbella_ of the Campanian peasant of to-day. Some even of the windows
of Agram have a Roman air, for in several upper-storeys and outhouses, to
save glass, they are provided with a heavy unglazed plate tracery of an
angular kind, which is an exact reproduction of the Roman tracery, to be
seen, for example, in the Amphitheatre of Pola in Istria.
[Illustration: Outline of Tracery.]
It is hard to say how far these various reproductions of antique forms
may be due to the earlier Roman or more Byzantine empire; how far they
may be waifs from the wrecks of Siscia or Sirmium; how far filtered in
from that later Constantinople which gave the old Serbs their religion
and the model of their empire. We know that the traces of the more purely
Roman empire, which embraced the old Dacia, Pannonia, and Illyricum,
have not entirely perished, for its language lives still among the
Roumans of the Carpathian and Danubian plains, among the Tzintzars of
Mount Pindus, and never died out in the coast cities of Dalmatia. The
Latin population, though reduced to the condition of shepherds, may yet
have prevailed to introduce some of their arts among their Sclavonic
conquerors. To this day the Tzintzars of the Macedonian mountains assert
their technical superiority to the races round in the practice of the
art of wood-carving. Considering the preservation of such Latin words as
Testja, or Fistjela, or Korpa, we may perhaps be justified in assuming
that many of the homely arts we see before us are rather the direct
inheritance from Trajan than from Heraclius. Nor must the influence of
the Venetians in Croatia be forgotten; for these kept open, in mediæval
and later times, the old trade-route between the Adriatic and the Danube,
opened out long before by their prototypes the Aquilejans.[154] To
them probably is due the small wooden cask, the Croatian _Baril_, the
Italian _Barile_; but one evident trace of Venice is to be found in the
glass-works which exist at Samobor in Croatia, and in the heart of the
deep oak forests of Slavonia. The name _Flašica_, of the glass bottles,
may be formed from the Italian _Fiasco_, _Flascon_, and the forms of
the rude beakers and the prettily rippled Croatian flasks are true
Venetian—light, roughly blown, and of Roman bottle-green. In Dalmatia the
importation of similar rude glass vessels still continues from the small
Venetian island of Murano—the seat of the famed glass-works of old. But
even these Venetian forms are, less directly, but another inheritance
from Rome.
In modern times we must not forget the activity of the new Queen of
the Adriatic, ‘la bella Trieste,’ the Austrian successor of the great
republic, nor the Italian seaport of Hungary, Fiume, connected now
with the interior by rail as well as by the magnificent Louisa-way; so
that, with the old Venetian influences, we have plenty to account for
the presence of a considerable Italian ingredient in the population
of Agram and Croatia generally. For anyone here unacquainted with
Croatian, Italian, not German, is the best means of communication. The
Styrian mountains seem to form a shed between the areas of German and
Italian influences, and besides, the Croats, like the Czechs, feel a
certain jealousy of the German language which they do not experience
of the Italian. Many of the high officials here show, by their names
or features, an Italian descent. The military governor of Croatia is
a Signor Mollinary; the director of telegraphs, whose acquaintance we
were pleased to make, has an Italian, or rather a thoroughly Roman
physiognomy, and speaks Tuscan by preference; the more civilized race
seems to climb over the shoulders of the ruder Croats.
However, it must be remembered that German is still the language in use
among the officers and bureaucracy of the monarchy, and that many of them
reside here in Agram, so that the result is that nearly everybody in the
town can speak three languages—Croatian, Italian, and German—and many
of them speak French as well, which is more learnt here than formerly,
as jealousy of the Germans becomes stronger with rising national
aspirations. Even the military speak less German than they used to do;
and here, as in Slovene Styria, the national tongue has now supplanted
German as the school speech, and even to a certain extent as the official
language. Among the Likaner and western _regiments_ of the Granitza, as
one approaches the Adriatic and Dalmatian frontier, Italian is known even
by the peasants, and in the other parts of Croatia there is an itinerant
Italian-speaking population, chiefly from Dalmatia, who gain their living
as builders, and are esteemed better workers than the natives. It is
natural that the Croats, lying between two more civilized nationalities,
should be well practised in foreign tongues; but it must be allowed that
they have a natural aptitude for learning them. They themselves are quite
conscious of possessing this faculty, and there is nothing that a Croat
prides himself on more than his gift of tongues.
A Croatian merchant with whom we were talking grew quite eloquent on this
subject. ‘A Croat, sir,’ he said, ‘will learn any language under the
sun in three months!—a German takes twice the time. Look at me! Besides
my native tongue I know German, I know French, I know Serbian, I know
Latin, I know Hungarian, and I picked up Italian in a month. To know a
dozen languages is quite an ordinary accomplishment in Agram. Why, one
of the members elected here to-day for the Diet, speaks fourteen. Just
look at our philologists. Gaj was a Croat; Vuk Karadjić was a Croat;[155]
Jagić, the greatest philologer living, was born at Agram. You English,
you have your powers; you make railroads, you build bridges; but the
faculty of learning languages is God’s gift to _us_!’ I do not know
whose gift exaggeration may be; but, making every allowance for our
friend’s patriotism, it must be acknowledged that the Sclavonic races
have produced a large number of eminent philologers, and it may even be
questioned how far the German superiority to us in this respect may not
be due to their Sclavonic blood. In Agram this same faculty is shared in
a humbler degree by the peasants of the market-place, who show quite an
Italian aptitude for understanding a foreigner, and are remarkably quick
in taking in the meaning of signs. This faculty does not stand alone;
this power of attitudinising, the very dress of the peasants, all are
symptoms of a common quality. It is a certain subtle adaptiveness, common
to the whole Sclavonic race.
I had noticed in the market, sitting apart from the light Croat country
people, a man selling vegetables of a different kind to the others, with
vestments of a duller hue, and on his head a black conical sheepskin cap,
which recalled to mind the head-gear of the Bulgars of the Lower Danube,
and sure enough a Bulgar he turned out to be. On enquiring I found that a
small Bulgarian colony had settled near the Archbishop’s Park of Maximir,
to tracking out which I devoted my last afternoon at Agram. Passing
through the park, I pursued a path which seemed to lie in the direction
given me, and, after meandering awhile among maize fields, found myself
presently alone in a beautiful oak forest. Through this I wandered on,
now and then emerging on breathing glades which reminded me of the New
Forest, enlivened too with the same brilliant fritillaries, and once a
lightning glimpse of the purple emperor of butterflies himself, swooping
down from his oaken eyrie. Only one thing appeared to be wanting, and
that was a path; but I heard in the distance a tinkling of kine, and
making my way towards the sound, espied some of the mild-eyed cows of the
country grazing among the gnarled oak trunks, and under a tree beyond, a
party of peasant women and maidens, towards whom I directed my footsteps.
But hardly had I opened my lips, than, with a cry of alarm, they
scampered off, and plunged into the thick of the forest like startled
deer! The combined effect of an Indian helmet and Norfolk coattee is in
these parts quite appalling. Only this morning as L⸺ was strolling along
a street of Agram, an old woman, mistaking him, as it would appear, for
the devil, drew herself up, and having crossed herself and muttered
sundry spells, felt greatly comforted. But the cows, though they took
my appearance on the sylvan scene very coolly, maintained an impassible
silence, and meanwhile
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
Che la diritta via era smarrita;
E quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura,
Questa selva selvaggia et aspra e forte,
till happily a distant grunting fell on my ears, and groping my way
through the trees I lighted this time on two swineherds and their charge;
but the boys, though not so timid as the womankind, could not help me,
and I must wander on till I found a woodman in a Croatian costume of
darker hue—the bright red vest supplanted by one of funereal black, as
befitting the sombreness of the woods—with whose help I found my way out
of the forest, and finally to the Bulgarian settlement on the skirts of
Maximir, which before I had overshot.
The colony consisted of two very rude straw-thatched sheds, which seemed
all thatch and no wall, insomuch that on approaching them I at first
mistook them for two long, irregular haystacks. One of the hovels was
for dwelling-house and the other as a shelter for vegetable stores,
filled with gherkins and onions, and overgrown by a vine-leaved pumpkin.
The dwelling-house had a kind of porch or atrium; that is to say, the
thatched eaves, supported by two poles, projected almost as far in front
of the door as the one room extended behind it. Under this canopy were
seated two Bulgars, hard at work tying up bundles of onions, clad in
their dark national costume—the brown tight-sleeved jacket embroidered
with black, the dull red sash, the brown trouser-leggings which are
equally Turkish and Tartar, and on their head the black sheepskin cap
which had at first attracted my attention; while on a peg behind hung one
of their heavy mantles of the same black, shaggy sheepskin.
[Illustration: Bulgarian Settlement.]
It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast to the Croatian
costume than was presented here. The dress of the Croats is light and
airy, as if they had strayed from a land of perpetual sunshine. The
Bulgars are armoured against the elements—you would fancy they were
fresh from some hyperborean land of frost and storms—not yet acclimatised
to the sunny South. The flowing tunics of the Croats invite the slightest
breeze; the brilliant red and white hues seem to tell of a land where the
roses bloom all the year round. But the heavy mantles of the Bulgars,
the woollen coats, the close sleeves and leggings, are made as if to
exclude the wind and frost; the cold dark colours shadow forth a sky to
match. Yet the climate of the modern Bulgaria, in its widest sense, does
not differ in any considerable degree from that of the Croats, except
that parts of the Bulgarian area are hotter. Both are lands of vines and
fig trees. Yet the language is almost the same. The modern Bulgar can
talk with the Croat without an interpreter. Whence, then, this startling
divergence of attire? The reason is to be sought far away in the dim
twilight of history. Originally the Bulgars were not a Sclavonic people.
Their kinship lies with mysterious Huns and Tartars. The fatherland
whence they wandered forth lies on the shores of the Caspian and the
mounts of Turkestan or more northern Altai. Since their arrival in Europe
they have been lost, as it were, in a great Sclavonic sea. They have
been Sclavonized by the multitude of their subjects, just as the Mantchu
Tartars have within the last two centuries been Celestialized by the
Chinese they subdued. But it is the northern nomads who have formed the
backbone to this large unwieldy body. It was the Ugrian dynasty that
erected in the tenth century the Bulgarian Czardom, as civilized as any
state in contemporary Europe; that humbled Byzantine Cæsars in the dust
with their own weapons, and planted the standard of the crowned lion at
the gates of Constantinople. It was the Ugrian dynasty that took the lead
in the first great Rouman-Sclavonic revolt against Byzantium, that ruled
for awhile from the Ægean to the Danube, and from the shores of the Black
Sea to the Adriatic. But much as the Mantchus, though lost among their
subjects, have given the Chinese their bows and pigtails, so the Bulgars
have given their tails and dress, at least in part, to their Sclavonic
subjects; and these shaggy sheepskin mantles, and close-fitting woollens,
still remain to tell of the chill Central-Asian plateau whence their
forefathers migrated.
[Illustration: Bulgarian Profile.]
But the Bulgars before me had other proofs of their origin even more
unmistakeable than their attire. Their pedigree is written on their
faces. These are not Sclavonic. They are of that type, more easily
recognised than described, Mongolian in its widest sense, which extends
from the White Sea shores, among Lapps and Samoyeds, Beormas and Voguls,
to the Tartars and Chinese. Here are the curiously prominent cheek-bones,
the broad and otherwise flat face, the small sunken eyes, the nose flat
at top and inclined to be globular below; their eyebrows are strong and
relieved; their complexion is dark, their head shaven save one black tuft
or tail; these are true Ugrians, the ogres of our nursery stories. The
purity of their breed, as evinced by this strangely Asiatic physiognomy,
was partly explained by the locality of their home. They had come, so
they said, from Ternova, the holy city of the Bulgarians, the destination
of their pilgrimages, the seat of their old metropolitans. This was the
last stronghold of the national dynasty, and to the last the original
Ugrian nucleus of the race may have clustered round it—nay, who knows?
even these poor peasants may have been descendants of Bulgarian Czars!
They had come all the way up the Danube and Save to scrape together money
by their superior agricultural industry among the lazier Croats, and
having brought with them some of their native seeds, were able to expose
for sale gherkins of peculiar forms, and finer kinds of onions, in the
Agram market. While I was there two more of the party came up; and one
of them, a fine young fellow, dressed in European costume, I did not
suspect to be a Bulgarian till he told me in German that he belonged to
the settlement, and had come with them for a still more laudable purpose,
namely, to obtain a good education. They had been here now three years,
and, having scraped together some earnings, proposed to return this
autumn. The savingness of the race was noticeable in their clothing,
which was the same they had brought with them from Bulgaria; but I do not
think that any amount of patching and mending could make it hold together
much longer. The good humour which also distinguishes their race beamed
forth from their every feature; they were evidently very pleased to see
a visitor, were delighted to let me sketch them, and one sat quietly
while I took his profile. They invited me to visit the inside of their
hut, whose thatch was partly eked out with vine leaves and fir branches.
Inside it was very dark, the only light coming through the door, itself
overshadowed, and from a low-burning wood fire placed in a semicircular
bay of brick which formed a chimney above. Over the fire was suspended
a copper caldron, in which their homely supper was then brewing, and
this was hung up by a hook such as I have seen in Wallachia, made of
two pieces of wood instead of iron. Round the room ran a low wooden
platform or daïs, such as throughout the barbarous lands of Eastern
Europe serves as seat by day and bed by night, and on which the Turks
spread their gorgeous divan. Hung round the wall were several more of
the black sheepskin mantles, which imparted an additional gloom to this
poor earth-floor den; and from another peg was suspended the national
guitar, so that they could sing their own songs in a strange land. This
is not the same as the Croatian Tamburitza; it is larger, and resembles
the Serbian Ghuzla, by which name it was known to the Bulgarians. Unlike,
too, the Croatian instrument, which is twanged by the fingers, this
was played by a bow. This had not been brought from Bulgaria, but was
made here by one of the settlers, who, seeing me examining it, took it
out into the porch, and seating himself on a low three-legged stool,
played an air which was meant to be lively. It was a dance tune, and
much like those to which I have seen the Roumans dance one of their
stamping _Can-cans_; it was the Bulgarian Igraja, Croatian Igrati, but
better known by its Serbian equivalent the Kolo, or Sclavonic waltz. The
plodding Bulgars, however, did not waltz, but plied their work harder,
with a smile of inward enjoyment on their faces, which I imitated with
difficulty, as the tune was wofully monotonous, there being only three
strings to the instrument, all told; nor can I imagine any one who could
tolerate such strains long—unless he wear a kilt. When the serenade was
ended I took leave of the party, who most affectionately pressed on me
a large nosegay of zimnias and rosemary, the ornaments of their little
garden.
_Aug. 6._—Next day, having heard that there was to be a large market
at Karlovac,[156] about twenty-five miles south-west of Agram, towards
the Bosnian frontier of Croatia, we hurried thither by rail, through
fine oak forests and maize-covered champaign. On arriving we found the
whole town swarming with country-folk, and the streets lined with varied
booths. Several new features appeared in the costumes, and, above all,
the greater propinquity to the Dalmatian frontier asserted itself in
brilliant fezzes, such as are worn by the Morlachs and Uskoks of the
Adriatic coastlands. They are of brighter scarlet than the Turkish,
covered with rich embroidery or minute tassels of brilliant silk, like
the tufts on some gorgeous caterpillar, and culminating in a peak. Some,
however, wore varieties of the Agramer’s ‘pork-pie,’ which seemed to
have been taken from patterns in the ‘Nuremberg Chronicle,’ and are very
fashionable still in Sclavonic Istria. Some of the men wore blue vests
or sleeveless jackets in place of the red of Agram; their belts were
broader, and often displayed aching voids, in which outside the walls
they carry arms; for within the towns here this is forbidden to all but
Turks, who have managed to associate the practice with their religion,
and are allowed to wear pistols and daggers under a conscience clause.
[Illustration: Sluin Woman.]
But the most curious costume belonged to a people whose jet-black hair
and physiognomy suggested Zingar relationship. The colours of their
dress were as much darker than those of the surrounding Croats as their
tresses than the prevailing tint of hair. The women wore over their black
tunic and apron-skirt two black aprons, one before and one behind, with a
long fringe attached; both sexes had satchels of black slung over their
shoulders, and great black or dark blue mantles. On enquiry we found that
they were called Wallacks, or in its Croatian form, Vlach. This curious
word, used by Teutonic races[157] under different forms to characterise
Roman strangers, is also used among the Southern Sclaves to qualify
strangers of Latin blood such as the Wallacks of Roumania; besides, as a
term of contempt for any strangers, and especially strangers in religion.
Thus the Sclavonic Mahometans of Herzegovina apply it to Christians
generally, the Croats of the Latin Church apply it to the members of the
Greek communion, while the Serbs of the interior, who are mostly Greek,
call their brothers of Dalmatia, who are mostly Roman Catholics, Morlachs
or Mor-vlachs—that is, sea-Welsh. In the case of these peasants in the
Karlovac market it simply meant, not that they were Roumans or Tzintzars,
but that they belonged to the Greek Church, and the explanation of this
is found in their tradition that they migrated hither in former times
from Serbia. Now, however, they speak the Croatian dialect and call
themselves Croats. Their homes are about Sluin, twenty-five miles south
of Karlovac, on the Bosnian extremity of the Military Frontier.
[Illustration: Croat Man.]
Excepting the gypsy-like faces of these Sluin folk, the features of the
Karlovac Croats agreed with those of the Agramers, to such an extent
as emboldens me to delineate certain main characteristics. The nose is
finely cut, but flattens out towards the forehead, between which and it
runs a deep furrow, which I recollect noticing among many Roumans. The
face is hairless save for a moustache on the upper lip, sometimes twirled
into ferocity; and scanty whiskers under the cheek-bone, as in Serbia,
Bosnia, and Dalmatia. The hair is often light, in the children sometimes
quite auburn; the eyes are of varying shades of grey and blue, lurking,
as so frequently among the Illyrian Sclaves, in a pan-like socket.
Hence shadow surrounds the eyes below as above, which gives a peculiar
character to South Sclavonic beauty from the Bocche di Cattaro to the
Lower Danube. So deep at times is the surrounding shade that a poet of
the race might compare his mistress’s eyes to turquoises chaliced in a
setting of ebony! But the deepset roving eyes of the Croat, on which he
prides himself so highly, are often at first sight repellent, suggesting
suspicion and cruelty, though redeeming lines of good-humour eddy round.
Taken as a whole, the face is wanting in the power and massiveness of the
Teutonic. Contrasted with the Serbs, the Croats are neither so tall nor
so finely proportioned; their countenance is less open, beauty rarer. The
Croats bitterly lamented to us over the idleness of their peasants; their
neighbours, Italian and Slavonian,[158] were much better workers. They
are incorrigible drunkards; indeed we saw enough intoxication at Karlovac
Fair, and all the wine shops of the town were filled to overflowing;
wine, not _slivovitz_ or plum-brandy, being here the drink. But with all
their faults the Croats are kind and good-humoured, and certainly neither
at Agram nor at Karlovac had we any reason to complain of a want of
friendliness. The hospitality of a Karlovatzer was quite overpowering. We
were passing his house during a slight shower, when he literally dragged
us in and forced on us his native wine—on which for politeness’ sake, I
will express no opinion—diluted with flat Seltzer-water from Croatian
springs, till we begged for mercy. The Croats make flat Seltzer-water
effervesce with a small wooden instrument rejoicing in the name of
‘_Didlideilshek_.’
But to return to the market, which was on a very large scale, embracing
nearly the whole town and suburbs, and a scene of exceeding gaiety. The
booths for similar wares were ranged together; here were mighty piles
of crockery, the _stutzas_, the _scalicas_, and all the varied throng;
there a store of glass ware from the Slavonian forests, light, hand-made,
Venetian. Then the vegetable market embarrassed us with a choice of fine
figs, peaches, pears, water-melons with salmon-coloured slices ready cut,
rosy and beautiful apples, and delicious yellow plums like small Orleans;
further on we saw what might be mistaken for row on row of gigantic
black-beetles hung up like vermin in a wood, but on coming nearer they
turned out to be black _opankas_, of which the peasants were laying in
great stocks. At other shops you might procure wondrous leather wallets,
or Turkish knives, from the famed Bosnian forges of Travnik or Serajevo;
and beyond we came to the crowning glory of all—the clothes stalls, and
the gold-embroidered Dalmatian fezzes glittering in the sunshine. But the
chief attraction, for the peasants at all events, was the cattle-market
in the field outside the town, where might be seen herds of small Arab
horses, long-haired Merino-like sheep with spiral procerity of horn,
soft-eyed strawberry-coloured cows, innumerable pigs, and throngs of
brown long-haired goats, butting each other and pushing at each other
as if they were playing the Rugby game of football! Over which animals,
collectively and individually, the peasant farmers were shaking hands in
the most orthodox manner, as each bargain was struck. The goats and sheep
were driven in by Bosnian Rayahs from the distant mountains of Turkish
Croatia, and the way in which they expended the profits of their sales in
buying powder and bullets was anything but reassuring to those about to
trust themselves to their tender mercies.
Of Karlovac and its inhabitants proper there is little to chronicle
except that the inhabitants possess a certain gift of inventiveness;
for a report spread through the town in no time that we had walked from
Rotterdam for a bet, and the report did all the more credit to the
fertility of the Karlovatzan imagination in that it had no particle of
foundation whatsoever. The town is divided into the citadel and fortified
part, containing the churches, official houses, and a chilling square;
and the Varoš or suburb, which comprises the bulk of the houses. There
is nothing here of interest; the churches are bare, with the usual
bulbous spires; the houses are devoid of ornament, and guiltless of
architectural pretensions. They are mostly wooden; but here there
are none of the mediæval survivals of an old German town—none of the
elaborate carvings that speak of ancient civilization and the taste of
old merchant princes. Such relics one does not find in the Sclavonic East
of Europe. Karlovac is situated well for trade. She lies on the Kulpa,
which connects her with the Savian and Danubian commercial basins, and
into which, hard by, debouches the Korana, opening out a valley route
into the mountains of North-West Bosnia; while a little above the town
the river Dobra performs the same service in the Dalmatian direction.
She is situated on the chief pass over the Dinaric Alps, just where the
watershed between the Adriatic and Black Sea is lowest. Karlovac is, in
fact, the meeting-place of the three high roads which bind the interior
of Hungary and Croatia with their seaports—the Carolina-, Josephina-,
and Louisa-ways; and a new railway has opened out steam communication
with Trieste and Fiume. But despite these advantages Karlovac has no
commercial past, and her commercial present, if we except a little timber
transport and rosoglio distilling, is confined to the petty huckstering
of these peasant gatherings. Her very origin was military. She owes her
name and foundation to the Austrian Archduke Charles, chief lieutenant of
the Emperor Rudolf in the Croatian military frontier, who began building
the town in 1577, and finished its walls in 1582. He planted here a
colony of soldiers, for whom, ‘whether German or Hungarian or Croat, or
of any other nation,’ he gained certain privileges and immunities from
the Emperor,[159] the chief of which was the right to hold in perpetuity
any house built here. It was peopled chiefly by refugees from Southern
Croatia, then annexed by the Turks, against whom in 1579 the still
unfinished town was successfully defended. For we are now on the borders
of the Military Frontier, the nine-hundred-mile-long line of battle
prepared by the Hapsburgh Cæsars against the Infidel.
CHAPTER II.
THE OLD MILITARY FRONTIER, SISCIA, AND THE SAVE.
The Military Frontier, its Origin and Extinction—Effects
of Turkish Conquest on South-Sclavonic Society—Family
Communities—Among the House-fathers—Granitza Homesteads—The
_Stupa_—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—Contrast between Croats
of Granitza and Slovenes—The Advantages and Defects of Family
Communities—Larger Family Community near Brood—A little
Parliament House—Croatian Brigands—A Serb Lady—Turkish Effendi
and Pilgrim—Siszek—Roman Siscia; her Commercial Importance—Her
Martyr—Remains of ancient Siscia—Destiny of Siszek—Croatian
Dances and Songs—Down the Save—New Amsterdam—South-Sclavonic
Types—Arrive at Brood—Russian Spies!—A Sunset between two
Worlds—Marched Off—Bearding an Official—A Scaffold Speech—In
Durance vile—Liberated!
It was the necessities of the Hungarian Kingdom and the Empire, when
they had to bear the brunt of still encroaching Islâm, that some three
hundred years ago created the Military Frontier—the Granitza, as it is
known to its Slavonic denizens. The Hungarian and Imperial statesmen of
the sixteenth century had just the same immense problem set before them
as the Romans of the earlier empire—how to defend a long line of frontier
from the perpetual incursions of barbarians—and they solved it much in
the same way as the Western Cæsars of yore. The Roman Emperors, under
parallel circumstances, parcelled out the march-lands of that awkward
angle between the Rhine and the Danube among rude Allemannic tribes, to
be held of the Emperor on condition of military service in their defence.
So now the Hapsburgh Cæsars divided out the provinces bordering on the
Turks among primitive Sclavonic house-communities, each of which held its
allotment in common of the King of Hungary on condition that it provided,
in proportion to the number of men in the family, one or more soldiers
for watch and ward against the Infidel. The frontier was divided into
territorial divisions known by the military appellation, Regiments. Every
soldier when not on active service might change his sword for a spade,
and sank into a peasant like the rest; and the officer, or ‘_Ober_,’ left
the camp to preside as judge in the law courts. It was a peasant militia.
To this day the Grenzer uniform is but an adaptation of old Croat
costume; the military waggons are the simple village carts; the soldier
transforms himself into a boor, the boor into a soldier, at a moment’s
notice. Thus it was an organisation economical, self-supporting—and who
would not fight bravely when his neighbouring homestead was at stake?—but
military over-pride was tempered by the peaceful instincts of husbandry.
Thus the Turk was successfully fended off, and a long watch-service
sentinelled along the whole frontier. The watch-towers at intervals, with
their wooden clappers, may be still seen in places, as well as the now
unused beacons whose telegraphic chain could once rouse to arms the whole
population from the Adriatic to the easternmost Carpathians in a few
hours.
Thus the Military Frontier was originally the outwork of Christendom, the
political sea-wall of her provinces painfully reclaimed. But the force
of that flood had long been spent—Islâm had ceased to be militant. What
had once been a military became merely a sanitary cordon, or was turned
to account to protect the absurd tariffs of slow Swabian finance. Nay,
it had even ceased in part to mark the boundary line between Frank and
Osmanlì. Free Serbia had risen beyond it. It was superannuated—a mere
survival. The Military Frontier, as it existed a few years ago, might be
compared to an old Roman dyke that once marked the limits of the chafing
North Sea, but now runs inland across the flats of Ouse—a monument of a
vanquished ocean perverted to hedgerows, given over to the plough. And,
indeed, about three years ago it at last struck the Austro-Hungarian
Government that this unproductive rampart might be resigned to
cultivation; for human culture in the Granitza was at a very low ebb,
and the artificial clogs to social development produced industrial
depression. Accordingly the military organisation was assimilated to
that of the rest of the Empire, and by the _Theilungsgesetze_, which
facilitates the transfer of land and the break-up of families, the old
communal system has received its death-blow.
The Military Frontier has ceased to exist, but the old order of things
has not yet passed away; and we were the more anxious to catch if but
a glimpse of that antique society, so long artificially preserved from
change by the military needs of the monarchy, before it dies away from
the memory of man. For to cross the Military Frontier is to survey a
phase of society so primitive that it was already antiquated when the
forefathers of the English sate among the heaths and fens and forests of
the Elbelands. It is to go back, not indeed into Feudal times—for to call
this frontier organisation Feudal shows an ignorance of what Feudalism
really means—but to wander beyond the twilight of history, and take a
lantern as it were into the night of time.
If the Turkish invasion can be likened to the encroachment of an ocean,
it resembled it in nothing more than its denuding action. Throughout
the whole of Eastern Europe there set in a great levelling of baronial
peak-lands. The South-Sclavonic nobility fell at Kóssovo or Mohatch and
a hundred other fields, or skulked away into foreign lands; and, indeed,
this Feudal overgrowth was always more or less of an exotic among Serbs
and Croats. The Turkish conquest was a fiery trial, in truth, and yet
it had the effect of purging the sterling democratic ore of society
from all this hæmatitic dross. The semi-feudal organisation which had
sprung up in these lands—partly owing to the imperfect devices of an
acephalous society to gain the unity of action required in war, partly to
infiltrations of Western ideas viâ Hungary or the Empire—was now levelled
away by the Turks, where it was not, as in Bosnia, assimilated. Society
reverted to that almost patriarchal form which the Sclavonic settlers had
carried with them into the Illyrian triangle when they settled here in
the days of Heraclius. _Vlastela_ and magnates now make way once more for
simple house-fathers, distinctions of rank are merged in the old equality
and fraternity that reign within the paling of the house-community. We
have seen an Imperial ukase work much the same result among the Sclaves
of Russia as was wrought by the Turkish scimitar for their brethren of
the south.
Then, too, not only were the higher ranks of society cleared away, but
influences were at work to make even the communistic village government
go back a step in archaism. Vast tracts of land were depopulated and were
parcelled out amongst new settlers, chiefly immigrant families from
beyond the Turkish frontier. But the single farms of those backwoodsmen
could not grow into villages all at once, and so it would happen that the
mark—as we may call the allotment—reverted to a very primitive stage,
being held in common, not so much by a village-community, as by a single
household. Thus the Starescina, or alderman of the community, was often
literally the elective elder of the household.
But it was evident that if the new military organisation was to be
self-supporting, each family must contain several adult male members—for
how else could men be spared from the tillage necessary for the support
of the household? And how else could contributions in kind be afforded
to the military chest—the _cassa domestica_—for the keep of soldier
house-brothers?
Therefore it was that the Government thought well to strengthen the
Sclavonic family tie, always strong, by legal fetters which forcibly
bound the household together and artificially checked the development
of individual proprietorship. It was forbidden, as far as possible, to
alienate the property of a house-community, or to subdivide it among
its members; and so literally was this enforced that, near Siszek for
example, we heard of families still existing containing over three
hundred members all living within the same palisaded yard, and forming a
village of themselves; nor is it by any means rare to find villages in
the Granitza consisting of a couple of households.
_Aug. 7._—It was to survey this primitive régime that we now sallied
forth from Karlovac, and, crossing the bridge over the Kulpa, found
ourselves, as was manifested still by a conspicuous sign-board, in what
was once the Sluin Regiment of the Military Frontier—a suburban street
of Karlovac, in fact, belonging to the ex-military district. It must,
however, be remembered that side by side with this military communism
exists a civil population: clergy, teachers, artizans, tradesmen,
innkeepers, and so forth, who enjoy exceptional liberties; so there was
not much to notice of special interest in military Karlovac, except
a spacious government school for Granitza children. A pretty country
walk brought us to the little village of Radovac, where we lighted
on a native, an intelligent young fellow, who acted as a guide, and
interpreter of primitive institutions.
We looked into several of the cottages, each in its yard, with due
complement of outbuildings, garden and orchard for common use. The
households here are not so large as in other parts of the frontier,
and it is evident that in former times the inhabitants must have found
some means of evading the law, and dividing their property. The old
order of things still exists; each cottage has its house-father and
house-mother, and everything is held in common. But the effects of
the _Theilungsgesetze_ are beginning to be felt, and the right of any
family to claim an equal division of the property among its members is
being taken advantage of. We were shown one house where the family had
just quarrelled and split up. In this case the old house-father and
house-mother still retained their military exemption; but the heads of
the new family offshoots were liable to service, and were not recognised
as house-fathers and house-mothers by the eye of the law; though some
of them still arrogate the time-honoured titles. In other parts of the
Frontier the overgrown households are availing themselves of the new
permissive law to escape from the imprisonment of the common paling. We
heard of instances of partition near Siszek, and further east, near Brood
in Slavonia. Thus the old communal life is dying a natural death.
[Illustration: A Granitza Homestead.]
But let us examine one of these homesteads where the house-fathers and
house-mothers still preside—and the description of the one we saw first
will serve for all. In order to find our way to the dwelling-house
we had to enter by a yard, enclosed by a rough wooden fence, called
the ‘_plot_.’ Within this, to the right, was the ‘_Kucica_’ or
common cottage, and then followed in order the pig-sty, the barn,
the hay-loft and cart-shed, the round conical-peaked hay-stack, and
another store-house. This homestead square reminded one of old English,
Norse,[160] and Franconian farms; and we found the dwelling-houses
trisected into a sleeping-room, a kitchen, and a store-room, like the
homesteads of Scandinavian backwoods. The centre room of the three is
the kitchen, in one corner of which is a flat stone hearth, a small
paved square for cooking on, such as is universal in Illyria. In the
other corner there was a stove of a kind which also occurs throughout
all these lands; it was of baked clay, square below, and bell-shaped
above, bayed all over with circular pigeon-holes, which in Bosnia, where
still ruder forms of this stove occur, are actually pots embedded into
the clay; though whether this practice arose from a scientific desire to
gain a greater heating surface, or whether for the celebration of certain
culinary mysteries, or whether for ornament, or, what is more probable,
by reason of some exigencies of structure—we were never able to determine.
Before the kitchen was a kind of fore-hall, as in a Northern cottage;
but, in this warm climate, open to the air, and forming a verandah, which
in the larger houses runs along the upper storey, where the family live.
We peeped into the dormitory, which was the largest room of the three,
and saw beds ranged round the room, and a picture of a saint suspended
from the wall. The house itself was of wood, and showed in parts the
rich time-stains of an Alpine chalet. Yet in places one might notice
the Sclavonic tendency towards whitewash and mud plaster. The roof was
double; first a shingling of short wooden planks, and above that a
substantial thatch.
[Illustration: Stupa]
As to the inmates, they were engaged in the yard in a very curious
occupation. Just outside the store-house was the most greedy-looking
machine we ever set eyes on—all teeth and jaw, without even the decency
of a stomach. It turned out to be a stamping-mill for beating flax, which
we had already noticed on our way, going through preliminary processes
of water-retting and grassing. At first sight the masticator looked like
a monstrous variety of the trap which children use for ‘bat and ball;’
it was all of wood, except a metal pivot or axis, on which the upper jaw
worked, and its motive power was supplied by two Croats, a man and a
woman, who took their stand on the upper jaw, and, placing one foot on
each side of the pivot, imparted a see-sawing motion to it, by throwing
their weight simultaneously first on one foot and then on the other, from
which treading the mill gains the Croatian name _Stupa_ or tread-mill.
Meanwhile another woman took a wisp of the ready retted and dried flax,
and fed the wooden crocodile with it; and when it had been sufficiently
chewed, and the useless stem or boom separated from the useful bark or
harl, she handed the wisp on to another woman, who combed out the fibres
in a heckle, made by the simple process of sticking iron nails through a
paw of wood fixed into the fence, and being now both clawed and chewed,
the flax was laid in a heap, and the preparation was concluded. The mill
seems a very primitive form of the Scotch foot-brake, but it is at
least better than the hand-mill of our forefathers, for the principle of
co-operation of labour is invoked, and the flax therefore prepared more
expeditiously.
One would think that the fact that the rude Croats of the Granitza have
arrived at a stage of manufacture even so comparatively advanced as this,
may be due to an advantageous influence of the Communistic system. For
if self-interest is in the long run the best spur to industry, yet it
sometimes keeps it back, owing to a want of readiness to combine with
others. But here we find the common interest of the house-community in
the results of labour, teaching the great economic lesson of combination,
though it certainly discourages extraordinary energy in individuals. Thus
the land is tilled in common, the harvest gathered in in common, and,
_ceteris paribus_, it is far more probable that agricultural machinery
could be introduced in one of the large Granitza families, containing
some three hundred members, than in a village of the same population
tenanted by the small, selfish peasant-farmers of France or Germany.
Besides this readiness to combine, another favourable aspect of
this Communistic society was especially striking to one fresh from
among the somewhat churlish, close-fisted Nether-Saxons. This was a
certain geniality, an open-handed readiness of good cheer, whether of
homely apples or homelier wine. Nothing here of that jealous attitude
towards strangers so characteristic of your peasant-farmer or petty
‘_Eigenthümer_.’ You have only to muster up unabashed intrusiveness
enough, and you may spy out the land and all the ins and outs of a
Granitza dwelling-house without let or hindrance. You may rove at your
sweet will through yard and garden, take stock of horned and feathered,
seat yourself on the three-legged stool before the culinary hearth—and
pray do not let false delicacy or closed doors deter you from unclewing
the inmost mysteries of the bed-chamber! The inmates are only too proud
to see a visitor. A comfortable sense of co-partnership grows upon you.
You find yourself arguing some _post-liminal_ right of adoption as
you cross the threshold, and end by asking yourself whether after all
there can be any gulf ’twixt _meum_ and _tuum_ when every potsherd and
goosequill is common property?
‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!’ Let this, then, be the motto of the
stranger who visits the Granitza homesteads. Obviously new rules of
social decorum must be invented for the occasion, and our code was
simple—‘Make yourself at home.’ The idea that we could be intruding
became really too preposterous; and as for the truly insular notion that
a house could be a castle, we laughed it to scorn! We were Communists
for the nonce. The _Genius loci_ inspired us. We penetrated without the
introduction of a guide into yards and houses; or if we came to larger
farms, where the ground-floor of the house is apportioned to cows and
the dwelling-rooms of the scansorial part of the family are above, only
approachable by external ladders, we hesitated not to effect entrance by
escalade, and the inmates were as little taken aback, and received us
with as hearty a good-day as if they had been expecting us for weeks.
We could not help thinking of the contrast they presented to the people
of the same Sclavonic race, and almost the same language, beyond the
mountains that fringed the north-western horizon; to the Wends, namely,
and Slovenes, of Carinthia and Carniola. For when Goldsmith tells how
The rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts his door,
he is only stating what we knew by actual experience to be still true. It
is not so soon forgotten—that chilly night, when, for want of a single
hospitable roof in a whole village to shelter midnight travellers, we
were fain to stall ourselves in the creepiest of church porches—and had
we not sundry other reminiscences of slammed doors and long parleyings to
boot in the moonlight of the Julians? There was always something morose
in the temperament of those Slovenes; something too much in harmony
with the prevailing black of the Upper-Carinthian costume, with the sad
weirdness of their music—what a dirge it was that accompanied our way
to that ghostliest of shelters! The Granitza folk, on the contrary, are
light in heart as in garment; sociable, hospitable; finding their poetic
portraiture rather among those Acadians of whom it is written that
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows,
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of their owners.
Is it that these Croats of the Marches still retain the old Sclavonic
communism, which the Wends and Slovenes have lost?
It is most delightful, too, to come upon a place where ‘charity’ in its
mischievous, oriental form, is kept from the door. Here every community
is of its very essence a kind of benefit club; the common homestead is
the only asylum for the old, infirmary for the sick; in times of war it
was not the least important advantage of the Military Frontier, that each
house-community formed a hospital for disabled soldier house-brothers.
The communal system prevents moreover the rise of an actual proletariate;
the flunkeyism of service is absent where all are alike fellow-helps
and fellow-masters; and no doubt if a brother be disproportionately
lazy, moral suasion of an unmistakable kind is brought to bear on him
by the rest of the community. Here we have a kind of industrial police
organisation.
Endued with all this brotherly co-operation, these social advantages and
virtues, Granitza life cannot be said to be without its brighter aspects;
but alas that it should have shadow as well as sunshine! After all we
must own that those earnest staid Slovenes, likened by the German to his
Mecklenburgers and Nether-Saxons, possess, with all their moroseness, a
more solid civilization. It was admitted to us here—who, indeed, could
not see it?—that education was far behind-hand, and the children unkempt
and neglected; indeed, the mortality among Granitza infants is said to
be outrageous. Why, indeed, should they be better cared for? Why in the
name of Fortune should the celibate portion of the community be mulcted
for the sake of philoprogenitive brothers? Agriculture here is at a
standstill, and the fields undunged.
This wretched wind-wry shanty before us, how little does it answer to the
richness of the soil! The inmates, like those around, are poor in the
midst of plenty. Dame Nature certainly would fain be bounteous; you have
only to look at the luxuriant wild flowers that crowd along the garden
skirts to see that; they are at least quite as good as the niggard garden
patches, themselves half-wild, of sunflower, marigold, and zinnia,—just
see! how scornfully yon aspiring tufts of saffron meadow-sweet climb
above the paling, or peep between the rickety bars as if to make fun of
those cockered garden favourites within! The apples and plums in the
orchard to the side are, as such, puny and poor of flavour; but the
hedgerow which fences it round is loaded with sloes very nearly as fat
as damsons; and as to the rose hips, you might take them for filberts,
scarlet-mantled. Further beyond you catch a glimpse of the contours of
Mt. Capella masted with oak-woods, now mere pannage for swine, but fit to
timber a hundred fleets.
The truth is, that the incentives to labour and economy are weakened
by the sense of personal interest in their results being subdivided.
Even the social virtues engendered by this living in common are apt to
run off into mere reckless dissipation. One may think their fruit poor,
and their wine abominable; but their maxim is none the less, ‘Eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die.’ True, a man has a legal right to lay by
his share of the profits; but who does? To do so would be to fly in the
face of public opinion, and this Granitza way of life is favourable to
the growth and influence of public opinion of a kind. At Radovac there
is a well-known yearly market, and the peasants, as we heard from an
innkeeper’s son, drink away their whole earnings on this greatest of
money-making occasions in the four inns which compose the moiety of this
little village. In short, the house-communities have been weighed in the
balance and found wanting. One may regret the Military Frontier from an
antiquarian point of view. Some pleasant features of this unique society
may be lost; but on the whole no one can quarrel with the government for
passing that permissive bill which entails its speedy self-immolation.
There is no need to give special descriptions of the other villages that
we saw in this part, as Radovac has been made the peg on which to hang
wider generalisations. The village of Trn may be noticed, as there we
came upon peasants belonging to the Greek Church, called ‘Vlachs,’ like
the Sluin folk, but not like them a peculiar people, and indeed differing
in nothing from their Roman Catholic neighbours, except that Greek icons
were hung in their rooms in place of Romish saints. But in the villages
about Karlovac the house-communities are generally small, division has
already been at work, and I will therefore ask the reader to accompany us
_per saltum_ to a more easterly part of the Granitza which we explored a
few days later, namely to the neighbourhood of Brood in Slavonia.
Making our way through a country as smiling as that which we had left
behind, through common-fields of the family communities, a-bloom with
sky-blue flax, and enclosed by old-world hedges overgrown with clustering
wild vines, or through the common meadowland—the old English _ing_—we
came to the village of Bukovje, and were introduced to the largest family
community of the place by the kind Roman Catholic vicar.
[Illustration: Homestead of Family Community, near Brood, Slavonia.]
Some idea of the arrangement of the homestead will be given by the
accompanying diagram. We made our way into the premises by the yard-gate
and found ourselves in a spacious farmyard fenced in by a stout palisade.
To the left was the common dwelling-house, and around the skirts of
the enclosure ranged in order the common barn, cow-house, stables,
maize-garner, goat-shed, and pig-stye; the common stillery for making
_slivovitz_ or plum-brandy, which here has succeeded sour wine as the
favourite drink of the peasantry; the common well, with its bucket
attached to a monster fishing-rod; the common oven; and last, not least,
the common goose-house. In one corner was a small patch of maize, and
beyond the bottom of the yard was the common orchard with its usual crop
of poor plums, pears, and apples.
We were received in the yard by a member of the family, voted unanimously
to be the house-father, who cordially invited us in, and having satisfied
our curiosity as to the various outbuildings, bade us enter the common
dwelling-houses, of which there were two; one a long wooden erection
with the usual verandah, used as a summer abode, and divided into
compartments for each _sub_-family; the other, a palatial residence
compared with the Radovac hovels, brick-built and whitewashed, and
with its porch and double tiers of massive arches which open on long
corridors as in some old monasteries (for there is something conventual
too about these closes), and entered withal by an imposing flight of
steps, was not without its dignity. The family consisted of some three
dozen individuals, mostly absent at the time on field-work, insomuch
that the garrison consisted of our house-father and two house-sisters
all told. Thus it was scarcely more than a tenth as big as those monster
families we heard of near Siszek with their three hundred members; but
it afforded a good example of the house arrangements, nevertheless; for
in these larger family communities, such as we saw higher up the Save,
you may see several dwelling-houses ranged in a row within the common
‘_plot_,’ so that really only a little multiplication is needed to gain
an idea of the family community on its grandest scale from a view of this
Bukovje homestead. There is, however, this difference, that in the larger
families the common hall and kitchen are often separate buildings.
The house consisted of two floors. Ascending the porch-steps at the
house-father’s bidding, we found ourselves in a ground-floor with the
fore-hall and usual tripartite division of the ruder Granitza cottages,
consisting of a common hall or refectory, a kitchen and another room,
used in this case, I believe, as a bedroom for the house-father. These
three rooms opened on to the front corridor; and ascending some stairs,
at the end of this airy arcade we found ourselves on the second storey,
divided exclusively into bedrooms, of which there were thirteen, one for
each sub-family. Above this again was a loft running under the whole
length of the roof, and set apart for stores.
[Illustration: Plan of Common Dwelling.]
In the middle of the kitchen, whose besooted rafters were supported by a
massive beam as swarthy as themselves, was the large common hearth, the
wonted square of flat stones, the logs on which were kept in place by two
quaint fire-dogs; while by their embers a large green jar of earthenware
was simmering with a savoury mess of chopped bean-pods, eyed from time
to time lovingly by the house-sister, she who had welcomed us on entering
with a bountiful apronful of apples. By the side walls were three other
lesser hearths, communicating with the honeycombed stoves in the other
rooms, so that one fire fed both a hearth and a stove. On these hearths
reposed cylindrical pots with curious lids, and above the fire great
iron caldrons, capable of providing for many mouths, were hung from the
wooden arms of primitive jacks, such as I remember having seen in Finnish
cottages.
The common hall contained little but a long table and two long benches,
recalling, except for its honeycombed stove, the furniture of an Oxford
College hall. It is here that the whole family take their meals; and in
the winter time, when the stoveless summer dwellings are uninhabitable,
it is here that the men take shelter from the blast to make or mend their
rude implements of husbandry, and the women ply their homely looms. They
told us further that this was the room in which the family met to choose
their house-father or house-mother, and to transact all common business;
and, since dinner is the natural time for all the family to be assembled
together, it is after dinner that these matters of household economy are
mooted, and the house-father, who represents the family in dealings with
the authorities, and the house-mother, who shares with her consort[161]
his patriarchal sway over the rest of the house-community, are elected.
It is here, too, that the domestic government is thrown out if it does
not continue to give satisfaction to its constituents. In short, this
is their little Parliament-House, and these the earliest germs of
Constitutional Government.
But we must leave Slavonia for the present, and transport ourselves
back in some aërial fashion to Karlovac, from which town we are about
to make our way to Siszek by the last strip of railway we were to see
for many a long day. It may be that it was lucky that such a means of
transit was still at our disposal, since, if we had been obliged to foot
it, we must have run the gauntlet of a band of robbers then infesting
the country near Petrinia. As a rule our Croatian friends were never
tired of assuring us that it was beyond the frontier that these gentry
flourished; and the hilly country that rose to the south-west—the Kraina,
as the promontory of Turkish territory is known, which acts as a thorn
in the side of Austria—was pointed out as a regular asylum for wild
characters, and in fact was long the only part of the frontier where the
watch-service was still needed. At the present moment, however, even the
Croats were fain to admit that Bosnia was free from robbers, while their
own country was insecure; and, indeed, I am afraid that this was not
such an exceptional state of things as they would have had us believe,
for when we arrived two days later in the Slavonian lands of the lower
Save we found the whole country under martial law, owing to the murderous
infestations of brigands in the Syrmian highlands; and though several had
been hanged, the reign of terror was such that the military government
was still continued. Indeed, just after the Austro-Prussian war, the
state of Croatia had become so deplorable by reason of the increasing
brigandage, that ‘Standrecht’ had to be proclaimed there, and no less
than forty robbers were hung. For some time a gibbet with its ghastly
appendages was to be seen from the train on nearing Agram.
On the whole, then, it was more comfortable to indulge in such
reflections as we shot through the mighty oak-forest in a
railway-carriage bound for Siszek, than to sneak through these mysterious
shadows on foot with the feelings of one of our great-grandfathers,
when doomed to traverse Hampstead Heath on a dark night. These Croatian
highwaymen, however, immediately under notice, had hitherto conducted
the business of the road on the most gentlemanly principles; and though
a kind of ‘commercial’ with whom we travelled seemed a bit scared, even
he could report no thrilling tales of bloodshed. There were sixteen of
these Hajduks,[162] as the Croats called them, who had taken to outlawry
to avoid the military conscription, which has just superseded the
older organisation of the Granitza. Soldiers have been in pursuit, but
fruitlessly, since not only are the hills about covered with unfathomable
forest and hollowed—so we were told—with caverns, but the peasants, like
those of Greece and Southern Italy, are in league with the brigands,
supplying them with food, and refusing to reveal their hiding-places.
The gendarmes, indeed, express hopes of seizing their quarry when the
leaves have fallen and the snow is on the ground. Meantime they are at
large. Nor let us judge too harshly of their profession, for in this old
world East of Europe the Hajduk is often a gentleman in his way. ’Tis
Robin Hood and his merry men who still live on, roughly redressing their
wrongs in a vicarious fashion against that society which refuses them
legal requital, but capable none the less of much tenderness to women and
children, and discriminating their friends from the class that oppresses
them. Across the Turkish frontier the cause of national freedom,
hopelessly lost centuries ago on the battlefield, has been championed
from generation to generation by the Hajduks of the forest mountain,
in achievements not unsung by Sclavonic bards; and, likely enough,
these Croatian brothers are striving too for ancient liberties, as they
understand them.
It was late at night by the time we arrived at Siszek, so we were glad
enough to avail ourselves of a car bound for the ‘White Ship’ inn
on the Kulpa Quay, in company with a Serbian lady and her child—she
disdaining not either for herself or boy the national costume of Free
Serbia. And verily she had her reward. For what could be more appropriate
than the rich silver embroidery flowered on the purple-velvet field of
her mantle—efflorescent with the poetic yearning of the race for that
gorgeous Orient, a yearning as lively as the abhorrence from its yoke—an
echo from the Serbian lyre—a protest against your cold foggy West—but
subdued withal by a Roman-matronly coiffure wondrously becoming to the
tranquil grace of Serbian motherhood?
Arrived at our inn, we found ourselves plunged at once into Turkish
society, for many Bosnian corn-merchants from Bihac, Serajevo, and
other towns, betake themselves in the way of trade to Siszek. Among the
group of Turks who, in various awkward and frog-like postures, were
endeavouring to accommodate themselves to chairs, was an Effendi, a
title which implies not only a certain grade of Turkish gentility, but
an education for Bosnia most polite, namely, the ability to read and
write; and, what is by no means ordinary among the Mussulman Sclaves of
Bosnia, an acquaintance with Osmanlì. Thus it was with a conscious sense
of superiority that our Effendi, learning our intentions in Bosnia,
expressed a desire to see the pass which the Vali Pashà had been good
enough to supply us with. He seemed extremely surprised to see that it
was in the Vali’s own handwriting; but having convinced himself of the
fact, he first read it aloud with pleasing gusto in the original Turkish,
and then translated it into Bosniac for the benefit of the Sclavonic
Mahometans and our Croatian landlord, with many assurances that with such
an ‘open sesamé’ we should have no difficulty in unlocking the innermost
fastnesses of Bosnia or even the Herzegovina, where the revolt had now
broken out.
There was also a venerable Turk of singularly dignified mien, with
patriarchal beard and capacious turban, who sat in mild contemplation,
lulled by the measured purring of his narghilé, lost to all mundane
concerns, sagely superior to the curiosity which our pass and travelling
gear were exciting in less exalted bosoms, and benignantly indifferent
even to the indignity of a chair. Our host told us that he was a Hadji,
or pilgrim, then on his way from Buda, where he resided as a merchant, to
Mecca.
_Aug. 8._—Next morning we sallied forth to explore what might remain
of ancient Siscia. For we are now on classic ground. Siszek is but the
corruption of a name great in all ages of imperial Rome, and greatest
in the twilight of her empire. There was a time when Siscia was one of
the sovereign cities of the world. She was a bulwark against barbarians,
an emporium of commerce, a seat of emperors, a mother of martyrs, a
gathering point for Roman-Christian Saga. And her older name, Segestica,
takes us back to times prior to the Roman conquest itself, when she
formed part of that Celtic empire of race, dim, commercial, reaching from
Gades to the swamps of Nether Rhine; from glacial Ierné to the mouths of
Ister. Segestica! we have no record of her dealings with the Adriatic
votaries of Belenus,[163] nor what Taurisk gold passed current in her
streets; and yet her peasant citizens of to-day plough up an abundance
of bronze-age sickles as if to bear witness of her old Celtic industry
and her very name calls up golden harvests of antiquity ready garnered
into her warehouses from rich Pannonian plains, with a side suggestion
perchance of her
Seges clypeata virorum,
that twice withstood the arms of Rome successfully, till Augustus reduced
her, and made of her a stationary camp for his cohorts.
She is now Siscia, a convenient _point d’appui_ for Dacian campaigns; the
winter quarters for Tiberius in his Pannonian war; by Septimius Severus
made the seat of military government for his world, and so benefited
by him that she took the name of Septimia Siscia. Probably under
Vespasian,[164] a Roman colony had been already planted here, and Siscia
became a Republic with municipal liberties modelled on those of the
parent city. An inscription still recalls her Duumviri, who, in Rome’s
provincial mirrors, reflected the two Consuls. Later on, Siscia becomes
the chief city of Upper Pannonia; then, when Savia was made a province,
the residence of its Corrector. She was the seat of an imperial treasury,
and it was here that the ‘most splendid Provost of the Ironworkers’
received the revenue from Noric mines. Here, too, was established the
Premier Mint of the Roman Empire; and Siscia shares with Rome herself
the distinguished honour of first imprinting her name in full on the
imperial currency. What numismatist does not know and covet that coin of
Gallienus? or that choice piece of the Emperor who sprang from her Savian
rival Sirmium (though from this legend one would think he was really of
Siscia), with the proud inscription, ‘Siscia Probi Aug.’—the Siscia of
Probus? On it is to be seen the personification of the queenly city,
holding in her hands the laurel-wreath of empire, while at her feet her
two subject rivers pour bounteously from their tributary urns.
But this medallic fertility, which has scattered the coins of Siscia
over the fields of remotest Britain, was only the natural result of her
commercial eminence. She was the staple of trade between the Adriatic and
the Danubian basin—old Celtic trade-routes probably surviving the Roman
conquest. ‘Siscia,’ says Strabo, ‘lies at the confluence of many rivers,
all navigable. It is at the foot of the Alps, whose streams bear to it
much merchandise, Italian and other. These are borne in waggons from
Aquileja over Ocra, the lowest part of the Alps, to Nauportus, and thence
by the Corcoras into the Save,’—and so to Siscia. The wine and oil wafted
from more southern climes into the havens of that Venice of Roman Adria;
the carpets and woollens of Patavium that rumbled into her markets by the
Æmilian Way; the furs and amber that the barbarian dealers bore her from
the cold shores of the Baltic, and Fennic forests; perhaps, too, her own
costly wine stored up in wooden barrels—all these, we may believe, and
more, were piled on the Aquilejan waggons and dragged up the Alpine steep
by oxen, thence to be floated down the Save to the Siscian wharves. In
the markets of Siscia the Aquilejese merchants might lay in their stock
of grain, or hides, or keen Noric steel, and take their pick of cattle,
or tattooed Illyrian slaves. From the whole of Eastern Europe wares might
flow together here; for not only was Siscia at the confluence of the
Save and Kulpa, but she was at the junction of great roads, which, with
their branches, connected her with the Upper and Lower Danube, with the
interior of Dalmatia as well as her coast-land, and with Nauportus and
Italy, overland.
Not long ago an interesting relic was found in Croatia, which perhaps
speaks more clearly than anything else of the majesty to which Siscia
ultimately attained. It is a cedarn chest, once gilt, on which are
carved, by a late Roman hand, what are meant to be personifications of
the five premier cities of the Roman world. In the centre—
Prima urbes inter, Divum domus, Aurea Roma,[165]
Rome, with her usual attributes of helmet, spear, and shield, is
enthroned as a goddess. To her right two more female figures,
distinguished by scrolls as Constantinople and Carthage, hold wreaths in
their hands and look towards Rome. On her left, two other goddess-cities
do the same; one is Nicomedia, the other Siscia. The carving is probably
fourth-century work; and certainly, exalted as is the position claimed
on it for Siscia, it is almost borne out by her coinage of the same
period, for the activity of her mint shows that her commercial splendour
was still at its zenith down to at least the days of Theodosius the
Great; while the coins of her rival Sirmium wax fewer and fewer, and
finally cease altogether. For Sirmium may have been of greater value as
a military station,[166] and perhaps a pleasanter residence for emperors
and bishops, and therefore of greater administrative importance, and of
more frequent mention by historians; but that she was a greater city than
Siscia—as is so confidently assumed by some writers—may reasonably be
doubted, and the very bustle of Siscian markets may have deterred princes
from fixing here their court.
The comparatively high state of Siscian civilisation is also attested
by her coins—those superb medallions of gold and silver—those gems of
the fourth-century monetary art that stand out among the poorer products
of mints Gallic and Britannic. But what distinguishes the Siscian coins
as much as their workmanship is their peculiarly Christian character.
It is here that the first purely Christian type—that, namely, which
alludes to the vision of Constantine, first makes its appearance—indeed,
during the fourth century the sacred monogram may almost be regarded as
a Siscian mint-mark. And we know from other sources that Christianity
had early struck root here; for not only is its existence attested by two
sepulchral inscriptions of Roman date discovered here, but its vitality
is celebrated by a relation of Jerome and a hymn of Prudentius,[167]
recording the martyrdom of a Siscian citizen and bishop, Quirinus:—
Insignem meriti virum
Quirinum placitum Deo,
Urbis mœnia Sisciæ
Concessum sibi martyrem
Complexu patrio fovent.
It was during the persecution of Diocletian and ‘Duke’ Galerius, as
Prudentius styles him, that Quirinus, bishop of Siscia, refused to burn
incense on the heathen altar at the bidding of the Governor Maximus, on
the plea—countenanced, indeed, by inspired writers, but which a little
philology would have spared him—‘that all the gods of the Gentiles
were demons.’ ‘If you will allow,’ said Maximus, ‘that the gods which
the Roman Empire serves are powerful, you shall be made priest to the
great god Jove, otherwise you shall be sent to Amantius, præfect of
First Pannonia, and receive from him condign sentence of death.’ The
stout-hearted bishop, refusing these terms, is sent to Sabaria, where he
is tried and condemned in the theatre, and with a millstone round his
neck is thrown from the bridge above into the river; when, lo! despite
the weight of rock, the water miraculously supports him:—
Dejectum placidissimo
Amnis vertice suscipit;
Nec mergi patitur sibi,
Miris vasta natatibus
Saxi pondera sustinens,
till, having exhorted the faithful and confounded the heathen from his
watery pulpit, his spirit ascends and the laws of gravity resume their
sway.
In the dark period which followed the barbarian invasions, something of
her old secular glory was still reflected in the Siscian Church. After
the destruction of Sirmium by the Huns in 441, Siscia transferred her
ecclesiastical allegiance to Salona. Her decline was more lingering
than that of her rival, for her prosperity had rested on a more solid
foundation. Her bishops survive the settlement of the Sclaves hereabouts
in the time of Heraclius. In the ninth century we find her the residence
of a Sclavonic prince; but she suffered from the Frankish invasion, and
in the tenth century was finally razed by the Magyars. Now at last the
Siscian episcopate dies out, to live again with renewed splendour at
Agram.
The old walls of Siscia are traced in a pear-shaped form on the left
bank of the Kulpa between it and the Save. But just outside our inn,
on the right bank of the river, we came upon several fragments of old
Siscia, some sculptures and inscriptions walled into the foundations
of modern houses. In the tympanum of a door are three sculptures, one
of which may be meant for Apollo, though only the head and half the
body survive, and another for Andromeda; these two of base art; but the
third, a griffin, of somewhat better work. Here and there were stumps
of columns, and Roman tiles might be seen still in use. On the hill
above, still on the right side of the Kulpa, the wooden cottages almost
always rested on foundations composed of Roman blocks, amongst which many
inscriptions may lie hid, though we discovered none that had not already
been conscientiously described by Agram antiquaries. It was strange,
however, to observe how the irony of fate had converted to modern utility
the pomp of ancient funerals and the furniture of the ‘immortal gods’! A
Roman altar, with its face and what inscription there may have been (for
we could not get it raised), buried in the dust, had been turned into a
seat for Croat wives; a Roman sarcophagus in one of the cottage yards had
been converted into a horse-trough, and another had been emended so as to
form a serviceable sofa.
On the summit of the heights which here overlook the river is the site
of a Roman cemetery, and the owner of the vineyards where most of the
remains had been discovered kindly showed us over his domain. Many fine
sarcophagi—the best of which are to be seen in the Agram museum—had been
dug up here, containing the usual amount of coins, lamps, urns, and
ashes, amongst which the skull-bones were most distinguishable. In one
place we were shown a Roman conduit, square in shape, and the outside
glazed as if by a conflagration. Near the old cemetery might be seen
Roman walls, and some cottage foundations consisting entirely of Roman
tiles.
The most interesting Roman fragments were, however, on the left side
of the Kulpa, where the town walls are traceable, in a garden by the
railway-station. There we found an altar with an inscription[168]
showing that it was dedicated to Ceres, with a vase and patera engraved
on one side, and on the other a jar full of spikes of corn. Close by
lay mutilations of what once had been Corinthian capitals, with rich
acanthus-leaves decayed by many winters; fragments of a marble frieze
with wavy vine-sprays loaded with bunches of grapes fit for the Land of
Promise; besides, other marble bits on which were sculptured beakers
and telescopic flowers unknown to botanists, and spiral knot-work which
seemed almost Byzantine. It was pleasant to believe that they all formed
part of a temple of the corn-goddess, though I doubt whether all the
fragments could be attributed either to the same building or the same
age; and perhaps Father Liber or Isis, whose altars have also been
discovered here, may lay as good claim to some of these vinous and floral
devices as Mother Ceres.
But whatever view be taken, these remains are interesting as an
illustration of the old position of Siscia as centre of a corn and
vine-growing district; nor indeed are they inappropriate even to her
present state. The present town of Siszek derives what trade she
possesses mainly from the transport of cereals. Hither the maize and
wheat from the rich alluvial plains of the Banat and the Possávina, as
well as from the interior of Bosnia, are conveyed by the Save and its
tributaries; for Siszek is the point where the land-carriage to the north
and west commences, and she really stands to Trieste and Fiume, with
respect to the traffic between the Danubian basin and the Adriatic, in
much the same relation as her Roman ancestress stood to Aquileja. Siszek
has two really busy seasons in the year—in the spring when the maize crop
is gathered, and again the corn harvest in August and September; and at
these times her population, normally reckoned at 3,800, rises to twice,
or even, it is said, to three times that number. The town, however, like
many other sites of Roman cities, is not so healthy as it was in former
times, and a curious plague of emerods is epidemic here. This decrease
of salubrity is attributed by the Siszekers themselves to the great
destruction of forests that has taken place in the neighbourhood; with
what reasons, let doctors decide.
However, modern science and drainage may probably be trusted to remedy
the present unhealthy state of the Siscian atmosphere; and it requires
no extraordinary gift of prophecy to be able to foresee for Siszek a
glorious future, and to predict that, before many years are passed,
she will have done much to regain the splendour of Roman Siscia, whose
functions, as we have seen, she still to a certain extent performs. For
she has been dowered with a situation destined by nature for a great
emporium of commerce, nor are signs wanting that the fulfilment of her
destiny is at hand. Already Siszek is fixed as the point at which the
railway that is to connect Western Europe directly with Stamboul, and
eventually perhaps the furthest Orient, is to meet the lines leading to
Vienna and Trieste, and another line is projected, connecting Siszek
directly with the Adriatic.
Siszek used to be divided by the Kulpa into the civil and military towns,
the latter under ‘regimental’ government; but since the new legislation
the whole has been placed under the municipal authorities. In neither
half is there anything worth seeing except the Roman remains.
On the bank of the Kulpa, however, just at the confluence with the Save,
about a mile from Siszek, rises the old castle of Caprag, built in a
triangular form, with a round conical-roofed tower at each corner. This
castle brings home to us the old days when the Empire was engaged in
a life and death struggle with the Turk. It was built in the sixteenth
century, with the Emperor Ferdinand’s permission, by the bishop and
canons of Agram, and in 1592-3 it was gallantly defended against the
Pashà of Bosnia by two canons of the cathedral chapter; till, after
withstanding two sieges successfully, it yielded to a third attempt, and
for a year belonged to the Infidel.[169]
As we were exploring the former military quarter of Siszek, whose
habitations, tenanted by the ordinary peasants of the Granitza, are for
the most part mere huts, as compared with the more stylish houses of
the civil town, our ears were saluted by sounds of unearthly revelry
proceeding from a neighbouring wine-shop. Entering it, we found ourselves
in the midst of a Croat merrymaking: an orchestra of four men strumming
on tamburas and tamburitzas as for dear life, and accompanied by such a
whisking, and whirling, and stamping as never was! The dance they were
engaged in when we went in was known to them as the Kardatz, to the
Germans as ‘Kroatisch’—though the Croats say that it was taught them
by the Magyars. Properly it was danced by the women alone, but there
were often enough male interlopers. It is so pretty that it deserves
to be known beyond the limits of Croatia; so I will give the general
arrangement of the dance, as far as I could catch it.
Six Croat maidens—any number divisible by six and two would do as
well—sorted themselves into two groups of three, which for awhile seemed
to ignore each other’s existence, the sisters of each triad alternately
dancing to one another, and then joining hands, like three Graces as
they were, and circling round; till of a sudden the rival orbits seemed
to feel each other’s influence, a quick _rapprochement_ took place,
and all six, interlacing their arms, tripped round in a fairy ring,
faces outwards, till a starry disruption once more surprised us, and
in a twinkling the revolving orb was split up into a new triad of twin
constellations spinning round on their separate axes, till it made
one giddy to look at them—ribbons, kerchiefs, and cometic plaits—and,
sooth to say, the nebulous envelopes of the statuesque!—flying off
centrifugally.
The dance was in parts surprisingly graceful; and the dancers, though
mostly homely, were certainly prettier than the average North-German
_Bauerin_. Their hair was inclined to light shades which one hardly
expected to see in so southern a clime, and their eyes were generally
blue. There was one maiden, however, more comely than the rest, with
dark almond eyes and raven hair, of a strange type, that one meets with
now and again in South-Sclavonic regions; a waif from the lands of the
morning, an Oriental beauty shrouded in no winding-sheet and entombed in
no harem, but set off by the light white muslin of Croatia.
Then there were other dances in which the men performed, which were
distinguished by stamping, and every now and then interrupted by a comic
‘spoken.’ We heard some songs, too; such as one would imagine might break
from a flock of sheep if they were to burst into spontaneous melody—a
wearisome succession of baa-baas, varied at intervals by an attempt
to see how long they could keep on at one note! The poverty of the
instruments seemed to narrow the range of the human voice.
Next morning betimes we bade farewell to Siszek, and took a passage on
the Save steamer for Brood, from which place we were to begin our foot
journey through Bosnia. During the early part of the voyage there was
little to see. Mud banks lined with willows, now and then villages of
dark timber, where, within the palings of the large house-communities,
were clustered together several dwelling-houses of tea-caddy shape and
somewhat pagoda-like appearance, due to their having eaves projecting
over the ground-floor as well as the upper storey. The Save, as we
enter it, takes a muddier hue than the Kulpa, which at Siszek possessed
something of the emerald purity of a limestone stream. Opposite the
confluence of the Save and Unna was Jassenovac, taken and held for awhile
by the Pashà of Bosnia in 1536, after the battle of Mohacz; it is a small
town of about 1,100 inhabitants, and, being built on piles, is sometimes
called New Amsterdam. It might also recall the Swiss lake-dwellings,
to restorations of which many Granitza villages bear a certain family
likeness; but I doubt if the boats that float off Jassenovac are not
even more primitive than those of the old lake-dwellers, for they are
simply great oak-trunks hollowed out in a Crusoe-like fashion. Further on
we passed floating mills, paddle-boats of Noah’s Ark-like construction
anchored in the current, or left behind us large flat barges which looked
like giant cockchafers turned over on their backs.
We are now on the watery boundary-line between Christendom and Islâm, and
the contrast between the two shores is one of the most striking that can
be imagined, recalling that between the Bulgarian and Wallachian banks
of the Lower Danube. On one side Croat men, white tunicked and white
breeked, with blue vests, and fringes of homely lace to their trowsers;
bare-legged women, with the shortest of apron-skirts, washing their linen
in the shallows, coifed in the rosy Rubatz. Now and then a town, white
houses and bulbous church-spires, and citizens in the mourning hues
of Western civilisation. On the other bank minarets and narrow wooden
streets, gorgeous Turkish officials, brilliant maidens and mummied dames,
cheerful fezzes and red Bosnian turbans; and it is to be remarked that
the men on the Turkish bank, owing to their wearing such comparatively
shadeless head-gear, are distinctly more sunburnt than the Slavonians
of the Austrian side in their broad, black, felt wideawakes. The one
side was cold and dull, if comparatively clean; the other dirty but
magnificent.
Various types illustrative of the South Sclavonic world are to be seen
on deck: a Syrmian woman of an Oriental cast of feature already spoken
of, with dark hair and eyes, and a purple skirt; the grave hadji whose
acquaintance we had made at Siszek, who vouchsafes me a majestic nod
of recognition; a Dalmatiner—one of those Italianised Sclaves who man
the Austrian navy—with blue sailor-blouse and bright red sash, sounds
the shallows, when the steamer slackens speed, with a long pole. A
Slavonian of that dissipated type which becomes more frequent as we
approach Syrmia, the mother-country of the famed plum-brandy—the Syrmian
slivovitz—with low eyebrows, a ferocious moustache and an eminently
Sclavonic nose, is caught by our artist napping, and pocketed as
below.[170] Beyond Gradisca we came to the prettiest part of the river
scenery, where the watery mirror reflects the undulations of wooded
hills; thence on and on through this magnificent oak forest—some of the
finest timber in all Europe—the home of wolves and bears and sovereign
eagles, and a few days later to be the refuge of the panic-stricken
Christian refugees of Bosnia.
As we neared our destination the question arose whether we should sleep
in the Austrian or Turkish town of Brood; but we decided, from a previous
slight acquaintance with a Bosnian town, that we were more likely to
secure sleep on the Austrian side, where, accordingly, we landed and
put up at the comfortable ‘Red House,’ and presently went out to take
stock of the place. Slavonian Brood is a large wooden village, more
abominably paved, or rather cobbled, than any town I remember. What
especially struck us was the chimneys, which are of every kind of shape
and material, stone and wooden, capped with canopies arched and peaked;
and suggesting in turn huts, towers, haystacks, tunnels, toadstools, and
umbrellas!
Now, whether it was the fact that we took out our sketch-books to
immortalise, so far as in us lay, these sooty orifices, or whether in the
way in which we eyed them there was something of the insidious invader,
certain it is that our motions did not escape the observation of an
active and intelligent gendarme, who ‘knew directly,’ as he afterwards
expressed it to a Croat who gave us the relation with great glee, ‘that
we were Russian spies.’ Acting on which supposition with commendable
alacrity, he came up and demanded our pass. Now there is a natural
tendency amongst Englishmen to resent such a demand as an antiquated
absurdity; but our official was so honeyed in manner, so profuse of
‘_bittes_’ and protestations of ‘_Pflicht_,’ that we could not find it
in our hearts to refuse to satisfy the poor fellow’s curiosity. Whereupon
our friend looked at the paper and twisted it first to one side and then
to another; and as he did not understand one word of it, shook his head
very wisely and handed it to his mate, who, not understanding any more,
shook his head more sagely still, and handed it us back, professing—sly
dog!—that they were satisfied.
Those chimneys were ‘the beginnings of evils!’
We, however, had not recognised the first drops of the thunderstorm,
and, proceeding tranquilly on our way, strolled down past an old church
and monastery to the high bank overlooking the Save. It was a beautiful
picture!—a glorious sunset, crimson, golden, opalescent, mirrored on the
silvery expanse of quiet waters, broken only by a small green island
where stately oak-trees huddled together in mid-flood like the giants of
an older world;—far beyond the sky-line, mingling with the mysterious
blue of distant mountains; on the Slavonian bank, pale rows of poplars
and conical haystacks, in relief against the dark fringe of primeval
forest; on the further side, a verandahed guardhouse and the tip of a
minaret—a fore-glimpse of another world—and hark! as the sun goes down,
the solemn tones of the muezzin are faintly borne by the evening breeze
to the shores of that Christendom which once rang with _Allah akbar_!
But we roused ourselves from the reveries which such a scene could not
fail to awaken, for the darkness was gathering, and a voice within bade
us seek the good cheer of our inn; when we were arrested by the sounds of
music and the sight of a booth near the market-place, and, finding that
a peep-show was going on, paid our kreutzers and went in. A moonlight
view of the Tuileries is hardly what one would go to Brood to see, and we
were beginning to think the show a trifle dull, when the serenity of the
sightseers was broken in upon by the abrupt entry of two police-officers,
and from their evident designs on some person or persons unknown we were
congratulating ourselves on the prospect of a more lively spectacle.
These expectations were indeed justified by the two officials pouncing
upon L⸺ and myself, and ordering us to accompany them immediately to the
Commissär of Police.
‘Tell the Commissär of Police that if he wants to see us he had better
come himself,’ said I, who acted as our spokesman.
‘Very sorry, sir,’ said the official addressed, ‘but our orders were to
bring you.’
‘Tell him,’ I said, ‘that we are Englishmen, and are not accustomed to be
treated in this way!’
Here a Slavonian gentleman intervened. He said that there must be some
misunderstanding; that it was a most unfortunate occurrence; but, in
fact, these men had orders to arrest us if we did not follow them at once.
Evidently, to avoid a row, there was nothing for it but to take his
advice; so we were marched along the streets of Brood with a gendarme on
each side of us, to all intents and purposes under arrest; till at last,
in no very accommodating humour, we arrived at the official’s house, a
long way off in the suburbs. Here we were stumped through a court, and
then ushered into a dirty little room, where we found his highness seated
at table in his shirt-sleeves, chewing a Coriolanan meal of maize. He did
not get up from his chair to receive us, or even offer us a seat; but
glancing at us in a way which made us wish to knock him down and conclude
the business offhand, asked us in a surly and (we fancied) a slightly
husky voice who we were. ‘We are Englishmen,’ replied I, in German. ‘Give
me your pass!’ shouted the Commissär in a still rougher tone; ‘what do
you mean by entering the town without reporting yourselves to ME?’
To which I replied that he ought to know as well as we did that
travellers could pass from one town in the monarchy to another without
being subjected to such annoying regulations; but that, so far as Brood
was concerned, we had as a matter of fact already shown our passes to two
gendarmes. What was more, we need scarcely inform him that at the present
time Englishmen could pass into Austria, just as Austrians into England,
without a passport being demanded. ‘And I think, sir,’ I added, ‘as you
wished to see us, it would have been more civil if you had called in
person at our hotel.’
A Polizei-Commissär, bearded in his den by tramps and vagabonds like
us—it was too much for his petty Majesty! Any strictures on the
ceremonial of his state reception which I may have held in reserve, were
cut short by his roaring out, in a still more insufferable tone, ‘I tell
you I will see your pass!’
‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘just to prove to you that we _are_ Englishmen, and
out of pure courtesy, we are willing to show you our pass; but we must
nevertheless protest that you have no right whatever to demand it!’
‘No right!’ screamed the P.-C., almost choking with rage, and bouncing
from his chair with a spoon in one hand, and a maize-stalk in the other.
‘_I_ no RIGHT! We’ll soon see about that. Take them off!’ he cried to
his satellites; ‘take them off, I say, to the lock-up. Remove him!’—as I
attempted to insert the thin end of a protest, and hurled a few consuls,
ambassadors, thrones and dominions, at the official’s head; while the
gendarmes, seeing that it was a disgraceful business, hesitated to carry
out their chief’s commands—‘Do you hear me? I tell you they shall pass
the night in gaol. They shall show me their pass to-morrow. Quick!’ And
we left him muttering ‘No right!’
Meanwhile rumours of the successful capture and impending doom of two
outrageous disturbers of the peace had spread throughout the length
and breadth of Brood, and all Brood was rapidly assembling to see the
majesty of the law vindicated on our persons; so that when we were led
forth again by the police, we were followed through the streets by a kind
of funeral _cortége_. Presently we turned down another larger court,
and, ascending some steps, found ourselves on a raised platform outside
the door of our intended prison, from which I seized the opportunity
of addressing a kind of scaffold speech to the assembled soldiers and
people, which at least had the effect of delaying our incarceration.
I endeavoured to urge on them the seriousness of what was about to take
place. Two Englishmen, travelling under the protection of a passport
which they were willing to produce, were about to be cast into a
dungeon on the mere fiat of a petty magistrate. That for ourselves,
gross as was the indignity, we regretted it principally for the sake
of the Polizei-Commissär. That it would be but merciful to allow him
a short space for repentance; and here I sketched out vaguely some of
the tremendous consequences which such conduct might bring down on his
head. That they, too, the gendarmes, would do well to think twice before
lending a hand in such a business. That Brood itself might rue the day;
nor did I neglect this opportunity to call up an apparition of a British
fleet on the Save. Finally, I enquired who was the highest authority in
Brood, and hearing that it was the Stadthauptmann, or Mayor, despatched a
gendarme to beg that functionary’s immediate attendance.
We flatter ourselves that this harangue was not without its effect on
our audience, who mostly understood German; but the minions of the law
must obey, and the police ushered us into a wretched cell some seven
feet by ten, quite dark, with a daïs of bare boards to sleep on. We
were allowed neither light, nor straw, nor water; and when we asked for
food—for we were very hungry, having tasted nothing since noon, and it
being now dusk—that was also refused, till we offered a bribe to the
officer, who then saw the matter in quite a different light. He then left
the dungeon, the iron bolt grated in the lock, and we prepared to shift
for the night as best we might. Outside we heard a voice of weeping,
proceeding apparently from a woman and a child, as if touched at our
sad fate—though L⸺ preferred to believe that the sobs were due to the
prospective annihilation of the Commissär. Had our sympathisers listened,
they would have heard a sound of chuckling within, which might have been
a considerable relief to their feelings.
Yet, we had not dined.
But our threats had begun to work on the official mind of Brood, and, as
it afterwards turned out, they were seconded by no less an advocate than
the leader of the National party in the Croatian Diet, Dr. Makanec, who,
fired with that enthusiasm for the cause of freedom which shortly after
led him to secede with his party from a bureaucratic assembly, made such
representations to the Mayor on the outrageous conduct of the Commissär,
and its probable consequences, as moved his worship to immediate action.
Thus it was, that we had not been in durance vile half-an-hour when
hurried footsteps were heard in the court. The door of our cell was
thrown open, and the Stadthauptmann was before us, bowing and scraping,
and entreating us with the most profuse apologies to step out. He
protested that it was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and as he had not
offended us we were the more ready to grant him pardon, and permitted
ourselves to be escorted in triumph by his whole _posse comitatus_ down
the street, his worship affecting the most polite interest in our tour.
Thus we returned victoriously to our inn, where we were met by our host,
who had been expecting us for dinner for some time, with the expressive
question ‘Eingesperrt?’ (‘Locked up?’) ‘Eingesperrt!’ said I. ‘So was my
waiter a day or two ago,’ continued our host. ‘What for?’ we demanded.
‘Ah! that I cannot tell you.’ ‘The fellow ought to be shot!’ chimed in
the aggrieved waiter. It appeared that the Commissär was a petty tyrant
in the place, and our successful stand against his insolence created
everywhere in Brood the liveliest sensations of delight. But why should
the Brooders have left it to stray Englishmen to beard their despot?
and which is the viler, the people who knock under to such arbitrary
treatment, or the government which delegates to its officials the license
to abuse the personal liberties of its subjects? This is not the first
time that, for an equally paltry charge, I have seen the inside of an
Austro-Hungarian prison. The free life of the great cities of the empire
deceives those foreigners whose observations have been confined to the
_Prater_; what ought to be realised is, that while London in a sense
extends all over England, Pest and Vienna are bounded by their suburbs.
The truth is, that the Metternichian régime has not died out entirely
in the country districts. But when, as I believe was the case in this
instance, the traditions of the ‘Police-State’ are followed out by
Magyar—or at least _Magyarizing_—officials, there is less excuse for such
conduct, and the Hungarians should be warned that, by setting up an alien
and oppressive bureaucracy in their Sclavonic Provinces they are not
likely to retain the high opinion which their noble stand against similar
tyranny has won for them among Englishmen.
[Illustration: Head of Sclavonian.]
CHAPTER III.
THROUGH THE BOSNIAN POSSÁVINA AND USSORA.
Insurrectionary Agitation among Southern Sclaves—Proclamation
of the Pashà of Bosnia—We land in Turkish Brood—Moslem
Children—Interview with the Mudìr—Behaviour of our
Zaptieh—Peasants of Greek Church—How these Christians love
one another—Arrive at Dervent—Interview with Pashà of
Banjaluka—Hajduks’ Graves—Rayah Hovel—Difficulty with our
Host—Doboj; its old Castle and Historical Associations—A
South Sclavonic Patriot—First Mountain Panorama—The ‘Old
Stones,’ a prehistoric Monument—Tešanj: its old Castle and
History—‘_Une Petite Guerre_’—Latin Quarter of Tešanj—Soused
by an old Woman—Influence of Oriental Superstitions on Bosnian
Rayahs—Argument with the Kaïmakàm—Excusable Suspicions.
We spent the next forenoon in exploring some of the neighbouring
house-communities, a description of which has already been given;
and about twelve, after a parting wrangle concerning passports with
a sentry on the river bank, took our places in the ferry-boat that
was to convey us to the Turkish side of the Save. As the shores of
Christendom were receding from our view, we had leisure to reflect on
some slightly sensational topics which had lately been forcing themselves
on our attention. There could be no doubt that the insurrection in the
Herzegovina was at least holding its ground, and that the agitation
in the neighbouring Sclavonic lands was increasing in intensity. A
revolutionary committee had already been formed in Agram, at Laibach,
Spalato, and other Austrian towns. At Agram we came in for a concert
in aid of the insurgents; at Siszek there arrived the same night as
ourselves thirty Herzegovinians, who had left the employments which they
had in Free Serbia, and were hurrying to aid their revolted brothers,
while many Croats and Slovenes from Agram, Marburg, Laibach, and other
places were—so the Siszekers assured us—also leaving for the seat of
war. Vague rumours of insurgent successes were afloat, and Siszek was
thrown into a considerable state of excitement by a report that Mostar
and Trebinje had both fallen into the hands of the Christians. We were
assured from many sides that if the insurrection were to spread a little
further, the rayahs of Bosnia would rise also; and fears were entertained
for the safety of the Christian minority in Serajevo, the capital of
Bosnia, and the head-quarters of Moslem fanaticism.
But what touched us more nearly was a proclamation which had just
appeared, signed by Dervish Pashà, the Turkish governor-general of
Bosnia, the authorship of which the wily Vali, later on, thought fit to
deny, but which for the present had the desired effect. By it the whole
of Bosnia was subjected to martial law, as well as the Herzegovina, and
its terms were vague and comprehensive enough to legalise any violence.
‘It is my will,’ so ran the manifesto, ‘that every true believer in the
Prophet have the right to seize and bring before me anyone suspected of
taking part in the revolt, or of giving aid to the enemies of our exalted
master the Sultan. And I order that all strangers direct themselves
according to the laws of the country during the insurrection, which
probably will not long endure, for already doth the sun of the insurgents
verge towards its setting. And assuredly’—we were informed in the poetic
imagery of the East—‘shall the lightning of the Sultan strike all who
order not themselves according to my will.’
‘But as to those who harbour the unruly, by the sword shall they be cut
off; and in all God’s houses subject to our jurisdiction shall prayers be
offered up for the help of God and the protection of the prophet, on our
exalted master the Sultan and his government.’
[Illustration: View on River Save, looking from Slavonian Brood towards
the Bosnian Shore.]
But for better or worse our Rubicon is passed, and we land on the Turkish
shore, among a group of turbaned gentry, from amongst whom emerges a
somewhat tattered soldier, who conducts us to the square, verandahed,
Karaula or guard-house. Here we are asked by another official, in
Italian, if we have anything to declare in our knapsacks, and having
satisfied him by a simple ‘Niente,’ we are again beckoned on by our
soldier, and follow him into the narrow street of Turkish Brood to show
our pass to the Præfect or Mudìr. Our appearance created as great a
sensation as was decorous among the big-turbans of the townlet; crowds of
Bosnian _gamins_ followed at our heels; and we caught a passing glimpse
of a dusky Ethiopian maiden white-toothing us in the most coquettish
fashion from behind a door. As the Mudìr was not at home, we had to wait
in the front room of his Konak,[171] if indeed a place which possesses
neither door nor window, and is completely open to the air on the street
side, can be called a room; and taking our seat on the platform or raised
floor—which in the other houses of the town, as generally in Turkey, is
used as the squatting-place of the shopkeepers, and the counter on which
to display their wares—became the gazing-stock of a motley assemblage,
who, crowding round in the street, or taking reserved seats in the
melon-shop opposite, ‘twigged us’ at their leisure.
We, too, obtained a breathing space in which to realise in what a new
world we were. The Bosniacs themselves speak of the other side of the
Save as ‘Europe,’ and they are right; for to all intents and purposes
a five minutes’ voyage transports you into Asia. Travellers who have
seen the Turkish provinces of Syria, Armenia, or Egypt, when they enter
Bosnia, are at once surprised at finding the familiar sights of Asia and
Africa reproduced in a province of European Turkey. Thrace, Macedonia,
the shores of the Ægean, Stamboul itself, have lost or never displayed
many Oriental customs and costumes; but Bosnia remains the chosen land
of Mahometan Conservatism, the Goshen of the faithful, ennobled by the
tombs of martyrs, and known in Turkish annals as the ‘Lion that guards
the gates of Stamboul.’ Fanaticism has struck its deepest roots among
her renegade population, and reflects itself even in their dress. In no
other European province of Turkey is the veiling of women so strictly
attended to. It is said that not long ago the fine egg-shaped turbans
of the Janissaries might still be found in Bosnia, and the Maulouka,
the most precious of all mantles, which had died out elsewhere, long
survived among these Bosnian Tories. As to the introduction of fezzes,
the Imperial order almost provoked a revolt here; and to this day among
Mahometans the fez is almost confined to officials, the rest of the
believers going about in the capacious turbans of the East.
The very darkness of the background, the dirty narrow street, the timber
houses, the time-stained wooden minaret, acted as a foil to the Oriental
brilliance of the dress and merchandise, the scarlet sashes, the gold
embroidery, those gorgeous little maidens—doomed most of them by sweet
thirteen to take the winding-sheets of Turkish matrimony, and bury their
beauty in harems, where by thirty-five they are turned old hags; but
now, poor little butterflies! fluttering out their brief child-glimpse
of the world—light-smocked, in linen chemises, chevroned with rainbow
threads of colour—bagged as to their legs, but beflowered with roses of
Shiraz—pranked out with gilt coin-bespangled fezzes, whence fountain-like
the separate jets of their tresses trickle forth in a score of silken
plaits; Perilets, with sisterly arms round each other’s necks, deigning
to smile on the strange Giaours. There, too, are their little brothers,
showing more of their slender legs, but gay as their sisters, in bags and
tunics, with pates not yet artificially baldened, but long-haired as the
little maidens, only in softer cascades, falling down their backs, and
fringing their foreheads. Capillati (_Copi_ is still the word for boys
among the Roumans of East Europe)—one almost hoped to see a bulla round
their necks! and indeed I doubt not that they wore many a potent spell
against the Evil Eye.
There was one little lad of about five, with blue eyes and hair of
Scandinavian lightness, the cut of which called up some tiny page of
Charles the Second’s days, who, with some of his playmates, crowded so
near as to shut out the view of the two mysterious Franks from the grave
and reverend signiors behind, whereupon a Turk, who happened to hold a
small switch in his hand, came forward and flicked these small flies
away. The whip just touched our small urchin, who moved out of the way
with the others. He did not cry, but more, as it seemed, in sorrow than
in anger, fixed on his flagellator a look of such childish dignity and
grave surprise as should have annihilated anyone less impassive than a
Turk. It said, as plainly as a look can speak, ‘I am not accustomed to
such treatment.’ The look of a child may seem a slight matter, but it
was eloquent of the tenderness with which the Turks treat children—a
tenderness which does them honour. Such an unkind cut was a new
experience in the little lad’s life.
When our observers had taken sufficient stock of us, the propriety of
showing us into an upper room of the Konak suggested itself to some of
them, and we were accordingly led upstairs, and invited to squat in a den
belonging to some subordinate official, who, while waiting the Mudìr’s
arrival, treated us to coffee. It was a very dirty little room, in which
the rags and tatters of an old piece of faded carpet and rotten matting
made shift for chairs and sofas; these, with a stove such as has been
described already, pigeon-holed with pots, and a broken water-jar,
completing the inventory of the furniture. After a tedious delay, during
which we supposed the worthy præfect to be at his mid-day prayers, or
more probably his siesta, the Mudìr arrived, and we were ushered into
his room of state, distinguished from that of his sub. by containing a
larger area of dirt, and by displaying a larger piece of carpet with a
more capacious patch, but also by possessing a greasy divan on which we
were beckoned by the Mudìr to take our seat by his side. Our official
had turned out in grey clothes of European cut, and a regulation fez;
but as he could only speak Turkish, Arabic, and Bosniac, and as we
could none of these, an interpreter had to be found in the shape of an
Italian-speaking Dalmatian woman before we could hold much communication.
The Mudìr was well satisfied with our Bujuruldu; but when we expressed
our determination to walk through the country, he was fairly taken aback.
It was evidently a case which had never before come within his official
experience. There was no precedent for such conduct. Nobody, he assured
us, ever thought of travelling on foot in Bosnia; if we wanted a horse
or a waggon, he was ready to oblige—but to walk! We had to explain that
walking was a weakness of English people; and at last, as I think the
good man began to believe that it was connected with our religion, and
that we were pilgrims of some sort, he gave over trying to convert us
to the Bosnian way of thinking, and told off a Zaptieh to escort us to
our that day’s destination, Dervent. Our attempts to rid ourselves from
having this encumbrance failed, as the autograph letter of the Pashà made
him responsible for our safety.
We left Turkish Brood, after first mollifying our Zaptieh with a present
of tobacco, and for a few miles followed the road along the Save valley,
stopping once to purchase at a roadside cottage some sweet milk—_slátko
miléko_. I have come upon some of our Sclavonic cousins who could
understand the English word! The homesteads were very like the Croatian
and Slavonian in general arrangement. The common yard and paling, the
wooden cottage roofed with long shingles, and the various outhouses, were
there, but the wickerwork maize-garners were less capacious and more like
large clothes-baskets, and the whole was on a smaller scale. We heard
that the system of house-communities existed hereabouts to a much less
extent than on the Austrian side of the Save, but here and there as many
as three or four families are to be found in the same homestead with a
common house-father and house-mother. Round each cottage were a number of
plum-trees, and in each yard was a small distillery for making Slivovitz.
Further on, a Serbian merchant drove up in an Arabà or native waggon,
and courteously invited us to take a quarter of an hour’s lift, which we
accepted, though it was sad jolty work, and we were not sorry to get out
again.
Soon after passing a Turkish graveyard, with the usual turbaned
tombstones—some of the turbans of majestic height—we turned off from
the Save valley, and, leaving the road, waded across the Ukrina stream,
when to our astonishment the Zaptieh, instead of following, stood
shivering on the brink; but our surprise was turned to indignation when
the fellow shouted to a Christian woman, who was passing along the other
bank, to carry him across! We gave vent to such forcible expressions
of disapprobation as deterred the poor woman from obeying my lord’s
commands; but a rayah man coming up, the Zaptieh, notwithstanding our
indignant Jok! jok! (No! no!) succeeded in requisitioning him, and
in spite of all our gesticulations the Christian carried over our
escort on his back. When the Zaptieh saw that we were very angry, he
recompensed his bearer with a handful of tobacco; and it must be owned
that the Christian seemed satisfied with the transaction, and that
neither the leggings nor the boots of the Zaptieh were adapted for rapid
disembarrassment.
Further on we ascended a gentle chain of hills by delicious foot-paths
across hayfields, or amidst luxuriant crops of maize—through oak-forests,
and, what was stranger, woods of plum-trees laden with small unripe
fruit; and now and again along pretty country lanes, where the hedges
feasted us with a profusion of blackberries whose size attested the
richness of the soil, and whose flavour seemed to combine all that
was nicest in blackberry and mulberry. Both fields and hedgerows were
varied with a beautiful array of flowers, amongst which I noticed yellow
snapdragon, sky-blue flax, a sweet flowering-rush, and a heath of
wondrous aroma.
About sunset we stopped at a small shed on the banks of the Ukrina,
where, seated among a group of Christian peasants, we regaled ourselves
with black coffee which was being dispensed at the rate of about a
farthing a small cup. Hard by, fixed over the Ukrina stream, was a
water-mill for grinding corn, of the most primitive construction, an idea
of which is best given by the accompanying diagram. These turbines are
universal throughout Bosnia, and are to be also seen in Croatia.
[Illustration: Plan of Turbine Mill.]
The peasants here were mostly Vlachs, that is, they belonged to the
Greek Church. The men wore red and black turbans, a flowing white linen
tunic like the Croats, with a fringe of that coarse lace which we had
noticed in Slavonia. A leathern belt wound several times round the waist
served as a pocket for their smoking apparatus; their trousers were worn
loose and expansive as the Croatian, sometimes close about the calf;
their hair was sometimes plaited together behind, and sometimes hung down
in two elf-locks—the crown of the head being shaven, as with the Turks.
As to the women, they were dressed in light tunics and aprons, much as
Croats and Slavonians, but their hair was often plaited like the men’s
into a single pig-tail. On their head was a white kerchief arranged in a
fashion peculiar to themselves, with a flower-like tassel at one side;
and they usually wore in front of the two necessary aprons a superfluous
black one with long fringe. Here is a Greek Christian girl that we saw at
a well, and who graciously allowed us to slake our thirst from the bucket
she had just drawn up.
[Illustration: Bosnian Girl of the Possávina.]
These Greek Church women wore blue embroidery to their dresses, but the
Roman Catholics of this part, though dressing otherwise like the Greeks,
distinguish themselves from their fellow-Christians by embroidering
their clothes with red, while their men protest against a Universal
Church by wearing tighter breeches than the Orthodox. It is hardly
to be expected after this that they should call the founder of their
faith by the same name; and, indeed, the Romanists call Christ ‘Krst,’
and themselves ‘Krisčiani,’ while the Greeks speak of ‘Hrist’ and of
themselves as ‘Hrisčiani;’ so that H in Bosnia is a shibboleth. The Greek
Bosnians use Cyrillian characters, and call themselves distinctively
Serbs or Pravoslaves, that is, ‘the orthodox;’ the others look on the
Cyrillian character as a snare of the devil, and, far from trying to
claim fellowship with the people of Free Serbia, style themselves
Latins—‘Latinski’—for it always seems to be a tendency of Romanists to
thrust patriotic interests into the background.
The Christian men dress much as the Turks about here, or, to put it more
accurately, the poorer Mussulman Bosniacs have not much departed from
their old Sclavonic attire; and though the Turkish townspeople show
themselves off in indigo bags and Oriental vests, their peasants are
often only to be distinguished from the Christians round by a preference
for white turbans.
We now crossed the Ukrina stream once more, by means of a weir set up
to increase the water-power of the turbine, and presently struck again
upon the road just before entering Dervent, our halting-place for the
night, which rose up before us picturesquely perched, with its two
minarets, on a height above the river. Here we were first conducted by
our Zaptieh to the Konak of the Kaïmakàm—a bigger personage than a Mudìr.
But we, mistaking the official residence for a hostelry, were beginning
to air our Bosniac in an attempt to order dinner, when a demand for our
Bujuruldu put a stop to these indiscreet utterances. Leaving our pass at
the Konak for the night, to be digested at leisure by the authorities,
we found a real _Han_, and being shown an upper room, with a few bits of
matting and carpet stretched on the divan to serve as beds and seats,
were presently supping _à la Bosniaque_. Our _menu_ consisted of hot
milk, a fowl (pili), _chlébba_, or bread in shape of a round flat cake,
brownish and coarse and rather sour, but superior to the black bread
one meets with in German villages; _Méd_, or honey; and the usual black
coffee, all set before us in tinned-copper dishes on a round tray of the
same metal—the _Tepšia_—as is usual in Turkey.
Our landlord could speak a little Italian, and we found a very pleasant
German Jew, who acted as our interpreter and gave us what information
we desired as to the neighbourhood. From him we learnt that in Dervent,
of the population estimated at 2,000, about 40 per cent. belonged to
the Greek Church, most of the rest being Mahometan. Although there are
no native newspapers, a knowledge of the revolt in the Herzegovina had
spread among the Christians here by means of the orthodox priests, but
the rayahs were described to us as too down-trodden even to wish to rise.
We shared our apartment with an Imâm, a Mahometan priest, who dined
opposite us from another tray, having first most religiously washed his
hands. The holy man slept considerably sounder than we, who were unused
to this Turkish kennelling and its concomitants, and certainly were not
at all sorry when our Jewish friend roused us next morning, to say that
the Pashà of Banjaluka desired us to pay him a visit at the Konak.
We found the old gentleman seated on a divan of more sumptuous appearance
than any we had yet seen, with two other dignitaries, a Mutasarìf
(probably of Banjaluka), and the Kaïmakàm of Dervent. Two chairs were
brought for the ‘Europeans;’ and the Pashà, after enquiring courteously
about our travels, and giving us a friendly message to our Consul,
chose out for us a Zaptieh after his own heart, who was to escort us on
our next day’s match, and whom he particularly enjoined to obey us in
everything, wait when we waited, and sleep where we slept. His excellency
was as fat and jolly a personage as ever dined, and in a grey European
dress, with his measured English way of speaking, good-humoured face, and
hearty manner, he reminded us more of a fox-hunting squire than a Turk;
though there are episodes in his life—and Ali Riza Pashà is an historical
character—which smack more of the Divan than the hunting-field. He began
his career as a soldier, but soon discovered that swash-bucklering was
not his forte, and that his nerves were better adapted for the arts of
peace; for, coming upon the Russians near Kars, he literally took to his
heels, and having the misfortune to be followed by his men, was dismissed
the army. But he had now proved himself incapable, and accordingly became
a natural recipient of Turkish honours. In due course he was created
a Pashà, and received the lucrative post of Banjaluka, where to this
day, though he is unable to write his name, he retains his office by
administering heavy bribes alternately at Stamboul and Serajevo. With the
Divan it has long been an _arcanum imperii_ that the more incompetent the
official the greater his tribute of bribery. At this moment our Pashà
was engaged in collecting troops to be employed, so it was said, against
the insurgents in the Herzegovina. But why were they to be massed at
Banjaluka, in a remote corner of Bosnia?
Leaving the Konak, we took a stroll through the streets of Dervent, and
observed the wares, which may be divided into two kinds—the Oriental and
the English. Many Manchester goods, Sheffield cutlery, and other useful
articles, find their way here from England by way of Trieste; and we
actually found in our chamber in the Han a hair-brush with the name of an
English maker on it. The chief product of Dervent and its neighbourhood,
besides the Slivovitz, which every cottage makes for itself, is dried
plums. These plums are especially grown in the Possávina—the part of
Bosnia bordering on the Save—and indeed form the principal article of the
export of the country, amounting yearly in value to about 40,000_l._,
nearly an eighth of her total exports. They are shipped up the Save
and then overland to Trieste, where they are packed in wooden boxes,
and thence find their way to the Western markets, so that many of the
inferior qualities of the so-called French plums sold in this country are
really Bosnian.
At 8.30 we left Dervent, passing the shapeless ruins of an old castle,
two walls of which can alone be traced now, and two mosques, one of
them almost as dilapidated as the castle wall. Our march lay through a
beautiful country, over the undulating hills which separate the valleys
of the Save and Bosna, beyond which, in the exquisitely clear air, rose
the lilac outlines of loftier ranges, while every now and then a gap
in the hills would reveal to us the rich Possávina spread out below in
dim vistas of forest and cornland. We partly kept to the road, partly
indulged in short cuts and by-paths through a country sparsely scattered
at long intervals with huts and stray maize-plots.
Then the scenery took a wilder aspect. We passed through lonely woods
of scrubby oak, and next set to traversing long stretches of open land,
relieved with island-like patches and clumps, of nut-trees weighed down
by the fond embraces of wild vines. Rare commons they were! and of
varying mood; funereal with juniper, or a-frolic with a bright array of
butterflies—azure blues, clouded yellows, silver-washed fritillaries,
majestic swallow-tails, rising in short flights, and then floating
through the air steered by their twin-rudders—they and all drinking
in the nectar which the tropical sun distilled from seas of heath and
bracken, till the whole air was filled with a kind of subtle steam.
But butterflies have no knapsacks! and we ourselves were glad enough to
take refuge for a while from the intense heat of noon in a little Han
called Modran, where we obtained a light refection, consisting of coffee
and a water-melon.
Beyond this we crossed a neck of land where the oaks gave place to
stunted beeches, and noticed by the roadside two small tombstones.
‘Hajduks’ graves!’ ejaculated our Zaptieh. On one was engraved a Latin,
on the other a Greek cross, so they were the graves of Christians; but
how had they met their fate? Had they turned brigands?—to redress,
perhaps, some wrong unutterable?—or were they rather the victims of
some outrage? For in Bosnia it is usual to bury the murdered on the
side of the road where they fall, and there are other highways in the
province lined with such monuments. But the stones are hoar and without
inscription.
We next passed a caravan of pack-horses heavily laden with bales, and
proceeding, like everything else in Bosnia, at a snail’s pace, and then
caught a glimpse of the Roman Catholic church of Foca, a long straggling
village lying in a valley to the right. The village seemed to shrink away
from the high road, but one cottage was nearer, and into the small yard
of this our Zaptieh led us, to see if we could procure any food. Here
we found a Christian woman with a small child, who, bringing out two
ragged pieces of carpet for us to lie on outside her hut, did her best
to prepare us a meal, and presently set before us a couple of toasted
maize-stalks, five eggs poached in sour milk, some unripe plums, and
unleavened maize and rye bread. For all this she only charged us a single
‘grosch,’ or about twopence, and seemed surprised when we trebled that
amount.
I can hardly describe the misery of the hovel and its surroundings, the
haggard mother and poor squalid brat, scarcely better clad than when it
entered the world,—the all-wretchedest of homes—with earth for flooring,
a few stones in the middle to support the fire, above which hung a piece
of hooked wood to support a caldron,—a small hole opening in the roof to
let out the smoke, which had covered the wooden walls with soot like the
inside of a chimney; a low partition shutting off the lair. There was no
light but what came in at the door, and the few tatters she had strewn
outside for us were the only furniture. There was besides, a shed, in
which we imagined a cow, a small hen-roost, and a little patch of maize;
but how little of this ever went to the rayah who tilled it was shown
by the size of the garner, which was a mere wicker-work basket. But the
most indescribable tokens of destitution were some clothes, or what once
had been such, hung to the fence,—they were mere shapeless bundles of
rags! We could not wonder much after this that the rest of the Christian
village shunned the neighbourhood of the road.
Leaving this abode of misery we began to descend into the valley of
the Bosna, and pursuing a lane whose hedges were brilliant with the
scarlet sprays of wild vines—they can take the gorgeous hues of Virginia
creepers—we arrived about five at a small Han called Radanka, about
an hour from Doboj, where we were glad to turn in, and obtained much
the same accommodation as the night before. We were much amused at our
Zaptieh, who showed religious scruples against taking the sour wine
of the country, obtainable here, but drank copious draughts of Arrack
(Raki), and showed no objection to Rum. At Doboj, however, where we got
good red Slavonian wine, these scruples vanished.
Next morning we had a difficulty with mine host, a German-speaking
Slavonian, who charged us a ducat—a monstrous sum for a night’s
entertainment in Bosnia, and over three times as much as we had paid
at Dervent. Our Zaptieh assessed us at half the amount, and we were
preparing to pay that much and be off; but the Hanjia had the wit to
lock up L⸺’s knapsack, so we had nothing for it but to offer our host
the choice of accepting our terms, or the ducat he demanded, with the
prospect of being complained of to the Mudìr of Doboj. He chose the
latter alternative, and we left, our Zaptieh shouting ‘Hajduk Hanjia!’
(Brigand innkeeper!)
Our Zaptieh was, in his way, a very good fellow, and we were pleased at
the friendly manner in which he treated the rayahs. His demonstrations
of affection towards ourselves and Englishmen in general were perhaps a
little too hilarious; for he kept shouting for miles at a time that the
Turks and English were brothers. He accompanied us presently in a swim
in the blue waters of the Bosna, which is here so rapid that we had to
choose out a sheltered bay in which to disport ourselves. About half an
hour after, resuming our trudge, on passing a turn in the road, the old
castle of Doboj rose before us, finely seated on a conical hill.
We found a Han in the lower part of the town, and then visited the Mudìr,
whom we found seated on a small but neat and brilliant divan, and to whom
our Zaptieh poured forth the story of our Hanjia’s extortion. We have
some reason to believe that two Zaptiehs were dispatched to enquire into
the matter.
We now ascended the hill to explore the upper part of the town and the
castle. The main street is an undulating and snaky mud-path, along each
side of which are ranged the usual unglazed shops, in which English
cottons, knives and scissors, and European-labelled bottles containing
various spirits, are mixed with gold-embroidered Turkish apparel, and a
variety of tinned-copper salvers, and water vessels of coffee-pot shape.
In one shop were for sale rude hand-mills of this shape for grinding salt.
[Illustration: Diagram of Salt-mill.]
But the wine shop carried one back to some tavern of antiquity. It
displayed a wooden bar facing the street, covered with an array of jars,
‘_testjas_’ as they are still called hereabouts, Roman alike in shape and
name, behind which the vendor stood and filled brimming cups and jars
with thick red wine for the passers-by. The whole scene called to mind
a more classic wine-bar, as it is still to be seen on the monument of a
Gallo-Roman taverner discovered at Dijon.
We now directed our footsteps to the old castle that crowns the summit
of the hill. The ‘Starigrad,’ as it is called here, is one of the most
interesting historic relics in the whole of Bosnia. A glance from its
mouldering walls makes one realise the importance of its situation. The
peak on which the castle of Doboj stands juts out abruptly into the
valley of the Bosna just at the point where in one direction the Sprecca
opens out an avenue towards the Drina and Serbian frontier, and in the
other the pass of Dervent conducts the road to Croatia. The castle,
therefore, was the key to the whole valley of the Bosna against a foe
coming from the Hungarian plains, and commanded the highway through
the province of Ussora to the very heart of the Bosnian kingdom. The
maize-covered river-flat that spreads below it seems one of those spots
destined by nature to be the battle-field of nations; and the very name
of Doboj or Dvoboi, as it was formerly written, means in Bosniac ‘the two
fights.’
[Illustration: Old Castle of Doboj.]
As Prince of Ussora, this castle belonged to Tvartko I., who first
erected Bosnia into a kingdom. He entrusted the stronghold to the safe
keeping of the Croatian Ban, John Horvath, with whom he was bound by
common jealousy of the Hungarian suzerain. It was within its walls that
the Ban, the bishop of Agram, and the King of Bosnia, concocted, in 1387,
the plot by which the Hungarian queen and queen-mother were seized, and
the Croat and Bosnian magnates revolted against Sigismund, the King of
Hungary. But Sigismund was victorious, and in 1391 the Ban and bishop
were shut up within the walls of Doboj,[172] and captured; the Ban
while attempting to escape, the bishop in the castle itself, which was
forced to surrender; while the King of Bosnia, seeing his province of
Ussora overrun, was forced to return to his allegiance. In 1408 another
revolt, under Tvartko III., against the Hungarian suzerain, was crushed
under these same walls, and the King of Bosnia himself captured in the
battle. A terrible vengeance now followed, and 180 nobles, Bosnian and
Croatian, are said to have been executed within these walls, and their
bodies thrown into the river below. This was at a time when both Hungary
and Bosnia should have been united against the Turkish invaders. But the
sad national tragedy was being played out, and in due course Doboj, the
key of the Christian kingdom, became the stronghold of the Turk. It is a
place full of dismal associations for the Christians of Bosnia; they seem
to shrink instinctively from the ill-omened site, and at this day the
population of Doboj is almost exclusively Mahometan. We could not wonder
at coming upon a tradition among the rayahs of this neighbourhood that it
was within these walls that the old Bosnian nobility forswore their faith
and country and renegaded to the Infidel.
Under the Turks the castle appears to have long since fallen into the
decay in which it now moulders. Prince Eugene seems to have found no
difficulty in taking it _en passant_ during his hasty dash into Bosnia
in 1697; and in 1717 it again fell for awhile into the hands of the
imperialists under General Petrasch. At the present day even the Turks
recognise it as a ruin, and apparently throw no obstacle in the way
of those who may wish to explore it. We, at any rate, entered the old
fortress unopposed, passing through a now broken archway, the former
outer gate of the castle, which opens on its least precipitous side upon
the neck of the hill where the present upper town of Doboj is situated.
We now found ourselves in the outer yard, between the castle and
the exterior walls, in a kind of covered causeway leading to the
inner gateway of the castle itself. Here, groping among the rubble,
we discovered an old cannon of apparently very early date, with two
dolphins forming handles—an ancient trophy, we liked to think, from
the Venetians; but though we looked carefully about the walls and
fragments for any inscriptions or elegant details of architecture, we
hit on nothing except an old square stone with an almost effaced chevron
moulding round it, set in a dark and inaccessible position in the wall
inside the castle-gateway, and which may have had some further device
on it. Entering by this gateway, the arch of which is of ogival shape,
we passed the remains of what may have been the dwelling-house of some
former Turkish commandant, now in a state which makes it dangerous to
the passer-by. Then clambering up among the more ancient and massive
ruins, we came upon an old chamber in the wall, with a barrel-vaulting,
where we discovered a quantity of rotten musket-stocks, which must have
been mouldering here for centuries, and a small arsenal-full of stone
cannon-balls, such as from time to time turn up on Bosworth Field.
Further on we came to the tower which forms the northern corner of
the castle, which is tolerably perfect inside, and in shape resembles
a halved octagon. There appear to have been two other towers at the
two other corners of the castle, which in shape is triangular; but I
will not attempt more than a rough plan of this medley of ruins, which,
half-concealed with brambles and wild vine, and tufted in every crevice
with maidenhair and rue-fern, are more picturesque than intelligible.
Having returned to our Han, we found our Mudìr seated on a divan in one
of the rooms, which was strewn with bright Roumelian carpets, in general
character very like the Slavonian. He knew no tongues but Bosniac,
Arabic, Turkish, and modern Greek; but though I succeeded in describing
to him our visit to the castle in the language of Thucydides, we found it
on the whole better to make use of our host—a Montenegrine by birth, who
has picked up a little Swabian—as an interpreter. The Mudìr told us that
the Turkish government were anxious to dispose of the old castle as an
eligible site, or a useful quarry for building purposes. Shade of Bosnian
kings! Our Mahometan, with the greatest _sangfroid_, ordered a bottle of
thick red Slavonian wine, and proceeded to consume it before our eyes;
but the wine-bar in the upper town had already familiarised us with the
laxity of true-believers.
As the Mudìr could not understand German, the Montenegrine, who was an
ardent Southern Sclave, could give vent to his patriotic sentiments
without reserve. He literally devoured our map of the Herzegovina, and
entreated us to sell it him. He believed the insurrection would be
successful, and had heard that Mostar was blockaded—for rumours of
the first slight successes of the insurgents in the Narenta valley had
penetrated in an exaggerated form to the extremities of Bosnia. We asked
if he believed that the Christian Bosniacs of the neighbourhood would
rise?
‘No,’ he answered; ‘I have little hopes of them—they are a poor lot!’ but
(pointing to the mountains of the south-east) ‘out there, about Dolnja
Tuzla, and along the Serbian frontier, there is a finer race of men;
_they_ will join their brothers against the Turkish swine! We think that
even you English will leave the Turks to their fate this time.’
I said that there were other European nations from whom the Southern
Sclaves had more to fear than from England.
‘Yes,’ he continued; ‘we know the ambition of Russia; but we don’t want
the Russians to lord it over us any more than the Turks! no, nor the
Austrians either.’
While sketching the Starigrad I had another proof of the kindness with
which the Bosniac Turks treat children. A small boy of about seven came
up in the most fearless manner and stated for my benefit that a plum-tree
was called ‘sliva,’ and a house ‘kuca,’ all which and sundry other items
of information the little man volunteered without the slightest sign of
distrust at my outlandish appearance. As I took a last twilight glimpse
at the mournfully historic castle a star was setting beneath its topmost
parapet, as if to betoken that the dreams of patriots were vain and the
hopes of Christian Bosnia had set for ever.
We passed an unquiet night, owing to swarms of gnats, which droned about
our chamber and forced us to cover our faces with nets; and were up,
and, with a new Zaptieh who had been assigned to us by the Mudìr, on
our way again almost before it was light, bound for Tešanj, the old
capital of Ussora. For an hour or so we still followed the valley of
the Bosna, which is here very beautiful, the timber finer than any we
have yet seen in Bosnia, tall poplars and magnificent oaks crowning the
banks or chequering the emerald pools with their shadows. On each side
of the valley rose the slopes of the low forest-mountains, usually at
a gentle incline, but at one point a sheer cliff of the most brilliant
limestone—snow-white as Parian marble—towered above our path. This was
just at the point where the Ussora torrent runs into the Bosna, and here
we left the main road and turned off towards Tešanj by country lanes,
following for some time the right bank of the Ussora. On our way we twice
stopped to refresh ourselves at wayside cafés, which are simply rough
sheds—four poles supporting a thatch of leafy branches—beneath whose
shade sits the coffee-maker with a supply of copper pots, earthenware
_testjas_, and brilliant little cups of about the capacity of an ordinary
wine-glass. Round the shed run planks raised about a foot from the
ground, which serve the wayfarer as a divan on which to quaff the black
powdery thimblefuls, or to demolish huge slices of water-melon. As we
walked on we were much struck by the tameness of the magpies, which
would settle just before us, and let us approach as near as if they were
domesticated pigeons. About two hours from Tešanj we left our valley and
gradually ascended a wooded range which rises some 1300 feet above the
Bosna, where the beeches became larger—a forest of thick pollard stumps,
which gradually gladed out into luxuriant heather-land, deliciously
perfumed with ferny incense, from which opened out our first panorama of
the mountain-peaks that form the heart of Bosnia. In the blue distance
rose the dominating cone of Vlašić, but there were no grim Alpine giants,
no glacier seas, no jagged horns of rock. The speciality of the mountains
was rather their softness of contour. What was quite strange to us was
the aërial clearness, the refined delicacy of the colouring—turquoise,
lilac, and faint pervading pink.
As we were preparing to begin our descent from these uplands towards
Tešanj, some large white objects amongst the heather on a neighbouring
hill caught our eye, which, on investigation, we found to belong to a
curious prehistoric monument of the kind popularly known as Druidic. It
was an alignment of large oblong blocks along the neck of the hill; but
the stones, unlike those of Stonehenge or Carnac, were laid on their
faces, and not set upright. The blocks, which were composed of limestone
and conglomerate, had in most cases been roughly squared, and the largest
measured seven feet by four. The chain extended between two knolls of
the hill-top, and on looking along it from the lowest of these (see
diagram, p. 112), it presented a wavy and serpentine appearance, which
may have been due to the slight inequalities of the soil. At one point
near this end rose a small hillock capped by a larger than ordinary
block of snow-white limestone, in form hexangular, and with some of the
facets deftly hewn (see diagram). Before this on either side were two
smaller and flatter slabs of rock, arranged apparently with some special
reference to the block between them, and which gave me the impression
that it had been meant to serve as an altar; though whether these stones
were set here by heathen Sclaves or by one of the earlier races of
Illyria, and with what object, it would be hazardous to conjecture. By
the peasants about they are known as the Old Stones—Stari Stéona.
[Illustration: The ‘Old Stones,’ near Tešanj.]
Nearing Tešanj we came upon, and partly followed, the remains of an
ancient road, roughly paved in such an antique fashion as to remind me
of the streets from time to time exhumed on the sites of Roman towns.
Perhaps it really in some way represented the continuity of Roman
engineering. Certain it is that the wooden bridges, such as the one
on which we crossed the Ussora, and others that we were afterwards to
meet with, with their beam-work arches and supports and their lattice
railings, strangely recalled some of Trajan’s handicraft. The Bosnian
waggons—not so unlike, either, in form, the _gementia plaustra_ of
antiquity—as they rumble along the old-world roads and bridges, with
creaking so loud and stridulous as literally to make woods and rocks
re-echo with their wailing, bring before you another feature in the
country life of classic times, which in the England of to-day it is hard
to realise. With such discord piercing your ears, there seems new point
in those exquisite lines of Martial which describe his friend’s garden as
not too near the highway—‘ne blando rota sit molesta somno.’[173] Heard
from afar the sound is not so unpleasant, and might be mistaken for the
plaintive whistling of the wind; but if any one wants to know what it is
like at close quarters, he had better tweak a young pig’s tail and listen.
[Illustration: Castle of Tešanj.]
The view which now broke upon us was the most beautiful that we had yet
set eyes on in Bosnia. It is best seen by climbing the high rocks which
start up above the little Tešanška Rieka. Below you winds the gorge
of the shallow stream, its steeps and narrow meadowland shaded with
orchards and plum-woods, amongst which peep out the chalet-like roofs and
slender minarets of the truly Alpine town of Tešanj. But all this only
forms an avenue to a bold rocky height which leaves the town clinging
to the two sides of the valley and towers up in the middle in isolated
grandeur, crowned with the old castle of the Bans of Ussora, whose walls
on one side frown over an overhanging precipice on to the sources of the
rivulet several hundred feet below. It is more perfect, but not so open
to investigation as that of Doboj, being still made use of by the Turks.
Like the other it is triangular, and ends in a polygonal tower, which
here is capped by a conical roof. Below this tower are some subsidiary
fortifications and a solitary tower, in general effect not unlike the
Campanile of St. Mark at Venice on a small scale.
Parts of the castle are probably of great antiquity. Indeed the
magnificence of the position would point it out as a stronghold in
any age. Tešanj is in fact one of the earliest Sclavonic strongholds
in Bosnia of which we possess any record, if we may be allowed to
identify it with the Tesnec mentioned as a Serbian town by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century. It was the residence of the
Bans of Ussora, and probably of earlier Župans, the former area of
whose jurisdiction seems to be still indicated by the name Župa, which
clings to this mountainous triangle between the Bosna and the Verbas.
When Ussora became a province of Bosnia, and Bosnia a kingdom, Tešanj
was therefore a royal castle, and it was probably one of the seventy
strongholds ‘defended by nature and art’ which fell into the hands of
Mahomet II. during those terrible eight days which followed the capture
of the last Bosnian king in 1463. Soon afterwards, however, when Matthias
Corvinus restored Northern Bosnia to Hungary and Christendom, and made of
it the Banat of Jaycze, Tešanj was again set free from the Paynim yoke.
But it fell into the custody of the Voivode, whose carelessness lost
Zvornik to the Pashà of Upper Bosnia in 1520. The Pashà, regardless of
terms of capitulation which he had conceded, ‘keeping,’ as the Bosniacs
bitterly expressed it, ‘Turkish faith,’ butchered all except the young
or the beautiful, who might be useful for the harem or the Janissary
camp. When the people of Tešanj, and they of Sokol, another fortress
held by this Unready, heard of the miserable fate of the Zwornikers, a
panic seized on them, and, setting fire to the castle, they fled to the
mountains, though it is said that few escaped the Turkish sword. With
Tešanj[174] one of the keys of Lower Bosnia was lost, and the Banat of
Jaycze did not long survive this disaster.
At present Tešanj has some importance as a centre of the corn trade, and
though containing but 30,000 inhabitants at the outside, is a seat of a
Kaïmakàm, a more exalted governor than a Mudìr, to whose sumptuous white
Konak we now made our way. As we approached it we found the whole place
buzzing with peasants, who were issuing from the Konak in troops, and
we were obliged to wait some time in an antechamber, where we were at
liberty to exchange a few remarks with a good-natured Italian-speaking
official, before we were admitted to the great man’s presence. When we
were admitted we found a very civilised being in thin white clothes of
European cut, and who but for his fez might have been mistaken for an
Italian. He looked dreadfully bored, and not without reason, for he
had been reviewing hundreds of peasants all the morning; but he was
extremely courteous, and treated us to the usual coffee and cigarettes.
Paper cigarettes!—twenty years ago they would have been narghilés,
ambery, Oriental, ablaze with gold and jewels, enchantingly barbaric;
but their date is fled; the West advances and the East recedes; and
now, even in Conservative old Bosnia, the pipe is degenerating into the
symbol of a fogy! _Sic transit gloria mundi._ It was to be observed
that the Kaïmakàm’s coffee-cup was twice as big as ours; but, as L⸺
remarked, ‘_we_ could not well complain.’ We were able to converse with
him, as we found that he could speak French ‘full feteously.’ On our
enquiring what the large assemblage of peasants meant, he explained that
he was collecting the Redìf or reserve, adding incidentally, for our
information, ‘Nous avons une petite guerre dans l’Herzek.’ But why, we
asked one another again, were the reserves to be sent to Banjaluka?
[Illustration: Turkish Café, Tešanj.]
The Kaïmakàm attached a new Zaptieh to us, with orders to find us
suitable lodgings in the town. What was our dismay when he led us into
a dark and filthy stable!—but following him up a ladder we emerged on
the landing of what we afterwards learnt by experience to be the typical
Bosnian inn, in which the whole ground floor is set apart for horses.
Our room was fairly clean, but infested with an ambuscade of carpeting;
and our host, who was a Roman Catholic, soon provided us with a meal of
which the principal features were hard-boiled eggs, flat cakes of very
fair bread, and a curious Asiatic dish of clotted cream called _kaimak_,
which in Bosnia varies according to the local cuisine, from an approach
to Devonshire cream to the mere scum of boiled milk, and is sometimes
mixed with little lumps of honey or sugar. From here I adjourned to a
neighbouring café, discovered by entering another stable and climbing
another ladder, leaving L⸺ to the safe keeping of our Zaptieh, who
was snoring on the floor of our room. I found myself amidst a bevy of
comfortable Turks, who were alternately sipping their mocha and smoking
their long chibouks,—for they belonged to the old school, and were robed
in flowing dressing-gowns and surmounted with pompous turbans.
In exploring the streets—which are narrow and filthy, though sweeter
than those of many a North-German town!—I was struck once more with
the extraordinary jumble of wares exhibited in each store. Instead
of one shopman reserving his energies for haberdashery, and another
for confectionery, and so forth, you would come upon a goodly row of
Turks, squatting hopefully on what is equally the floor and counter of
their several shops, each of whom set up to supply his customers with
turbans, coffee-cups, knives, boots, tobacco, carpets, Turkish delight,
gun-flints, water-melons, and amulets against warts; so that it was
rather confusing to decide which shop to go to if you wanted to suit
yourself with anything, and you could not be certain of getting the best
tobacco where you had observed the nattiest sandals! Amongst the wares,
wax, which is one of the principal articles of Bosnian export, formed
an important item; and besides these miscellaneous stores there were
others more exclusive, some of which were set apart for the sale of salt,
exposed in massive cubes. But though there are prolific salt-springs not
so very far off, at Dolnja Tuzla, towards the Serbian border, it must not
be assumed that these were native products, for Bosnia prefers to import
her salt from Galicia, Dalmatia, Sicily, and Wallachia. But the shop
which most took my fancy was the blacksmith’s; it was quite irresistible
to see a grimy old Turk in a majestic head-piece—there is something
comically incongruous between a turban and a sledge-hammer!—alternately
working the beam of his bellows and hammering away on a primitive anvil,
fixed into a rough section of oak trunk.
While trying to make my way to the other side of the valley I found
myself hemmed in by a variety of fences, which I was forced to surmount,
and run the gauntlet through private orchards, with whose owners I
happily avoided an encounter, and finally emerged with a whole skin on
the Christian quarter, which lies east of the castle. The inhabitants
here belonged to the Latin Church; but though the Roman Catholic
priesthood in Bosnia leans towards Croatia, and shrinks from Serbia with
more horror than from Stamboul, yet these Latin women of Tešanj betrayed,
perhaps unconsciously, their sisterhood with the heretics beyond the
Drina. They were not coiffed Croat fashion, in a kerchief, like the
peasants we had seen in the Bosnian Possávina, but their hair was plaited
round a fez, _à la belle Serbe_, with flowers stuck in coquettishly on
one side, and drooping gracefully about the ear. They displayed, too,
the Serbian partiality for purple, and a maiden with a scarf crossed
over the bosom recalled the peasant girls about Belgrade. The rest of
their dress—the double girdle, the twin aprons, the tunics with expanding
sleeves—may be described as South Sclavonic. The men, though surmounted
with turbans, differed usually from the Turks in wearing a white tunic in
place of the gorgeous vest and jacket, and short flowing white trowsers
instead of indigo bags. Those Christian men, however, who were more well
to do, and inhabited the mercantile part of the town, were, like our
landlord, in complete Turkish costume.
[Illustration: Latin maiden of Tešanj.]
As it was now near sunset a large assemblage of the neighbouring girls
and housewives had gathered together at a spring to draw water and
gossip. I found them very friendly, except one old woman, between whom
and myself a most unfortunate disagreement arose. The cause of our tiff
was that I—being, as the reader may have perceived, curious in pots
and pans—so far trespassed on the old lady’s forbearance as to attempt
to pocket—not indeed that antique and ponderous utensil itself—but a
sketch of the water-pot, which, after duly filling at the spring, she
had in just confidence laid down, the better to gossip with her coevals.
But chancing to turn round, and seeing the outline of her ‘tikvo’—for
that was the name by which she knew it—transferred to my paper, the old
woman’s fury knew no bounds; and taking the law of copyright into her
own hands, she snatched up the outraged vessel and soused a good portion
of its contents over my person. She then emptied out what few drops
remained—she would have none of your ‘water bewitched’!—and hastily
refilling her pot, left in a huff. It appears that she had taken me for
a sorcerer, and had been piously desirous of exorcising the devil within
me by a baptism of a rough and ready sort. Her motives may therefore
have been honourable to her head and heart, though such misconceptions
are sometimes unpleasant at the time. Meanwhile, here is the tikvo, and
two other vessels which I succeeded in drawing without any enforced
lustrations—one of a gourd-like shape, common in Southern Europe; the
other a water-jug like a coffee-pot, of the tinned copper which in Bosnia
greatly supplants earthenware.
[Illustration: Pots from Tešanj.]
There is a sad side, too, to that episode of the old woman in the
intense ignorance and concomitant superstition which it reveals. In
other parts of Eastern Europe I have met with just the same repugnance
against allowing me to take representations of animate or even inanimate
belongings. In Wallachia I once nearly felt a peasant’s whip for
attempting to sketch his horse. In other parts of Bosnia I have found
natives who refused to allow me to sketch them, even when I offered them
money if they would let me do so. I can only refer it to a wide-spread
underlying belief in the Black Art, and especially that grim outgrowth of
Fetishism which our old friend Thomas Ingoldsby places so vividly before
us in the ‘Leech of Folkestone.’ The almost universal use of amulets and
talismans, of which more will be said later on, is but symptomatic of the
same superstition, and its adoption by the rayahs is chiefly due to the
same Oriental influences which are traceable, in more ways than one, in
their everyday life.
While returning to our Han from the spring I witnessed a good instance
of the way in which Mahometan ideas touching the seclusion of women have
taken hold of the rayah mind.
As I was proceeding along a lane between some cottage enclosures, I
happened to pass a Christian woman on the other side of the palings,
and certainly on the wrong side of forty. So far was I from staring at
her that I had hardly noticed her in passing, till she screamed after
me, ‘Hai’ ti! Hai’ ti!’ ‘Quick; be off!’ a usual expression of veiled
Mahometan women in Bosnia if passed too closely on the road; and on my
looking round to see if anything was the matter, she repeated these
expressions with increased emphasis, and, rapidly raising her voice to
cockatoo pitch, gave vent to the enquiry, which, though couched in not
too courteous terms, few visitors to Bosnia remain long unacquainted
with—_Što glédaš?_ ‘What are you staring at?’ The view was certainly not
very attractive, and as she seemed inclined to follow up her remarks
with some more practical demonstration, and I myself was anything but
desirous of crossing the path of a second Bosnian virago on the same
afternoon, I beat a hasty retreat, venturing, however, to think that it
would have been better if she had carried out her Oriental principles to
their logical conclusion and veiled herself entirely. The rayah women of
some parts of Bosnia—about Pristina, for example—actually go so far as
to do this. I found that L⸺ had been faring worse than myself; for in
attempting to penetrate along another lane he was received in front and
flank with such a volley of stones as repulsed him with loss.
Next morning, hearing that the Kaïmakàm wished to see us before we
proceeded on our way, we visited the Konak about seven; but were obliged
to waste nearly two hours of a time of day most valuable to pedestrians,
waiting for the great man. While we were thus doomed to loaf, a very
learned-looking Effendi of the Kaïmakàm’s divan came up and solicited
permission to look through our spectacles, exchanging the compliment
by lending us his own, which we found to our surprise to be made of
plain window-glass, and even that, partly owing to dirt and partly to
its inferior quality, was anything but crystalline, and positively
obscured the vision. But he probably found them useful in impressing the
Kaïmakàm with a due sense of his erudition, and he certainly succeeded in
focussing his subordinates with them most effectually. The worthy man’s
delight on looking through spectacles that really aided the sight was
something childish, but we were not inclined to accept his overtures for
a swap.
At last the Kaïmakàm himself appeared, attired this time in a light white
suit of most correct cut. He was evidently a Turk of the new school,
and showed a most intelligent interest in our map, which he understood
perfectly, and pointed out on it the route of the new railway which has
just been begun in Bosnia.
He was all politeness; but when we sketched out our projected mountain
route to Travnik, and added moreover that we were going on foot, he
betrayed such a desire to dissuade us from our purpose as convinced us
that he had some misgivings as to our object in visiting the country,
and that he more than half suspected us of being insurgent emissaries
of some kind. When we expressed our intention of making Comušina, a
small Christian village where there is a Franciscan monastery, our that
day’s destination, he began to urge all kinds of obstacles to our plan.
There was no road—the country was impassable—we should not be able to
procure any food, and it was impossible that we should ever find our way
to Travnik by this route. Let him persuade us to go round by Zepše, and
then follow the high road; he would see that we were provided with a good
arabà (a Bosnian waggon)—or would we prefer horses?
We, however, remained firm, and our pass from the Vali being imperative,
there was nothing for it but to let us have our way. The game, as he
thought, was played out; and further concealment being useless, he
dropped his objections with admirable tact, and mentioned incidentally
that we should come in for a large Christian gathering at Comušina—‘_Ce
que peut vous intéresser_.’ He evidently believed himself that we knew
all about the gathering already, and I do not blame his suspicions; for
the moment was far more critical than we had any idea of, and to the
mind of even a liberal Turk our design of leaving the road and plunging
into the mountains was, on any other hypothesis, sheer insanity—for
anything that we might protest about the English passion for scenery
and mountaineering. We afterwards discovered that in addition to the
Zaptieh whom he forced on us as guide and guard, another was despatched
to Comušina with an express commission to observe our movements.
CHAPTER IV.
THE PILGRIMAGE ON THE FOREST-MOUNTAIN.
Through the Forests of the Black-Mountain—The Flower
of Illyria—A Mysterious Fly—Enchanted Ground—The Fairy
Mountain—Great Christian Pilgrimage—The Shrine on the
Mountain-top—Christian Votaries in the Garb of Islâm—The
Night-encampment—How the Turks dance—Anacreontic Songs—An
Epic Bard, Poetic Genius of Bosniacs—Insolence of Turkish
Soldiers and their Ill-treatment of the Rayahs—Types at
the Fair—Aspect and Character of Men—_Chefs-d’œuvre_ of
Flint-knapping—Christian Graveyard and Monastery—Dismiss our
Zaptieh—Night on Forest-mountain of Troghìr—Wrecks by Wind
and Lightning—Scene of Forest Fire—Timber Barricades—Summit
of Vučia Planina—A _Bon-vivant_—Steep Descent—Night in a
Hole—Almost impassable Gorge—Egyptian Rocks—Repulsed from a
Moslem Village—Tombs of the Bogomiles—Arrive at Franciscan
Monastery of Gučiagora—Fears of a Massacre—Relations of
Roman Catholics with the Turks—Austrian Influence in
Bosnia—Aspirations of the Bosnian Monks.
At last we made our escape from the Kaïmakàm, and, escorted by our
new Zaptieh, began ascending the Crni Vrch, or Black-Mountain, named,
like the Crnagora (Montenegro), not from any blackness of the rock,
but from being covered with dark forests, or simply from its savage
wildness, ‘black’ being with the Sclaves synonymous with everything
harsh and fierce. About an hour and a quarter’s ascent brought us to one
of its summits, when we passed a Mahometan woman, who, though veiled,
went through the absurd formality—common enough among the Bosniac
Mahometans—of squatting against the roadside with her back turned towards
us till we had put a sufficiency of road between her and ourselves.
Further on we came to a shed such as we had seen in the vale of Ussora,
where we regaled ourselves with coffee, and a chubby kind of cucumber,
which however our Zaptieh was the only one to fancy.
Beyond here the scenery became wilder and indescribably beautiful. On
one side rolled out beneath us the Possávina and the winding vale of
Bosna, and far beyond the dim ranges of Slavonia; on the other side
rose the peaks and shoulders of Vlašić and Troghìr and a tossing sea of
low mountains, the nearer billows green with the fine forest growth,
into which we now plunged—and to quit the scorching sun of noon for
woodlands still fresh with the dewy coolness of night is indeed to take
an aërial bath! The beeches amongst which we now steered our course,
by a meandering forest-path, were no longer gnarled and stumpy, but
tall and queenly, as those of an English park. Amongst them, here and
there, towered isolated oaks, champions as it seemed of a lost fight,
tough rugged old barbarians, battling every inch with those civilised
victorious beeches—hemmed round but unyielding—heroic, taking every
attitude of god-like struggle—here a manly, muscular Laocöon, wrestling
with serpentine brambles and underwood, that insinuates itself among the
knotted limbs—a mighty Hercules, uplifted arm and club as to fell the
hundred-headed Hydra—or there sovereign Jove, the Thunderer himself,
hurling—so the jagged branches interpreted themselves—forked lightning at
the beechlings round! But in vain. The oaks must be content to reign in
plain and valley. On these uplands the beeches camp triumphantly, till
higher still the pines repulse them from the mountain citadel, and in the
great struggle for existence each tree finds its own level.
But how soft the refrain from this deep bass of nature! Pale,
dreamy tufts of male and lady fern, delicately luminous in the
forest-depths, Canterbury bells — for English pilgrims, what fitter
accompaniment?—vibrating to the zephyrs in the orbs of sunlight; brighter
still, the ruby coronals of sweet-williams; and, where it should be,
among its native mountains, luxuriant gentian, drooping like Solomon’s
seal, weighed down as with elfin vases of lapis lazuli. This is the
flower of Illyria, which, as Pliny tells us, took its name from her
last king—that Gentius who ruled these lands in the days of Perseus of
Macedon, and who first brought into credit the virtues of the herb which
now alone preserves his memory.
Now and then we emerge on a glade of breathing bracken—from the leafy
orchestra round, the myriad chirp of tree-crickets, caught up below by
blue and red winged brothers, who, in their glee, half skipping and
half flying, seem amphibious of earth and heaven—a ‘kingly’ minstrelsy,
as beseeming the rank and beauty of the butterfly dancers. Amongst
the company we noticed a purple Emperor, Dukes of Burgundy, majestic
swallow-tails, a cream-spotted tiger-moth—beauties of Camberwell—not
to speak of blues and lesser stars—marsh fritillaries and delicate
wood-whites, hovering over damper hollows; and in one dark watery dell
‘edged with poplar pale,’ a black and mysterious butterfly, which I am
content to leave within the limits of the Unknown. It is not for me to
enquire into the transformation of such sooty insects—_nec scire fas
est!_—for we are now treading enchanted ground—we are actually on the
skirts of earthly fairyland. Yonder dark forest mountain, unfathomable as
it seems, is called by a name which the Bosniac woodman still mentions
with awe. It is nothing else than the Vila Gora—the fairy mountain.
Yes! even within the limits of Europe the nymphs of the old world have
something more than twilight thickets for their mourning; here at least
they have still some sunny glades and laughing runnels left them for
their merry-go-rounds. We are now in a land where the fairies live not
only in the lays but the minds of men—and malicious sprites some of them
are, sable as that mysterious fly! As the peasant gropes his way through
yonder haunted pine-wood, the trees begin to drip with grisly lichen, the
trunks grow scarred, and sooty with storm and lightning, and a cloudy
pall obscures the sun, and a sudden gust of wind rattles the bony limbs
above—and lo! across the gloomiest forest-crypt, lashing her coal-black
stag with serpent scourge, shoots—_the Evil Vila_!
But let us be chary of such ill-omened words! and pass on rather to that
flowery dell among the beech-trees where the good Vilas are dancing.
In form they are as beautiful maidens with ever-loosened zones. Their
eyes are blue as the heavens, and their hair, which falls even to their
ankles, golden as the sunlight. Some are riding through the forest on
wind-swift steeds. They are singing the fates of men; they are weaving
destinies; they are watching with motherly tenderness over the slumbers
of the heroes of the race, who, lapped in their bosoms, are dreaming on
of better days in many a mountain cave, till the guardian nymph shall
rouse each warrior from his sleep, to sunder for ever the chains of the
oppressors. Methinks they are waking even now!
Once or twice our ears were saluted with strange idyllic strains,
harmonising with the scenery, and we passed by swineherds recumbent
beneath spreading beech-trees, and piping to their bristly charge on
barbaric instruments. We chose a shady chestnut-tree by a stream, under
which to cook our frugal repast (for though nature was bountiful of
blackberries we could not live on them), and while so engaged a shepherd
lad came up and serenaded us with Bosnian airs on his rude double pipe or
Svirala.
We now followed a small tributary of the Ussora, and in its shallow bed
made our first acquaintance with the mineral wealth of the country. It
was a brilliant mosaic, a medley of vermeiled jasper, snow-white quartz,
fragments of rich iron ore, glittering scales of mica, green serpentine;
and we picked up a beautiful piece of opaline chalcedony, enwrapping a
nest of little crystals in its agaty folds. The hamlet near the point
where this rivulet runs into the Ussora is known as Zlatina, which means
golden, and is a name commonly given throughout Bosnia to places where
gold is popularly supposed to exist; but though there are many old gold
mines in different parts, and gold is still washed in some of the rivers,
the ignorant peasants are said to mistake sulphur for it, or perhaps more
probably the interior of iron-pyrites—our ‘crow gold’—so that the name
itself proves nothing.
Beyond here we forded the Ussora, and now began to fall in with long
trains of Bosnian rayahs, a troop of small Bosnian horses laden with
bales and human beings, all streaming in the same direction as ourselves.
It was evening when we began to ascend a small wooded mountain, escorted
by this motley troop; the women and children mostly on foot, the men
usually on horseback, and with their bright red turbans—worn about here
by even the poorest classes—forming a brilliant foreground to the
surrounding foliage. We followed the current, and an hour’s winding
ascent brought us to the summit of a mountain, normally lonely, and
devoid of habitation, but now thronged to overflowing by a gorgeous
array of peasants from the uttermost recesses of Christian Bosnia, and
some even from beyond the Serbian frontier. The summit of the mountain
formed a long flat neck capacious enough to accommodate many thousands,
and rising to its highest point towards its north-western extremity.
As each detachment of peasants arrived they tethered their horses, and
made straight to the summit of the ridge, which was surmounted by a rude
shrine. This was the central point of the vast assemblage, and the reason
of this great Christian gathering was soon explained.
The Roman Catholic population of this part of Bosnia had assembled from
their mountain strongholds far and wide to do honour to two of their
saints, known in their own parlance as Svéta Góspa and Svéta Kátta—Our
Lady and St. Catherine; St. Mary the patroness of the old Bosnian
kingdom, and St. Catherine the favoured Virgin Martyr of Bosnian Queens.
To-morrow was the feast of the Miraculous Assumption, and the pilgrims
had thronged to this Christian Delphos, the sacred navel of their land,
in a great crisis of their national history, if not to consult saintly
oracles, at least to obtain the support of their two tutelary goddesses.
Though we realised it not at the time, we were on something more than the
eve of a Romish feast. On the very day of this great pilgrimage, while
these thousands were praying before their mountain shrine, a revolt was
beginning in Bosnia, of which we have not yet seen the end, and which,
for better or worse, must change her whole future.
[Illustration: Pilgrims at the Shrine, near Comušina.]
This is what happened at the shrine. On arriving, each peasant bowed
reverently before it, and executed certain mystic passes connected with
his religion. He then made his way step by step round the outside of the
shrine, moving, as they say, with the sun, from left to right; and if he
were particularly pious or particularly conscience-smitten, he stumped
round on his knees. On the right or northern side of the shrine a priest
standing within it held forth a gilt crucifix, which each passer-by
kissed; and having performed the circuit of the exterior, each votary
entered the shrine itself and completed his devotions before barbaric
pictures of his divinities which were facing east—laying, it might be, on
the altar a homely nosegay of rosemary and golden zinnias. Many devotees,
after leaving the mysterious canopy, remained facing it outside, as
represented in the sketch, on their knees, counting their beads or
holding out their clenched fists in a peculiar attitude, intended,
perhaps, to represent a cross. Some prayed very earnestly; and indeed
the occasion was no ordinary one. When each had finished, he left the
immediate neighbourhood of the shrine and joined the multitude below, so
that the grassy slope around the building, which was a rude wooden shed,
was reserved for those actually performing their devotions. This sketch
was drawn on the eve of the festival, when the shrine was less crowded.
But what was most striking was the thoroughly Mahometan appearance of so
many of these Christian devotees. The influence of Islâm seemed to have
infected even their ritual; for many grovelled on the ground and kissed
the earth, as in a mosque. There was one man whom I should have mistaken
for a Hadji or Turkish pilgrim; there were others with the shaven crown
of a true-believing Moslem, and the single pig-tail, so thoughtfully
preserved by the Faithful to aid the Angel Gabriel in dragging them into
Paradise. There were women with faces so nearly eclipsed that they seemed
in fear of the injunctions of the Koràn; and even the monks who had come
up from the monastery of Comušina might be mistaken at a little distance
for Turkish officials. There was something pathetic in the sight of so
many Christians, dressed indeed in the garb of Mahometans, but still
clinging to the faith of their fathers![175] Indeed, the whole scene was
one which, though well-nigh impossible to describe, no one who had seen
it could ever forget, and in which even those who lament the superstition
must acknowledge some elements of grandeur and beauty;—the solitary
mountain-peak, momentarily thronged by pilgrims who in some childish
yearning after heaven had pitched their place of worship here so as to be
nearer their celestial goal—the votaries themselves—these poor peasants,
brutalised by centuries of misrule, steeped in ignorance and bigotry,
outcasts of this world rapt in silent communings (as they believed) with
another and a happier; beneath them the primeval forest; around in every
direction an aërial gulf; and beyond, far as the eye could pierce the
deepening twilight, range upon range of lonely mountains.
Not but what these thrifty Bosniacs had turned the opportunity to account
by combining with their religious festival and pilgrimage a large
fair—or, as the Germans would say, a year-market—which occupied the other
end of the mountain neck. A long lane was formed along which to arrange
the wares, but the show was mostly reserved for the _festa_ itself on the
morrow. On each side of this lane the peasants were camped in families;
and in the festivities of the night and the fair next morning we saw
displayed before us, as in some brilliant picture-book, the whole life
of the rayah country people from a large tract of Bosnia: their varying
costumes, their simple diet, their cheap necessities, their dances and
discordant minstrelsy, and over all, the shadow of a Damoclean scimetar.
As the night drew on the whole neck of the mountain was lit up by
cheery bonfires, round which the peasants clustered in social circles.
Our Zaptieh provided us with blazing logs for ourselves, over which
we performed our own culinary operations, supplemented by a generous
haunch from a sheep, roasted in the usual Bosnian fashion. This is how
the peasants cooked their meat—for on this high-day there were some who
indulged in such a luxury as mutton. They took a sharp stake about eight
feet long, and inserting it in the slaughtered animal’s mouth or neck,
skewered it right through the carcase and out at the tail. Two low forks
were now driven into the ground, the huge spit with its burden was lodged
on them, a large fire was kindled over against it, and the peasants
took turn and turn about to make the spit go round. A goodly portion of
the assemblage seemed determined to make a night of it, and what with
carousing, dancing, singing, and playing, I will not deny that they
succeeded.
The first dance I saw was of a comic kind, performed by two men, and
there were so many varying figures that one fancied they must improvise
them as they went on. The accompaniment on a ghuzla, the one-stringed
lute of the Serbs, was of the dolefullest, and the dance itself was
anything but graceful. The chief object that they apparently had in view
was to dislocate every limb in the most comfortable way possible. Now and
then they stamped on the ground, and then walked after each other and
round each other in a clown-like fashion; and now and then they would
pause and tread gingerly with their feet, as if they were trying whether
ice would bear, fumbling the while in a stupid way about their noses, as
if to see that spectacles were safely fixed on them. The Kolo, however,
or round dance of the Sclaves, was more elegant, and chiefly danced by
the girls, who formed themselves in a ring and danced round and round,
sometimes in a very spirited manner.
The most monotonous of all the dances was that with which some Turkish
officials, who had fixed their quarters at the further end of the
mountain neck, solaced themselves. Not that they danced themselves! they
were far too lazy and phlegmatic to do that; but they impressed into
their service a succession of rayah boys, who in turn danced long _pas
seuls_ before their lords and masters. Without leaving what we may call
his pedestal, a boy kept treading the ground to the weary see-sawing
music, and trying to make every muscle and limb quiver like a jelly.
Then, after performing this operation for a good ten minutes, with his
face towards his Turkish admirers, he slowly turned round on his pivot
and danced—if such tremulous distortion could be called dancing!—for
an equal space of time, with his back to the spectators, and then he
gradually swerved round again as if he were roasting before a slow
fire, and was from time to time adjusted by a turnspit! But the Turks,
comfortably squatted on carpets strewn over the turf, gazed gravely on by
the hour together, and seemed to enjoy the spectacle.
We heard much playing of ghuzlas and double pipes and flutes, and
much vocal accompaniment with lyric songs and long epic ballads. The
instruments, with the exception of the ghuzla, were the same as the
Croatian already described, and the ghuzla itself resembled a tamburitza
with three strings and bow in place of fingers; but the playing on them
struck me as slightly better than what we had heard at Siszek. The metre
was as curious and as much a relic of an older world as the instruments
whose Arcadian affinities have been already touched on. One of the many
minstrels was enchanting an audience of Bosniac maidens with a lyric,
whose measure, unless my ears deceived me, was identical with that of
Anacreon’s song beginning,
λέγουσω αΐ γυναῖκες,
Ἀνακρεων γέρων εἶ.
And it was strange and impressive, with the air merry with tree-crickets
from the foliage around, to catch, as it, seemed, the cadence of that
exquisite ode in which the Teian bard paid his homage to the same cicadas!
μακαρίζονμέν σε τέττιξ,
ὅτι δενδρέων ἐπ’ ἄκρων
ὀλίγην δρόσον πεπωκὼς,
βασιλεὺς ὅπως ἀείδεις.
But the songs, though interesting, were not beautiful, and, to tell the
truth, were often more like a succession of street-cries than any other
sound, human or divine! This was mainly owing to what was the chief
peculiarity of the singing—the long stress, namely, laid by the voice on
the last syllable or the last trochee, insomuch that success in a singer
seemed to lie in the ability of keeping on at the concluding howl longer
than his fellows.
One asks oneself with amazement how such dolorous chaunts could possibly
have originated? Was it possibly the dire necessity of droning in concert
with a bagpipe? The ‘_dudelsack_’—pitilessly expressive word!—is not
unknown in Bosnia at this day, and was certainly as much the property
of the primitive Sclave as of the primitive Englishman. Doubtless, too,
early singing is pinched and crippled and distorted by the rudeness of
early instruments. I did not see a bagpipe here, but traced its evil
communications everywhere. It seemed to have corrupted all the other
instruments. They had caught it. It had got into their throats like a
fog, and given a twang to every chord. It was a positive nightmare of
bagpipes. There was a bagpipe in the flute, and a bagpipe in the lute,
and a bagpipe even in the whistle!
The singing, at any rate, reacts on the poetry; for the long expenditure
of breath renders a pause a physical necessity for the recovery of
wind at the end of every two lines, so that the lays were generally
divided into couplets. Much that looks Procrustean, and many apparently
capricious full-stops in classic metres might, one would think, be
referred to similar causes. Nearly a minute would sometimes elapse after
one couplet before the singer had recovered breath to continue.
But what carried one back into epic days at once was a larger gathering,
forming a spacious ring lit up by a blazing fire, in the middle of which
a Bosniac bard took his seat on a rough log, and tuning his ghuzla began
to pour forth one of the grand sagas of his race. Could it have been an
unpremeditated lay? Without a book or any aid to memory he rolled out the
ballad for hour after hour, and when I turned to rest, not long before
sunrise, he was still rhapsodising. I do not pretend to know what was
the burthen of the ballad. Perchance it recorded the enchantments of
the Vila in yonder forest-mountain; perchance it told how Czar Dūshan
marched to seize the city of the Cæsars; or of the finding of Knez Lazar
and the sad day of Kóssovo; or, mayhap it belonged to that later cycle
of Serbian poetry which centres round the half-hero, half-renegade,
Marko Kraljević.[176] For in this land, without books, without history,
it is these heroic lays—Tabories they call them, from Tavor, their
God of War—that keep alive from generation to generation the sacred
traditions of the race. In the days of bondage these have been the one
proud heirloom of the Serbian people from the Adriatic to the Danube.
Their spirit has been continually refreshed from the perennial fount of
epic song. Separated by creed and the barriers of nature, and the caprice
of man, it is this national poetry that has kept them from forgetting
that they are brothers, that has turned their mind’s eye back from the
divisions of the present to the union of the past, and has fed their
ambition with the memories of a time when one of their princes seemed
about to catch up the falling diadem of Byzantium and place it on his
brow. For the Bosnian Serb seems to forget the narrower traditions of his
half alien kingdom in these more glorious legends, which override the
cant of geographers and diplomatists, and make him see a brother in the
Serb of the Black Mountain or Old Serbia, or the free Principality; and,
indeed, he too has some claims to share these memories, for the city of
the Serbian Cæsars, Prizren the Czarigrad, lies within the Bosnian limits.
Doleful, then, as these strains may seem to a civilised ears, it ill
becomes the stranger to mock at them. Over those rude men they seemed to
exercise a kind of charm. The hearers of the bard to whom I was listening
seemed never to grow weary. Every now and then an ecstatic thrill would
run through the whole circle, and find utterance in inarticulate murmurs
of delight. So carried away are the emotions of the listeners, that it
is by no means rare—though I did not witness this;—for them to be moved
to tears. ‘I cannot describe,’ says an observer,[177] ‘the pathos with
which these songs are sometimes sung. I have witnessed crowds surrounding
a blind old singer, and every cheek was wet with tears; it was not the
music, but the words, which affected them.’ For these songs speak to the
heart. They are instinct with that natural simplicity which is the very
soul of pathos. True, there is lacking something of the tremendous energy
of our old Teutonic sagas. There is less sword-play; but there is more
poetry. We should never expect to find an Anglo-Saxon gleeman of our epic
days likening, as does one of these unlettered Bosnian bards, the cheeks
of the loved one to the flush of dawn and her eyelids to the silken wings
of swallows. This airiness of phantasy, the brilliance of the imagery,
seem to witness the close communion of the race with the Oriental
world around them; but there is a national sobriety ever bridling the
imagination, just as we have seen the Oriental gorgeousness of a Serbian
lady’s dress tempered with something of the homely Serbian house-mother.
But what, perhaps, is more striking than all, is to find the rude
simplicity of Homer combined with a dramatic force more characteristic
of the age of Euripides.[178] Surely in such spring flowers—and wintry
indeed has been the spring of this poor Bosnian stem!—is to be found the
best proof that the stock is not all cankered, and the surest earnest of
fruits to ripen yet. In a poetry that has received the reverent homage
of Goethe it cannot be fanciful to see a token that the race is capable
of attaining to the highest pinnacles of civilisation. It can hardly
be unreasonable to seek here for a retort against those who speak of
the South Sclavonic rayah as an utterly degraded being, and who cannot
discern that
He still retains,
’Mid much abasement, what he has received
From Nature—an intense and glowing mind.
It is unfortunate that I am unable to conclude the account of this—to
me—uniquely interesting night with the mention of songs and ballads, and
that more must be added which it is most displeasing to relate.
It is only just to say that, taking into consideration the troubles
in the Herzegovina, and—what may have been traceable in the hurried
calling-out of the reserve at Dervent and Tešanj—the possible
foreknowledge of the imminence of an outbreak in Bosnia, it was quite
natural for the Turkish authorities to view with suspicion an assemblage
of several thousand Christian Bosniacs, and even to take precautionary
measures against any disturbances—or conspiracy. No one can therefore
blame the Kaïmakàm of Tešanj for despatching some officials and a
retinue of gendarmes to watch the proceedings. This night the Turks
had taken their station at the end of the neck of the hill, as if the
better to ward off any possible attack, and to secure a line of retreat
if necessary. The presence of these Zaptiehs gave me an opportunity of
observing how these tools of the Mahometan government dealt with the
Christian Bosniacs, when not under the immediate surveillance of foreign
consuls. Briefly, they treated them like a herd of cattle; and it is hard
to say which was the more revolting, the intolerable insolence or the
downright cruelty.
I was standing in one of the circles where a Bosnian gleeman was
rehearsing a national epic, when the spell of the song was rudely broken
by a Zaptieh, who, bursting through the ring of listeners and thrusting
the rayahs to right and left, stood before the embers in the middle, and,
playing with his cutlass with one hand, demanded, in such a savage tone
as quite infuriated me, who would light his pipe. The Bosniacs took it
more calmly. The old minstrel laid down his lute and paused for awhile in
his lay. For a few moments there was a moody silence—as if some blunted
sense of injury had outlived long use of wrongs—then a fine man stepped
forward sheepishly and lit the bully’s pipe.
Another time a knot of peasants were gathered together in friendly
converse in the grassy middle-lane, when two Zaptiehs rushed forward
with whips, and flogged them away, _women_ as well as men! But the worst
instance of brutality that came within my observation took place while I
was discussing a bottle of Slavonian wine, and exchanging English songs
for Bosnian, with a merry group of rayahs, belonging mostly to the Greek
Church, ‘Serbs,’ as they proudly called themselves, who had come to take
part in the fair and festa of their Roman Catholic rivals. Of a sudden
our festivities were broken in upon by the sounds of a scuffle behind,
accompanied by such shrieks as made me start up, and the firelight fell
on a gendarme—the same, I think, who had interrupted the minstrelsy—who,
with a stick or some kind of weapon, was beating an old Christian man as
if he were a pig, and kicking the poor cringing wretch the while till he
howled for mercy. I was stepping forward to interpose, but two Bosniacs
clutched hold of me and held me back, whispering with more covered hatred
than can be described, ‘’Tis only the Turks!’ The Zaptieh, however, not
wishing to provoke Frankish intervention, desisted from his belabouring,
and left his victim to limp away as best he might. The group of ‘Serbs’
had not shown any sign of attempting a rescue, but I saw more than
one brow knit ominously for the moment. But the visible emotion was
transient, and their faces relapsed into that impassive stolidity which
is the normal expression of the Bosnian rayah.
It has been already observed that a Zaptieh had been told off with the
express commission of observing our motions, and it was a continual
annoyance to find a gendarme ever dogging at our heels. But it was
obviously disagreeable to the Turks that I should be about at all; and as
the night advanced our detective began to find the duties of espionage
somewhat wearisome, and appears to have put our own Zaptieh, with whom I
noticed him confabulating, up to bidding me retire to rest, as if he were
rather commander than escort. This he did to my no small astonishment,
while I was listening to one of the ballads, and was sent roundly about
his business for his pains, to the unconcealed delight of the Christians,
who from that moment dubbed us Consuls—a name given by the Bosniacs to
any Europeans who are not subject to the caprices of Turkish gendarmes;
for they argue that no one less than a foreign representative would dare
to lift a finger against these creatures of their tyrants.
But at last, though the epic still rolled on—sometimes these rhapsodies
continue with intervals for days at a time!—and though the interest of
the audience flagged not, I thought it time to follow the example set
hours before by L⸺, who was somewhat footsore, and to lie down beside
our fire. And if anyone fancies that our mountain lair was altogether a
bed of roses, he is mistaken, for the night was very cold, and we were
always being partly scorched and partly frozen; and as the ground was
anything but even, falling asleep was rather a doubtful advantage, since
we were pretty sure to roll either into the embers on one side, or down
the steep on the other; and if neither of these casualties befel us ’twas
odds that we started up with a most corporeal and hoofy nightmare upon
us, and discovered that one of the Arab horses, which encompassed us
round about, had mistaken our blanket bags for fodder, and was proceeding
to act upon that assumption.
But it begins to dawn, the vast camp is astir, a subtle aroma of coffee
pervades our waking senses, and a new day breaks forth, wondrously fair
to look upon, but to Bosnia pregnant with bloodshed and misery.
Yet there is no sign of trouble here. New arrivals are perpetually
swelling the festal gathering and crowding round the shrine. It was a
brilliant scene, which no words can convey; but the reader will permit me
to introduce the characteristic group seated on yonder trunk.
The man to the right, in a red turban and a dark indigo jacket, is a fair
example of the Bosniac rayah of these parts, and indeed his dress is
much the same throughout the country. He wears a loose white linen tunic
and trowsers, which latter are confined about the calf in this instance,
though they are often loose and flowing, as among the Croats. His feet
are sandalled in the never-failing _Opankas_, which seem common to all
the southern Sclaves, and may not improbably be the same foot-covering as
that mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus. The Byzantine Emperor says
that the Romans called the boots of the Serbli (or Serbs) Serbula, and
Serbulianos all those who were poorly booted; and indeed, if these are
the sandals alluded to, it must be confessed that the Byzantine contempt
for them as boots was merited, for experience has taught me that the
straps easily break, and that the soles are worn through in no time.
[Illustration: Types at the Fair.]
The woman seated on the middle of the trunk is representative of the
ordinary Latin peasants hereabouts, the red border of her jacket being
probably an ensign of her Catholicism as near Dervent. The rest of the
jacket is black, contrasting with the clean white tunic below; but the
general effect would be funereal were it not for her apron, which is of
as divers colours as Joseph’s coat, and displays those diamond patterns
so much affected by the peasants near Belgrade. The twin brooches on
her belt may remind the antiquary of those worn by our Anglo-Saxon
great-grandmothers, or of such as are exhumed from old Serbian graves,
and the silver work of her ear-rings is doubtless an inheritance from
Byzantium.
The standing figure to her left belongs to a very curious type both of
feature and costume. This was the first occasion on which we came upon a
dress the affinities of which were other than Serbian or Croatian. The
multitude of decoration is overpowering. She is studded with Turkish
coins as with a cuirass of scale armour, her arms loaded with bracelets,
and her fingers with rings; ornamental patterns are crowded over her
jacket and apron,—a gorgeous orange being the pervading colour. Her hair
was spangled with coins in a way which we afterwards saw repeated among
the unveiled Mahometan women of the Narenta valley. There was a certain
heaviness about the dress which contrasted with the lighter costumes
around; it belonged to the general class of Bosnian costume extending
west and south towards Dalmatia and the Herzegovinian frontier. Its
_nuances_ are decidedly Dalmatian. As we crossed the mountains towards
Travnik we came upon more specimens of this type; and in the gorges of
Troghìr and Mazulia were again struck by the curious stamp of features,
which in these mountains seems always to accompany this peculiar attire.
The broad face and flat nose suggest quite a different parentage, and
I noticed brothers and husbands who showed that the peculiarity was
not confined to one sex. I remember one man in particular with nose so
curiously flattened that one was almost tempted to believe that his
profile had been deformed by a bandage drawn tightly across the face
in childhood, after the old Hunnish fashion, and went on to speculate
whether some of the followers of Attila, or perchance some of those
Tartars who flooded Bosnia in the thirteenth century, might not have been
caught in these mountain basins. But this much is certain, that at the
present day these gorgeous barbarians speak Bosniac like their neighbours.
To the left of our Hunnish friend sits a woman in the most civilized
costume of Christian Bosnia, and which, with peculiarities of its own, is
eminently Serbian, of the Danube, and will recall the maiden of Tešanj.
Here, however, besides the hair plaited round a tasselled fez, and the
scarf crossed X-wise over the bosom, is the expanding skirt and the
fur-bordered jacket, such as the ladies of Belgrade delight in wearing.
Some of the girls have decked their hair with zinnias and even
sunflowers. The quantity of false coral and bead necklaces worn is
overpowering, as is the endless variety of modes in which the white and
red kerchiefs that drape the heads are set. Sometimes it was arranged not
unlike the coiffure of the last queen of Bosnia, as she appears on her
monumental slab. Sometimes, as has been already noticed, it threatened
to conceal the face entirely, and some of these half Mahometans were to
be seen with the ‘bags’ reaching to their ankles, _à la belle Turque_.
One girl was arrayed as a bride—in lily white, except the flowers in her
hair, which just peeped forth from beneath a kerchief-veil, woven of the
lightest texture of the country, and falling airily about her person,
fringed with simple lace.
But another maiden demands my presence, and I am called away to sketch,
at her own request, a Bosnian belle, coiffed in the brightest of rosy
kerchiefs, enveloped in a jacket with the most gorgeous golden border,
and cinctured with a sash of orange and purple. Whether the attitude
in which she sat for her portrait was the most elegant she could have
chosen, and whether her boots, in which I fancy she took a peculiar
pride, were of that form most adapted for displaying maidenly gracility
of ankle, may be left for a forbearing public to decide.
[Illustration: Bosnian Belle.]
Her hair is dark—and who so ungallant as to suggest that its hue is
due to artificial causes? Granted that a powder does exist called Kna;
let it freely be admitted that the fair Serbs often show themselves as
desirous as the ladies of the harem to acquire those raven tresses which
the Koràn distinguishes as a sign of comeliness and strength. But a
glance—a scintillation—from those eyes would annihilate any detractor so
mean as to bring such imputations against our Bosniac beauty! Here at
once, so to speak, we are on _terra firma_. These at least are incapable
of assuming an un-genuine hue; and they are _black_,—black as the sloes
with which the national poets delight to compare their mistresses’ orbs,
and haloed round with such dark lashes and eyebrows as the same Serbian
imagination fondly likens to ‘leeches from the fountain.’ But she was
rather the exception in the crowd, and the evident esteem in which her
good looks were held was probably more due to this accident of hue
than anything else; for if at times the tresses of her artless village
rivals _happened_ on the fashionable colour, their eyes were oftener
of a traitorous turquoise than of jet; and as to the little children,
their hair was of a tell-tale flaxen! Nay, it is to be feared that if
our damsel was on the look out for a black-eyed sweetheart to match her,
she would find some difficulty in realizing her hopes, since the men’s
eyes were generally of greys or watery blues, and their lanky locks took
an unfortunately reddish hue of brown; and even supposing her pockets to
have been as full of gold, she was likely to fall as far short of her
ideal as the maiden of Serbian poetry, who sings:—
I wish the happy time were nigh,
When youths are sold, that I might buy.
But for an azure-eyed Milinar,[179]
I would not give a single dinar,
Though for a raven-black eyed youth,
A thousand golden coins in truth.
Alas! alas! and is it true?
My own fair youth has eyes of blue![180]
The women looked as a rule pleasanter than the men, whose general
appearance, as may perhaps be gathered from the illustration, is
anything but prepossessing. The whole crown is shorn of hair, Turkish
fashion, but usually, instead of the single pig-tail of the faithful,
two long elf-locks are left dangling from the back of the head, and the
effect of the bare occiput with these two sickly appendages is little
short of disgusting; add to which that the natural length of the neck
is exaggerated by this tonsure. From the front the aspect is not more
pleasing; the bald pate, combined with the bony attenuated face and round
eyebrows, being often in a ghastly manner suggestive of a death’s-head.
The long sunken eye-slits, whose outer corners curve down, so as to
follow the lines of the brow-arches, give them an air of sleepy cunning,
the eyebrows often overhanging as to form a den for the suspicious roving
eyes. The lips are thick, broad, and pouting. The whole face seems dazed,
and it is almost beyond mortal patience to see the heavy, slow, owlish
way in which their head turns on its axis if anything attracts their
attention. When you look at them they always seem as if they do not know
what expression is expected of them, and their stolidity is enhanced by
turbans which make them look top-heavy. It is easy to understand why
the quick-witted Greeks of the lower Empire should have nick-named the
Sclaves Chondrokephaloi, or ‘block-heads.’
Yet, after all, the hideous tonsure and what is vilest in their demeanour
are but accidental badges of servitude and oppression—removable by a few
generations of free government. The sluggishness of their deliberation
may be quickened by culture; and, the causes of suspicion once removed,
the hang-dog look of the Bosniac would disappear as surely as it has
ceased among the free Serbians, and as it is disappearing at this day
among the liberated Wallachian serfs. The slow, measured utterance of the
race, so far from being a proof of inferiority, has been compared by Ami
Boué to that of Englishmen, and this keen observer of the Serbs speaks
of the people and language as born, if any ever were, for parliamentary
government.
The frame of these Bosniac countrymen lacks the elegance and suppleness
of the modern Greek, but it is stronger and of larger mould. No stranger
who passes through Bosnia can fail to be struck at the exceeding stature
of the inhabitants. The fair here is thronged with men six feet high,
and over. An English traveller who passed through this country in 1634,
and stayed a day or two in ‘Saraih,’ ‘the metropolis of the kingdome
of Bosnah,’ says, ‘the most notable things I found was the goodnesse
of the water, and vaste, almost _gyant-like_ stature of the men, which
with their bordring upon _Germany_, made mee suppose them to be the
offspring of those old _Germans_ noted by _Cæsar_ and _Tacitus_ for their
huge size, which in other places is now degenerate into the ordinary
proportions of men.’[181] Gaunt they may be, lean and overgrown; but they
are sons of Anak; and though they may now seem a cowering rabble, the
example of their self-liberated brothers in Montenegro and free Serbia
should teach the world that in happier circumstances they too might hold
up their heads and display the spirit of heroes. Even in their features,
in their broad benevolent forehead and aquiline nose, are disguised the
lineaments of grandeur and manly beauty. Despite the ill-favour of their
expression, there was generally a lurking geniality to be detected in
it, and when among themselves I was struck with their kindly manners and
good-fellowship; indeed I suspect that it is generally the stranger’s
own fault—probably his want of tact in posing before them as the friend
of the Turk—if they do not show themselves friendly to him, and relapse
into a bearish reserve. And though the Bosniacs are much accused of that
common failing of the Southern Sclaves, intoxication, yet it must be said
to their credit that in this large gathering—so large that hardly a spot
of standing ground was left unoccupied in the whole mountain neck—we
did not notice a single case of drunkenness, and this though there were
plenty of booths in the fair for the sale of arrack and Slavonian wine.
Indeed the general orderliness, the absence of license of any sort, among
the Christian part of the assembly, was beyond all praise.
As to the fair the display of wares was poor enough, there being little
exposed for sale beyond the usual crockery, and the cheapest and most
gimcrack jewelry, brass rings, and brooches of the very worst Bosniac
fabric, and here and there a little fruit—water-melons, and small
plums and pears. The only articles worth mentioning were the square,
elegantly chipped gun-flints, of a kind which is to be found in all
Bosnian markets. These are knapped at Avlona, in Albania, near the old
Acroceraunian promontory, from about which the flints are gathered; and
they are interesting, as being probably the most perfect representatives
in modern Europe of an art which was once the highest among mankind.
Our Norfolk flint-knappers, who still export this old-world article of
commerce to the savages of Africa, could never compete with the artists
who turn out these _chefs-d’œuvre_ of delicate flaking!
[Illustration: Gun-Flint.]
About 1 P.M. we started on our mountain-crossing expedition towards
Travnik; first descending from our altitude towards the Franciscan
monastery of Comušina, which we found to consist of an unpretending house
and a bare, pewless church standing in the middle of a wretched little
village. The door of the monastery was fastened, and a woman who parleyed
with us from an upper window said that all the ‘brothers’ were up at
the shrine. On our way we had passed through the Christian cemetery—a
wilderness so deep in bracken that it seemed to have been purposely left
to the charitable clothing of Nature, as if they feared that even their
graves, if seen, might be insulted by the passing Zaptieh. The memorials
here were rude stones, sometimes scarcely touched by art, sometimes
rudely graven with a Latin cross like one of the ‘Hadjuks’ graves’
already described. But we groped among the fern-leaves in vain for an
inscription.
Beyond this we descended by a path to the Ussora, and finding that our
attendant Zaptieh’s scansorial powers were small, and that, not having
on his shoulders a heavy knapsack like ourselves, he was yet inclined
to lag hopelessly, there was nothing for it but to dismiss him, after
first inditing under a walnut-tree beside the waters of Ussora a letter
in our choicest French to the Kaïmakàm, in which we gave our escort a
good character, only expressing our regret that his inability to climb
mountains _à l’Anglaise_ deprived us of the further pleasure of his
company. We afterwards had reason to regret that besides the backshish
or largess which was his due we gave him too large a proportion of our
remaining store of bread, not sufficiently realising the slow progress
which we should make between this and Travnik.
We now followed the river bed, every now and then wading from one side
to the other of the shallow stream in a vain search for a forest-path
which should lead in the right direction. We found Major Roskiević’s[182]
map so completely out, that we really suspected that he had been the
victim of the Vila’s enchantments—and who, conversant with the history
of the building of Scodra, does not know that it is her practice to
thwart engineers who presumptuously invade her precincts? And I would
urge in proof of this hypothesis that her sacred mount, the Vila Gora
of the peasants hereabouts, under whose brows we are now passing, is
conspicuous by its absence on the Major’s chart. Before we had concluded
our itinerary of Bosnia we had further proofs that the Vila or some other
freakish sprite had possessed that unfortunate officer. Often has the
Major played the part of a will-o’-the-wisp for our especial misguidance!
At times he would display such extraordinary capacities of faith as to
remove mountains. He would evolve streams which existed not, out of his
inner consciousness, and when he conceived that this pleasantry had gone
far enough he would swallow them up in the earth. He would transport
villages bodily. He would run a broad valley through a mountain mass
from which Xerxes would have recoiled, and bridge over chasms at which
Stephenson would have shuddered. Not that his humour is always of this
ponderous turn; oh no! he has his lighter veins, too, in which he will
draw you a zigzagging road straight as a line, or pop the only path on
the wrong side of the stream!
At about 5 P.M. we found ourselves at the junction of the Ziraja and the
Blatnica, as we learnt from some peasants—_for they never meet_ according
to the Major. The peasants, who were dressed in the heavily ornamented
quasi-Dalmatian costume of these mountains, and were of the type which
it has pleased me to call Hunnish, were much delighted at a present of
English needles from the ‘consuls.’
We now began ascending the Troghìr Planina by a faintly indicated
woodman’s path, overshadowed by a beech-forest of finer growth than
any we had yet seen, interspersed with equally majestic pines. Amongst
these mysterious labyrinths we lost our path, and coming towards dusk
on an inviting glade commanding a lovely mountain panorama, pitched on
it as our place of bivouac for the night. Here we found no difficulty
in collecting firewood for a cheery fire, and bracken enough to form a
springy mattress; and having cooked our frugal supper, we submitted to
be lulled to sleep by the chorus of tree-crickets above. The night was
again fine; so that, except for the cold, which in the small hours of
the morning was bitter—as it generally is when the camp fire has burnt
down beyond recovery!—we passed a fairly comfortable night, till we were
aroused by the droning of gnats in our ears, and were again on our way,
before the sun.
But now we began to be beset by a difficulty which while in the forest
zone of the mountains we had not anticipated—namely, the absence of
water, caused by the porous character of the limestone rock; and though
we succeeded in finding our path again, all the runnels we passed were
dried by summer drought. The woods were very silent, and there was no
morning song of birds beyond the cooing of a dove; but while we were
resting we heard a deep musical hum among the tree-tops, proceeding from
myriads of gnats, some of which were droning below. We kept gradually
ascending the back of the Planina, our path continually disappearing or
losing itself in a maze of lesser tracks, which might have been made as
much by animals as by man; and every now and then we had to scramble on
as best we could over tree-trunks of monstrous girth that barred our
path. But still no water to make breakfast palatable! till about two
hours after starting we came to a stagnant pool or puddle about the size
of an ordinary washing-basin, which, as necessity knows no law, we were
driven to make use of, and to pick the tadpoles out of our tea as best we
might!
But how describe this forest scenery! how paint, so that others may
see as we saw them, the golden rays of the rising sun slanting between
the leafy tiers of the beeches, intersecting their shady trunks with
pillars of light, shimmering beyond against the dark mountain flank; not
dappling it in round noon-day patches, but streaking it horizontally with
golden ripples, comparable to nothing but mackerel clouds glorified by
the sunset, trailing across some darker tract of sky. Now and then the
mighty trunks and branches frame vistas of mountain and valley, flooded
still by a forest sea unflecked by habitation—an enamel of quiet blue.
Then the luminous foliage of the beeches gives place for a while to more
sombre pines, whose turpentiny fragrance floats like morning incense down
the forest aisles. Hour after hour, as we ascend, the forest still looms
around us, but the scenery is perpetually changing.
At one point we reached a mountain bluff more open to the wind, and
found ourselves in a clearing not made by man. From the rocky summit
an awful scene of ruin burst upon us. That soft blue heaven—azure and
cloudless as a tranquil sea—it, too, has its storms and windy Scyllas to
play havoc among these aërial masts. This was one universal wreck—the
wreck of an Armada. Far and wide every tree had been struck down like
Canaanitic walls. The very current of the tornado was marked by the lie
of the prostrate trunks. At times a confused medley—piles of scarce
distinguishable spars and giant hulks—jumbled together as if they had
been nine-pins!—showed the eddy of a whirlwind; but generally the trunks
were strewn pointing from the north-east like so many magnets: one
vast torrent track of destruction marking the course of the _Bora_, the
irresistible storm-wind of Illyria. In places we have found the periodic
force of this wind utilized by the Bosniacs, who cut the trees a quarter
through on the leeward side and leave the rest to the woodcraft of Boreas.
[Illustration: Tree struck by Lightning.]
But once more we plunge into the primeval shadows to find ourselves among
more isolated monuments of ruin. Here it is the artillery of heaven that
has been playing on the masted swell of the green Planina. Now we have
reached the very focus of an electric storm. The trunks of beech and fir
sometimes riven asunder, more generally erect but decapitated, stripped
of bark and branches; sometimes shattered columns charred by the aërial
explosion, sometimes splintered up into trophies of white spears. Here is
one of the most striking witnesses to the stupendous power of lightning
that I have ever seen. A beech about eighty feet in height was snapped in
two, the upper part hurled on to the slope below, the lower still rooted
to the ground, but the hard wood splashed by the thunderer’s bolt—as when
a bomb-shell strikes the sea—into gigantic splinters: keen, shapely
blades, as much as twenty feet in length.[183]
Then, again, we passed through a region of pines, grim,
time-stained—scarred and bereft of limbs in many a battle with the
elements—with bare long arms and patriarchal beards of hoary lichen; an
older generation of trees, waiting in vain for kindly axe or levelling
blast; and awakening, in their Arctic desolation, memories of a Lapland
forest-scene. And now once more a charming transformation takes place.
Cheerful beech avenues again overarch us, or open out in sunny glades,
where butterflies—commas, whites, clouded yellows—are fluttering and
settling about yellow salvias and a flower which looked like a rosy phlox
with a single blossom. Now we found, to our great relief, an icy-cold
stream, and prepared our noon-day repast in a beechwood glen that carried
us back to the chalk hills of old England. Here we recognized around us
those old familiar ferns, the prickly and the maiden-hair[184]—polypody,
flouncing the old stumps with charitable raiment—rarer tufts of blechnum;
and, prying curiously among the beech-roots for another of our chalk-hill
favourites, we found—sure enough!—that spiky shell[185] which seems to
imitate the form and colour of the sheathed buds of the beech-leaves.
The track we now followed began to descend rapidly, and we discovered,
after climbing down a considerable way, that we were on the wrong side
of the watershed, so that there was nothing for it but to reascend as
nearly as possible two thousand feet towards the main ridge of Troghìr
which we had left.
A comparatively bare steep tempted us to make straight for our object;
but having with difficulty fought our way upwards through a jungle of
fern and dwarf elder, we presently found ourselves entangled among the
_débris_ of a not very ancient forest fire. The ground was toothed with
sharp splinters of burnt rock, and strewn with a network of branches, too
rotten to bear our weight, but quite strong enough to trap our feet and
tumble us over—all which gins and snares were treacherously concealed
by a forest of bracken which rose above our heads. Add to this, that
at every few yards we had to scale high barricades of sooty timber,
and at the time were at a loss to conceive why Providence should have
made fir-trees so confoundedly spiky! When it is remembered that we had
about five-and-twenty pounds on our backs, and that the sun was broiling
hot, it may be imagined that our progress was slow, and in fact we were
forced to win every inch as much with our hands as our feet. However,
as we gradually stormed our citadel, we were rewarded for our bumps and
lacerations by a view as strange as it was picturesque. In these upper
regions it was only the smaller trees that had been actually burnt down,
the larger had been simply killed and left standing. The sight as we
looked down had a savage fascination quite unique; the colours were
so varied, so striking, so bizarre, that they deserved to have been
perpetuated by a great painter. Here and there were the charred funereal
skeletons of forest giants, with jagged stumps of branches in harsh
relief against a distant background of green valley and blue undulating
mountain, almost voluptuous in its softness of tint and contour. In some
trunks the blackness was chequered, where the bark had peeled off, by
broad scars, taking every tint of amber; in others, it was draped in ashy
festoons of lichen, or swathed in verdant folds of moss. Some trees,
already roasted to death by fire, had at a later period been shivered
by the lightning, and the whiteness of their splinters showed that
little but their bark had been charred by the previous conflagration.
Some indeed had actually survived it, and on one side a small island of
still flourishing trees—a dark yew-green fir, an emerald and a golden
beech—stood out against the sootiest thicket.
But we gradually left this funereal waste beneath us, and groping upwards
once more through virgin forest, at last succeeded in regaining the ridge
of Troghìr. We even hit on our lost path, but it soon eluded us again
and disappeared beneath the wrecks of tall pine-trees, which seemed to
have buried all traces of it. For here, if a fallen tree bars the path,
the Bosniac woodman does not cut it away, but either climbs over it, or,
if the obstacle is too high for man or beast to surmount, he deserts the
track altogether and makes another elsewhere. Thus the forest barricades
are gradually allowed to accumulate till they reach dimensions simply
stupendous, and the path which originally swerved a few yards out of its
course may eventually be turned as much as a mile. But we had learnt
a lesson about trusting to paths which, while still smarting from the
effects of our second ascent of Troghìr, we were not likely to neglect;
so this time we followed the guidance of our compass as literally as we
could, scaling barrier after barrier till we were well nigh worn out. No
one, I think, who has not himself tried to penetrate a primeval forest
on a windy mountain ridge, can realize what these obstacles really are!
It was late in the afternoon when we conquered our last barricade, and
to our delight beheld before us the smooth lawny swell which forms the
summit of the Vučia Planina, from which the Troghìr is an offshoot.
An easy ascent brought us to the top, where we rested awhile to enjoy
the glorious mountain panorama that opened out all round. We are now in
the very heart of Alpine Bosnia, ‘each one of whose lofty mountains,’ to
quote the words of her native historian,[186] ‘exalted to Ayuk, the fiery
star, is an eyesore to the foe.’ But the traveller must make allowance
for Oriental hyperbole. Here, at least, the mountains were contented with
a less sidereal stature; nor was there much that could even be called
rocky or precipitous except the head of Vlašić to the south, which peered
over lower mountain shoulders and conical peaks, shrouded, as the long
neck of Troghìr below us, as all the other Goras and Planinas round, with
dense forest growth. To call the scenery Swiss would be mere flattery;
indeed, its whole character, the small height of the mountains, the
want of boldness, the down-like swell of their contours, recalls rather
the Carpathians than any part of the Alps that I have seen. The summit
of Vučia, on which we now are, is inconsiderable as regards altitude,
not being more than 4,300 feet, according to our aneroid, though, to be
sure, the Major makes it 5,000—for the sake of round numbers. There is
something Carpathian, too, about the forests, the gigantic pines and
beeches, and—as might be expected from the commonly calcareous nature
of the soil—in the flora generally. Here, as in the ranges that border
Roumania, the drooping gentian, the sweet-william, and the sunflower are
among the most noticeable flowers.
But the sun is sinking low in the heavens, and it is high time for us
to be again on our legs. We now made our way across the southern slopes
of the summit, or rather table-land, of Vučia, which forms a lovely
Alp or mountain pasture. At intervals we came upon peasants of the
type we had seen the evening before (we had met with no human being
in the intervening day) tending kine, or mowing hay. When, however,
we approached some women—who, being unveiled, we assumed to be Latin
Christians—to ask the bearings of Travnik, they rushed away into a
thicket screeching, ‘_Hai ’ti! hai ’ti!_’ ‘Off! off!’ so Moslemized—if
indeed they were rayahs, as we think certain—were their ideas of
propriety! One of them had made a sign which we mistook for an answer to
our enquiry, and against our better judgment we followed the direction
indicated, and which afterwards turned out to be hopelessly wrong.
Meanwhile, our lines had fallen in pleasant places. The fresh scent
of hay was delicious; the soft undulating mountain lawn, dotted with
magnificent beeches, kept perpetually recalling a fine English park;
on one side, too, it was appropriately fringed by a fir-plantation of
Nature. It was quite hard to realize that we were far from any town or
even shelter. In the midst of these loneliest of mountains one kept half
expecting to catch sight of the cosy red gables and mullioned windows
of some old Elizabethan mansion. The beeches seemed to have caught the
inspiration of the landscape. In the freer atmosphere of these glades
they had lost the almost poplar-like procerity of their forest-growth,
and expanded into that more pear-shaped outline which is so congenial to
genteel precincts. Over those forest depths through which we had been
diving all the day had reigned the ‘silence of the central sea,’ but
these woodland coasts and islands were alive with garden songsters—tits
and wrens and blackbirds—fluttering about in the golden sunshine of
evening, and filling our ears with familiar home melodies.
Here, too, we saw a most beautiful sight—a fine convolvulus hawk-moth
(we had made acquaintance with another the evening before), up and
dissipating at an hour when all well-regulated moths should be wrapped
in downy slumbers, and making, as we thought, a most unfair use of a
proboscis full two inches long to drain the nectar from a whole spike
of yellow salvia, before any of its fellows should be awake to cry
halves. It was a pert fly, and seemed quite to revel in the sunlight—a
‘_fast_’ trait, it is to be feared in a nocturnal insect. Such airs,
too, as it gave itself!—flouting here, flirting there; flitting on from
conquest to conquest. As if the gorgeous creature did not know that it
was irresistible! As if the very sunbeams did not lackey it—showering
gold-dust over that expanse of delicately-mottled grey! What Danae
sprite, never so pent up in perfumed cell, could resist such courtship?
What flowery elf be proof against the superb obeisance of that taper
body, tricked out in all its tiger livery of rose and sable? To see it
dawdle round a bevy of fair blossoms, in lazy eddies, drifting rather
than flying, with a _blasé_ air of languid inspection; to see it, in more
light fantastic vein, dance off to the flower of its capricious choice,
and bob airily up and down, coquetting with those saffron lips, ere it
poised—how daintily!—to steal their sweetness. It was decidedly livelier
than our friend of yestereen, and so intent upon its nectar as to let us
gaze within a foot of it; it seemed to have a keener, a more epicurean,
enjoyment of life, and gave itself all the airs of a _bon-vivant_. Indeed
it showed its good taste in its preference for salvia; for the scent of
these flowers is exquisite, and I have sometimes stopped wonderingly to
look for musk, so like is the smell at a little distance off.
On this side of the mountains the flowers and foliage are more luxuriant.
Glade and woodland are sprinkled with kinds we have not yet met with, a
large rosy cranesbill, a yellow labiate, with a peak of the most gorgeous
purple leaves—if indeed they were not petals—tremulous little hare-bells,
_lastræa_ and delicate varieties of ferns, while here and there bright
scarlet strawberries gemmed the ground. The trees grow to an even more
gigantic stature than those we saw before. We measured beeches fifteen
feet in circumference, at about three feet from the ground; and many—as
on the Mazulia Planina opposite, where some of the finest timber in
Bosnia is said to grow—rise to a height of a hundred and twenty feet. A
pine-tree measured fourteen feet and a half in girth.
For we are again immersed in the primeval forest—and night seems nearer
and shelter further. The sun was already setting, when a gap in the
trees revealed to us a mountain vista, which showed that we were on the
wrong side of the ridge. A woodman whom we presently met told us that we
were going towards Zenica instead of Travnik, and we discovered that we
were on the debatable mountain neck, between the Vučia and Gorcevica
Planinas. The woodman intimated to us that to strike across and attempt
to regain the Travnik path was hopeless, and that we had better follow
the ridge in the direction of Zenica. But we made up our minds to cut
across and follow the valley of a stream which led in our direction.
Accordingly we crossed over to the western side of our ridge, and found
ourselves on the brink of an almost precipitous steep, descending to the
Jasenica, our desired stream, heard but not seen, thirteen hundred feet
below.
The mean angle at which this slope descended was, as nearly as we could
calculate, 60°. Had it been bare, we could not possibly have descended
it, laden as we were; but it was covered with beech-trees, which might
stop us if we fell; so we resolved to attempt a descent.
It was certainly very difficult work; the beech-leaves made it slippery,
and concealed rocks and boughs would trip us up, or a piece of soil give
way. We were perpetually dislodging fragments of rock, which rolled and
leapt down, quicker and quicker, crash after crash, cannoning against
the trunks, taking bigger and bigger bounds, till a final plunge told
us that they had reached the stream. They never lodged half way. Every
now and then we seemed likely to follow them, but we always succeeded in
arresting our fall by clutching at a passing trunk. It grew darker and
darker; but we still kept on at our painful task, till, about six hundred
feet down, I broke one of my knapsack straps in a tumble, and it being
impossible in such a position either to mend it or to carry it, we were
lucky in discovering, close by, a hollow—formed by the uprooting of a
forest giant—to serve as sleeping-quarters for our third night running,
_sub Jove frigido_, and where we literally _lodged_ till peep-o’-day.
The worst was that we were unable to collect fuel for a fire, and before
morning a chill breeze sprang up, and the thermometer sank almost to
freezing point; for, in less mountainous localities than this, August
frosts are by no means rare in Bosnia. For nocturnal visitors we might
take our choice—as the wind invented footsteps—of the wild swine, bears,
and wolves, that inhabit these mountains; but none of these fourfooted
gentry molested us; and, except that once or twice we woke with the cold,
or by reason of sundry stones and awkward tags of root, which would keep
running into us, we slept soundly enough.
_Aug. 17._—Having executed the needful repairs, we continued our descent
before sunrise, and finally found ourselves at the bottom of the
gorge—the opposite steep of Mazulia frowning over us as precipitously as
that which we had descended, and the whole ravine being so narrow that
there was room for nothing but the Jasenica torrent below, over arched by
the stupendous beeches which clung to both steeps.
In a dry part of its bed we demolished our last scrap of bread, and
reviewed our position, which was not favourable. The gorge in which we
found ourselves was from all points so inaccessible that we doubted
whether it had ever been trodden by foot of man before. To make our way
along the valley seemed well nigh impossible, so vast were the rock
and timber barricades with which the torrent had piled its course. On
the other hand, to reascend either steep was tantamount to a defeat,
and in either case would bring us no forwarder. But it was becoming
painfully evident that we must get somewhere, and quickly—as the day
before, owing to our ill-judged liberality to our Zaptieh, we had had to
stint ourselves of food, and now the last scrap of solid nutriment was
gone—there could be no doubt about that! So, all things considered, there
was nothing for it but to fight our way down the gorge as best we might,
and trust that as the stream got lower its valley would widen. We found
that the best way was to plunge bodily through the water, now and then
jumping from rock to rock, or slipping into deep pools, and every few
yards having to scale dams of trunks and branches, whose hugeness showed
the force of the torrent in the rainy season. The want of an axe made a
good deal of this work more difficult than it otherwise would have been,
so that it sometimes took an hour to make a few score yards of way.
And yet the guerdon of our struggle was rich indeed. An hour or so from
our starting-point the sides of our ravine became more rocky, and started
up sheerly on either side of the stream, which, dashing between these
‘iron gates,’ leapt from a rocky platform, and plunged some sixty feet
below in a magnificent cascade. We were forced to make a tedious détour
by climbing up the steep; but the rocky walls, the overhanging beeches,
the snow-white foam veiling the abysmal gloom, gave us glimpses of a
beautiful picture. The vegetation, too, of our valley was marvellous in
its luxuriance. Here, where the rays of the meridian sun scarcely pierce,
stately sunflowers would raise their great flaming crowns as if to light
up the shades of fell and forest. Drooping gentians—those weeping willows
among flowers!—hung lovingly over the stream: methought they were its
guardian nymphs, swelling its waters with tributary dew from a myriad
azure urns! The dimensions taken by some of the ferns were certainly
extraordinary; the lady-fern waved feather-like sprays near five feet in
length, the hart’s tongue put forth fronds like small palm-leaves, three
feet long and about three inches broad. Even the tree-like moss[187] that
cushioned the damp crevices between the rocks rose to an abnormal stature.
[Illustration: Rocky Gorge of the Jasenica.]
After many weary hours the valley began to open out a little, and the
stream allowed us room for passage on its margin. Further on we came to
little patches of meadow land by its side, and even, here and there, to
traces of a path, and another sign of man, the ashes of an old camp-fire.
Beyond this, again, the mountains grew more rocky, the trees smaller and
more scanty, and scenery of a bolder kind broke upon us. First, as if
to prepare us for what was to follow, a tall obelisk of rock started up
in the middle of the gorge; and having passed, as it were, Cleopatra’s
Needle, the rock-architecture took an appropriately Egyptian character,
and we found ourselves among what it only required a slight exercise of
imagination to transform into the ruins of the Pharaohs. Colossal walls
and columns towered on each side of the torrent, and scarcely allowed
it a passage; and, looking through these antique portals, the top of a
pyramid appeared in the distance—the limestone peak or Vlašić.
We made our way with some difficulty through the precipitous defile, and
were rewarded by a cheerful prospect of a maize-covered height beyond,
surmounted by wooden huts and the minaret of a mosque. A short climb
brought us to the village, called Zagredzi, hanging on the slope of
Mt. Mazulia. Here we thought to get something to eat, for we were half
famished; but we certainly were not prepared for the inhospitality of
the villagers, who apparently were all Mahometans. As we passed along
the street every door was slammed. The women scurried away and hid
themselves; even the men fled at our approach; and though we succeeded so
far as to parley with one, no entreaties or offers of money could induce
him to procure us bread or milk. So there was nothing for it but to
proceed on our way and shake the dust of this churlish village from our
feet. Just outside we passed what we take to have been an old _karaula_
or watch-tower, of rough masonry, square in shape, with barred windows
and an old circular arch now half buried in the ground, surmounted by a
plain round moulding. Happily, beyond this we came upon an apple-tree,
and, as the ground was strewn with apples, considered ourselves justified
in anticipating the vagrant swine.
We presently met a party of countrymen, and persuaded one, in return for
coin of the realm, to put us into the way to the village of Podove, there
to strike the path for the Franciscan monastery of Gučiagora, where we
purposed to throw ourselves on monkish hospitality. At Podove we found
for the first time some monuments of a kind which we were to meet with
again in other parts of Bosnia, and which are scattered over the whole
country.
[Illustration: Mysterious Sepulchres, Podove.]
These are large tombstones, some as much as six feet long by three in
height, of a tea-caddy shape, resting on a broader stone platform.
The impression they give you is that they are descendants of Roman
sarcophagi, and indeed their upper part is exactly similar to some Roman
monuments.[188] There is, so far as I have seen, no inscription on them;
but occasionally, as on some of those at Podove, they are ornamented with
incised arches at the end and side of a quasi-Gothic form, which may be
useful in determining their date. The erosion of the stone and mutilated
condition of many probably point to considerable antiquity, as also does
the fact that I have twice noticed them overturned and blocking up the
channel of streams which had undermined their original standing ground.
They certainly bear no resemblance to the turbaned columns of Turkish
cemeteries, and indeed an examination of those at Podove convinced me
that many had been purposely mutilated by the unbeliever.
All these facts point to the conclusion that they are, as the Bosniacs
express it when they want to indicate a date previous to the Turkish
captivity, ‘more than three hundred years old.’ On the other hand, if
not Moslem, neither are they like the memorial stone crosses, such as
one we were shortly to see at Gučiagora, which are the undoubted work of
Christians, and which date back at least to the sixteenth century.
There are, however, some modern monuments which we noticed at one place
in the Herzegovina which resemble these in outline; these were in a small
Jewish graveyard outside Mostar, and had Hebrew inscriptions on them.
But the Jews of Bosnia and the Herzegovina are all a Spanish-speaking
people, who took refuge from their Christian oppressors within the
borders of more tolerant Islâm in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Previous to this settlement there do not seem to have been any Jews in
the country, since in early Bosnian history, so occupied with religious
struggles, so blood-stained with fanaticism, there is not, so far as I am
aware, any mention of them. Even at the present day they are, as regards
numbers, an insignificant minority, domiciled almost exclusively in a
few of the larger towns.[189] It is hardly conceivable, therefore, that
in early times the Hebrews should have occupied the country to such an
extent as to have dotted it with these monuments, which are to be found
_passim_ throughout Bosnia. On the other hand, the stones that we saw
near Mostar were considerably smaller than these ancient examples; and
it seems quite possible that the Jews, with their national thriftiness,
should have simply used some of these old blocks which they found ready
to hand, cutting off the time-worn exterior or exposing a new surface for
their inscriptions, but for convenience sake retaining the original form.
Whatever the explanation of these Mostar monuments, I feel constrained
to give up the hypothesis that these older memorials are of Jewish
workmanship.
But to whom, then, are these mysterious blocks to be referred? A
better key to the solution of their origin and date is to be obtained
by comparing them with some monuments of more finished execution and
greater fecundity of ornament described by Sir Gardner Wilkinson,[190]
as existing near Imoschi and at other places on the Dalmatian frontier.
These, although not exactly answering to the ruder handiwork of the
Bosnian midlands, are yet so evidently allied, that what is true of
them must to a great extent be true of these before us. On the blocks
described by Sir Gardner there occur devices such as huntsmen with bows
and spears, knight’s holding sword and shield, and even occasionally rude
armorial bearings, all which fix the date of their execution between the
twelfth and sixteenth centuries.
There were other peculiarities about ‘these unknown sepulchres,’ as Sir
Gardner calls even the more storied Dalmatian monuments. On many appeared
a crescent moon with star or stars, and on others an arm holding a sword.
Now it is a curious fact that, of these two devices, one—the moon and
star—is the emblem of Illyria occurring in the middle of the old Bosnian
escutcheon;[191] the other—the arm of offence—is the ensign of Primorie,
the Serbian coast-land. These sepulchral devices seem, therefore, to have
been badges of nationality or clanship; unless, indeed, anyone prefers
to suspect that the moon and star possessed a superstitious, before they
acquired a heraldic, import.[192]
In the lonely gorge of the Želesnica, to the south-west of Serajevo, we
found one of these lunar monuments, which I mention here as it further
illustrates the connection between the Bosnian and Dalmatian tombs.
It was a sarcophagus of the same kind as those at Podove, but with a
crescent rudely engraved at one end. In juxtaposition with this was an
upright slab, I can scarcely call it a cross, about six feet high and
much mutilated.
But there is another point of resemblance even more important than the
half moon, to connect the sepulchres we saw with those described by Sir
Gardner.
Out of a large number of these Bosnian monuments which we examined here
and elsewhere, there was not one on which we could detect the remotest
semblance of a cross. Sir Gardner Wilkinson notices, with reference to
the Dalmatian tombs, that ‘it is singular that the cross should occur
so rarely,’ and supposes that those few monuments on which he found it
belong to a later date, when, owing to the Turkish conquests, there was
more reason to introduce the distinguishing emblem of Christianity. For
my part I cannot think this account satisfactory; but it seems to me that
an explanation lies at hand which will make the absence of the cross on
these monuments at once intelligible, and may serve as a clue towards
unravelling the mystery of their origin.
[Illustration: Ancient Monuments in Želesnica Valley.]
The Bogomiles—that strange Manichæan sect whose history has already been
touched on, and who appear to have formed the majority of the Bosnian
population during the very centuries in which these monuments were
erected—shrank with horror from representations of the cross. ‘They abhor
the cross as the instrument of Christ’s death,’ says Euthymius,[193] who,
from having been commissioned by the Emperor to extract the full tenets
of the sect out of its ‘heresiarch’ Basil, is peculiarly qualified to
speak on the matter. When pressed by Euthymius as to the reason why the
Bogomiles, when vexed with devils, ran to the cross and cried out to it,
he made answer that the evil spirits within them loved the cross, for it
was their own handiwork. It appeased them, therefore, or enticed them
forth. Is not, then, the absence of the cross on these monuments, coupled
with the fact of its presence on all undoubtedly _orthodox_ sepulchres
throughout these regions, and some of these of considerable antiquity,
strong presumptive evidence that they are the work of those old Bosnian
puritans?
This reasoning will perhaps appear the more significant when it is added
that the modern Bosniacs refer these hoary sepulchres to the Bogomiles.
Thus the voice of tradition, the remarkable conformity of these tombs
with a salient peculiarity of the Bogomilian religion, the approximate
date of their erection—all point to the same conclusion. Add to these
the locality of so many of these ancient graveyards. During the course
of our journey through Bosnia we came upon many spots where these
interesting monuments existed. They were generally away from towns—in
mountain gorges, by unfrequented paths—in the Wilderness, in short, where
the Bogomiles took refuge from their Romish oppressors. The secluded
position of these tombs recalls the words of Raphael of Volaterra, who
speaks of the Manichæan brotherhoods as living in hidden valleys among
the mountains of Bosnia.[194] It has already been noticed that the
peculiar situation of these sectaries, perhaps too their iconoclastic
tenets, made them ready to welcome Mahometan in place of Romish
rulers, and favoured that process of renegation which has given us a
Sclavonic race of believers in the Prophet. May not this account for
the preservation of so many of these monuments, when nearly every other
præ-Turkish memorial of Bosnia has been swept away? Is it not conceivable
that these renegade Manichees may still have looked with peculiar
tenderness on the tombs of their fathers, and have averted the hand of
the destroyer? Alas! neither heretic nor infidel has a _vates sacer_ to
enlighten us on these sepulchral mysteries; but we at least found it
pleasing to believe that the rudely hewn blocks, that we came upon amid
primeval forest or solitary mountain glen, were, as the Bosniacs assert,
‘the tombs of the Bogomiles’—the sole material memorials of those staunch
upholders of Puritan faith in the days of grosser superstition, whose
sweet spiritual influences every reformed church in the world feels
still, though it may not acknowledge!
We now crossed the river Bila, into which the Jasenica had debouched,
and, ascending the hills to the south-west, presently came in sight
of the lately erected Franciscan monastery of Gučiagora—a large white
barrack-like pile with a bulbous church tower, situate at the hollow of
the hill, at an altitude of 2,300 feet above the sea, according to our
reckoning. On a hillock just outside was a curious Christian monument,
of evidently considerable antiquity. On one side was a foliated cross
of some merit; on the other a Latin cross, showing that it was the work
of Roman Catholics, as indeed one would expect from the denomination
of the present inhabitants of this neighbourhood. But it belonged to
a period when the Illyrian church did not disdain to make use of the
national Serbian alphabet, for it presented an inscription, the Cyrillian
characters of which the present monks of Gučiagora were unable to
decipher.
Making our way through the entrance arch of the monastery, much as if
we were entering an Oxford College, we found ourselves in a quadrangle
with cloisters below. There a monk came up to us, and bidding us follow
him upstairs, conducted us to the guest-chamber, where others of the
fraternity soon made their appearance, and received us with right monkish
hospitality. They were not slow in perceiving, from our hungry plight,
that we stood in need of something more substantial than ghostly comfort;
and while some hurried off to their manciple with orders to provide us
speedily with a solid refection, others revived our drooping spirits for
the moment with native Bosnian wine—fresh from the goat—happily succeeded
by Turkish coffee.
The monks were Minorites, of that order of St. Francis of Assisi
whose services in combating Bosnian heresy of old have been already
recorded.[195] They were fourteen, all told; and certainly, so far as
room was concerned, they had power to add to their numbers, for their
church forms only one side of their quadrangle, the other three being
intended for occupation; and as there are three storeys, and each side
has thirty-nine windows looking into the quadrangle, it may be gathered
that the monks are not pinched for room.
The church itself, which completed the quadrangle in most appropriately
collegiate fashion, was a painful jumble of paint and stucco with
wooden pillars, and a few saintly gimcracks. For musical performances
it possessed a harmonium, and, like that at Comušina, it was completely
devoid of pews.
The monks were unfeignedly astonished at our appearance, and would
hardly believe that we had arrived on foot and without escort. They said
that to travel in Bosnia at present without Turkish guards was sheer
madness; that the state of the country was becoming more critical every
moment; and that the insurrection in the Herzegovina had roused Mahometan
fanaticism to such a pitch that all the Christians of the neighbourhood
were seriously dreading a massacre. The monks themselves certainly
seemed to share in the prevailing panic; for the day before, when the
Latins of the district were assembled at the monastery to celebrate the
feast of the Assumption, the brothers had sent off to the Mutasarìf, the
Turkish governor of Travnik, for protection. The Mutasarìf, recognising,
apparently, the legitimacy of their fears, had sent them a guard of
soldiers, and the Christian congregation had performed their devotions
under the tutelage of Turkish bayonets.
It may at first sight seem strange that people in fear of Turkish
violence should have had recourse to Turkish protection, and perhaps
stranger still that such protection should have been accorded them.
The explanation, in fact, lies at the root of much that is least
intelligible to the outsider in the present state of Bosnia.
It has been the policy of the Mahometan conqueror to favour the Roman
Church in the province, as a ready counterpoise to the orthodox
Serbians, who in numbers far outweigh the Mussulmans,[196] and who, in
contradistinction to the Latins, are imbued with national aspirations. On
the other hand, the Roman ecclesiastics as a rule entertain a far more
wholesome abhorrence of their fellow-Christians than of the infidel,
and so the alliance is compacted by mutual benefits. The Turks, from
the year 1463, when Sultan Mahomet granted the Franciscan monks their
great Charter of Liberties, the ‘Atname,’[197] have been politicly
liberal to them, exempting their monasteries and lands from taxation,
and freeing the brothers from the capitation tax which weighs on the
rayah. In return, the monks have exerted their influence in rendering
the Latins submissive to their rulers, and have backed up the Mahometans
in their oppression of the Serbs, as the members of the Greek Church
are significantly called. When the Latins have been ill used, it has
been principally owing to the weakness of the Osmanlì element and the
bigotry of the Sclavonic renegades of Bosnia, of whose almost independent
rule mention has already been made. When, in 1850, Omer Pashà dealt the
death-blow to Mahometan feudalism here, and practically recovered Bosnia
for the Sultan, he received support from many of the Latins. At the
present moment the danger which the monks were in such dread of, was not
from the Turkish authorities, but from the Sclavonic Mussulmans, the
representatives of the old provincial Janissarism, the descendants of
the Capetans and Begs, who eye the myrmidons of the Stamboul Government
with almost as much hostility as they do the rayah, and, true to their
conservative bigotry, draw far less subtle distinctions between one
Giaour and another.
We were naturally inclined to suppose the fears of the monks exaggerated,
and could not help thinking that if their situation were as desperate
as they would fain make it out, it would have been better if, instead
of praying, they had taken arms and instructed their flock how to defy
the Moslem in their mountain fastnesses. As for their lamentations, they
smacked of Gildas in their querulousness! The brothers were especially
apprehensive of a bloody anti-Christian outbreak in Serajevo, the capital
of Bosnia, where they doubted whether the Pashà—himself, in their
opinion, a tolerant man enough—could restrain the fanaticism of the
Mussulman population, which exceeds that of all other Bosnian Mahometans,
as much as the bigotry of Bosnian Mahometans in general exceeds that of
all the other followers of the Prophet in Turkey-in-Europe. Of the revolt
in the Herzegovina the monks knew but little, except that Mostar had not
fallen.
These alarmist outpourings were relieved by a hospitable diversion. The
brothers conducted us to the refectory—a spacious chamber, the size of an
average college hall—where we met with most sumptuous entertainment—as
we thought it at the time—consisting of some lumps of mutton, good brown
bread, eggs poached in cheesy milk, vermicelli, and a sweet melon—a sign
that we were advancing south.
Seated once more in the guest-room, we exchanged ideas with the monks
on a variety of interesting topics, and were much struck with the
amount of culture which many of them possessed. They comprised among
them a respectable acquaintance with modern languages—one knowing
German, another French, another Italian, and most possessed of at least
a smattering of Latin—so that we were able to hold a most polyglot
conversation. The German-speaking monks told us that they had received
their education at the monastery of Diakovar, in Slavonia. This was
founded in 1857 by the well-known Bishop Strossmayer, and endowed by the
present Emperor of Austria. It was intended as a theological seminary for
the brothers of the Bosnian order of Minorites, to whom it was handed
over. There is a certain fitness about its locality, as after the Turkish
conquest of Bosnia it was at Diakovar that her titular bishops fixed
their residence; and it was from there that, for a while, they exercised
a nominal control over their diocese, under Cæsarean influence. The
sheep among wolves, however, very naturally turned away from absentee
shepherds, and sought spiritual, guidance from the Minorites, who lived
in their midst and shared their vicissitudes. The establishment of this
seminary is therefore a very good move if it was sought to revive the
Imperial influence, for the Franciscan organisation in Bosnia, on which
the whole Latin population depend for their ghostly needs,[198] is thus
placed to a great extent under the tutorship of Austria; and if the
monks gain in culture, his Apostolic Majesty gains in goodwill. Add to
this that the Roman Church in Bosnia is in one way or another indebted
to the Imperial Government for pecuniary contributions, and that the
establishment of the Austrian Consulate-General at Serajevo in 1850 has
made it possible for Austria to play the part of patroness[199] of the
Catholics in Bosnia, and to carry into effect in the most emphatic way
in this part of the Sultan’s dominions the right of protecting the Roman
Catholic Church in Turkey, which she secured by the Peace of Carlovitz.
No one, after this, will be surprised to learn that the Roman Catholic
influence in Bosnia is a lever in the hands of Austria; and, to quote
the words of an attaché of the Austrian Consulate-General in Serajevo,
‘The Emperor of Austria is, in the eyes of Bosnian Roman Catholics, the
Emperor and supreme prince of the Catholic Church, just as in the eyes
of the Oriental Greek population the Russian Emperor is the head of the
Greek Church.’[200]
So we were not long in discovering the Austrian leanings of the monks
while discussing the possible eventualities of Bosnia. They were
extremely interested in the attitude of England—complained bitterly of
the way in which we had supported the Turk against the rayah, but at the
same time professed themselves extremely hostile to Russia. But they
betrayed a lively repugnance to the Great Serbian idea in any shape,
seeing in Serbian unity the triumph of their Greek rivals, who form the
large majority of the population of Bosnia, and who would at once become
the ruling caste,[201] if Bosnia were united to Free Serbia, Montenegro,
and the other fragments of the old Serbian Empire. As far as we could
gather their aspirations, they were willing to see the old kingship of
Bosnia restored under the suzerainty of Catholic Austria, thinking that
the Latins would thus recover their old dominant position in the country,
and the Catholic rulers obtain the same support of Austrian cannon as
their forefathers had of Hungarian battleaxes. Failing the erection of
a Roman Catholic principality under the wing of the double-eagle, they
were willing to see the whole country occupied by Austria, and actually
annexed. But rather than see Bosnia in any form a _Serbian_ state, they
would accept the continuance of Turkish rule.
These sentiments must not however be looked on as universal among the
Roman Catholics of Bosnia. In many parts they are yielding to a generous
sympathy with Greek fellow-Christians. Notably in Herzegovina, Roman
priests have appeared among the leaders of the insurrection; and Bishop
Strossmayer, whose influence among the Roman Catholics is very great, is
himself a warm champion of union with free Serbia.[202]
CHAPTER V.
TRAVNIK AND FOINICA.
A Turkish Cemetery—Arrive at Travnik—Taken for Insurgent
Emissaries—The ex-Capital of Bosnia—New Readings of the
Koràn—Streets of Travnik—Veiling of Women in Bosnia—Survivals
of old Sclavonic Family Life among Bosnian Mahometans—Their
Views on the Picturesque—Their Dignity, oracular Condescension,
and _Laisser-Aller_—Hostile Demonstrations—Bashi
Bazouks—‘Alarums Excursions!’—Insulted by armed Turks—Rout of
the Infidels—Departure of Mahometan Volunteers for Seat of
War—Ordered to change our Route—A Turkish Road—Busovac—Romish
Chapel and Bosnian Han—The Police defied—Our Mountain
Route to Foinica—Ores and Mineral Springs—Dignity at a
Disadvantage—Turkish Picnic—The Franciscan Monastery at
Foinica—Refused Admittance—An ‘Open Sesamé!’—‘The Book of Arms
of the old Bosnian Nobility’—Escutcheon of Czar Dūshan—Shield
of Bosnia—Armorial Mythology of Sclaves—The Descendants of
Bosnian Kings and Nobles—The Ancient Lords of Foinica—The
‘Marcian Family’ and their Royal Grants—A Lift in the Kadi’s
Carriage—Traces of former Gold Mines—Mineral Wealth of
Bosnia—A ‘Black Country’ of the future—Why Bosnian Mines are
unworked—Influence of Ancient Rome and Ragusa on past and
present History of Bosnia, and on the distribution of her
Population—A Fashionable Spa—Kisseljak and—Beds!
But it is high time to take leave of this hospitable brotherhood, and
continue our way to Travnik, which we proposed to reach that night. The
monks kindly found us a Latin peasant from the neighbouring village to
set us in the right path, and we began a winding ascent of a foot of Mt.
Vlašić. From the crest of this a fine mountain prospect opened out to
the south and west, range overtopping range till they culminated in the
far distance towards the Dalmatian frontier. But below we caught sight
of what was then a more welcome prospect, the high-road, namely, leading
to Travnik—it being now four days since we had seen anything which by a
stretch of courtesy could be called a road! Taking leave of our guide,
who was vastly gratified by a couple of ‘grosch,’ as the Bosniacs call
piastres, we made our way to the highway and followed the telegraph
wires—for it was actually lined with telegraph wires—in the Travnik
direction. On one side of us flowed the little river Lašva, driving a
succession of turbine-mills such as have already been described; and
on the other the limestone heights of Mt. Vlašić rose above us, bare
as regards vegetation, but as we neared the town planted tier above
tier with Turkish gravestones: for throughout Bosnia—as generally
in Turkey—the old-world fashion prevails of burying the dead by the
roadsides outside the walls of towns. It was an impressive sight, that
forest of turbaned columns. Some loftier headpieces spoke of the old
days of Janissary rule. In places great stone sarcophagi were overturned
and rifled by the mountain torrent; here and there lay marble slabs
fretted with vine-leaves and interlaced devices, which still betrayed
their Byzantine ancestry. On the left we passed another landmark of the
East—a capacious stone cistern; and at last a turn in the road revealed
to us the ex-capital of Bosnia—mosques, minarets, and chalet-like houses
harmonizing with the Alpine precipices above; and, in the midst of the
town, a craggy acropolis crowned with another castle of old Bosnian kings.
We had scarcely entered the town when an observant Zaptieh pounced upon
us to know our business; and on our demanding to see the Mutasarìf,[203]
or Governor, conducted us to the Konak. The Mutasarìf was at the time
absent from the town at his country house—at least so we were informed,
though considering the critical state of the country the statement seemed
almost incredible. We were therefore obliged to show our credentials to
his lieutenant; but this functionary, for some reason, which the small
smattering of Italian of which he was master failed to convey to us, at
once ‘smelt a rat,’ and, as the best court of inquiry at hand, hurried us
off to the telegraph office, where one of the officials spoke French, and
then and there put us through a severe cross-questioning as to our route
and our objects in travelling.
‘How was it possible,’ he asked, ‘for you to have arrived at Travnik
without escort? You say that you come from Tešanj over the mountains,
but you don’t expect us to believe that you came on foot! Besides, where
is the _pièce de conviction_? Where is your Zaptieh? You say that you
are now on the way to Serajevo, but’—and this was regarded as the most
damning fact of all—‘we see this order in the Vali’s handwriting was
given _at_ Serajevo, and you must therefore be coming from it; at any
rate you must have been there, which you deny.’
It was a little embarrassing to know how to convince people who put
both postal transmission and pedestrianism beyond the range of human
possibilities! However, a circumstantial account of our itinerary,
coupled with the awkward fact that they could not deny that our bujuruldu
was in the actual autograph of the Governor-General, and that, however
we came by it, we had it in our possession, brought our officials to
reason, or at any rate to a wholesome perception that we were masters of
the situation. So the Mutasarìf’s _locum tenens_ being reduced to express
himself satisfied with our explanation, our French interrogator changed
his tone to one of apology. He explained that our arrival had been so
mysterious that we seemed to have dropped from the clouds, and our being
on foot and unattended convinced the authorities that we must be Austrian
emissaries sent to excite the Bosnian rayahs to revolt! ‘You see,
monsieur,’ he wound up, ‘you come in very delicate times’—and certainly,
to judge by the un-Turkish bustle of the telegraph office, the times were
‘delicate’ indeed!
A Zaptieh was now told off to escort us to the ‘best hotel in Travnik,’
and after a little more stumbling and slipping through streets so
terribly cobbled that they made one sigh for the mountain-side again, we
arrived at our destination, a miserable _han_, where we were ushered into
an upper room, and our wants attended to with due dilatoriness by the
squalid _hanjia_ and a boy rejoicing in the name of ‘Smily,’ who between
them made up the whole personnel of the establishment. Here, while
waiting for the pilaf and indescribables which compose our evening meal,
we have leisure to reflect on the augustness of the town in which this is
considered ‘first class accommodation.’
For Travnik, in the eyes of your Bosniac, is decidedly no mean city.
Although at present, with its 12,000 inhabitants, only a quarter the
size of Serajevo, and indeed at no period comparable to it either in
populousness or commercial activity, Travnik was yet for nearly two
centuries the political capital of Bosnia, and the seat of her Viziers.
Their original seat was indeed Serajevo, but when the Vizierate of Bosnia
stretched itself over Slavonia to the Drave, Banjaluka was fixed on as
the city of residence, owing, it would seem, to the remoteness of the
older capital from the new frontier. But when Buda was recovered in
1686, Banjaluka might be regarded as too much at the mercy of a _coup
de main_, and the Divan of the Vizier was again transferred beyond the
watershed and pitched at Travnik, as if the Turks were still loth to
give up hopes of once more ruling on the Hungarian bank of the Save. At
any rate they kept up the pleasing fiction that they ruled it still, for
down to quite recent times the Vizier-Pashà who resided here clung to the
vain title ‘Vizier of Hungary.’ The importance of Travnik is seen in the
interesting ‘Account of the War in Bosnia,’ written in the first half
of the last century by a native Bosnian historian.[204] Travnik is the
seat of government and jurisdiction. It is here that a kind of parliament
is ‘summoned by the Vizier, consisting of the magnates, judges, muftis,
priests, and other learned effendis,’ to grant supplies in view of the
invasion of Bosnia by the Austrians. It is outside the walls, on the
‘plains of Travnik,’ that the army of true believers assembles from all
parts of the province. Serajevo, the seat of the native aristocracy,
became indeed more and more the real seat of government, but the Sultan’s
Lieutenant was obliged to content himself with his shadowy dignity
at Travnik, till Omer Pashà in 1850 finally crushed the Capetans and
transferred the Vizierial residence once more to the Serai.
_Aug. 18._—Next morning, while we are still enjoying hard-earned rest—and
let it be recorded, injustice to our hanjia, that our room was tolerably
free from vermin—a most honourable exception in Bosnia!—in comes the
acting Governor, whose acquaintance we had made the day before, leading
his little boy, decked out in raiment of purple velvet and crimson silk,
with gold brocade and elaborate arabesques of embroidery—more gorgeously
bedizened than any princeling of our poor civilized West!—and begs me to
photograph, or, failing that, to sketch the little man. As a camera I
had brought with me had unfortunately come to grief at an early period
of our tour, I was reduced—for all my disavowals of artistic skill—to
attempt what portraiture I could. The child, like his father, was a
true Osmanlì, unlike the light-haired offspring of the native Sclavonic
Mussulmans, dark in eye and locks, and withal precociously endowed with
something of the gravity of his race. His self-possession, indeed, was
amusing. He could not have been more than six years old, but he leant
quite quietly against his father’s knees, hardly shifting his position
the whole while, and laid his little hand on the big hilt of his paternal
scimetar—instructed, doubtless, to look all the future hero! The pride
of the fond papa in his hopeful was an amiable study, though purblind
Frankish eyes might detect little that was remarkable about the prodigy.
Alas! the artist was uninstructed as to those points the insistance on
which was most acceptable to his patron; and though the Turkish parent
was on the whole satisfied with a scrutiny of my humble performance,
he looked up from the paper with an air of profound art-criticism, and
requested me, as I loved truth, to make the eyebrows darker. It was too
true; I had not done justice to the raven pigment!
And the Koràn? it may be asked, what about the prohibition of the Prophet
against the portrayal of living things? Actually it is observed about as
rigorously in Bosnia as the prohibition against drinking wine. Within the
last year or two a Dalmatian photographer has set up in Serajevo; and
to prove the laxity of morals in this respect, it may be mentioned that
Mahometan priests have their likenesses taken by him, and that in one
case he was summoned to reproduce a whole group of Turks engaged in the
interment of a fellow-believer.
We found much to interest us in the streets of Travnik, and indeed the
superior architecture of the town still witnesses its old importance
as the seat of government. There are some larger buildings besides the
castle already mentioned—palaces of bygone Viziers, barracks for Turkish
troops. Even the ordinary rows of wooden houses—with their latticed
dairy-like windows, the central bays of their upper story, the blue
pillars and other ornaments painted outside—are not without variety in
hue and outline; and amongst these rise more solid edifices of stone.
Here, for instance, is one such—the best in the town—supported on
arcades of solid masonry, adorned with rosettes carved in the spandrils
of the arches: perhaps an old Bezestan or cloth-hall—very possibly the
magazine of some merchant prince from Ragusa, for the arcading below is
characteristic of the street architecture of the old republic. Beyond
this—we are surveying one of the most picturesque street scenes in
Travnik—rises an old mosque of wood, time-stained, dilapidated, with
pinnacle awry. At its side an elegant cupola, supported on four columns
and ogee arches, encanopies the turbaned tomb of a Mahometan saint; for
every true believer who falls in battle against the infidel ‘drinks,’ as
the Bosnian historian expresses it, ‘the sweet sherbet of martyrdom,’ and
passes from this ‘vale of tears’ to enter with saintly honours into the
joys of Paradise. Beyond these rose a background of gardens and spreading
foliage, and above, the naked precipices of Mount Vlašić.
[Illustration: View in Travnik.]
Climbing round by the hills to rejoin the town on the other side,
we gained a more general view of the city, and counted no less than
thirteen minarets, besides two clock-towers, and—what we had not seen
in a Bosnian town before—the stone cupolas of the bath and the larger
mosques or dzàmias. The porches of some of these Mahometan prayer-houses
had altered little from those of the early Christian church, and were
in truth as Byzantine as their domes. The walls are most brilliant, not
to say tawdry, outside—painted with what were meant to be delectable
fore-glimpses of Paradise—palm-trees loaded with dates, fruitful vines
sprouting forth from vases, or here a luscious melon with a knife ready
inserted for the carving. Like devices might be seen on the spandrils of
the kiosques that rose over the saints’ graves, but all in the most gaudy
and inharmonious colours. Against the walls of some of the mosques were
built the wooden booths of Travnik tradesmen, so that the disfigurement
of sacred edifices by secular accretions is not confined to Christian
countries. The most gorgeous of all the dzàmias had been converted into
a kind of gathering-ground for the fruit and vegetable market—as if the
fruiterers considered that the celestial fruits painted on the sanctuary
walls above might be useful in suggesting to customers the propriety of
enjoying the humbler fruits of earth, and serve generally as a good trade
advertisement. It is, however, to be hoped that the faithful will be
supplied with better plums hereafter than are to be obtained for love or
money in the Travnik market.
Narrow rows lined with the usual open stores—varied and fascinating as
ever. Armourers’ shops, with _handshars_ or Bosnian cutlasses, yataghans,
quaint ornamental guns and pistols; another store containing nothing but
melons; grindstones next door; two or three watchmakers—glazed windows to
these, and a goodly exposure of turnips; as elsewhere, many Jacks-of-all
trades. Among the primitive arts practised here that of a rope-maker
struck me. He held the cord tight with his great toe, while he twisted it
with his fingers. The inhabitants of Travnik are mostly Moslems, with a
small infusion of Spanish Jews and Serbs, or members of the Greek Church,
some of whom are the most well-to-do merchants in the place, and have
organised a company—the _Kombeni_, as it is known here—for facilitating
traffic with Serajevo. Their wives were dressed in the style which
distinguishes the Christian women of Bosnian towns from those of most
country districts, and which approaches the fashions of Belgrade.
In strange contrast to these were the Mahometan women, several of whom we
noticed in the streets towards evening. Their whole face was concealed
but for the tiniest eyeslits imaginable; but their insatiable bashfulness
is not contented even with this, for in passing a stranger they must
needs bow the head so that the fringe of the upper veil which curtains
the head falls forward far enough to eclipse their last loophole of
humanity! Their hands they modestly hide in two front pockets of their
dress. Their exterior envelopes are sometimes green, sometimes white,
sometimes of a darker hue; those whose under veil is black and outer
white, looking at a little distance strikingly like nuns. Besides the
two ordinary veils—that which drapes the head and that which swathes the
nose, mouth, and bosom—their forehead is often covered with an additional
piece not unlike the half mask worn at masquerade balls, usually of
black horse-hair, with the two eyeslits above-mentioned fringed with
gold. The whole form is mummied in such a way that an Englishman who
had travelled through a great deal of the Ottoman dominions, but who
had not visited Bosnia, could hardly be induced to believe that the
figure below represented a woman of European Turkey. To find her like,
one must transport oneself as far away as Egypt. Outside the limits of
conservative old Bosnia, her disguise would be laughed at by the Turks
themselves!
[Illustration: Bosniac Mahometan Woman.]
But what is still stranger is that in Bosnia should coexist the two
extremes of veiling and not veiling. If the married women here veil
themselves more than anywhere else, _en revanche_ unmarried girls are
allowed to display their charms in a way which, to the well regulated
Turk of another province when he first visits Bosnia, is quite
scandalous. There is a Turkish proverb, ‘Go to Bosnia if you wish to see
your betrothed!’ It is actually a fact that in this reactionary land
there are such things as Mahometan love-matches; and even when the mother
is allowed to select the spouse in the usual way, by inspecting, that
is, the ‘stock’ in the baths, even then—so demoralized are the customs
of these Mahometan Sclaves!—the young people are allowed to converse
together before tying the conjugal knot. On Fridays and Mondays—days of
greater liberty to all the Mahometan women—lovers may steal up to their
sweethearts’ windows and whisper airy nothings to them through the
lattice. This Bosnian custom is called _aschyklik_, and has been compared
with the _Fensterln_ of Styria and Upper Austria.[205]
Mondays and Fridays, and through a lattice—what restrictions can be more
judicious?
Lamentable to record, the day was a Wednesday and the place a public
fountain in the street of Travnik. A Mahometan girl, very slightly
veiled, was drawing water, when up comes a young fellow with the
ostensible purpose of doing the same. He was a gay deceiver!—she might
have told it from his roguish look,—but for the honour of Islâm my pen
refuses to chronicle the rest. Of course the artless maiden gave vent
to a ‘_Haiti!_’ but in a tone so soft, so insinuating, as abundantly to
prove that that word of dismissal is capable of as many interpretations
as ‘get along, do!’ among certain she-Giaours, and to be the natural
prelude to more mutual oglings, and squeezes, and gigglings, cut short by
the appearance of an unwelcome third party in the distance—retributive
Propriety herself, advancing like a walking sack.
Not many years ago a tragic love romance had Travnik for its scene.
In the days of the last struggle of feudal Bosnia for her provincial
liberties, a young Osmanlì sergeant of Omer Pashà’s army, who was
stationed here, fell in love with the pretty daughter of a Bosniac
Mussulman, and was betrothed to her. Before they could be married,
however, the sergeant fell in battle, and the maiden, when she heard
of the death of her beloved, rather than survive him and be forced to
marry another, blew out her brains with a pistol. The moral drawn by
Omer Pashà, in relating this tragic story, was admirable. ‘It all comes
of not wearing the veil, and letting affianced couples see each other.
If she had always kept her _yashmak_ on her face she might have married
another man, for there would have been no great love in the matter.’[206]
This approach towards natural relations between the two sexes is
doubtless, as much else among the Bosniac Mussulmans, a survival of the
old Sclavonic family life. The Mahometan house in Bosnia more nearly
approaches our idea of _home_ than in any other part of Turkey. We
learnt that polygamy was almost non-existent throughout the province. It
has been dying out, it is true, in other parts of Turkey, but here it
appears never to have taken. What is still perhaps exceptional among the
wealthier Turks, the richest Bosniacs have only one wife. Some of them
are said to have concubines, but public opinion here denounces the Moslem
who concludes more than one marriage. A few years ago a representative of
the old feudal nobility, Ali-Beg Dzinić, one of the richest landholders
in the country, set all Bosnia in an uproar by taking a second wife in
the lifetime of the first.[207] Another peculiarity of these Mussulman
Sclaves, illustrating the vitality of the family tie, is to be found
in their names. Mahometans elsewhere, with the exception of Persians
and Arabs, have no family name; but here, after the orthodox personal
appellation, as in the instance above, to the Ali, or Méhchmet, or
Selim, these descendants of the old Bosnian nobles add their ancestral
patronymic. This, however, is confined to the grandees, and is rather an
instance of the tenacity with which the Bosnian aristocracy has clung to
its old feudal attributes.
After all, one ought rather perhaps to wonder that these Sclavonic
renegades have received so much of the impress of Islâm. Considering
the difference of race—how strange it is to see a bevy of blue-eyed
light-haired Mahometans!—it is curious what thorough Turks these
Travnik burghers make. Towards evening many of these grave merchants
seated themselves in the gardens of a café just outside the town, and,
while alternately purring their narghilés and sipping their coffee,
contemplated, without uttering a syllable, the beautiful scene before
them—the mountains, the green valley, the foaming mill-stream murmuring
at their feet.
We were assured by ‘Europeans’ in Bosnia that the Turks do not care a rap
for nature—that they are utterly callous as to scenery; that if anything
charmed, it was the peace, the silence—not the beauties of the landscape.
It is this, they say, which allures the Turk to seek as his greatest
luxury the gardens of his country house. Yet old Edward Brown,[208] in
his ‘Travels in the Levant,’ in the seventeenth century, records how
the Grand Signior passed two months on Mount Olympus, not only for the
coolness of the air in summer, but also for the sake of enjoying the
prospect of the fair champaign of Thessaly on one side and the blue
expanse of the Ægean on the other. For flowers at least, all Bosniacs,
Mussulman as well as Christian, display an extraordinary love; not only
do they adorn their persons with them on every possible occasion, but so
great is their craving for them, that at Serajevo it is not unfrequent
for mendicants to station themselves at the doors of our Consulate to beg
not for bread, but for a single flower from the pretty little garden.
Meanwhile there sit our Turks, to all outward appearance rapt in the
enjoyment of the picturesque. What sapient big-wigs, too, they look!—how
profoundly versed in all the Law and the Prophets!—of what superfluity of
braininess are those capacious turbans suggestive! It is hard to realise
that these gentlemanly beings have been engaged all day in peddling
trades. And indeed it is true that they forego with lordly disdain the
petty chicaneries of their calling; it is notorious, among foreigners in
Bosnia most hostile to the Mahometans, that wares are, as a rule, to be
bought cheaper and of better quality with them, than at stores kept by
Christians. The true believer will not wilfully cheat, and disdains to
bargain. This is always put down to their fatalism; but I doubt if it be
not more due to a certain personal dignity which the plastic Sclave of
Bosnia has borrowed from the Osmanlì.
One would expect the brows of a pure fatalist to be smooth as marble.
There could be, one would think, no trace of emotions to which he is
superior. But the features of these Bosniac Mahometans are fretted
with a positive network of wrinkles—far more than those of an average
Englishman. The truth is that, superior as they are to many of the
‘changes and chances of this mortal world,’ they, too, have their weak
points, and vanities of their own, about which they are touchy as
other people. It is their wish on all occasions to seem oracular, to
be lawgivers, to impress you with the profundity of their learning,
to give the idea that they know a great deal more than they choose to
say—to make up for the paucity of their observations by accentuating
their value. Thus on the slightest occasion they will elevate or depress
their brow, and otherwise contort the features with a kind of measured
emphasis. The wrinkling process resembles that of the dogmatic and
self-important type of German; it is the very opposite to that theatrical
adaptiveness which leaves the footprints of every emotion on the Zingar’s
face. Not indeed that the expression arrived at smacks by any means of
Teutonic cantankerousness; it is rather a Spanish _Grandezza_—a stately
condescending politeness—which converts every shopkeeper you converse
with into a Grand Signior!
Of course in their manner of life and their way of conducting business
there are traces enough of the numbing influences of fatalism. Though
these Mahometan tradesmen are distinguished by their honesty, which,
as everybody knows, is also the best policy, though they are favoured
by belonging to the ruling caste, there is a want of enterprise among
them which precludes them from favourably competing with the Christians.
Almost all the larger businesses in the country are in Christian hands;
the Mahometans are shopkeepers at most, not merchants—they are too
stationary by temperament. Perhaps they indulge more than the rayahs in
narcotics; it was woful to see the ghastly pallor of so many Turkish
faces. Here and there in the course of our journey amusing features in
Mahometan interiors bore witness of the _laisser-aller_ spirit of the
inmates. In the Konak at Tešanj was a writing-table made for no less a
personage than the Kaïmakàm, and it was put together with bits of wood
of uneven sizes, just as they came handy; and here, in the telegraph
office at Travnik, was another—quite an elegant escritoir—but the whole
spoilt and rendered ridiculous by a piece of wood of insufficient length
being stuck in the middle, Providence having been pleased to place it in
the way of the upholsterer. If a button comes off an official’s coat,
he never thinks of replacing it; and if a beast dies before a Bosniac’s
house, instead of removing it, or even burying it, he leaves it there to
stink!
To-day we noticed a certain amount of positive manifestations, and those
directed against ourselves. Many of the believers scowled as we passed,
and one old fellow did me the distinguished honour of coming up and
cursing me in the middle of the street. Once a Mahometan store-keeper
positively refused to sell any of his wares to the Giaour—the Kaur, as
the Bosniacs call him—and I should have been unable to procure the ‘lumps
of delight’ which I affected, had not a Serb merchant, whose acquaintance
I had made, come up and explained that I was neither a Russian, nor an
Austrian, but an Englishman, on which the Turk relented at once. We were,
however, more seriously annoyed by being followed wheresoever we went
by a Zaptieh; and at last, unable to stand such persecution any longer,
betook ourselves to the telegraph office to demand an explanation from
our French-speaking friend.
‘You see,’ said he, ‘he has orders from the prefect of police to follow
you.’
‘To follow us! So he still takes us for spies, then?’
‘Oh, that is not the reason! It is simply for your safety. You see we are
in a very critical state: the Mahometans here are very fanatical—they
may rise against the Christians at any moment.’ Had he said, as indeed
was the case, that they were actually rising in the neighbouring town of
Banjaluka—that the Christians of Bosnia had risen against the Turks—that
the Turkish burghers had in places flown to arms in self-defence—that
massacres were being perpetrated all along the Save—he would have put
us more on our guard. As it was, by subsequently admitting that we were
still suspected to be insurgent emissaries, he destroyed the effect
of his previous warning, and left us as averse to having a Zaptieh
clattering at our heels as we had been before. Perhaps, too, we were
rather obtuse in not reading the signs of the times more clearly. During
the whole day raw levies, not regulars, not redìf or reserve, but the
old Bashi Bazouks, Mahometan volunteers dressed in the ordinary country
costumes—the red turban and sash, loaded with antiquated pistols and
_handshars_ or short sword-knives—had been streaming into the town. Some
of them were beating a diabolical tattoo on drums shaped like the bowls
of spoons—quite in harmony with the savage aspect of the warriors. During
the night we were frequently woke up by bugle-calls, and next morning the
uproar had rather increased. We, however, knowing with what brotherly
feelings the Bosniac Turks regarded Englishmen, felt no uneasiness on
our own account. So that leaving L⸺ at the Han, I hesitated not to sally
forth alone, unencumbered either with escort or a revolver, to sketch the
old castle.
This, like the other old castles we have seen, belongs to the days of
the Christian kingdom, and is in fact said to have been the work of
Tvartko, the first King of Bosnia.[209] In form and general aspect it
is very much the same as the Starigrads of Doboj and Tešanj. Like them
it terminates at one angle in a polygonal tower; and, like them, is
more remarkable for its situation than the beauty of its architecture.
It rises on a peninsular rock with ravines on every side, except where
a low narrow neck connects it with the mountains, which dominate it so
completely that it would be quite untenable at present, though the Turks
seem still to use it as a kind of arsenal.
[Illustration: Old Castle of King Tvartko at Travnik.]
While I was drawing this venerable ruin I became unpleasantly conscious
that a battery of some kind or other was opening a lively fire on me
from the rear, and presently, a larger stone than usual whizzing past my
head, I thought it high time to make a reconnaissance, and looking round
perceived that the enemy chiefly consisted of a lad of about fourteen.
Seeing me get up with no very amiable intentions, the urchin fell back on
his reserves, a group of armed Turks, to whom I made unmistakable signs
that I should consider it a favour if they would restrain the enthusiasm
of youthful Islâm; and having thus given vent to my feelings I returned
tranquilly to my drawing. Then it was that a well-aimed missile—judging
by the sensation it produced, larger than any of its predecessors—hit
me on the middle of the back; and this time, being thoroughly roused,
I went for our young artilleryman in such earnest that he made for a
neighbouring house, and slamming the door, disappeared from my indignant
view. Whereat, being still in a very pretty temper, I knocked at the door
with my stick, hoping at least to wreak vicarious vengeance on the rascal
by means of his parents. While in vain attempting to gain an interview
with the inmates, one of the group of Turks with whom the boy had first
taken refuge came up and shouted to me ‘Tursko! Tursko!’ meaning that the
boy being a Turk might throw as many stones as he liked at the cursed
Giaour.
Finally, as neither knocking nor thumping made any impression on the
door, and myself beginning to recover from this ‘short madness,’ I went
back to my original station, and was putting a few finishing touches to
my sketch, when the door of refuge opened; the lad, accompanied by two
armed Turks—one on either side—issued forth, and the three swaggered up
to me to insult the dog of a Christian at their leisure.
This was more than mortal patience could stand. I got up, and,
disregarding the menaces of the two self-constituted guardians, who,
seeing that I meditated some act of personal chastisement on their
protégé, shouted ‘Tursko! Tursko!’ ‘He’s a Turk! he’s a Turk!’ in tone as
if they would bid me lick the dust off the urchin’s feet, I simply said,
‘Inglese!’[210] ‘I’m an Englishman!’ and gave the stripling a good hearty
box on the ears. The rage of the Turks knew no bounds. For a moment
they recoiled a few paces as if struck dumb with amazement; then, with
a look of fury one of them drew his sword-knife and was making at me,
but before he had time to disentangle it from its sash or its sheath, I
was on him with my stick—happily a good heavy one—and the coward let go
his _handshar_ and took to his heels. The other Turk, who was beginning
to draw his weapon, imitated the example of his mate; the boy ran off
in another direction, and I was left in possession of the field. As,
however, I was not prepared to withstand all Travnik in arms, and as it
seemed possible that this spark might serve to kindle that conflagration
of fanaticism which the official had warned us was imminent, I profited
by the impression I had made to retreat in good order to our Han, where
were my reserves and munitions; and with L⸺ once more by my side, and our
revolvers in our hands, felt more at ease. Meanwhile there was an ominous
hum in the town, and it was perhaps fortunate that a Zaptieh shortly
arrived to escort us in the other direction to the Prefect of Police, as
our French interpreter styled him, who demanded our immediate attendance.
On our way we passed through a kind of _Champ de Mars_, with a row of
light field-pieces glittering in the sunshine, and swarming with a motley
array of those organised brigands, the Bashi Bazouks. Drums were beating,
trumpets were sounding, a Tartar messenger in his long coat was riding
up post haste to the Konak, and large crowds of citizens were assembled
to see a body of these Mahometan volunteers march out of the town for
Banjaluka. It was becoming more and more unintelligible to us why troops
against Herzegovinian insurgents should be wanted there, and the real
truth that we were in for a Bosnian insurrection was beginning to dawn
upon us.
These suspicions were confirmed by the official who had ‘wanted’ us.
After re-inspecting our _bujuruldu_, he informed us, by means of an
Italian interpreter, that we were on no account to go to Foinica (where
was another Franciscan monastery), as we intended; that a Zaptieh was
attached to us, and an Arabà provided to take us straight to Serajevo.
So there was nothing for it but to start as if we acquiesced in the
arrangement, without, however, in the least relinquishing our intentions.
To the last we were taken (so it turned out) for Austrian emissaries, and
it was thought desirable to prevent us from holding any communication
with the Roman Catholic monks of Foinica.
So we started on our way, ostensibly bound for Serajevo, in a covered
waggon, escorted by a Zaptieh, and left Travnik unmolested. The four
hours’ jolt to Busovac, where we were to sleep, gave us sufficient
experience of what a Turkish high-road can be. To cross a bridge was
like driving over a row of fallen trunks, with the additional pleasing
uncertainty as to whether or not the whole would give way and let us
down into the stream below. As to the water-culverts over the lesser
brooks, they were almost always broken in, but the horses were equal to
the occasion, and always succeeded in jumping the cart over—which itself
was springless. At one part we came to a newly-made piece of road, and
this was like passing over a succession of heaps of unbroken stones.
A precipice yawned at one side, and another cliff rose sheer above us
on the other, so that when in the middle of this strait we came upon
a monster waggon which had foundered in the vain attempt to make use
of the new piece of road, and had taken root as it seemed among large
blocks of rock, a serious stoppage occurred; and it was not until after
considerable delay that all the levering and pushing and pulling, of
our horses, ourselves, our driver, our Zaptieh, and the crew of the
foundered waggon, could extricate our cart—which here performed the most
extraordinary antics.
But here we are safe at our destination at last; nor are we sorry to have
arrived, for our Zaptieh has shown unmistakable signs of insubordination.
Once, to our great indignation, he swooped on some unfortunate rayahs,
and, before we had time to prevent it, ‘requisitioned’ them of some
bread, for which, to the great surprise of all parties, we paid, as the
quickest way out of the difficulty: besides this, our escort and driver
thought themselves privileged to drink raki at our expense at every Han
they came to, till we took effectual means to disabuse them of the notion
that _we_ were going to pay for it!
The country we have been passing through is not so rich as the Possávina
and the lower vale of Bosna; the crops generally were poor, the mountains
were covered with less stately forest growth, and indeed out of the
valleys the trees here became quite scrubby. Thus there is a comparative
want of softness about the mountain scenery; the conical limestone
hills, with their scrubby overgrowth, looking like frozen folds of green
drapery, Düreresque in its stiffness and angularity.
Busovac, where we are stopping for the night, is a village of about
700 inhabitants, with a couple of mosques rising among low houses,
each in its little enclosure with the shed for kukurutz, the small
dwelling-house, the square hearth and fire-dogs, all as in Slavonia and
Croatia, but on a smaller scale. Hearing that there was a Roman Catholic
chapel here, we asked to be allowed to see it, and were conducted by the
priest through some backyards and houses to a small shed, where a plain
room was fitted up with an altar, a few crucifixes, and pictures. The
priest conversed with us in Latin; he also knew a smattering of German.
He was inclined to do full justice to the tolerance of the Turks, who, he
said, did not molest the Latin Christians here in any way.
We entered our Han—which is a fair sample of the ordinary house of the
better-off Mahometans in Bosnia—by an archway on either side of which
are the stables and abodes of menials, and found ourselves in a court (a
garden in private houses) from which we ascended by an out-door staircase
to the Divanhané, a gallery running the whole length of the house, and
overlooking the yard or garden, but secured from view by a lattice. From
the middle of this a kind of transept runs out to the front of the house
with a bay overlooking the street, and this recess is spread with mats
and cushions for the usual mid-day siesta. On either side of this central
hall are the rooms with doors opening on to the gallery. We found ours
fairly clean, our Hanjia obliging, and altogether fared very well. Our
repast consisted of a soup compounded of milk and rice, very fine trout,
a chicken very well roasted, and succeeded by kaimak[211] with little
bits of sugar floating in it—all excellent; so that it is possible to
_dine_ even in Bosnia.
Next morning we discovered to our sincere pleasure that our Zaptieh had
levanted, so that we had less difficulty than we anticipated in adhering
to our original itinerary and defying the Travnik authorities. We drove a
few miles further on the Serajevo road in our waggon, and then, stopping
at a roadside Han, informed our driver that we had no further need of his
services. He seemed at first considerably taken aback at this _coup_, but
as we gave him all that was his due had he carried us to the capital, we
left him well satisfied. Our next care was to secure a guide over the
mountains to Foinica, nor were we long in finding a peasant willing to
conduct us. He only asked us to excuse him a few minutes, and presently
returned with a serviceable cutlass—rather an ominous beginning to our
mountain journey! Our way ran along a gradually ascending footpath
winding over the undulations of the Zahorina Planina, and through beechy
defiles—the trees not indeed so fine as those of Troghìr and Mazulia
Planina, but very beautiful. The flowers and ferns were much the same
as we had seen before, but the beech-fern now for the first time became
plentiful, and so surpassing rich were the tufts of male fern that
we seemed to be passing through a gigantic fernery. Now and then we
emerged on glades and a few scattered fields, with huts surrounded by
fruit-trees, and there were plenty of wild walnut-trees on the mountain
itself.
As we ascended the main ridge we detected the first sign of the wealth
stored up in the bowels of the mountain, from the mineral taste of the
springs; and as we began to descend the southern slopes, the same cause
seemed to blight the growth of beech and oak, and in some parts the
mountain-side showed bare, while streaks of mica rock glittered like
silver in the sunshine. The soil itself from a pale brown took rich
ochreous hues, so that the range was not without its golden streaks as
well. Here and there our path was strewn with bits of crystalline quartz,
and we picked up pieces of iron, lead, and even—we believe—silver ore;
and here and there fragments of noble crystals. At the summit our guide
had left us, and a steep and rough descent brought us to the village of
Foinica.
On our way down we passed some sooty-looking blacksmiths, and a mule
laden with their stock-in-trade—theirs being the chief industry of the
village. We crossed a bridge over a stream, and were threading our
way along one of the narrow lanes of Foinica, when a hue and cry was
raised behind us, of which at first we took no notice—on principle—till
the sound of hurried footsteps close behind us told us that the
demonstration, of whatever kind it was, could no longer be conveniently
ignored; and, looking round, we discovered a Zaptieh making after us,
and flourishing a pistol in a warlike manner. Then it was that we drew
forth our magic pass, and there being someone by who could read it—an
extraordinary occurrence—we were allowed to proceed on our way. As,
however, we were attempting to ascend to the monastery, a barrack-like
pile perched on a rocky platform above the town, another Zaptieh stopped
us and bade us accompany him to the Konak, where we found a man who spoke
Italian, and after a long preliminary ‘interviewing’ were told that the
Kaïmakàm[212] desired to see us.
So we were conducted some way off to a garden by the stream, where we
took his dignity at a disadvantage, for he was engaged, when we appeared
on the scene, in the presumably unofficial act of dabbling in the
shallow water, and was in a decided state of dishabille. However, he
emerged on to terra firma, not the least disconcerted; and having, with
due circumspection, arrayed himself in his dressing-gown and slippers,
advanced towards us with undiminished grandeur, and went through the
saluting process as if neither he nor ourselves had been conscious of
each other’s presence till that moment. Then, bidding us take our seat
upon mats spread upon the grass in the shade of a spreading pear-tree,
he treated us to cigarettes and questioned us, by means of the Italian
interpreter, as to the objects of our travelling and the places we had
been to. While this was going on, several more Turks equally dignified
made their appearance, arrayed in the long gowns of undress. These turned
out to be the Mudìr, the Kadi, and the Imaum, each of whom went through
the usual _temena_, or greeting, by touching in turn his head, mouth,
and bosom, thereby intimating, in the majestic symbolism of the East,
that in thoughts, words, and heart, he was equally loyal to us. From
the subsequent arrival of a _tepsia_, several mysterious covers, and a
roast lamb spitted in the usual way, we perceived that we were intruding
on a pic-nic _à la Turque_, and accordingly expressed our desire of
adjourning to the monastery, whither the Italian-speaking Effendi was
dispatched to conduct us, the Kaïmakàm having first given orders that we
should be provided with an arabà for our onward journey. The Kaïmakàm had
previously asked us whether we were Romanists or Protestants, possibly
not wishing us in the former case to have an opportunity of conversing
with co-religionists.
Climbing up to the rocky height on which the monastery stood, we found
ourselves in another cloistered court, not unlike what we had seen at
Gučiagora. Outside was an old foliated cross, much the same as that
which we had noticed at the other monastery, and dating, according to
the monks, three hundred years back; but the buildings themselves were
almost entirely of the present century. Inside the court we knocked
at a door labelled in gold letters ‘Clausura;’ but no one opened it.
Presently, however, a monk sauntered up from another direction, evidently
to reconnoitre who the strangers might be before letting them into
the sanctum—in troubled times a not unnecessary precaution. Seeing
a Mahometan official with us he at once became, as the French say,
_boutonné_; protested that there was nothing within worth our inspection;
and when we told him our reason for visiting the monastery, which was to
see the curious old Bosnian monuments contained there, went so far as to
deny that any such existed.
We were beginning to despair of gaining admittance after this, and
should probably have gone away without seeing the most interesting
antiquity, perhaps, in the whole of Bosnia—the book, namely, of the Old
Christian Nobility, as it existed before the conquest—had it not been for
our old friend, _the Major_. In his official capacity Major Roskiević had
obtained admission to this monastery. As an Austrian and a good Catholic,
he had disarmed the suspicions of the monks, and had been admitted to
a sight of their invaluable treasure. The Major, though as a rule he
does not trouble himself about antiquities, had engraved one of the old
designs illuminated in the book—the armorial bearings, namely, of the old
kings of Bosnia; and as I happened to have copied and duly coloured this
as an appropriate device for the outside of my note-book, and possible
credentials to Bosniac Christians, I took it out of my pocket, and, as a
last resource, held it up to the monk.
It proved an ‘open sesamé’ indeed! The monk, who thoroughly believed
that no soul outside the monastic walls knew of the existence of the
Book of Arms, much less that anyone possessed a facsimile of any of its
illuminations, was visibly taken aback. The change that passed over his
whole demeanour was most amusing. He no longer attempted to deny that the
book we sought existed within, and was now as ready to welcome us inside
as he had before been to keep us out. Another monk, who had come up
during the conversation, which was held in Latin, went off to consult the
Prior of the monastery, and there was something of the ‘Arabian Nights’
in the way in which the ‘Clausura’ door flew open, and a saintly vision
of the Superior of the fraternity himself appeared above, beckoning us
upstairs.
We were now ushered into a guest-room of much the same kind as at
Gučiagora, and were treated with coffee and Bosnian wine in the same
hospitable way, while the Prior and several of the brothers clustered
round, and we conversed in German and Latin on our own travels, and
the history and prospects of the country; the monks betraying that of
the present state of affairs they knew more than they chose to tell.
Presently, to our no small delight, the Prior went to an antique chest,
and, unlocking it, brought out the old Book of Arms. It was enclosed in
a worn vellum cover, and at the beginning was a Bosnian inscription,
written in old Serbian characters, which, Englished, ran as follows:—
‘The Book of Arms of the Nobility of Bosnia or Illyria, and Serbia,
together set forth by Stanislaus Rubčić, priest, to the glory of Stephen
Némanja, Czar of the Serbs and Bosnians. In the year 1340.’[213]
Thus it was a monument of that most interesting moment in Bosnian
history when, for a while, she formed part of that greater empire of
the Némanjas, which seemed about to weld all the scattered Serbian
populations between the Ægean, the Danube, and the Adriatic into one
great State. It must not, however, be thought that this MS. itself dated
back to the times of Czar Dūshan. The most cursory glance was sufficient
to convince me that the book, in its present state, was a later copy.
The designs were still mediæval, but the painting belonged to a period
when the art of illuminating was almost dead. They were executed, not on
parchment, as doubtless the original was, but on paper, which, however,
was without any water-mark, and in places so polished by fingering as to
look like vellum. The copyist, moreover, had left his mark in several
mis-spelt and bungled words. That it was the original, as the monks
asserted, cannot therefore for a moment be maintained, but I have no wish
to deny that it was written previous to the Turkish conquest; and I warn
any who may harbour such a wish that they have to reckon with Apostolic
authority. At the beginning of the book is a short Latin note dated 1800,
in which Gregorius, Episcopus Ruspensis, and Vicar Apostolic of Bosnia,
certifies ‘that this codex has from time immemorial, namely, from the
captivity of the kingdom of Bosnia, been zealously preserved by the
reverend Franciscan brothers of the family of Foinica.’[214]
Upon the first page was blazoned the Queen of Heaven with the Child on
her knees, seated on a golden half-moon. St. Mary was in the middle ages
the tutelary goddess of Bosnia, and the crescent is the chosen emblem
of Illyria. Next followed a picture of a saint attended by a lion, and
intended, if the monks informed us rightly, to represent St. Martin.[215]
This was succeeded by two saints beneath a cross, one of them holding a
branch; these were Saints Cosmas and Damian, the doughty patrons of the
Némanjas, whose effigies are still traceable among the rich frescoes of
their chosen shrines.[216]
This, therefore, formed a fitting preface to the armorial bearings of the
great Serbian Czar himself. Above the shield appeared a crowned helmet,
whose crest was the double-headed eagle of empire, supporting another
rayed crown. On either side were two other casques, each crested with two
lions,—I take it, from a Macedonian den,—crowned and guardant. The shield
itself was divided into eleven compartments; in the centre reappeared the
double eagle of the Némanjas, argent on a field gules, and round this
were quartered the arms of all the provinces of his empire. Here was the
red, crowned lion of Macedonia (this alone appeared in two quarters);
the Moorish trophies of Bosnia; the Slavonian leash of hounds; the three
bearded kings of Dalmatia; the chequers, gules and argent of Croatia; the
rampant lion of Bulgaria; the Serbian battle-axes; the three horse-shoes
of Rascia; the armour-cased arm of Primorie, holding aloft her sable
scimetar.
The original of this comprehensive escutcheon was devised fifteen years
before Czar Dūshan marched with such sanguine hopes to seize Byzantium;
and already we see him claiming sway over a territory which embraces
the southern provinces of modern Austria, and the greater part of
Turkey-in-Europe. The Eastern question was nearer a felicitous solution
then than it ever has been since! Had Dūshan found a successor worthy to
support his shield, or to wear the double-eagled casque, in all human
probability the Turk would never have made good his footing in Europe,
the dotard Greeklings of Byzantium would have given place to a youthful
power capable of acting as the champion of Christendom and of competing
successfully with the civilization of the West; and the different
destiny of these Sclavonic lands might nowhere have been more conspicuous
than in this very valley—so rich in the mineral wealth of nature, so
deficient in human industry! _Dîs aliter placitum_; and were Czar Dūshan
himself to return from the grave, he might well shrink from the attempt
to form anew the Serbian empire; or if he attempted to cut the knot of
complications by the sword, he would find himself opposed not only by
Turkish scimetars, but more effectually by the ignoble jealousies of
Christendom; and, in a last resort, by the arms of military monarchies,
whose rulers prefer to have for neighbours decrepit infidels whom they
can bully at their pleasure, to see a Christian State rise on their
borders, which might some day form a healthy rival!
After the arms of Stephen Dūshan follow those of the various Illyrian
provinces in detail, as being more immediately involved in this Armorial
of Nobility. Illyria herself as a unity does not figure in the Czar’s
shield, but her crescent beneath a star of eight points follows, argent
on a field gules. This design appears in the centre of the Bosnian
arms; to betoken—so the monks assured us—that Bosnia is the heart of
Illyria. One is at once struck with its general resemblance to the star
and crescent of the Turks, though their star is at one side of the moon
instead of above it. Indeed the presence of these emblems on the Bosnian
arms has given rise to the erroneous idea that they were imposed by the
Turks as a badge of suzerainty on their conquest of the country.[217]
The monks, however, were undoubtedly right in referring the star and
crescent on the Bosnian shield to her Illyrian connexions; and in fact,
in the title at the beginning of the book, Bosnia and Illyria are made
synonymous.
[Illustration: Bosnian Armorial Bearings.]
Besides the star and crescent, the Bosnian arms consisted of two crossed
stakes, sable on ground or, each surmounted by the head of a Moorish
king. These trophies appeared in the arms of several of the nobles
contained in the volume, and recalled the long struggles of the Sea Serbs
with the African corsairs. The early annals of Ragusa—or, as the Serbs
call her, Dubrovnik, who often stood in peculiarly close relations with
Bosnia, being practically her seaport and emporium—are much occupied with
these Saracenic infestations, which extended along the whole Serbian
coastland to Albania, and at one time desolated the Bocche di Cattaro.
These trophies bear interesting witness to the deep impression left by
those struggles on the national mind; and point to those early days
when Trajekto on the Bocche di Cattaro was the residence of a Bosnian
Ban.[218]
The scimetar on the arms of Primorie, or Serbia-on-the-Sea, seems to
refer to these same struggles, and I cannot help suspecting that here
is also to be found the true clue towards solving the mystery of the
appearance of the star and crescent on the Illyrian escutcheon. The
Moslems had early appropriated the old Byzantine half-moon,[219] and
Richard Cœur de Lion, on returning from his wars in Palestine, added it
as a Saracenic trophy to his royal seal. The moon and stars appear on the
Irish coins of John. Nothing could have been more natural than for the
Illyrian Serbs engaged in the long contests with the Saracen corsairs to
have added this device to their shields for the same reason.
Following the escutcheons of the various Illyrian kingdoms come those
of the nobility—there being no less than 126 families whose armorial
bearings are blazoned in this book. How much is here to throw a light
on the extension of Western ideas over the old Serbian area! How much
to illustrate the national history, the national customs—aye, even the
old Sclavonic mythology; how much to recall the origin of illustrious
dynasties! I have spoken of the Némanjić ensigns; here, too, were the
Castriotić, belonging to the family of Scanderbeg—again, a double-eagle,
sable on or, and eagle crest to the helm—the arms of the royal house
of Bosnia that was to be—the Tvartkoević shield semé of golden fleurs
de lys. In many of the arms might be detected a curious play on words.
The Kopiević arms, for example, had four lances, in allusion to the
Bosnian word for a lance, _Kopje_. _Brzo_ is the native word for
‘quick,’ and the device of the Barzoevic family is a fish in water. More
interesting still is the occasional cropping up of the heathen Sclavonic
mythology—chiefly seen in the frequent appearance of _zmaje_ or dragons,
who play so important a part in Serbian folk-lore; and—more fascinating
than these fire-drakes—the Vila herself appears on the shield of the
Mergnjavić—long-haired and devoid of raiment as in Serbian poetry: the
guardian nymph of the race, holding aloft the eagle banner of empire.
The book appropriately concluded with a shield charged with the armorial
bearings of the united Bosnian Nobility; and the monks, with an
enthusiasm worthy of record, pointed out the motto—read by the light of
after events, not without its pathos—SEMPER SPERO.
As this heraldic pageant passes before us—these knightly shields and
helms, with their crests, supporters, and accoutrements—the imagination
is kindled to realize how these isolated regions fitted once into the
polity of mediæval Europe. Here, too, in these barbarous neglected lands,
the romantic brilliance of chivalry has once held sway. For a moment
the Paynim surroundings are forgotten—we wake, and find ourselves still
within the limits of Christendom militant. We hear the herald’s trump.
The barriers that to-day wall off Bosnia from the West sink at the potent
blast like the towers of some Eastern magician. The names, the armorial
bearings, recall the European cousin-hood of that hierarchy of birth. In
due order among the escutcheons of Bosnian nobles appears the shield of
the _Frangepani_; that of the Rusciević family reproduces the oriflamme
of France: next in order, by a curious coincidence, follows that of the
Sestrićić, strewn with Tudor roses.[220] Perhaps it would be impossible
for any other monument to recall more vividly than this Book of Arms, at
once the futile dreams of Serbian empire, the wreck of Bosnian kingship,
and that dastardly abjuration by her nobles of country and belief.
Or what fitter repository for such a monument than this Minorite
monastery? Here, perhaps, better than anywhere else, one perceives how
it is among these Franciscan brotherhoods that the traditions of the old
Bosnian kingdom most live on. The genealogic lore evinced by the monks
with regard to the old nobility was quite surprising to us; they seemed
to have the pedigrees by heart; they betrayed sources of information not
open to the outside world. To understand how this happens one need only
call to mind that for the most part the royal race and magnates were
in fact but a Roman Catholic minority, holding sway over heretics and
Greeks, and that next after the Magyar battle-axe, their mainstay lay
in the influence and organisation of these very monks. Thus it befell
that, when the crash came, these Franciscan brotherhoods emerged, the
only stable remnant from the wreck of the old _régime_. It was in their
cloisters that the surviving supporters of Bosnian loyalty rallied; and
those who in that supreme moment of national prostration would neither
fly nor play the renegade, found safety in the bosom of the Church. The
monks confided to us that two of the noble families of Bosnia were still
represented in the fraternity—the Aloupović and Radieljević.
Others, without actually taking the cowl, seem to have found
retirement from generation to generation, under shadow, as it were, of
the monastery. In the village of Foinica below, a poor rayah family
perpetuates the noble race of Kristić; and—more interesting still—the
Christian inmates of another Foinican hovel still exult in the royal name
of Tvrdkoiević, and preserve the lineage of those Bosnian kings whose
mighty castles we have seen at Doboj, Tešanj, and Travnik.
The Franciscans were, in fact, put forward to make terms for Catholic
Bosnia with the conqueror; and it was the head of the Foinica
brotherhood, Angelo Zvizdović, who took the lead; and advancing like a
new Leo to the camp of the terrible Sultan, gained from Mahomet II., on
the field of Milodraz in 1463, the great charter of the Franciscans. This
was the _Atname_.[221] The Sultan, in this firman, orders that no one
shall in any way molest the Bosnian brothers, either in their person, or
their property, or their churches; that those who have fled the realm
may return, and that the brothers may bring any person they choose from
foreign parts into the country. ‘And I swear by the great God, the
creator of heaven and earth, by the seven books, by the great prophets,
by the 124,000 prophets, and by the sabre which I wear, that no one shall
act counter to these commands so long as these monks do my bidding and
are obedient to my service.’
Nor need it surprise us that it was to Foinica that Roman and
aristocratic Bosnia turned in the hour of need. The local history of
the district is bound up with that of the old kings and nobles. Foinica
was originally a royal domain, and this monastery of the ‘Holy Spirit’
(Svéta Duša) in all probability owes its origin to the piety of the
kings, whose usual residence, Sutiska, was not far off. From the royal
race of the Tvartkos it passed to one of the noblest of the noble
families whose shields we have been surveying; to that, namely, of
Mergnjavić, they of the _Vila_ crest. The hereditary possessions of this
house lay at Naissus (Nissa) in Serbia; and coming from the birthplace of
Constantine they modestly traced their descent from the fourth king of
Rome! After the Turkish conquest of Bosnia, some members of the family
fled, or, as they doubtless put it to themselves, _returned_, to the
Eternal City. Here one of its scions, a certain John Tomko, published in
1632 the family archives—‘The Proofs of the Antiquity and Nobility of the
_Marcian_ Family, vulgarly known as Marnavić.’[222] Thus we possess, in
Latin translations, some of the original deeds by which Foinica was given
and confirmed to this _Marcia gens_; and as they are, I suppose, the only
documents of the kind relating to Bosnia which have been preserved, I may
be permitted to allude to them.
The first grant is by King Stephen Dabiscia, otherwise known as Tvartko
II., to Goiko Mergnjavić. ‘Seeing that when Bajazet with the Turks came
and stood in Naglasinci,’[223] and destroyed Bosnia, then came Goiko
Mergnjavić and helped us to slay the Turks. And I, King Dabiscia, was
with all the province of Bosnia, and with the Bosnians; and I acted in
full council with all the province of the Bosnian realm, and gave and
presented and confirmed to Goiko Mergnjavić, Foinica, and the plain of
Godalie in the territory of Imoteschi, both to him and his heirs, and his
latest posterity for ever. Amen.’[224] The original of this was in the
old Cyrillian or Illyrian characters and in the Bosnian tongue.[225]
This grant appears to have been renewed or confirmed to another
Mergnjavić, in consideration of services equally distinguished, by King
Tvartko III. The second grant, like the other, originally written in the
native language, runs as follows:—
‘We, Stephen Tvartko Tvartkoević, King of Serbia, Bosnia, Primorie,
Dalmatia, of the Western part of Lower Croatia, of Ussora, Sala,
Podrinia, &c., with the consent of the realm, and according to the
custom of the magnates of every grade, to the Prince John Mergnjavić, of
Nissa, for the faithful services he rendered us in our need, when Murat
(Amurath), the Turkish Czar, was wroth with us and wasted our dominions;
for that then the said John Mergnjavić of Nissa went to the Porte, not
sparing his own head for our sake, and found grace for us before the
Czar, and rid our realm from his host: we, therefore, grant to him his
own portion at Nissa, and Zvornik, and Nissava, and in the realm of
Bosnia the country of Foinica,[226] and the land under Thum. And it is
our will that this be not taken away from him for any breach of fealty
which shall not first have been examined by the Bosnians and the Bosnian
Church.’ As witnesses appear the Starosts (elders) of the kingdom, the
Palatine with his brothers, the Župan Drina Driničić, the other palatines
and Princes, and the Aulic marshal of the court. The whole is ‘written by
the scribe Radoslav, Aulic of the great and glorious lord King Tvartko,
in his residential seat of Sutiska, in the year 1426.’
To this was appended the great seal of King Tvartko, attached by red
silk: on one side appeared the king seated on the throne of majesty
crowned and sceptred; on the other as a knight on horseback, holding
shield and lance.
When in 1448 the great Hungarian general, John Hunyadi, defeated by
Sultan Amurath on the ill-omened field of Kóssovo, was seized in his
flight by George, Despot of Serbia, and imprisoned in the fortress
of Semendria, he owed his deliverance to another scion of the race,
George Mergnjavić, perpetual Count of Zvornik and lord of Foinica, who
hurried to his relief with a strong body of troops collected from his
territories; and a deed in which Hunyadi confirms this George in his
possession bears witness to his gratitude. George Mergnjavić is succeeded
by his nephew Tomko, who, besides being lord of Foinica, appears in the
deed in which Hunyadi and Ladislaus, king of Hungary, confirm his titles,
to be ‘Chief Voivode of the Kingdom of Bosnia.’ The last donation to the
‘Marcian’ family is from Mathias Corvinus, who in 1460, six years after
the overthrow of the Bosnian kingdom by the Turks, confirms to Tomko
Mergnjavić, Magnificent Count of Zvornik, lord of Foinica, and Starost
of the kingdom of Rascia, his ‘mills, mines, vineyards, fishpools, and
weirs’ (aquarum decursus), of which the Ban of Slavonia was attempting to
deprive him.
But we must attend to the lords of modern Foinica! A Zaptieh brings a
message from the Kaïmakàm to say that he and the Kadi are about to drive
to Kisseljak, our own destination, and to offer us a lift in one of their
carriages; so, being for many reasons anxious to push on, we declined the
pressing invitation of the monks to dine and pass the night with them,
and descending once more to the village found an arabà waiting for us
outside a Han, where we had ordered some eatables. The arabà—an ordinary
country waggon, only provided with a better harness—belonged to the
Kadi, but the Kaïmakàm had taken him into his carriage—a more sumptuous
equipage—in order to provide room for us. We started therefore under good
auspices, these two functionaries acting as our vanguard. Nor did the
courtesy of the Turks stop here, for they had given our driver a supply
of rosy apples and a sweet red-fleshed melon wherewith to serve us at
intervals during the drive. About half-way down the Foinica valley our
cortége stopped at a little roadside Han, where the Kaïmakàm motioned us
to sit down by him on an open-air divan, canopied by shady branches and
overhanging the stream; and while he treated us to coffee and water-melon
both he and our Kadi reaped a quiet enjoyment by extending their
hospitality to some fishes below.
The pebbles in the bed of the stream are stained of a rich brown and
orange with the iron ore in which the valley abounds. On the flanks of
the mountains, on either side, might here and there be detected huge
scars and traces of old excavations. These are the mines of gold and
silver worked of old by the Romans, and later on by the Ragusans, but now
untouched. We are in the very midst of the mineral treasury of Bosnia.
This vale of Foinica contains, besides these precious metals, lead ore,
arsenic, quarries (unworked) of slate; and in a tributary gorge which we
had seen running south-east, cinnabar, rich in quicksilver.[227] A little
lower down, just where the Foinica stream runs into the Lepenica, the
valley opened out considerably and formed an alluvial plain. Here and
there among the stunted vegetation a column of blue smoke marked out a
rude forge, where a little iron, the only metal exploited, is smelted to
be converted into shovels, horse-shoes, and sundry tools and weapons for
Bosnian home consumption. A few miles further down the Lepenica debouches
into the valley of the Bosna, which is described as one vast coal-field.
Were we, one kept asking oneself, passing through what some day may
become one of the Black Countries of Europe? Would, as the world grew
older, something of the tremendous energy of our Midlands burst forth
upon this stagnant valley—blasting, boring, blackening, metamorphosing
its every feature? Mountains rose around us overgrown with primeval
forest—habitations were few and far between. What there were, were
miserable hovels—each in its mangy patch of maize—more ruinous than
any we remembered having seen in Bosnia. It was hard to transform such
into the busy streets of a great city—the silence of the woods seemed
too inveterate to be ever broken by the crash of a steam-hammer. The
hornpipe performed by our waggon, over what the Turks were pleased to
call a road, was a positive relief to such desolation; and yet what
stretch of imagination could convert it into an iron-way, or our ambling
Bosnian pony into a locomotive? We seemed, however, to detect one little
omen of the future, and accepted the augury: at one spot the foliage of
some neighbouring beech-trees had been browned away prematurely by the
fumes of a primitive forge.
And why, it will reasonably be asked, is all this mineral wealth allowed
to rust in the bosom of mother earth? Are there not miners in plenty
who go further afield than Bosnia in search for precious metals? Yes.
But in Australia, even in California, there is something like civilized
government. There are railways—there are roads; those in authority do not
look upon the successful digger as their natural prey. They are, at any
rate, too canny to kill the goose with the golden egg.
But here, not only are there natural obstacles serious in any country,
but before any mining can be set on foot a long stretch of road must
first be made, to be kept up at the expense of the projectors; add to
this, that even when an avenue to one of the highways of the country is
thus opened out, it will probably be found impossible to conduct traffic
of any magnitude along them; and that there is scarcely a bridge in the
country which would support the weight of a heavy load of ores.
But even were these obstacles overcome, there are others of a political
nature fatal at the very outset to such enterprises. To take a single
instance. Over the hills to the south-east of Foinica, near the
Franciscan monastery of Kreševo, are veins of cinnabar and quicksilver,
which have been estimated to be as rich as any in Europe. So rich in fact
are they, that a German company were tempted to believe that, despite the
expenses of preliminary road-making and outlay of another kind, it might
pay to work them. But a concession must first be obtained at Stamboul,
and nothing can be obtained at that sink of all human corruption without
copious bribery. The company began in good spirits; they made first
one ‘present’ and then another; but months passed, the demands of the
Sultan’s ‘advisers’ grew more and more exorbitant, and the prospect of
obtaining the required permission more remote, till, seeing themselves
in a fair way to be ruined before they could begin, they gave up their
enterprise as hopeless. Precisely the same causes have prevented the
working of the vast coal measures of the Bosna!
There is one remarkable phenomenon in connection with these ore-bearing
districts, which must strike anyone who examines the distribution of
population in Bosnia; and that is, that these former centres of mining
activity are at the present day the strongholds of the Roman Catholic
population of the country.
Can it be merely accidental that three of the chief Roman Catholic
monasteries in the country—Foinica, Kreševo, and Sutiska—are each placed
in the very focus of the richest mineral areas in the province?[228]
No, surely, it is not fortuitous. It is rather the result of a chain
of causes, reaching far back into the past, and which, if I read them
rightly, are explanatory of much that is most characteristic and least
intelligible in Bosnian history. Stated baldly, I cannot doubt that the
presence of the Catholic population and their monastic seats in the
mining districts of Bosnia is ultimately due to the Roman conquest, or—if
we may single out a man—to Q. Asinius Pollio.
Cui laurus æternos honores
Dalmatico peperit triumpho.
There seems no good reason for doubting that many of these deserted
mines, such as those that scar the mountain sides about Foinica, were the
work of Roman miners. A Roman road, for example, has been traced almost
to the western foot of this range, connecting it with Dalmatia. In the
time of the Romans no less than 50 lbs. of gold was turned out daily
by these Illyrian miners, and despatched to Rome by the Provost of the
Dalmatian treasury[229] at Salona.
When the Nations possessed themselves of the Western Empire, Epidaurus
and the Dalmatian cities still continued to be islands of pure
_Romanity_; and besides their Roman municipal institutions and their
ecclesiastical connection with Rome, these cities may also have preserved
some record of these inland deposits of precious metals, and some
knowledge of where to look for them. This, at least, is certain, that
when the Epidauran republic lived again at Ragusa, her sons sought out
the vestiges of the older Roman mines of Illyria, and opened them out
anew, so that the former scenes of Roman industry became the chief
commercial centres in these barbarous lands. Nor would Ragusa fail to
play her allotted part of interpreter between Rome and the southern
Sclaves. It is not to be wondered at that in these neighbourhoods
Christianity of a purely Roman character should have taken root: and in
the days of heresy this connection with Catholic Ragusa would perpetually
keep alive influences favourable to the Church.
We can well understand that the superior civilization and wealth of these
mining districts would react on the indigenous nobility. Doubtless many
noble families actually owed their position to wealth acquired from a
mine opened on their lands by these enterprising traders. Many would
naturally draw round these small civilised centres. To this Ragusan
influence I would therefore refer, not only the peculiarly Roman Catholic
character of the population of these mining districts, but also much of
the Roman sympathies of the ruling caste. Thus it is not only the Roman
Catholic monasteries that are found in connection with the scenes of old
Ragusan activity, but also the favourite residences of the Bosnian kings;
so that in the neighbourhood of the chief Ragusan castle and trading
settlement—called Dubrovnik, after the Sclavonic name of the mother
city—rose both the monastery of Sutiska, and the old town of Bobovac,
where the Tvartkos once sate in majesty. They are over the hills, to the
north-east of Foinica.
Nor is this far-reaching concatenation of causes and effects without its
bearings on the future as well.
If in the course of time Bosnia should enter once more into the
civilised system of Europe—if these now unused mines were to be opened
out anew, it must be evident that such an industrial development would
once more place the chief wealth, and therefore the chief influence, in
the country in the hands of the Roman Catholic minority; in other words,
in the hands of the only portion of the inhabitants who at the present
day still treasure the memories[230] of the old Bosnian kingdom.
But we are entering Kisseljak, and stop at what is unquestionably the
best hotel in Bosnia, and where, for the first time since our arrival
in the country, we obtain—beds! Kisseljak is in fact the fashionable
Bosnian Spa. Just outside our hostelry, under a kiosque, bubble up the
waters celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land. ‘In
taste,’ as L⸺ remarked, ‘it is like flat seltzer-water with a _soupçon_
of flat-irons.’ Mixed, however, with red coinica wine, it becomes a
livelier, and, as we thought, a very agreeable beverage. It is said to
be very good for complaints of stomach and liver; and quite a colony had
collected in the neighbourhood of the sources, not only to drink the
waters, but to bathe in them—certain sheds containing wooden baths being
built for the latter purpose. The wealthier people, who were chiefly
Spanish-speaking Jews from Serajevo, were lodged at the almost European
hotels; the other ranks of society sheltering themselves, according to
their means, in humbler abodes, and the poorest, of all camping about the
valley like gipsies.
It was while drinking the waters that we first became the recipients
of tidings which, in our then position, might be considered somewhat
sensational, which were calculated to cast a new light on some of our
recent experiences, and which may fitly open a new chapter of our
pilgrimage.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PANIC IN SERAJEVO.
Outbreak of the Insurrection in Bosnia—Roadside Precautions
against Brigands—Panorama of Serajevsko Polje—Roman Bas-Relief
of Cupid—Roman Remains in Bosnia—_Banja_ and _Balnea_—‘The
Damascus of the North’: first Sight of Serajevo—Her History and
Municipal Government—Fall of the Janissaries—Dangerous Spirit
of the Mahometan Population of Serajevo—Outbreak of Moslem
Fanaticism here on building of the new Serbian Cathedral—We
enter the City through smouldering Ruins—Hospitable Reception
at English Consulate—Great Fire in Serajevo—Consternation of
the Pashà—Panic among the Christians—Missionaries of Culture:
two English Ladies—Causes of the Insurrection in Bosnia: the
Tax-farmers: Rayahs tortured by Turks—‘Smoking’—The Outbreak
in Lower Bosnia—Paralysis of the Government, and Mahometan
Counter-Revolution—Conjuration of Leading Fanatics in the Great
Mosque—We are accused before the Pashà by forty Turks—Consular
Protection—The Fanariote Metropolitan and Bishops of
Bosnia—Their boundless Rapacity, and Oppression of the Rayah—A
Bosnian Bath—Mosques and Cloth-hall of Serajevo—Types of the
Population—Spanish Jews, and Pravoslave Merchants—Bosnian Ideas
of Beauty!—Opposition of Christians to Culture—Extraordinary
Proceedings of the Board of Health—The Zaptiehs—Continuance of
the Panic—Portentous Atmospheric Phenomenon—The Beginning of
the End.
While we were engaged in quaffing the sparkling draughts of nature under
the kiosque, up came a young Hungarian, and asked us whether we had heard
the news. On our confessing ignorance, he informed us that a revolution
had broken out in Bosnia—or rather several dozens of them; that a rising
of rayahs had taken place near Banjaluka, and along the Save; and that
this had been followed by a counter-rising in the Mahometan towns and
villages—and that especially the district about Dervent, through which
we had passed, was plunged in civil war. Vague rumours of other outbreaks
at Tašlidzje, Priepolje, and near Novipazar, had just come in; and,
from the localities of the risings, both in north and south, this much
was certain, that if the insurgents were successful, the only highways
connecting Bosnia with the rest of Turkey and the Save provinces of
Austria were cut off; while, from the sudden departure of the Pashà of
Bosnia for the Herzegovina, it seemed not unlikely that communication
with Dalmatia was equally threatened. But for details we had to wait
till we reached the capital, though we found the Hungarian’s account
trustworthy so far as it went.
_Aug. 21._—From the same informant I learnt that in a copse near here
were some monuments, locally known as the ‘Roman Stones,’ to the
investigation of which I devoted the morning grey before we started for
Serajevo. The stones proved to be of the same character as those already
described at Podove—of the usual tea-caddy shape—uninscribed, and even
more devoid of ornament than those we had seen before. There were several
of them scattered among the brushwood on a slight rise of the ground.
In the first part of our journey to Serajevo there was little remarkable.
As we ascended the pass between the Kobilaglava and Bulalovic ranges,
we noticed the forest cut away for a hundred yards or so on either side
of the high road; this was done for the safety of travellers, these
mountains having formerly been a nest of robbers. The same precaution
used to be taken in England in the good old days. In the Statute of
Winchester, Edward I. devotes a whole clause to enjoining the ‘abatement’
of the cover by the side of the highways: ‘It is commanded that highways
leading from one market town to another shall be enlarged wheresoever
bushes, woods, or dykes be, so that there be neither dyke, tree, nor bush
whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within two hundred foot of the one
side, and two hundred foot of the other side of the way; so that this
statute shall not extend unto oaks nor unto great trees, so that it shall
be clear underneath. And if by default of the lord that will not abate
the dykes, underwood, or bushes, any robberies be done therein, the lord
shall be answerable for the felony; and if murder be done, the lord shall
make a fine at the king’s pleasure.’[231] The traveller in Bosnia is
still in the Middle Ages!
Having gained the summit of the mountain saddle, we began to descend
towards the Serajevsko Polje—the Plain of Serajevo—a level expanse shut
in on every side by mountains, and looking like the former bed of a large
lake. The Alpine amphitheatre was exquisite. One peak, loftier than the
rest, had been girdled by a silvery sea of mist, above which loomed its
limestone upper nakedness, draped in a Coan veil of aërial azure—the
island of a mirage, or one of those barren-beautiful _Scoglie_ that
start ever and anon from the slumbering bosom of the Adriatic! The heat
was suffocating, and a sultry haze seemed to flood the whole surface of
the plain and lower mountain-flanks, volatilizing every object in an
atmosphere half dusty, half lurid; and, with the faint, languid tints
of the surrounding heights, recalling to memory pictures of Eastern
scenery—but nothing within our own experience.
[Illustration: Bas-relief of Cupid.]
Near the spot where this fine panorama first opened out we came to a
small roadside Han, called Blazui, where we obtained welcome refreshments
in the shape of coffee and boiled eggs; a little bread we had luckily
brought with us. While waiting for these delicacies, we passed our time
in closely examining some old stone blocks which formed the basement
of the wooden buildings about, in hopes of finding perchance a Roman
inscription or some other relic of antiquity. Our desires were presently
gratified almost beyond expectation by the discovery of a Roman monument
walled into an old stone cistern, which acted as sub-structure for a
hen-roost. It was a bas-relief of Cupid, standing, apparently, on a
foliated capital, cross-legged, and leaning on a torch, which he is
thus extinguishing. It has suffered, as can be seen in the rough sketch
opposite, from the iconoclasm of ages, Christian and Mahometan; yet a
tutored eye could still trace the elegant outlines. A severe critic
might condemn the art; but, though falling short of Hellenic purity,
it was such as these benighted midlands of Illyria have not seen the
like of since the days when this was sculptured. But the delicacy of
the conception allows us to overlook the execution. The monument is
sepulchral, of a kind not uncommon among the Romans, but chiefly raised
to the memory of those who passed away in the youth and vigour of their
days.[232] The thoughts are turned from the unknown and the ghastly to
the memory of the beautiful and the known. _Vixit_—he has lived. The
torch of festal trippings has become the staff for his repose: the light
of love is put out: the great darkness is upon him: _nox est perpetua una
dormienda_. It may foreshadow annihilation, but, at least, it calls up no
bony phantoms of corruption. This mutilated, one-winged genius is indeed
the emanation of ages of refinement, set forth by the most exquisite
symbolism of ancient art. Here, truly, amidst dull and barbarous lands,
was roadside refection, spiritually, not less refreshing than were the
fragrant cups of mocha to those parched by a well-nigh Arabian sun!
It does not seem that any Roman remains had been discovered in this
immediate neighbourhood before,[233] though the appearance of some of
the other blocks of masonry made it probable that this was not the only
classic monument concealed in the foundations of the Mahometan Han and
its out-buildings. One would, indeed, expect to find Roman remains in
this vicinity, not holy from the fact that in the neighbouring mountains
about Foinica, and again to the east about Vareš, are traces of Roman
gold-mines, and that a Roman road has been traced tending from Salona
towards these centres of mineral wealth; but for another and still more
cogent reason. This is the presence of hot-springs, which we passed
to the right of us only a little way further on the road, at a place
called Illidzje. The Romans, with their usual instincts, tracked out
these natural baths among the Illyrian wilds; and Roman remains in
Bosnia, when not connected with mining enterprise, seem especially to
centre round such spas. At Novipazar,[234] in the province of Rascia,
the sulphur springs still bubble up into an octagonal marble basin near
eight yards in diameter, described as of Roman workmanship, and are
still sheltered from the elements by an octagonal chamber, supporting a
cupola, which also dates from the days of the Cæsars. At Banjaluka[235]
on the Verbas the hot-springs are still housed in a similar edifice;
and the curious may survey modern Mahometans taking their enjoyment in
one of these very baths which have supplied the prototype of the early
Christian baptistery. The name of Banjaluka[236] itself preserves a Roman
element, _Banja_ being no other than the Latin _balnea_. The Sclavonic
settlers borrowed the word from the earlier Roman population of these
lands—thus witnessing to the purely Roman associations of such spas;
and so completely has the word passed into their language that _Banja_
at the present day is applied by the Southern Sclaves to all hot-springs
and baths. But though not necessarily, therefore, proof positive of a
Roman connection, this derivative, when applied to local names, may
perhaps afford presumptive evidence that the virtues of such spots were
not unknown to the Romans. It is at least worth noticing that the thermal
springs at Illidzje, not far from the place where we found the bas-relief
of Cupid, are still known to the Bosniacs as ‘Banja.’
We now descended into the plain, passing the sources of the Bosna, not
far distant, on our left. The river from which this whole country derives
its name takes its origin from a number of small streams which, gushing
forth from the limestone slope of Mt. Igman, unite almost immediately
to form a full-volumed river of crystal purity, some fifty yards in
breadth—an Illyrian Timavus. We crossed this new-born river by a wooden
bridge of a form, if possible, more Roman than ordinary, and nearing the
capital descried several country houses of Turkish dignitaries, embosomed
in their shady gardens. Once or twice we met arabàs of state containing
Mahometan ladies, screened from the vulgar gaze by a brilliant scarlet
canopy supported by four posts; but feminine curiosity prompted them to
lift up the corners of the drapery that they might observe the Giaour;
and we should have seen more of their faces had they not been veiled as
well as curtained!
But a turn in the road reveals to us the Damascus of the North—for such
is the majestic title by which the Bosniac Turks, who consider it,
after Stamboul, the finest city in Turkey-in-Europe, delight to style
Serajevo. Seen, indeed, from above, in an atmosphere which the Bosniac
historian has not inaptly compared to that of Misr and Sham,[237]
it might well call up the pearl and emerald settings of Oriental
imagery.[238] The city is a vast garden, from amidst whose foliage swell
the domes and cupolas of mosques and baths; loftier still, rises the new
Serbian Cathedral; and lancing upwards, as to tourney with the sky, near
a hundred minarets. The airy height to the East, sceptred with these
slender spires of Islâm and turret-crowned with the Turkish fortress
(raised originally by the first Vizier of Bosnia on the site of the
older ‘Grad’ of Bosnian princes), commands the rest of the city, and
marks the domination of the infidel. Around it clusters the upper-town,
populated exclusively by the ruling caste; but the bulk of the city
occupies a narrow flat amidst the hills, cut in twain by the little river
Miljaška, and united by three stone and four wooden bridges. Around this
arena, tier above tier—at first wooded hills, then rugged limestone
precipices—rises a splendid amphitheatre of mountains culminating in the
peak of Trebović, which frowns over 3,000 feet above the city—herself
near 1,800 above sea-level.
The first beginnings of Serajevo, or Bosna as it was formerly called, are
said to have been due to the mining enterprise of the Ragusans in the
neighbouring mountains;[239] but though in 1236 (after the destruction of
Mileševo by the Patarenes) it was made the seat of the Roman Catholic
bishops, it appears to have been little more than a stronghold till the
year 1463, when it finally fell into the possession of the Turks. It
was in the year succeeding this event that the present town was founded
by the two Bosnian magnates, Sokolović, and Zlatarović, who claim the
doubtful honour of having been the first of the native nobility to
renegade to Islâm; and the Serai on the hill was shortly after erected,
and the upper town walled, by Khosrev Pashà, first Vizier of Bosnia. It
was from this Serai or fortress that the town began to be called Bosna
Serai, and finally, by the Sclaves, Serajevo. That it early attained to
some majesty is shown by the fact that it was given by Grand Signiors
as a dowry to widowed Sultanas; and early in the sixteenth century our
English traveller, Blunt, though he describes it as ‘but meanely built
and not great,’ yet reckons here ‘about four-score Mescheetoes and
twenty thousand houses.’[240] When Prince Eugene, during his twenty
days’ dash into Bosnia in 1697, penetrated to the capital, he found the
upper town so strong that, despairing of reducing it by a siege with
the small means at his disposal, he contented himself with burning the
lower town, and rode back to the Save. His chroniclers estimate the
population of Serajevo at 30,000, and set down the houses and mosques
then destroyed by the Imperialists as six thousand and a hundred and
fifty respectively.[241] In the middle of the next century the monks who
supplied the author of ‘Illyricum Sacrum’ with an account of ‘the present
state of Bosnia,’ speak of the Serai as being, though a decayed city, the
‘seat of Turkish commerce and the most renowned staple of the realm.’
Serajevo early became the head-quarters of the Bosnian Janissaries.
That in the seventeenth century it was hardly an eligible place for a
Giaour to find himself in, may be gathered from our English traveller’s
relation. Blunt is setting out for ‘Saraih,’ as he calls the city, ‘with
the Bashaw of Bosnah, his troopes going for the warre of Poland,’ and
his account gives a very pretty picture of the military turbulence that
must then have reigned within the walls. The soldiers, it appears, were
‘spirited many with drinke, discontent, and insolency: which made them
fitter companie for the Divell then for a Christian; my selfe after many
launces, and knives threatned upon me, was invaded by a drunken Janizary,
whose iron Mace entangled in his other furniture gave mee time to flee
among the Rocks, whereby I escaped untoucht.’
But the Janissaries who ruled the roast at the Serai were something more
than a turbulent rabble of bravoes. They were Sclaves, descendants, most,
of the ruling families of the older Bosnian kingdom. They spoke the
native tongue. They were imbued with provincial patriotism. They were in
close alliance with the haughty provincial aristocracy, who perpetuated
feudalism under a Mahometan guise. These Sclavonic Janissaries refused to
take to the celibacy and barrack-life of their order. They took wives.
They became landed proprietors. They even settled down to mercantile
pursuits. Thus, with their participation and patronage, Bosna Serai, the
chosen seat of the Bosnian nobility, the Camp of her Prætorians, acquired
rights and immunities which made her a Free City.
Nothing in this curious history is more interesting to observe than the
way in which the primitive institutions of Sclavonic family life assert
themselves in this municipal constitution. The Civic Communism—I use the
word in its uncorrupted sense—grows out of the domestic. Just as the
Bosnian family communities elected, and still elect, their elders, so
now the families who owned the surrounding lands were represented by a
hereditary _Starešina_; and the artisans and merchants bound themselves
into _Bratsva_ or brotherhoods, each guild electing its _Starost_ or
alderman. Thus arose a civic government, based on the possession of real
property and prosperity in trade.[242]
Enjoying such a municipal constitution, actively protected by the
Janissaries at Stamboul, the Serai rose to an almost sovereign position
in Bosnia. So jealous was its senate of its privileges, and so
irresistible its authority, that it actually established a municipal law
by which the Vizier of Bosnia was forbidden to tarry more than a day
at a time within the city walls. For a single night he was entertained
at the public expense; next morning he was escorted without the gates.
Even in the exercise of his shadowy authority at Travnik, the Sultan’s
lieutenant stood in perpetual fear of the patriarchs of the real capital;
for if he presumed to offend these haughty elders, they had but to lodge
a complaint against him with the Odjak of the Janissaries at Stamboul,
and the Vizier was forthwith recalled. The Porte, indeed, endeavoured
to assert its sovereignty within the city by appointing two officers to
decide disputes between Moslems and Rayahs, but the citizens retained the
right of dismissing these at their pleasure.
Thus Serajevo was the mouthpiece of the old Sclavonic national feeling of
Bosnia, as it survived in a Mahometan guise—the acknowledged protectress
of provincial interests against the hated Osmanlì. Bosnia had changed her
creed, but she clung to her independence; and when, at the beginning of
the present century, Sultan Mahmoud II. thought to stamp out provincial
liberties in Bosnia as elsewhere, it was the Serai that took the lead
in opposition. When the Janissaries were extinguished at Stamboul,
their tall ovoid turbans, the gold and imperial green, still flaunted
themselves unchallenged in the streets of Serajevo. The citadel on the
height was their last refuge. It was, however, successfully stormed by
the Vizier, and Serajevo was given over to the tender mercies of the
Sultan’s officer. A terrible vengeance was wreaked, and more than a
hundred of the leading citizens were proscribed and executed. The Vizier
took up his residence triumphantly in the fortress, but the reign of the
Osmanlì lasted only a few months. In July 1828 the citizens of Serajevo,
aided by those of Visoko, rose desperately against the oppressor. A
street fight followed, which lasted three days. The Vizier, who upheld
his authority with a garrison near 2,000 strong, made an obstinate
resistance, but the imperial troops were gradually beaten back from house
to house, from mosque to mosque, till, fairly overmastered, the Sultan’s
lieutenant was glad to escape with his life and the shattered remnant
of his troops. A few years later Serajevo again fell into the hands of
the destroyer of the Janissaries. But in the Bosnian rebellion of 1850
the citizens once more flew to arms. For a while they made themselves
masters of the Vizier’s fortress on the height, but finally succumbed to
Ali Pashà; and the municipal independence of Serajevo shared the ruin of
feudalism throughout Bosnia. The true capital of Bosnia has since been
the seat of the Turkish Governor of the Vilajet.
But though Serajevo herself has degenerated into the _chef-lieu_ of a
‘circle’—though an alien bureaucracy has succeeded the patriarchal sway
of her own landowners and merchants—though Giaour-Sultans and ‘New Turks’
from Stamboul—those muck-rakes of mendicant statecraft who filch their
political tinsel from the gutters of the boulevards!—have replaced her
native Agas and elders by an Osmanlì ‘_Préfet_,’ with the same apish
levity with which these same gentry toss aside the jewelled amber of
their forefathers for a Parisian cigarette!—nevertheless, despite of all
these tinkering experiments in centralization of which they have been
made the _corpus vile_, the citizens of this old stronghold of provincial
liberties have only clung with warmer attachment to the ‘true green’ of
Bosnian Toryism. Only what they can no longer practise in politics they
parade in religion, and Serajevo remains more than ever the focus of
the Mahometan fanaticism of Bosnia. This was the danger of the present
moment, and gave but too valid grounds for the wide-spread apprehension
among the Bosnian rayahs that the outbreak of the revolt might provoke
the bigots of the capital to a general massacre of the Christian minority
there; and that the Damascus of the North might, as she had already
threatened a year or two ago on a less provocation, reproduce the bloody
scenes which have made her Syrian namesake a word of terror to the
Christians of Turkey.
This is what happened here only three years ago, as we heard the story
from those who played a distinguished part in averting the impending
catastrophe; nor can anything give a better idea of the dangerous spirit
abroad among the Moslem population of Serajevo.
The new orthodox cathedral, which now forms the most prominent object in
the city, was begun a few years ago by the Serb or Greek Church here,
on a scale which seemed to make it a direct challenge to the Mahometan
part of the population. The presence of the consular body in the town
made it possible for the Christians to take advantage of the right of
church-building accorded by Firmans of the Grand Signior, and accordingly
the work proceeded without any interference. But the Christians were not
content with the permission to build a church in the most conspicuous
position in one of the main streets of the city, but must needs rear a
pretentious pile which should throw into the shade the biggest of the two
hundred and odd mosques with which Mahometan piety has adorned the Serai.
No expense was spared, and the total outlay reached, so we were credibly
informed, the (for this country) enormous sum of £13,000, exclusive of
the costly icons and other church-furniture presented by the Emperor of
Russia. A swaggering edifice—all of stone—built in the usual bastard
Byzantine taste of the Fanariote hierarchy, and of which the worst that
can be said is that it is worthy of its patrons—began to raise itself
above the neighbouring house-tops, and at last contemptuously looked
down on the dome of the Imperial Mosque itself—the Dzàmia of Sultan
Mahommed! It was perhaps hardly to be expected that the ignorant Moslem
fanatics should view with equanimity this last manifestation of Christian
humility.
What, however, seems especially to have stuck in their throats, was
the design of hanging bells in the cathedral tower. It is strange the
animosity which such an apparently harmless sound as that of a church
bell has always excited in the bosoms of those hostile to the Christian
faith. Those of us who have Norse blood running in their veins may
remember that their heathen ancestors showed just the same vehement
repugnance to the tintinnabulation of too officious missionaries. Perhaps
in a Mahometan country it may be feared by the faithful that the infidel
clangour might drown the prayers of the muezzin on neighbouring minarets;
perhaps the renegade population of Bosnia have inherited something of the
prejudice that led their Bogomilian forefathers to regard Church bells as
‘Devil’s trumpets’! But this, at least, is certain, that in Bosnia there
are few Christian churches where any other summons to the congregation
is allowed than that of a wooden clapper; and that to hang bells in a
centre of Moslem fanaticism like Serajevo was a deliberate and wanton
provocation.
The plain English of the matter is that the Christians of Serajevo,
relying on consular protection, saw in the erection of this new church
a fine opportunity for wiping off the scores of ancient insults against
the Mahometans. It was quite natural that they should do so. But it
was also natural that the Moslems should refuse to pocket the insult.
The ringleaders of fanaticism in the city took up the gauntlet thus
thrown down, and some time before the day of the opening ceremony it
oozed out that a Mahometan conspiracy was afoot by which short work
would be made of the unbelievers and their conventicle together. The
indefinite multiplication of evil passions caused by ecclesiastical
wrong-headedness had brought matters to such a pass, that Easter Day—the
date of the opening ceremony—might have proved a second St. Bartholomew’s
for the Christian minority of Serajevo.
Happily, at this crisis, the consular body stepped in. Mr. Holmes, our
representative—who took a prominent and worthy part in averting the
bloodshed—and the other Consuls, informed the Pashà of the imminence of
the danger, and unfolded to him the existence of a Mahometan conspiracy.
The Pashà sent some of the ringleaders out of the country, made the
leading Moslems responsible for the preservation of order, and finally
persuaded the Christians to forego the bell-ringing. As it was, the
opening ceremony took place under the protection of Turkish arms. The
city was placed in a state of siege. For three days previously all the
wine-shops in the town had been closed by order of the authorities. The
troops were held in barracks under arms. At intervals along the streets
trumpeters were stationed to give the earliest alarm; and, in fine, such
precautions were taken as prevented any actual disturbance of the peace.
It was not without some vague misgivings that we now found ourselves
entering the streets of this metropolis of fanaticism. But the sight
which presently broke on us, on turning a corner into the main street,
was such as might well convince us that the worst forebodings of the
Bosnian Christians had come true. We had emerged on the scene of a great
fire which had destroyed one entire side of the street, so that we were
obliged to pick our way among black and smouldering _débris_, through
which a party of Turks were engaged in clearing a path. They, however,
seemed peaceable enough, and we were further relieved by seeing the
cupola of the Serbian cathedral rising unscathed on the other side of the
way.
We presently met a consular Cavass, who politely conducted us to the
English Consulate, situate on the other side of the little river
Miljaška, which we crossed by a stone bridge. Our Consul was away, having
migrated to Mostar in order to be nearer the centre of the disturbances
in the Herzegovina; but we were hospitably taken in by his amiable
daughters, and Mr. Freeman, his _chargé d’affaires_; and found ourselves,
after our long course of roughing, once more among the comforts of an
English home, and surrounded by the quiet of an English garden. Here,
in this rich soil, under this Eastern sky, we saw for the first time in
Bosnia our familiar flowers—roses, verbenas, and petunias, and others
equally delicious—scenting the air, and making us realise what a paradise
this land might become in civilized hands. The fruit-trees—the stock
of which Mr. Holmes, who has great horticultural taste, had imported
from Malta—were weighed down with an exuberant crop of plums, peaches,
greengages, and apples, each of which would have secured a prize at a
show; and this though from the shallowness of the soil these trees only
flourish for a time. Contrast with these the miserable plums, pears,
and apples obtainable in the native markets of Serajevo! The Bosniacs
show themselves absolutely incapable of pomiculture; they plant their
fruit-trees almost as close together as cabbages, and expect them to
thrive. Our Consul produced magnificent peaches by simply planting the
miserable Bosnian substitute properly.
We found that affairs here had taken a very serious turn. On Saturday
last Dervish Pashà, the Vali or Governor-General of Bosnia, had left
to take the command in Herzegovina, where the revolt was making head.
On Sunday—this country being now left without any competent head—the
revolt broke out in Bosnia. The news, as may be imagined, produced
great excitement here, and threw the Christian minority into a state
verging on consternation. The old rumours of an approaching massacre
once more gained credence. But the panic became universal last night,
when flames were observed rising from the immediate neighbourhood of
the new cathedral, and in the centre of the Christian quarter, amongst
houses inhabited by the leading Christian merchants. The Governor,
Hussein Pashà, by repute a weak and incapable man, hearing the guns
and cannon—which are here the usual fire-signals—and seeing the
conflagration, at once jumped to the conclusion that the anticipated
outbreak was beginning; and instead of sending the troops—who in Serajevo
supply the place of a fire-brigade—to put out the fire, kept them in
barracks waiting for the light to reveal the supposed disturbers of the
peace. Thus the fire—which in its origin was, as we learnt from the most
authentic source, purely accidental, and so far from being the work of
a Moslem fanatic, had actually originated in the house of a well-known
Mahometan, a renegade detested by the Christians—was allowed to spread,
and fifteen houses in the most flourishing quarter of Serajevo were
reduced to ashes before the Pashà could be undeceived, or proper measures
be taken to bring the flames under. The danger to the whole city was
imminent, the houses being mostly of wood and plaster; and, indeed,
Serajevo had been previously burnt down on four several occasions.
Perhaps the motives which induced the Mahometans to lend active help to
the Christians in conquering the flames were not altogether disinterested.
Meanwhile, from the unfortunate quarter in which the conflagration had
arisen, and from the electric state of the political atmosphere, it lay
in the very nature of things that the origin of the disaster should
be misrepresented, and that the majority of the Christian population
took it for granted that it was the work of Moslem spite. Thus a purely
accidental circumstance had added fuel to the general uneasiness, and
to-day a panic prevailed among the Christians of Serajevo.
From the English Consulate, where we are now lodged, we hastened to pay
our respects to two English ladies whose acquaintance we had already
had the good fortune to make on the Save, and who are prosecuting a
work in Bosnia of which their own country may well be proud, and for
which a more civilised Bosnia may hereafter be grateful. Some years ago
Miss Irby first travelled through many of the wildest parts of Turkey
in Europe in company with Miss Muir Mackenzie, and the book composed
by these two ladies on the Sclavonic Provinces of Turkey is well known
to all Englishmen who take an interest in those neglected lands and
their down-trodden Sclavonic cousins. But Miss Irby, with the practical
spirit of her race, was not content with acquainting the world with the
lamentable condition of the Serbian people under the Turkish yoke, but
set herself to work to remedy these evils. It was the backward state of
education among the rayah women of even the better classes which struck
her as one of the peculiar obstacles in the way of national progress, and
it was this which she resolved to overcome. In 1865 Miss Irby settled in
Serajevo, and since that date she and a fellow-labourer, Miss Johnston,
have devoted their lives to a propaganda of culture among the Bosnian
Christian women. Nothing in their efforts has been more conspicuous
than their good sense. As the best way to promote the spread of a
liberal education among the women, these ladies have formed a school in
which to bring up native school-mistresses. There has been no attempt
at Protestant proselytism; the pupils, whether of the Greek or Romish
Church, being left to the spiritual charge of their own pastors.
We found these ladies engaged in packing up their effects preparatory
to removing from the country for the present with their most promising
pupils. They had only arrived the previous Thursday by the tedious post
from Brood; but the state of affairs seemed so threatening, that there
was nothing for it but to take the children elsewhere and wait for
quieter times. They experienced some difficulty in obtaining permission
from the Pashà to take the embryo school-mistresses with them, as the
Pashà considered that their departure would increase the panic among the
Christians of Serajevo, by whom they are widely known and respected.
It could not, however, well have been greater. Already, several of
the leading Serb merchants had presented themselves at the English
school-house, and begged to be allowed shelter if the expected butchery
commenced. The Austrian Consul had just taken away his wife, and a
general exodus of Christians from the city was going on. Miss Irby[243]
and Miss Johnston finally obtained the required permission, and, as we
were afterwards happy to learn, have succeeded in planting their school
at Prague till this tyranny be overpast. It is difficult indeed for the
liberal arts to flourish at the best of times in a Turkish province!
The other day, on the opening of a rayah school at Banjaluka, the
authorities issued peremptory orders prohibiting the teaching of history
or geography! So rigid has become the censorship of the press, that Miss
Irby, though provided, like ourselves, with an autograph Bujuruldu from
the Governor-General of Bosnia, was not allowed to bring her little store
of books into the country, and was forced to leave them at Brood. The
state of literature in Serajevo itself may be gathered from the following
fact: in a city of between fifty and sixty thousand inhabitants there is
not a single book-shop!
_Aug. 22._—To-day we made the acquaintance of the German Consul, Count
Von Bothmar, who expressed considerable surprise at our arriving here
unmolested. From him and the other members of the consular body, who were
very ready to supply us with full details as to the stirring events that
are taking place around us, we learnt many interesting facts relative to
the causes and course of the insurrection in Bosnia. These accounts, and
others from trustworthy sources, reveal such frantic oppression and gross
misgovernment as must be hardly credible to Englishmen. We have heard all
that can be said on the Turkish side, but the main facts remain unshaken.
The truth is that outside Serajevo and a few of the larger towns
where there are Consuls or resident ‘Europeans,’ neither the honour,
property, nor the lives of Christians are safe. Gross outrages against
the person—murder itself—can be committed in the rural districts with
impunity. The authorities are blind; and it is quite a common thing
for the gendarmes to let the perpetrator of the grossest outrage, if a
Mussulman, escape before their eyes. There is a proverb among the Bosnian
Serbs, ‘No justice for the Christian.’ Miss Irby, who has made many
enquiries on these subjects, estimates that in the Medjliss, the only
court where Christian evidence is even legally admitted, ‘the evidence
of twenty Christians would be outweighed by two Mussulmans.’[244] But
why, it may be asked, do not the Christians appeal to the Consuls for
protection? In the first place, in a mountainous country like Bosnia,
with little means of communication, to do so would in most cases be a
physical impossibility. In the second place, as Count Bothmar assured us,
if such complaint is made to a Consul, so surely is the complaining rayah
more cruelly oppressed than before; henceforth he is a marked man, nor
is consular authority so omnipresent as to save him and his family from
ruin. ‘God alone knows,’ he exclaimed, ‘what the rayahs suffer in the
country districts!’ Remembering the revolting scenes, of which I had been
a witness, at the Christian gathering near Comušina, I could believe this.
But the most galling oppression, and the main cause of the present
revolt, is to be found in the system and manner of taxation. The
centralised government set up in Bosnia since 1851 is so much machinery
for wringing the uttermost farthing out of the unhappy Bosniac rayah.
The desperate efforts of Turkish financiers on the eve of national
bankruptcy have at last made the burden of taxation more than even the
long-suffering Bosniac can bear. It was the last straw.
The principal tax—besides the house and land tax, the cattle tax,[245]
and that paid by the ‘Christian’ in lieu of military service which is
wrung from the poorest rayah for every male of his family down to the
baby in arms[246]—is the eighth,[247] or, as it is facetiously called
by the tax-collector, the tenth, which is levied on all produce of
the earth. With regard to the exaction of this tax, every conceivable
iniquity is practised. To begin with, its collection is farmed out to
middle-men, and these, ex-officio pitiless, are usually by origin the
scum of the Levant. The Osmanlì or the Sclavonic Mahometan possesses
a natural dignity and self-respect which disinclines him for such
dirty work. The men who come forward and offer the highest price
for the license of extortion are more often Christians—Fanariote
Greeks—adventurers from Stamboul, members of a race perhaps the vilest of
mankind. No considerations of honour, or religion, or humanity, restrain
these wretches. Having acquired the right to farm the taxes of a given
district, the Turkish officials and gendarmerie are bound to support them
in wringing the uttermost farthing out of the _misera contribuens plebs_,
and it is natural that this help should be most readily forthcoming when
needed to break the resistance of the rayah.
These men time their visitation well. They appear in the villages before
the harvest is gathered and assess the value of the crops according
to the present prices, which, of course, are far higher just before
the harvest than after it. But the rayahs would be well contented if
their exactions stopped here. They possess, however, a terrible lever
for putting the screw on the miserable tiller. The harvest may not be
gathered till the tax, which is pitilessly levied in cash, has been
extorted. If the full amount—and they often double or treble the legal
sum—is not forthcoming, the tax-gatherer simply has to say ‘then your
harvest shall rot on the ground till you pay it!’ And the rayah must see
the produce of his toil lost, or pay a ruinous imposition which more than
swamps his profits.
But supposing, as often happens, the Spahi, or tithe-farmer, who is
shrewd enough to know that _ex nihilo nihil fit_, sees no means of
wringing the required amount from the village till after the harvest has
been disposed of. In that case he imposes on the Knez or village elder,
who represents the commune in the transaction, an assessment drawn up
in the Turkish tongue,[248] and as intelligible to the rural Bosniac as
so much Chinese. The money from the grapes or corn or tobacco assessed
having been realised, the Spahi presents himself again to the village,
and demands, perhaps, double what had been agreed on. The astonished
Knez takes out the written agreement, a copy of which had been supplied
to him, and appeals to it against the extortioner. But if he carries the
matter before a Turkish court, the first Effendi who sets eyes on it
will tell him that every iota of the Spahi’s claims is borne out by that
precious document!
Or if he still remains obstinate, there are other paraphernalia of
torture worthy of the vaults of the Inquisition. A village will
occasionally band together to defend themselves from these extortioners.
Thereupon the tithe-farmer applies to the civil power, protesting that
if he does not get the full amount from the village, he will be unable
in his turn to pay the Government. The Zaptiehs, the factotums of the
Turkish officials, are immediately quartered on the villagers, and live
on them, insult their wives, and ill-treat their children. With the
aid of these gentry all kinds of personal tortures are applied to the
recalcitrant. In the heat of summer men are stripped naked, and tied to a
tree smeared over with honey or other sweet-stuff, and left to the tender
mercies of the insect world. For winter extortion it is found convenient
to bind people to stakes and leave them barefooted to be frost-bitten;
or at other times they are thrust into a pigsty and cold water poured on
them. A favourite plan is to drive a party of rayahs up a tree or into
a chamber, and then smoke them with green wood. Instances are recorded
of Bosniac peasants being buried up to their heads in earth, and left to
repent at leisure.[249]
I will quote a single instance of these practices, communicated by the
Princess Julia of Servia to the author of ‘Servia and the Servians.’ ‘A
poor woman, frantic with agony, burst into the palace of the Princess at
Belgrade. She had been assessed by the Turkish authorities of a village
in Bosnia of a sum which she had no means of paying.... _She was smoked._
This failed of extracting the gold. She begged for a remission, and
stated her inability to pay. In answer she was tossed into the river
Drina, and after her were thrown her two infant children—one of four
years old, the other of two. Before her eyes, notwithstanding her frantic
efforts to save them, her children perished. Half drowned and insensible,
she was dragged to land by a Serbian peasant. She made her way to
Belgrade, believing, from the character of the Princess for humanity,
that she would aid her. Of course to do so was out of the question.’[250]
Gustav Thoemmel, who was attached to the Austrian Consulate here,
relates how the application of such tortures drove many Bosnian rayahs
to desperation in 1865. No less than five hundred families took refuge
across the borders from these inquisitors in the spring of that year.
They were, however, turned back and forced to return to their homes in
Bosnia in a most deplorable state. ‘Complaint,’ says Thoemmel, ‘about
outrages of this kind are scarcely ever brought forward, since the
rayah seldom obtains evidence or even hearing, and his complaining only
brings down on him increased persecution. So it happens that the higher
officials often remain in entire ignorance of the barbarities perpetrated
by their underlings.’
It must not be supposed that the higher authorities here are altogether
blind as to the evils attendant on the tithe-farming. It will hardly
be believed that the present Governor-General, and his predecessor
Osman Pashà, have been doing their best to remove this abuse, but were
thwarted by the authorities at Stamboul, who have in recent years taken
away much of the independent power of the provincial Vali, the better
to suck everything into that sink of corruption. Our Consul has for
years directed his energies with the same object, and acting on his
representations, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe used all his influence to
support the appeal of Osman Pashà. But neither our most influential
ambassador nor the Turkish Governor-General of Bosnia could induce the
Porte to remove the abuse. The pretext by which these representations
were always eluded was that the tithe was a religious institution. The
present Vali,[251] a man of more subtle genius, had, however, succeeded
in drawing a distinction between this and the religious tithe, and
was confident that he would be shortly permitted to abolish it, and
substitute for it a land tax not farmed by middle-men. But it was already
too late. The present revolts, both in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, are
mainly due to the extortion of the ‘dime.’
It was on Sunday, August 15—the same day on which the great Christian
pilgrimage took place on the mountain above Comušina—that the peasants
of that part of Bosnia, who had been goaded to madness during the last
few weeks by the exactions of the tax-gatherer (with whom this year
the government, itself unable to meet its creditors, had driven a
harder bargain than usual), first took up arms. From the rapidity with
which the revolt spread through Lower Bosnia there seems to have been
a preconcerted movement—indeed, it was previously known at Belgrade
with sufficient accuracy what lines the outbreak would follow. The
first movement took place near Banjaluka, where the rayah villagers
rose on their extortioners and slew eight tax-gatherers. This was
immediately followed by other risings extending along the Possávina to
the neighbourhood of Brood and Dervent. Several of the watch-towers along
this frontier were surprised, and their Turkish garrison massacred.
Meanwhile, the Christian women and children are fleeing beyond the
Austrian border for protection; the banks of the Save at the present
moment are a piteous sight, and the forest border and willow river-hedge
are crowded with these harmless fugitives, holding out their hands and
entreating to be ferried over to the Slavonian shore. The news of the
outbreak quite bewildered the authorities at Serajevo. The Vali, the
only man capable of coping with the difficulties of the situation, had
just left for the Herzegovina. Bosnia was bereft of troops, for the
Seraskier at Stamboul, disregarding the earnest warnings of the Vali,
had persisted in withdrawing the regulars stationed in the province till
hardly any were left, and of these every available man, except those
absolutely necessary for garrison duty, had now been dispatched to the
Herzegovina.
Meantime, the Mahometan population of Lower Bosnia has taken the law
into its own hands, and the authorities have been forced to look on
and see the Mahometan volunteers, the Bashi-Bazouks—not long ago
suppressed for conduct too outrageous for even the worst of governments
to tolerate—spring once more into existence. Such were the ferocious
warriors whose acquaintance we had made at Travnik. To-day they are
streaming into Serajevo: we met a party of them defiling through the
street, and the leader of the gang, as he passed, glared savagely
at the Giaour. They are, from what we hear, mere organised brigands
headed by irresponsible partizans, and at present are committing the
wildest atrocities—cutting down women, children, and old men who come
in their way, and burning the crops and homesteads of the rayah. That
the defence of Bosnia should have fallen into the hands of such men is
one of the most terrible features of the situation, and nothing can
better show the abjectness of her present governors than that they have
now consented to accept the services of these bandits—and that even
the Turkish authorities are now calling them out as well as the Redìf.
There seems, however, to be little authority of any sort left to the
government at the seat of the insurrection in Bosnia, for the native
Mahometan population, seeing itself left defenceless by its Osmanlì
officials, has rudely thrust them aside, and the defensive measures
are now being carried out by self-constituted committees of public
safety, which have sprung up at Banjaluka, Dervent, and other towns. The
artificial bureaucracy of 1851 has collapsed under the shock, and the
long-restrained savagery of the old dominant caste has burst forth like a
caged lion for the defence of Islâm. The marauding bands now desolating
Bosnia are for the most part headed by Begs or Agas, scions of the old
Bosnian nobility: the Bashi-Bazouks are simply feudal retainers following
their lords. Thus, in Bosnia, the Christian outbreak has been opposed
by a counter-revolution of Moslem fanaticism in close alliance with the
still vital relics of Bosnian feudalism.
News of a sanguinary fight near Banjaluka, between five hundred
insurgents and the Turks, has just come in. It lasted eleven hours,
‘with uncertain results’—which means favourably to the Christians. The
number of the revolters at one spot, and the duration of the conflict,
alike witness the seriousness of the rising. The telegraph to Brood has
just been cut, but a battalion has been dispatched to keep open the
communication at this important point. We further hear that the streets
of Agram and Belgrade are placarded with inflammatory proclamations,
calling on the Southern Sclaves to rise in defence of their brothers.
Like manifestoes have appeared at Bucharest. The German Consul looks
on this South-Sclavonic agitation as one of the most serious features
of the present situation. As far as Serajevo is concerned, he already
telegraphed three days ago to Berlin and Constantinople that there was
no longer security here against any contingency.
Meanwhile, the events in the city seem to be shaping their course on
the model of 1872. To-day a conjuration of about three hundred of the
leading Turks took place in the great Mosque. They appeared there with
arms in their hands, and swore that there was a plot against their lives!
It has now oozed out that they have banded themselves together to fall
with their following on the Christians of Serajevo, should the revolt
break out any nearer here—as things go, a not unlikely contingency. The
Christians are more alarmed than ever, and appeal to consular protection.
Their apprehensions are further excited by the fact that a notorious
brigand—a certain Dervish Aga—has appeared at the head of the Mahometan
volunteers of this neighbourhood.
Now, it appears that even our humble selves have become the objects of
fanatical suspicion. We have been already honoured by having consular
reports sent to the representative of Austria regarding our motions and
conduct during our tour—which reports were the subject of an official
interview between that gentleman and our Consul, who endeavoured to
explain it to him—with what success is doubtful—that it was not the
practice of the English Government to send political agitators on
secret missions to nationalities! It is now the turn of the Mahometans
to suspect our intentions, and a few harmless sketches of Serajevan
costumes, and a little innocent curiosity as to the wares on some of
the Serajevan shop-boards, have excited such indignation in the bosoms
of true believers that a deputation of forty Turks waited on the Pashà
to complain of us, and entering, as it would appear, into a kind of
competition which could display the most Oriental inventiveness of
calumny—it has resulted in our being accused first of taking notes of
the fortress, and ultimately of violating a mosque! Of course we had
scrupulously avoided even approaching the portals of such a sacred
edifice; and as to the fortress, we had not even visited the quarter
of the town in which it stands. Mr. Freeman convinced the Pashà that
these accusations were false; but it was thought better after this that
we should be accompanied in our peregrinations by consular guards or
cavasses, English or German.
_Aug. 23rd._—This morning the German Consul, with whom we lunched,
informed us that he had just obtained an interview with the Pashà to
represent to him the threatening state of affairs, and especially this
new Mahometan conspiracy, and to ask what measures he intended to take
to protect the Christians in the event of a disturbance. The Pashà
explicitly declared that he was ready to use his troops and cannon
against the first disturbers of the peace, to whatever party they
belonged. The Consul is tolerably satisfied with this, and believes that
the troops are sufficiently Osmanlì and obedient to official commands to
be trusted not to fraternize with the native Mahometan fanatics.
We had been asked to meet the representatives of Austria and Russia,
and received quite an ovation at the Consulate. The conversation turned
on the Greek hierarchy of this country, and the worst that we had heard
of these wolves in sheep’s clothing was more than corroborated. Perhaps
the most terrible feature of the tyranny under which the Bosnian rayah
groans, is that those, who should protect, betray him, and that those,
to whom he looks for spiritual comfort, wring from him the last scrap of
worldly belongings which has escaped the rapacity of the infidel. Amongst
all the populations of modern Turkey there is only one so vile as to fawn
upon the tyrants. The modern Greeks of Constantinople—the Fanariotes,
let us call them—not to pollute a hallowed name—have inherited all the
corruption of a corrupt empire, and added to their hereditary store. It
is from these, as we have seen, that the odious class of middle-men, who
farm the taxes, is chiefly recruited. It is also from these that the
dignitaries of the Greek Church throughout Turkey are chosen.
The Turks have not hesitated to utilize the sleek knavery ready to their
beck. It has long been a part of Turkish policy to rivet the fetters of
their Sclavonic subjects by filling the high ecclesiastical offices of
the Greek Church with Fanariote bishops. The office of the old Serbian
metropolitans who resided at Ipek was suppressed, and Bosnia has since
been divided into four eparchies[252] under the immediate control of
the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Eparchs needing, like the head of
the Greek Church himself, an exequatur from the infidel before they can
enter on their functions. The Greek Patriarch takes good care that these
eparchies shall be filled by none but Fanariotes, and thus it happens
that the Pravoslaves or orthodox Christians of Bosnia, who form the
majority of the population,[253] are subjected to ecclesiastics, aliens
in blood, in language, in sympathies, who oppress them hand in hand with
the Turkish officials, and set them, often, an even worse example of
moral depravity.
It does not become the English language to record the Sejanian arts
by which they rise. Usually, as the lackey of a Pashà or some rich
Fanariote, they amass gains which they afterwards lay out in an episcopal
speculation—for sees go to the highest bidders at Stamboul.[254] The
new Metropolitan arrives at Serajevo, and immediately sets to work to
make the speculation pay. To retain their office they have further to
send enormous bribes yearly to the fountain-head of corruption. Thus
the simony which begins on the patriarchal throne descends to the
meanest pulpit, and the poorest pope in Bosnia has to bargain with his
bishop for his cure of souls! The shepherd, fleeced himself by his
bishop, must recoup himself from his flock. On every occasion of life
he levies a contribution in money or in kind, and in some cases he has
even succeeded in establishing a system of heriots. On the death of the
father of a family he takes the best ox; on the mother’s death, a cow.
Not infrequently children grew up unbaptized because the parents were
too poor to pay the fee required.[255] As to the parsons themselves,
their ignorance is usually so gross that they cannot read the Sclavonic
liturgy, and simply repeat it by rote! The Metropolitan of Serajevo is
said to wring as much as 10,000_l._ a year from his miserable flock: the
other three content themselves with about half that amount apiece. When
it is remembered that the salary of the Vali Pashà himself only amounts
to 500_l._ a year, the enormity of these figures may be appreciated.
These four successors of the fishermen of Galilee extort annually between
them a sum equal to one-sixteenth of the total income received by the
government of the province from taxation. Since, however, a large part of
what they extract from the unhappy rayahs must be transmitted in the form
of bribes to Stamboul, the Turkish authorities have orders to assist them
in levying their exactions; and whole Christian villages share the fate
of a sacked city from Turkish gendarmerie, for refusing, or too often
being unable, to comply with the exorbitant demands of Christian prelates.
_De_ vivis _nil nisi bonum_. The predecessor of the present Metropolitan
of Serajevo, amongst his other accomplishments, was an habitual drunkard.
He lived in Sardanapalian luxury—his table groaned with plate; and at
his death he left untold treasures in costly furs alone—the fleecings
of his flock! His rapacity was such that even the slavish spirit of the
Bosnian rayah was provoked to resistance, and in 1864 the agitation
became so dangerous that an assembly of the notables was called at
Serajevo to devise a remedy; and a certain standard of ecclesiastical
dues not to be transgressed was finally imposed on the bishops by the
Turkish authorities themselves. But the Metropolitan, with the shrewdness
of his race, read between the lines. All that was meant, as he had
the good sense to perceive, was a slight increase of his expenditure
under the head of _lubrication_. Thoemmel, writing so soon after these
events as 1867, mentions that ‘this standard has already become a dead
letter.’ It is no secret that one of the main provocations of the revolt
in the Herzegovina was the tyranny of the Turkophile bishop Prokopios.
When the storm burst, one of the first attempts at pacification was the
translation of this ghostly vampire to a fatter see!
Vain indeed must be the efforts of the rayah flock to save themselves
from the wolves while they have a hireling for their shepherd! These
episcopal sycophants of the infidel serve the Turk in a hundred ways—they
screen a hundred abuses. No sooner does an awkward revelation see the
light, than one of these renegade prelates steps forward to throw dust in
the eyes of the Christian West. They know well that to a certain class
of mind there is something comfortable in the very name of bishop. They
trade upon the saintly spell which throws a halo of veracity round any
lies they may invent to shield their patrons or themselves. Ill-founded,
indeed, seem the complaints of the rayah when his bishop comes forward
to confess, from a Christian love of truth and justice—but with how much
laudable reluctance!—that the wrongs of his too blatant flock are purely
imaginary, and that, if anyone has been aggrieved, it is the honest, the
moral, the merciful, the tolerant, Osmanlì![256]
As an useful sedative we have taken a Bosnian bath, and found both
building and ceremony deliciously Oriental. We entered to find ourselves
under a spacious dome, pierced with a constellation of star-like
openings, which shed a dim religious light on marble pavements, and ogee
archways and niches. In the centre a fountain, playing into a marble
basin, glittered and twinkled in the artificial starlight, and faintly
echoing with a cavernous murmur through vault and corridor, not only
added a refreshing chill to the atmosphere—cooled already by exclusion of
sunlight and the marble walls—but seemed to let in a sense of coolness
by the ears. Here a venerable Turk came up, and beckoning us to follow
him, led us up a flight of steps to an airy gallery opening from this
cool vault, where was a divan with couches for our repose. Hence we
presently emerged, attired, like the Turks about, in decorous togas and
turbans, convertible into towels, and with clogs on our feet, clattered
awkwardly through the spacious _Frigidarium_—how the whole brings to
life the luxurious days of ancient Rome!—and thence, after passing
through an antichamber still cool, plunged into the _Calidarium_ with a
vengeance. This was a domed chamber of equal dimensions with the first,
from which opened several lesser rooms swelling into cupolas above. But
we were so suffocated with the hot steamy atmosphere, that it was not
till after we had been seated by our attendant Turk on a daïs in one of
these side-vaults, that we recovered breath sufficient to take stock of
anything. Just behind us, from a leaden spout fixed in an ogival niche
in the wall, gushed forth a hot fountain into a marble basin, out of
which, after much patient endurance of preliminary sudation, we were
basted by our minister. Then succeeded excoriation by a rough gauntlet
that served as strigil, then we were well lathered, and so the process
was repeated till a final douche of cold water from a wooden bowl gave
the signal for girding ourselves once more and making our way through
the cool chamber—tenfold refreshing now!—to our couch. Here, in the same
turban and light attire as himself, we accompanied a Turk in _dolce far
niente_ tempered with fragrant mocha and cigarettes—though sherbet is
equally proper as a beverage, and a narghilé would perhaps have been more
decorous. The whole process, including the time spent in recovering from
our first succeeding lassitude, lasted about an hour.
Thus re-invigorated, we renewed our exploration of the streets of
Serajevo—this time accompanied by a gorgeous consular guard. Besides
the baths there are other fine stone buildings here, and the Bosniac
countryman gapes with as much wonderment at the domes of the two chief
mosques as an English rustic at first sight of St. Paul’s. Of these two
Dzàmias, or greater mosques, one, the Careva Dzàmia, is the work of
Sultan Mohammed, who conquered Bosnia; and the other, the Begova Dzàmia,
owes its foundation to Khosrev Beg, her first Vizier. This latter is the
largest, and externally, with its central dome, subsidiary cupolas, and
its portico in front, preserves faithfully enough the characteristics
of its Christian Byzantine prototypes. Before it is a plot planted with
trees, and containing a stone font filled with the purest water for
the _ghusél_ or religious lustrations. In the porch are two monolithic
columns of brown marble, taken from an earlier Christian church:
here, too, is a shrine or chapel, in which is a gigantic sarcophagus,
containing the bones of the founder, and a smaller one containing those
of his wife—both, especially the former, strewn with costly shawls by the
hands of the pious. The interior of the mosque is plain and whitewashed,
except for the texts of the Koràn upon the walls, and gay Persian carpets
strewn upon the pavement. There are two pulpits, one for ordinary lessons
and sermons; the other a loftier perch used on Fridays for reading the
prayer for the Sultan; and in the wall may be seen a square stone, the
_Kiblà_, which marks the direction of Mecca. But we ourselves were
advised not to enter, owing to the dangerous spirit of fanaticism abroad;
so these details are gathered second-hand.[257]
Besides her mosques, Serajevo boasts two _Bezestans_ or ‘cloth-halls,’
usually one of the chief public buildings of a Turkish city. The
larger of these includes a court, surrounded by cloisters, and with a
fountain in the middle; but from the outside you can see little of the
building except some stone cupolas, as the wooden shops of the market
are built against its walls. Inside we found ourselves wandering along
stone arcades vaulted above and bayed at the side with semi-circular
recesses, in which the wares are displayed. They consist mostly of
cloths; and though light is deficient, the brilliance of the effect is
astonishing—the rich display of drapery might recall a street of Ghent
in the Middle Ages! Round the Bezestan are crowded the narrow streets
of the _Caršia_ or market—by exploring which you can arrive at a fairly
exhaustive knowledge of the industries of Serajevo. There was not such
a jumble of wares here as in the smaller towns of Bosnia. Shops of a
similar kind succeeded each other in a row, or sometimes monopolised
a whole street. Here was the blacksmiths’ street, with a display of
colossal nails, and a large assortment of the elegant bosses of Turkish
door-handles with their knocker-like appendages. Another street was
sacred to harness-makers and sellers of horse-trappings; in a third was
a double arrangement—a lower row of boot-shops conveniently level with
the ground, while, as a roof above the opanka-sellers’ heads, ran the
counters of crockery-merchants, with a charming variety of _testjas_
and other water jars—so that foot and mouth could be suited at the same
moment! Another street resounded with the hammers of coppersmiths,
moulding their metal into coffee-pots or platters; here were rows of
salt-merchants, or we came upon a group of armourers’ shops—to-day
ominously thronged—bristling with knives and swords of the famed Bosnian
steel. In the smaller Bezestan were many second-hand goods, and amongst
them magnificent flint-locks of antique form, with stocks richly inlaid
with mother-of-pearl and golden arabesques—the masterpieces of the old
workshops of Prizren. Near these might be seen gun-flints such as have
been described already—the best quality of those imported from Avlona.
But the part of the bazaar which interested us most was the goldsmiths’
quarter. Here sate a whole street full of cunning artificers, pinching
and twisting the precious metals—but chiefly silver—into brooches, beads,
rings, and ear-rings of filigree work—charming, both from its intrinsic
elegance and from its clearly marked Byzantine parentage. The Serajevan
work, pure and simple, though not without merit, is somewhat coarse, and
we were pleased to find that the more graceful flowers of silver-work had
been engrafted on the rude Bosnian stock by the taste of an English lady.
Mrs. Holmes, the wife of our hospitable Consul, brought over some of the
chefs-d’œuvre of Maltese filigree-work and set these as models for the
smiths of Serajevo, who have so profited by the lesson that they are now
almost able to compete with the productions of the more refined Italian
artists. The Serajevan work has not, however, degenerated into mere
imitation: certain native characteristics are still traceable in the new
style.
Yet our Consul complained that, as regards skilful workmanship, the
incapacity of the Bosniacs was great even compared with the Asiatic
provinces of Turkey. In Kurdistan, for example, he found no difficulty in
obtaining articles of furniture—sofas, and so forth—of European elegance,
by simply supplying patterns to the native upholsterers; but here, when
he tried to do the same, people laughed at the very idea! The only
carpenters here are Austrians settled in Serajevo.
The motley groups of citizens of different denominations which one
comes upon in the streets of Serajevo are at least as Oriental as the
wares. Here is a kind of happy family of Turks, Jews, Heretics, and
Infidels. It will be noticed that the Mahometan women of the capital are
not so rigorously veiled as those of the provincial towns—Travnik, for
example. Those of the better condition here are infected with Stamboul
fashions, and now and then you will see a Mahometan lady pass in her
flowing peach-coloured silk, and a veil so transparent that she might
just as well have discarded it altogether. As we descend in the social
scale, modesty increases, and I will not deny that many of the Serajevan
women, with their long white shrouds, bear a certain resemblance to
Lot’s wife after her metamorphosis; though with reluctance it must be
confessed that we sometimes saw a nose or even an eye! It is amusing to
watch the gradual transformations of the little Mahometan girls here.
How charming was the little maiden opposite!—with her pale green vest
and flowing pink—can they be really pantaloons?—with her childish beauty
peeping forth from beneath a scarlet fez—and so demure, too, for all her
gorgeousness! But by the time she is eleven the transitionary process
will begin; for a while she will content herself with wrapping a cold
white mantle round her head and her pretty dress—for a while you may
still catch a glimpse of her face and the border of her fez—and then—the
cocoon!
[Illustration: BOSNIAN TYPES AT SERAJEVO.
JEWESS. ROMAN CATHOLIC. MAHOMETAN SCLAVES. TURKISH PRIEST. PRAVOSLAVES OR
‘SERBS.’]
To the left of the group before us will be observed two Jewesses
belonging to the wealthiest part of the Serajevan population. There are
in this city about 2,000 Jews, descendants of those who, in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, took refuge from the persecutions of the
Catholic rulers of Spain within the dominions of the more tolerant Grand
Signior. But they still look back with a certain regretful longing to
the adopted land of their forefathers. Although they can speak Bosniac
to outsiders without an accent, they still converse among themselves
in a language which was that of Spain in the days of their expulsion;
and the pure Castilian of the Knight of La Mancha, antiquated in its
mother-country, is still to be heard in the streets of Serajevo![258]
They have a pride in those old days, and like to keep fresh their
remembrance. Their Chacham-bashi, or head Rabbi, serves his friends with
confection made of white of eggs and sugar, called ‘Spanish bread,’ as
a kind of memorial feast. But they cling with even warmer zeal to their
old Hebrew rites and customs, and are so intolerant of innovation that,
not long ago,[259] one of their leading merchants here was excommunicated
for letting his wife wear long hair and dress herself in European
fashion! She might well have contented herself with the coiffure of
her co-religionists; for, if too wanton tresses are curtailed, _en
revanche_ they wear a most gorgeous head-dress. We had seen in the bazaar
some tasteful discs of embroidered work—flowered with a humming-bird
brilliance of design—which we took to be meant for small mats, till we
found that they were worn at the back of their heads by Jewish women.
These Jews are the richest people in Serajevo, but alas! this is not
simply due to their commercial talents. It is unfortunately too true that
a few years ago these astute Israelites made nearly 100,000_l._ out of
Austrian and German houses by a system of fraudulent bankruptcy. They
act as treasurers and interpreters to the Turkish authorities in Bosnia,
and use the power thus acquired to amass further gains often not less
ill-gotten. They are also the chief bankers here, and the only usurers.
They are as dirty as their gains, and almost as degraded physically as
morally. That they are also undersized may possibly be connected with
the fact that they will only marry within their community. On the other
hand Miss Irby[260] states that ‘their poor are exceedingly well cared
for, and a Jewish beggar is never seen. No Jew is ever accused of murder,
theft, or violence, or found in Turkish prisons, except on account of
debt.’
The other members of our happy family are the Bosniacs of the Greek
Church—the Serbs or Pravoslaves, as they style themselves. Of these
there are about 6,000 in Serajevo, and they approach the Serbs of the
Free Principality in dress as well as in name. They show, as may be
seen, a great variety of head-dress—sometimes the hair plaited round a
central fez _à la Serbe_—sometimes light white muslin drapery—sometimes
a fez stuck coquettishly on one side, from which descends what looks
like a cascade of black hair flecked with golden spray, and of such a
length as to fall about the hips. It needs close inspection to detect
that this is really black silk interwoven with gold thread; so that the
Serbian maidens of Serajevo may be congratulated on adding a cubit to
their tresses! They further embellish their hair with flowery sprays,
and, on high days, both fez and bosom with a barbaric superfluity of
jewellery—especially coins. They carry their fortune about with them,
and a Bosniac girl is admired in proportion to the number of coins that
spangle her! Perhaps the same may be seen elsewhere under a civilized
disguise, but here it is paraded with all the naïveté of the savage!
‘What a pretty girl!’ enthusiastically exclaimed a Bosniac, in the
Russian Hilferding’s hearing; and on his asking with surprise what the
Serajevan might find to admire in a flat nose and a decided squint:
‘What? Don’t you see? There are ducats there to last a lifetime!’ But
there is one kind of beauty which even the Bosniacs can admire, and that
is—fatness! A fat[261] girl is here synonymous with a beauty.
The character of the Christian merchants of Serajevo is, perhaps,
sufficiently indicated. They are, in truth, a money-grubbing, unamiable
lot, and, it need hardly be added, set their faces against culture
in every form. Next to the Jews, they are the richest class in
Serajevo—richer than the Turks, for the Mahometan is incapacitated by
his fatalistic want of enterprize from taking part in any but small
retail trades. The Serbs, on the contrary, hold in their hands most of
the external commerce of the country, for which Serajevo is the natural
staple, being the meeting-place of the main roads leading to Austria,
North of the Save, Dalmatia, and Free Serbia, and being situate on
the caravan route to Stamboul. But they do not make use of the wealth
thus obtained either to elevate themselves or to aid their oppressed
countrymen who lie outside the pale of consular protection. On the
contrary, they form themselves into an exclusive caste, not only standing
apart from the miserable rayah, but even pooh-poohing his cry of agony
when it happens to stand a chance of being heard by Foreign Consuls
or the Turkish Governor. Is it likely, indeed, that they should do
otherwise, with such a spiritual guide as the Fanar Metropolitan?
Just as characteristic of a narrow-minded bourgeoisie is the way in which
they set their faces against any attempts to better their education. A
few years ago a Serb of Serajevo, who had amassed what for a Bosniac was
a fortune, as a merchant at Trieste, left a considerable sum of money
to be applied in erecting a good school for the Pravoslave community
here, on condition of a certain additional sum being subscribed by the
Serajevan merchants. The Pravoslave community at large seem to have
received the tidings of this generous bequest with sublime contempt; but
one or two individuals, who hoped to profit by it as teachers, took the
matter up and sent a circular to the European Consuls in the name of
the whole Serb community, stating that that body ‘feeling the want of a
good education for their sons, and wishing to carry out the design of
their benefactor, solicited the aid and patronage of the representatives
of enlightened Christendom.’ This sounded very fine. The Consuls took
the matter up. Mr. Holmes represented it to the English Government, and
though nothing could be given officially, Lord Clarendon very kindly
forwarded 30_l._ on his own behalf. Then the bubble burst. The Pravoslave
community held an indignation meeting, in which they disavowed the
circular of these interested enthusiasts for education: protesting that
their children were well enough taught at home, and that a new school
they did not want, and a new school they would not have!
Two other most prominent classes of Serajevan society call for mention.
One is the Board of Health, whose business it is to keep the streets
comparatively clean. The members of this sanitary staff exercise their
unclean office at night, when they patrol the streets in troops—and the
offal which they then pick up is their only food! At this season these
scavengers, who are perpetually falling out among themselves, raise such
a terrible hubbub as murders sleep to those unused to their rowdiness.
Moreover, it is hardly safe to walk across the street after dark, for
these gentry will patch up their own quarrels and unite to assault the
unwary foot-passenger; and, though they have no other weapons than those
wherewith nature has endowed them, such is the ferocity of their onset
that I have myself seen a Turkish soldier forced to keep these guardians
of the public health at bay with his sword. They do not wear either fez
or turban (so far as we were able to observe), and in this they differ
from the generality of Turkish officials; but they are uniformed in
a coarse hide of a muddy buff-colour, disfigured with mangy patches,
usually out at elbows, and tattered by reason of their nocturnal brawls,
in which they show themselves so transported with passion as to tear off
each other’s ears. By day they are very _lazzaroni_, and are to be seen
in the streets (their only home), lying across the path or roadway on
their stomachs—truly a disgusting spectacle. It is a custom not to be
transgressed, that both the passers-by, and even waggons, should move
out of their way while my lords are taking their repose; and it goes
ill with him who should kick, or even, without hostile intent, stumble
upon the prostrate sanitary officer, since he and his fellows—a score of
whom (you may be sure) are ready at hand—are quick in taking the law into
their own hands. Nor can their insulter expect either aid or pity from
the bystanders; for the citizens, rightly considering their profession
as necessary to the public health, invest their person with a certain
sanctity; and, doubtless, were these brutish scavengers expelled by one
gate, pestilence would stalk in by the other.
Then there is another class of functionaries with whom the streets
of Serajevo, and one in particular, are literally swarming, and who
are even more brutal than this precious Sanitary Board. These are
the Zaptiehs—call them, if you please, gendarmes, police, enlisting
sergeants, soldiers, tax-collectors, executioners—for they are
Jacks-of-all-trades. They are the factotums of the Mahometan government—a
terrible engine in the hands of tyranny—ready to execute its worst
behests. We have seen them as the instruments of the tax-farmer or the
bishop, wringing the little hoards of penury from the miserable rayah—or
playing the part of apparitors in those Inquisition scenes of torture.
These are the hired bravoes who live at free-quarters in the Christian
villages; rob, violate—and in many cases murder—whom they will. There
are of course exceptions; and their worst offences are nothing to the
infamy of the Government which lets loose ignorant fanatics among a
population whom their creed teaches them to count as dogs, and which
leaves them, without pay sufficient for their bare subsistence, to
plunder those whom they nominally protect. When in the presence of
Europeans they usually possess tact sufficient to keep on their good
behaviour; but from the atrocious scenes of which I myself was a witness
at the Christian pilgrimage, their conduct, when freed from any restraint
of foreign surveillance, may be faintly imagined. Those who have had
most acquaintance with the country described them to us as ‘covering
the land like a blight.’ Though there are enough of them in Serajevo
in all conscience, we were assured that the number at present here is
smaller than usual, since many have been sent out to collect the Redìf
or reserve, and many have been hastily draughted into the soldiery.
To-day a gang of these commissioned bandits has been scouring the country
with orders to seize thirty horses, but they have only been able to lay
hands on a couple. The Government exercises the right of seizing horses
at need. Nominally it is only a loan, but the peasants rarely see their
beasts back, and dare not hope for recompense of any kind; besides which
the owner is often impressed himself as kiradjì or driver, without
receiving a penny for this _corvée_. This forced labour and seizure of
horses was one of the most crying wrongs of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian
rayahs, and one of the many causes of the revolt. How inveterate must be
that misgovernment which continues to sow the wind at the very moment
that it is reaping the whirlwind!
Here, at least, affairs are becoming hourly more ominous. We hear tidings
of a Christian victory near Novipazar, which means that the single road
connecting Bosnia with the rest of Turkey is seriously threatened.
Isolated tales of bloodshed and massacre form the common topic of
conversation. A Serb cuts the throat of a Turkish Mollah near Mostar;
the Christian is hanged; his friends surprise a party of Mahometans in an
inn, and massacre them to a man; the cry for vengeance is now caught up
by the Turks, and so the tragedy developes. Such details are revolting,
but they give a true picture of the reign of terror which is setting in.
To-day a large number of Austrian women, the wives of artizans beyond the
Save, are leaving the town.
This evening, our last in this city, a strange atmospheric phenomenon
seemed to shadow forth the uncertainty of all around. In the afternoon
it began to pour, and at first the clouds, as they shifted hither and
thither, threw the mountains, that frown around the city on every side,
into strange and novel reliefs. Then they sank lower, till they hung like
a pall above mosque and minaret, and shrouded even the ‘nodding hills’
around in impenetrable gloom—half cloud, half mountain. The city alone
stood out with clear and well defined outlines in the livid half-light,
but the mist literally lapped its outer walls, and so thickly, that
a foe might have approached to the very entrance of the town without
possibility of detection. It was, indeed, portentous of the present
state of Serajevo; nothing but the present certain; her nearest future
overclouded; forebodings of internecine struggles within; the sulphurous
vapours of civil and religious war rising around her—doubly awful in
the uncertain light of rumour. ‘It is the beginning of the end,’ said a
foreign representative to us; ‘do not be surprised if you are surveying
the last days of Ottoman rule in the Serai.’
CHAPTER VII.
FIRST GLIMPSE OF THE HERZEGÓVINA.
Talismans and Phylacteries—Connection between the Geology
of Illyria and her Cabalistic Science—Roman Gems, and
Altar of Jove the Thunderer—Amulets against the Evil
Eye—On our Way again—The Gorge of the Želesnica—Pursued
by Armed Horseman—Sleep under a Haystack—Chryselephantine
Rock-sculpture—Wasting her Sweetness on the Desert Air!—Mt.
Trescovica—The Forest Scenery of Mt. Igman—Transformations
of the Herb Gentian—Reminiscences of the Karst—No Water!—A
Race against Night—Strange Bedfellows—A Bosnian-Herzegovinian
House—We encounter Bashi-Bazouks—Cross the Watershed
between the Black Sea and Adriatic—First Glimpse of the
Herzegovina—Signs of a Southern Sky—Coinica, the Runnymede
of the Old Bosnian Kingdom—Great Charter of King Stephen
Thomas—Our Host: the Untutored Savage—Absence of Nature’s
Gentlemen—Democratic Genius of Bosniacs and Southern
Sclaves—The Narenta and its treacherous Waters—Iron
Bridge—Entertained by Belgian Engineer—Murder of young
Christian by two armed Turks—Trepidation of our Host
and Preparations for Flight—Touching Instance of Filial
Affection!—A Village of Unveiled Mahometans—_Rhododactyls_:
Darwinianism refuted at last!—The Tragic Lay of the Golden
Knife—Magnificent Scenery of the Narenta Valley; Amethystine
Cliffs and Emerald Pools—A Land of Wild Figs and Pomegranates.
_Aug. 24th._—This being our last morning in Serajevo, we thought it
prudent, taking into account the troublousness of the times and the
perils that might beset our further pilgrimage, to have recourse to
those magic arts, in which the Moslems of this city show themselves
so proficient. To this end we have devoted the forenoon to ransacking
the shops of the silversmiths, who chiefly traffic in such wares, for
amulets, and stones of divers virtues; and, assuredly, if there be aught
in ‘mystic cabala and spells,’ we may consider ourselves secure from evil.
When the Turks knew for what we were looking, they brought out strange
caskets, and opened many a hidden drawer, that they might set before us
gems and talismans of antique form. And many of these turbaned sages who
had not such wares to impart for filthy lucre, yet, that they might hold
before us, as it were, a beacon wherewith to guide our footsteps in the
path of true philosophy, would display to us the rings and periapts that
they wore on their person, or would take out potent stones from their
wallets for our perusal. By this means we obtained much instruction
in the cabalistic science of these true believers. Much virtue lies,
it would appear, in the character of the stone itself, and a red
carnelian carried about the person, or set in a signet ring, is held
as potent an amulet as any. ’Twas a stone like this that the Princess
Badoura wore in a purse attached to her girdle. When the curiosity of
the luckless Camaralzaman prompted him to open this, he found therein
‘a red carnelian, engraven with unknown figures and characters.
“This carnelian,” says the prince to himself, “must have something
extraordinary in it, or my princess would not be at the trouble to carry
it with her.” And indeed it was Badoura’s talisman or a scheme of her
nativity drawn from the constellations of heaven, which the Queen of
China had given her daughter as a charm that would keep her from any harm
as long as she had it about her.’
Many of the stones were simply signets for rings, and derived their
virtue merely from their material—red carnelian or blood-stone. These
signets, however, not unfrequently were engraved with stars or a branch
of mystic import, besides the Arabic name of the bearer. The talismans,
pure and simple, are generally to be distinguished from simple seals
by the writing not being reversed. To obtain such stones was naturally
difficult, but I secured one, a red carnelian, engraved with the
cabalistic words ‘_Excellence belongs to God_,’ and another mysterious
charm—a blood-stone with monogrammatic spells which no Arabian scholar
has yet been able to decipher for me—arranged in a Solomon’s seal. Ami
Boué, who was struck with the number of charms used by the Mahometans of
these parts, notices among the inscriptions on them, ‘_the servant of
God_,’ ‘_I trust in God_.’ Many curious parallels might be cited among
the posies of old English rings.
It is interesting to notice the repute in which the blood-stone is held
here for these sigils and talismans. Those who are familiar with Gnostic
gems will remember how often this stone, as well as the carnelian,
appears engraved with the names of Iao, or Abrasax, or others of that
mysterious race of genii. I have myself seen several Gnostic gems of this
character from the Roman sites of the Illyrian coast land, and indeed
cannot refrain from hinting a suspicion that there may be something
more than a chance connection between the abundance of such charms in
ancient and in modern Illyria.[262] Those who recognize how much the
Mahometan Sclaves of Bosnia have preserved of their earlier Christian
superstitions will hardly think it improbable that part at least of their
wide-spread belief in the potency of such charms may be an inheritance
from Præ-Turkish times.
To answer such questions with confidence more evidence is needed. This,
however, is certain, that the present abundance of such charms in Bosnia
is partly due to geological causes, being favoured by the presence of
stones adapted for the manufacture, in some of the Illyrian valleys.
We saw many such stones vended on the bridges of Serajevo by itinerant
pedlars—an abundance of rudely cut carnelians, blood-stones, amethysts,
agates, and rock crystals—intended not only for sigils and amulets,
but also for purposes purely ornamental. It was the abundance of such
stones that made Illyria—as I hope to point out later on—the seat of a
regular manufacture of Roman gems. These seem to be found in considerable
abundance on all Roman sites in Illyria; and even in Serajevo, where
there are no remains of Roman habitation beyond a solitary votive
inscription to the Thunderer,[263] we noticed several classic gems
scattered among more modern talismans and signets. One which I succeeded
in purchasing is a masterpiece of ancient art. The stone is a sard of
a deep red colour, on which is engraved a faun holding an amphora on
his shoulder; the proportions are perfect, and the whole so exquisitely
engraved, that not a flaw in the execution can be detected even with the
aid of a strong magnifying-glass.
The Prince of the Isles of the children of Khaledan was not more troubled
when the bird of ill-omen snatched the blood-red carnelian of Badoura
from his grasp, than is a Bosniac who has lost or broken his talisman.
At Jablanica, in the valley of the Narenta, we heard of a Turk who a few
days before had broken his amulet-ring. The poor man’s terror was piteous
to see, and fearing that the injury to his charm portended that some
terrible misfortune would overtake him, or that at least his hours were
numbered, he immediately set out on a ten hours’ journey to Mostar, that
the injury might be repaired by cunning artificers.
Not that this belief in charms is by any means confined to the Moslems of
Bosnia. The Christians are equally given to it, and I saw some cabalistic
gems with crosses and inscriptions in Cyrillian characters. The sale of
amulets and charms, written on small slips of paper, is in fact a regular
source of income to the Franciscan monks of this country, so much so
that they no longer take the trouble to write their spells, but have
called in the invention of printing to aid the Black Art! ‘At the present
day,’ writes M. Yriarte, ‘it is no secret that the printing of these
little cards is a recognised branch of industry with certain typographic
establishments at Agram and Zara.’[264] The spells consist of verses of
Scripture disposed in the same cabalistic fashion as verses of the Koràn
among the native Mahometans; they are folded in the shape of a hat and
suspended in a small wallet round the neck of the rayah, who looks to
his purchase for protection against the Evil Eye and infernal spirits!
If the Franciscan monks take a leaf from the Koràn, the Moslems on their
part return the compliment; and it is not the least curious trace of
the lurking _penchant_ for the faith of their fathers betrayed by some
of the descendants of the Bosnian renegades, that at times Mahometans
have been known to send their amulets to the Franciscan monks that their
blessing might lend an additional potency to the charm.
Among the Mahometans here scrolls containing verses from the Koràn are a
very favourite amulet, and the modern Bosniacs show themselves as prone
as the Pharisees of old ‘to enlarge their phylacteries.’ Sometimes these
sacred excerpts are sewn into the dress, sometimes hung round the neck,
or attached to the arm. One of our Zaptiehs showed us his, enclosed in
a leathern case, in much the same manner as in a specimen which I have
seen from Egypt. This was fastened round the upper part of his arm—a
thoroughly Eastern mode of wearing amulets—if I may be allowed once
more to call in evidence Prince Camaralzaman, who, on recovering dear
Badoura’s carnelian, ‘having first kissed the talisman, wrapped it up in
a ribbon, and tied it carefully about his arm.’
But of periapts those that took our fancy most, and of which we took
care to lay in a goodly store for our own use, were certain necklaces
or amulets from which were suspended carnelian arrowheads. Of these
there was a regular traffic, and we saw large bunches of them hung up
for sale in the larger bezestan; on enquiring their use, the merchant
who sold them informed me that they were a most valuable and potent
charm against skin diseases—in an Oriental city not an unimportant
consideration—and insinuated, as a minor attraction, that if I wore them
I need never be afraid of warts. I have seen exactly similar charms in
Bulgaria, and others from Arabia, which are worn by the Arabs ‘as good
for the blood’—so that their cutaneous virtues are widely appreciated.
The Serajevan merchant said that they were imported from India—and,
indeed, the Ganges may almost be said to have flowed into the Save! But
the miniature arrowheads of these amulets command as high an interest
from their form as from their Indian origin; and the sanctity with which
superstition has invested what was once the everyday weapon of mankind,
is one of the many proofs of the antiquity of that Stone Age which
preceded the period when Bronze was the only metal known to mankind, and,
at a remoter distance, this blessed Age of Iron.
[Illustration: Arrowhead Charms.]
We heard of other charms suspended round horses’ necks, though I am not
in a position to describe any of these. But perhaps the most curious
amulets were those worn by children against the Evil Eye. Here are some
that we succeeded in carrying off. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, are of lead,
severally representing a hare, a fish, a crested serpent, a tortoise.
No. 5 is the claw of an eagle or some kind of bird, and No. 7 the
horns of a stag beetle; both of these are mounted in tin sockets. No.
6 is a rude face carved in jet. These are fixed on the child’s fez, or
elsewhere about the person, and the object served is to avert the first
stroke, or as the Italians say the _Gettatura_ of the Cattiv’ Occhio;
this first stroke being alone considered fatal. It is for this reason
that the amulets against its malign influence are usually of bizarre
forms, in order to attract the _Gettatura_ to themselves. But the natural
objects—notably the animals, representations of which are used for this
purpose here—are extremely interesting, inasmuch as they very strongly
suggest a continuity with the amulets against the Evil Eye in use in
classic times. Thus, on ancient gems the eye is seen surrounded by a
lion, a hare, a dog, a scorpion, a stag and a serpent.[265] There is,
besides, a well-known class of Roman brooches in the form of fishes, the
animals mentioned above, and others, which may, one would think, with
great propriety be looked on as nothing but amulets of the same kind,
and many of which bear a striking resemblance to these Bosnian charms.
Nor is this superstition, any more than the others, at all confined to
the Mahometans of Bosnia; it is universal among the Serbs, who, it is
said,[266] find great deliverance from the evil effects of the Cattiv’
Occhio by touching iron or looking at blue objects, and the Franciscan
spells already described are chiefly directed against this same malign
influence.
[Illustration: Amulets Against the Evil Eye.]
Having now fortified ourselves to our satisfaction with these and
many talismans of virtue, and being supplied by our kind hosts at the
Consulate with a store of wheaten bread, Bologna sausages, and eke
Sicilian wine, we bade farewell to our friends at Serajevo, and set
forth on foot once more. It was our intention to make our way as best
we could to the Herzegovina over the wild ranges to the West, and, as
the best line of attack on our mountain citadels, made for the gorge of
the Želesnica over the foot of lower hills. About an hour from Serajevo
we passed the last trace of comparative civilization. This was a
brewery recently established by two Austrian settlers, with one of whom
we conversed whilst discussing a glass of very fair German beer. The
poor man was in a great state of trepidation. Only the day before his
brother brewer had made off for the Austrian frontier, taking with him
his family, and our host himself was preparing to follow his partner’s
example as soon as he could get his effects together. ‘It’s not the
Insurgents,’ he said, ‘that I’m afraid of—it’s only the Turks. You can’t
believe what cut-throats those Bashi-Bazouks are!’
This was hardly inspiriting for ourselves, nor did our prospects seem
more brilliant when, an hour or so afterwards, in a lonely part of the
Želesnica valley, to which we had now descended, we heard a hue and cry
behind us, and turning round saw a ferocious horseman armed to the teeth,
clattering after us on a gorgeously caparisoned steed. Our infantry
thereupon formed, and the cavalry halted a few paces off. Whereupon our
dragoon, who, from the sumptuousness of his arms, must have been a Beg
at least, roared out to us some commands, in which the insolence alone
was intelligible. Thereupon we continued our march, resolved to pay no
attention to the insults of the foe; but seeing that he hung about our
flanks, and that his general demeanour was becoming momentarily more
hostile, we made such an unmistakable sign that we had been sufficiently
honoured by his company that he thought better of the matter and beat a
retreat. There is one weapon which in Bosnia serves as efficiently for a
passport as the Bujuruldu of the Governor-General!
We were in a certain amount of anxiety lest the enemy should renew his
attack with reinforcements, but the valley grew wilder and the darkness
was rapidly closing in to hide our position. Further up the stream we
passed those two monuments, one with a crescent moon engraved upon it,
which have been already described—and the position was one which the
persecuted Bogomiles might well have chosen. Towards dusk the valley
widened out a bit, and we perceived a village a little higher up; but
not wishing to run the risk of letting our whereabouts be known, and
infinitely preferring the open canopy of heaven to the vermin-ridden
shelter of a Bosnian cabin, we sought out some other resting-place for
the night, and soon discovered eligible quarters among some haystacks in
a meadow by the side of the stream. These haystacks were of a peculiar
form, being composed of small sheaves of hay skewered on an upright pole,
but they afforded very welcome shelter from the night breeze; so that
after taking our tea and an evening meal of simple contrivance, we lay
down and slept sound enough till dawn.
_Aug. 25th._—We had breakfasted and were on our way again by half-past
four next morning, and the light of the rising sun revealed to us a most
beautiful cliff of rock, as it were of ivory veined with gold, rising
above our encampment. After passing the straggling village of Jablanica,
which we had seen the night before, the valley contracted, and we were
forced to climb along a rocky steep overlooking the torrent on the left.
The mountains on each side grew higher, wooded with small oaks, thorns,
and beeches, with here and there a brilliant Colossus of rock in the same
chryselephantine style; while the stream below, pent up in so precipitous
a gorge, naturally waxed more boisterous, and dashed from one emerald
pool to another, flaked with snow-white foam. But our steep quickly
became so impassable by reason of rocky bastions, that we were forced to
relinquish our design of following the water-course, and in preference
ascended the mountain whose flank we had been hitherto hugging. We made
our way upwards with difficulty through the tangled brushwood, and from
this summit descended once more through the stunted oaks, intending
to steer for a hilly ridge running south-west towards Mt. Bielastica.
Chancing, however, to hit on a path more or less in our direction, we
followed it, and found ourselves before long at a small Christian hamlet
consisting of two or three huts, each, as usual, in its paled enclosure.
Here we found some peasants—men in long white tunics, women with dress
and coiffure of Serbian fashion—all of whom were very friendly, and
hastened to satisfy our thirst with sour milk. One of the girls, in the
bloom of her age, was really beautiful. Both her hair and eyes, shaded
with eyebrows low and broad, were dark, and, in the refinement of her
features, the pale olive of her complexion, softly contrasting with
her raven tresses and sparkling sombreness of eye, there was a charm
almost Italian—had it not yet been eminently South-Sclavonic. She seemed
as amiable as she was lovely, and was evidently recognised as a belle
even in her small circle; for she alone, we noticed, was possessed of
ear-rings. Her comeliness was indeed the _beau idéal_ of Serbian fancy;
but I should hardly have drawn attention to it here, were not really
transcendent beauty so rarely seen among these uncultured South-Sclavonic
peoples, perhaps one might say, among the barbarous members of our
Aryan family generally. In a highly civilized society like our own, the
proportion of Peris—if I dare generalize—is greater; but, on the other
hand, if anyone wishes to find examples of the deepest human degradation,
he must search, not among the mountain homes of the oppressed rayahs of
Bosnia, but rather in the alleys of one of our great cities. With us the
gamut of beauty is greater.
But it is high time to take a fond farewell! so, leaving this flower of
the Bosnian highlands ‘to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the
desert air,’ we began ascending our ridge, and finding another path,
came, an hour or so further on, to a leafy canopy supported by four
poles, beneath which squatted two venerable Mahometans with sage and
hoary beards. We recognised the signs of a rustic _café_, and taking
our seats on a convenient grassy bank, refreshed ourselves with sundry
fragrant cupfuls, the while much delighting our ancient coffee-maker and
his fellow with an exhibition of English hunting-knives. We soon after
reached the summit of the ridge, and following it along a succession
of down-like lawns, gained, from its southern-most bluff just above
the Priesnica torrent, a fine mountain panorama, and in especial a
good view of the limestone precipices of Mt. Trescovica (which here
forms the boundary between Bosnia and Herzegovina), frowning over lower
forest-covered heights. So sharp was the contrast between the bold curves
and contortions of the light limestone rock and the softer contours and
verdant shades beneath, that one could fancy that the green undulations
of the Planinas round had at one point burst into foaming billows; and,
indeed, the mountain crest seemed to curl over as to imitate a breaking
wave,—but alas! how flat is the poetry of nature when reduced to black
and white by a prosaic pencil!
[Illustration: Mount Trescovica, from South-Eastern Spur of Mount Igman.]
We now wanted to make our way into the Narenta valley over the north-west
shoulder of Mt. Bielastica, but were turned out of our course by the deep
gorge of the Priesnica, and thought it best to ascend the south-eastern
promontory of a largish range known by the name of Mt. Igman—though
the title covers a multitude of peaks. The scenery now became more
beautiful than ever, though profoundly lonely, save here and there for a
beautiful black squirrel leaping from branch to branch, or a huge brown
vulture floating through the azure overhead. The steeps up which we now
made our way were covered with forest more varied in its composition
than those of Troghìr and Vučia. Beech, as there, was the predominant
tree; but oaks and thorns, dark firs and pines, glaucous ashes and
fountainous birches—often so happily blended and grouped as to transcend
the planter’s art—disputed the sole dominion of the queen of the forest.
The trees were perhaps hardly so large, as a rule, as those we had seen
in the mountains of more northern Bosnia, but we noticed one pine no less
than eighteen feet in circumference at a yard from the ground. Another
speciality of this forest-mountain was that the trees were not so thickly
crowded, and grew more freely. The sovereign beech has no need to gird
herself so closely, but can stretch out her queenly arms, and spread far
and wide her leafy flounces without fear of her robes being pressed and
crumpled by the crowd. Glades are here more frequent, and ever and anon a
charming lawny break would open a vista through the trees, and we caught
a glimpse of the distant ridge of Bielastica.
[Illustration: Mount Bielastica from slopes of Mt. Igman.]
We reached two summits of the mountain we were on, the first by our
aneroid 4,350 feet above sea-level, the second 4,560. About these
summits, which were less wooded than the lower regions, we found a
variety of flowers, recalling the flora of our chalk downs—the yellow
snapdragon, the scabious, white as well as mauve, and the heartsease,
though larger and of a richer purple, much as we remembered them on
our own Chilterns; and here, as there, the chalk-hill blue seemed the
commonest butterfly. But besides these we noticed rosy sweet-williams and
autumn crocus, with its double trinity of lilac petals—iris-like—a design
for a gothic window. On one summit, gained earlier in the day, we found
a curious bulbous plant with a tall stalk and drooping purple bells,
each curving down on a separate stem like a pigmy snake’s head;[267] and
some mountain lawns shone blue as the sky above, with a wondrous thistle
whose leaves as well as flowers were tinged on their upper surface with a
bright azure.
But what surprised me most, was to see the Solomon’s seal-like flower,
which we had noticed in all the Bosnian forests, bristle up erect
and stiff on the breezy mountain summit, after undergoing such a
transformation that I should not have known it for the same plant had
not I marked the gradual transition. It was now for the first time that
I identified the mysterious floral weeping-willow, which had delighted
us so often, with an old friend—the autumn gentian. As we descended
the mountain we watched the transition with astonishment. The flowers,
instead of circling the upright stem in a perfect coronal, crept to the
upper side of it as it gradually declined. The leaves and bells grew
larger—the stem as much as two feet long—till in the damper parts of
the forest the whole was once more transformed into what looked like
Solomon’s seal with tall azure cups stretching upwards from the back of
its drooping stem—a perfect emblem of hope in sorrow.
But a curious feature in the mountain formation began to make itself
painfully felt. There was no water. All the streams ran below ground.
Vale and mountain were alike pitted with those inverted-conical
hollows—the _Dolinas_, which we remembered in the limestone wilderness
of Carniola—that terrible Karst. These circular hollows are nothing but
swallow-holes, formed by the water in its passage to the caverns of its
underground course. And so it happened that we were forced to climb on,
hour after hour, through the mid-day heat of a Southern sun, without
discovering a drop to drink. Our intense thirst rendered us so desperate
that we willingly forsook our proper course to plunge into deep gorges in
the forlorn hope of finding water. But it was invariably to find that all
our labour had been wasted, and that we must climb upwards once more and
seek elsewhere. Three times we thought that we had succeeded, and as many
times we were disappointed; twice what we hoped to be drinkable turned
out to be a filthy pool, almost too bad for cattle; once, however,
we thought to have procured some from a shepherd whose temporary hut
had attracted our attention from a height above. The poor man went and
fetched us a bucket of liquid, but it was green slime! At last, about
four in the afternoon—after eight hours of hard struggle since the coffee
which we had quaffed at the roadside shed—almost fainting with drought
we found, in a moist part of a track that we had hit on, some mules’
footprints, in which some of the rainwater from the storm of the previous
day was still standing. This we eagerly sucked up through a hollow
hemlock stem; and, though the beaker was novel, were much refreshed.
But what with our frantic searches after water and vain attempts to find
a pass which exists nowhere but on the Major’s map, we had diverged very
seriously from our right direction; and, on reaching a mountain edge,
we discerned ourselves far out in our bearings, and far too much to the
north-east. Two thousand feet below us we descried an inhabited country,
and, delicious sight! a stream; and though night was closing in, and
both my brother and myself are subject to the inconvenience of being
night-blind, we resolved, if possible, to descend to this friendly valley
before darkness set in. It was a race against night; but we literally
bounded down, and striking on a shepherd’s path, were able to run the
rest of the way, and descended two thousand feet and were quenching all
the thirst of the day in the crystal stream, within half an hour from
the time when we reached the mountain edge. A peasant whom we here met
conducted us to a Han on the high road a little way off, and we found
ourselves under shelter exactly sixteen hours after our start in the
morning, during which time we had given ourselves hardly any rest.
[Illustration: Plan of Bosnian Han.]
_Aug. 26th._—Our Han was a miserable little hovel, consisting chiefly
of one room, which served at once for kitchen, squatting-room, and
bedchamber, in which we slept on a wooden daïs amongst a lot of ragged
Turks; but travellers must expect strange bed-fellows—and after all,
our chamber was comparatively flealess. We found that we were on the
high road which connects Sarajevo, with Mostar, the capital of the
Herzegovina, but on the wrong side of the pass, and about seven hours’
walk from Coinica, the first town in the duchy of St. Sava, and our this
day’s destination. We stopped on our way to refresh ourselves at a Han,
of which I give a plan and elevation, in order to convey an idea of the
ordinary cottage in this part of Bosnia: for the dwelling-houses are
like the inns, except that their entrance arch opens on to the yard and
not on to the road. The lower part is, as usual, reserved for horses and
cattle. Making your way through these stables you ascend a ladder in
the middle and emerge above on a central hall, at once guest-room and
kitchen, with a divan at one end round a bay window open to the air,
and the rafters above literally tarred by the smoke which rises from a
chimneyless hearth of flat stones. The external walls here are of stone—a
Herzegovinian characteristic.
We now ascended the pass which here forms the watershed between
the Black Sea and the Adriatic, and on our way met a party of
Bashi-Bazouks,—according to all accounts the most serious danger that
we were liable to meet with. They stopped us; but by great good fortune
there happened to be a regular officer with them who understood our pass,
and explaining its purport to the others, suffered us to pass on amidst
commendatory ejaculations of ‘_Dobro! dobro!_’—‘Good! good!’ This piece
of luck we attributed not only to the amulets on our person, but to the
herb _amulet_, or cyclamen, which bloomed in the crevices of the cliffs,
and a few of whose delicious flowers we had plucked, and with great
forethought carried with us. The summit of the pass was, according to our
observations, 3,080 feet above sea-level. Just here we had another slight
adventure, for entering what we took to be a new Han, we discovered on
reaching the upper storey that it was a Turkish watch-tower—one of the
block-houses hastily run up on the outbreak of the insurrection. The
soldiers, however, justly concluding that none but friends would plunge
thus boldly into their midst, showed themselves very friendly, and gave
us water, which we asked for, to drink. We met some other parties of
volunteers, but were not molested.
[Illustration: First Glimpse of the Herzegovina.]
As we descended the pass towards the valley of the Narenta, the scenery
became grand and beautiful. To the left rose the grey limestone
precipices of Bielastica, above the nearer forest-covered heights. The
base of the mountain forms a wooded slope; above this succeeds a barren
glacis of talus, and above this again tower the perpendicular walls of
the mountain-citadel itself (for it looks uncommonly like an ancient
fortress), with here and there magnificent bastions and even round-towers
of rock, relieving the rugged-level line of the citadel walls. To the
right of us rose another nearer wall of rock, along whose surface our
roadway had been hewn out, in places not without engineering skill.
This cliff was of a schistose formation, stained of the most brilliant
varieties of hue—rich browns of every shade, a golden orange and a rose
so deep and decided that we invoked the neighbouring cinnabar mines of
Creševo in order to account for it. In places, again, the rocky wall was
formed of sombre slate, but it too could take exquisite hues of lilac in
a favourable light, and as we descended lower into the valley the rocks
grew white as chalk. Below us was the deep gorge of a torrent, and
on its further side the strata were in places knotted and grained and
gnarled, like the roots of an old oak-tree.
[Illustration: View of Coinica.]
Now, at a turn of the road, opens our first glimpse of the ancient duchy
of St. Sava—or, as it is now more generally known, the Herzegovina—a
magnificent vista of rocky mountains rising beyond the yet unseen valley
of the Narenta, their dark blue shadows golden-fringed by the setting
sun. The trees become more southern in their character; here and there
are fine Spanish chestnuts; on a height to the right are the pines of
an Italian landscape; wild vine becomes plentiful once more; we pass a
Herzegovinian peasant in a peaked cap of Dalmatian character; and finally
come in sight of Coinica, the first Herzegovinian town, with mosque and
minaret reflected on the silvery waters of the Narenta; and behind, in a
glorious amphitheatre, those barren limestone peaks, which, stretching
away in unbroken chains to the Black Mountain on the south-east, form the
Switzerland of Turkey, and are ringing even now with the battle-cry of
freedom.
Across the river, and connecting the few houses on the Bosnian shore,
known as Neretva, with Coinica on the other, is stretched a fine stone
bridge, the finest we had seen in Bosnia, and indeed the only one that
we had seen outside the walls of the capital. This is one of the oldest
historic monuments in the country, and is said to have been the work of
Hralimir,[268] King of the Serbs, though it has doubtless been restored
by the Turks. Thus it is a living witness of the ancient connection
between Bosnia and Serbia, in its wider sense, with which the history of
Herzegovina, originally under Serbian princes, begins; and it forms a
fitting avenue of approach to Coinica itself, which is celebrated in the
history of the Bosnian kingdom as the scene of one of the few peaceful
events in that unhappy national story that have become memorable. Coinica
was in a certain sense the Runnymede of Bosnia. At the ‘Conventus’ or
diet of Coinica in 1446, Thomas, last lawful king of this country,
set his seal to a charter, which, though rather framed to protect
royalty and the feudal _régime_, was in this sense a popular measure,
that it was designed to check violence and abuses in days of anarchy,
and that it was presented to the king for signature by an assembly of
prelates and barons, who in a certain sense were representative. Its
preservation is due to monks of the order of St. Francis, one of whom
supplied a Latin copy of it to Farlato, who was thus able to insert
it in his ‘Illyricum Sacrum.’[269] As we are on the spot, and as this
is an unique constitutional memorial of the old Bosnian kingdom, and
illustrates amongst other things the relation in which the two countries
on whose borders we now are stood to one another in the days of Christian
government, I have ventured to subjoin a translation:—
We, Stephen Thomas, by the grace of God, King of Rascia,
Servia, of the Bosnians or Illyrians, of the parts of Primorie
of Dalmatia and of Croatia, commit to memory, by the authority
of these present, to all whom it may concern as hereinafter
ordained.
In an Assembly, holden by us in our land of Coinica,[270] and
in our Congregation General,[271] all our faithful vassals,
prelates, barons, Voivodes, and elders,[272] and all elected
nobles of all the counties of our realm treating of those
things which pertain to the peace and well-being of our realm:
these foresaid elders, amongst other praiseworthy ordinances,
set before us and presented certain articles hereinafter set
forth, humbly praying that we would think well to confirm the
articles aforesaid:—
_Firstly_—That the Manichæans[273] build no new church, nor
restore the old.
_Secondly_—That goods given to the Church be not taken away.
_Thirdly_—That if any one slay a man, let him by royal judgment
be cast into prison, and let his goods be divided into two
parts, one part to be forfeited to the king and one part to the
kinsmen of him slain.
_Fourthly_—That when the councillors, secretaries, Voivodes,
and counts of the royal court,[274] are chosen, they must
solemnly swear oath to the king.
_Fifthly_—That the Duke[275] of St. Sava be not lawful duke
unless he be chosen by the king of Rascia, Serbia, and
Illyricum. After election let him swear oath to the king’s
majesty. But if he presume to exercise office without taking
the oath, the king’s majesty shall punish him.
_Sixthly_—That incestuous and the corrupters of kinspeople be
punished.
_Seventhly_—That the betrayers of fenced cities[276] and of
their lords pay the penalties of their treason; and also the
utterers of false money.
To the perpetual memory and confirmation of which things we
have sanctioned the constitutions written in this Charta by the
setting on of our great seal: by the will and counsel of the
lords, prelates, Voivodes, and elders of the whole kingdom.
Given at Coinica, and written by the most reverend father in
Christ, lord Vladimir Vladmirović, bishop of Creševo and of the
Narentines, of the Greek rite, secretary of our court,[277]
and doctor of Greek letters and laws,[278] our beloved and
faithful, in the year of our Saviour 1446.
Here follow the names of the signataries. At the head the Papal
Nuncio, the Inquisitor-General, and Vicar of Bosnia. For the
Greek communion the Metropolitan of Dioclea, ‘patriarch of
our realm,’ a series of bishops and Minorite fathers, and the
Vladikas of the Greek rite. At the head of the lay vassals
is the respectable and magnificent Stépan, Duke of St. Sava,
with his sons; our dear brother the Ban of Jaycze, Radivoj
Vladmirović Count and Judge of our Court, Stépan Vlatković
our councillor and Ban of Ussora, John Covačić, Voivode of
our parts of Dalmatia, Peter Paulović, Voivode of Glasinac,
and master of our dish-bearers,[279] Paul Kubretić Voivode of
Zvornik and master of our cup-bearers, and ‘many other Voivodes
of our kingdom holding Voivodeships and honours.’
The cry is peace, and there is no peace! There is a pathos in these short
enactments—the voice of national despair sounding faintly down the avenue
of time.
The crops have already been trodden down beneath the troops of Turkish
horsemen. The foe is at the gates, and anarchy and treason reign within.
The discordant parties and turbulent nobles seem at length to realise
that Bosnia must unite or perish. For a moment the bans forget their
mutual feuds, and the bishops of both churches agree as brothers. Let the
murderer no longer be unpunished; let Holy Church no longer be robbed
with impunity; let the great barons of the land cease to disown their
fealty to their sovereign; let some restraint be put upon the corruption
of family life; let the coinage no longer suffer debasement. The Grand
Inquisitor himself sets his seal to an act by which the hated Bogomiles
are accorded comparative toleration. But it is all too late. Already the
national treason shows symptoms of beginning, and it is found necessary
to insert a special enactment against those betrayers of fenced cities.
The impending national catastrophe seems to overshadow this High Court of
Feudal Bosnia, just as even now in the still evening air the shadows of
yonder mountains are creeping over the mosques and minarets of Coinica,
and spreading a pall over the tents which the Turkish soldiery have
pitched on the Bosnian bank.
One cannot wonder that Coinica was chosen as the meeting-place of the
lords spiritual and temporal of Christian Bosnia. The situation on the
one pass which connects the heart of Bosnia and her present capital with
the duchy, and the magnificent bridge which here spans the Narenta,
make it the key to the Herzegovina; and even the Turks have shown
themselves so alive to its strategic importance that on the outbreak of
the insurrection one of the first cares of the government was to secure
the position by posting here a division of troops, whose tents we now
descried on a height above the Narenta, as—after a short and satisfactory
audience with the Kaïmakàm, whom we interviewed in a house which he was
building on the Bosnian shore—we crossed the bridge, and, entering
Coinica, find ourselves in the old duchy of St. Sava.
Here, after some difficulty, we have discovered a Han—or rather a loft
above a stable—and the attendance is certainly in keeping with the
place! We are waited on by a turbaned youth, who is a very good specimen
of the untutored savage, as he exists in Bosnia at the present day. He
comes into our room and gapes at us while we are eating; he takes up
our scrap of wheaten bread—a _bonne-bouche_ which we had brought with
us from Serajevo—and fingers it complacently. When we ask for water,
this child of nature snatches up the pitcher, and before handing it to
us takes a good pull at the spout himself! Since then he has stared at
us persistently, with interludes of spitting about the floor. We have
hinted in every possible way that he is _de trop_—but to hints our young
barbarian shows himself quite unapproachable—till at last all our respect
for the sanctity of a host fairly breaks down, and we rid ourselves of
our incubus by the magic word _Haiti_!
Nature’s gentlemen the Bosniacs certainly are not! There is not here
that surviving polish of an older civilization—that inheritance of
refinement which one traces amongst the Italian peasants, and which the
traveller meets with even among the Rouman shepherds of the Carpathian
wilds. The Bosniacs, on the contrary, show themselves grossly familiar
when not cowed into bearish reserve; they have not even sufficient tact
to perceive when their impertinence or obtrusive curiosity is annoying.
They show no delicacy about prying into our effects, and in this respect
are far behind the Wallacks and other uncivilized European populations
with whom I have come in contact. They never displayed gratitude for
any small largess that we bestowed on them, though they grabbed at it
with avidity; and their general ingratitude was confirmed by those who
have had more experience of the country. Amongst the Mahometan burghers
there certainly is a very considerable amount of politeness and a natural
dignity, due to the grand Oriental traditions with which their conversion
to Islâm has imbued them, to which I willingly pay homage. But among the
Christians, even of the highest social strata, the want of politeness and
that ungenerous vice of mean spirits—ingratitude—are simply astounding.
It has already been mentioned that when the new Serbian cathedral was
being built, the Russian government presented the Greek congregation of
Serajevo with a magnificent set of icons and other church furniture. This
costly gift was sent carriage free as far as Brood; but from this town
to Serajevo the cost of transport, amounting to at most a dozen or so
ducats, fell on the Christian merchants of Serajevo, who, on their own
showing, are the wealthiest part of the population of a large city. Will
it be believed?—instead of paying the money at once and with pleasure,
they entered a formal protest at the Russian Consulate against defraying
this trifling expense! The Russian Consul was profoundly disgusted.
But I should be guilty of passing a very shallow judgment on the
sometimes too obtrusive familiarity of these people if I did not point
out that it is but an unpleasant phase of what is really one of the
most valuable qualities preserved by the Bosnian people in the days of
bondage. It is part and parcel of a democratic habit of mind common to
the whole Serbian, and indeed the whole South-Sclavonic race. It is
the representative in conversation of those primitive social relations
which hold throughout all these lands within the common yard of the
house-community, and have survived alike the imported feudalism of the
Middle Ages, and the Turkish conquest. In these Illyrian lands I have
often been addressed as ‘_brat_,’ or brother, and the Bosniacs are known
to call the stranger ‘_shija_’—neighbour. I, who write this, happen
individually not to appreciate this ‘_égalitaire_’ spirit. I don’t choose
to be told by every barbarian I meet that he is a man and a brother. I
believe in the existence of inferior races, and would like to see them
exterminated. But these are personal mislikings, and it is easy to see
how valuable such a spirit of democracy may be amongst a people whose
self-respect has been degraded by centuries of oppression, and who in
many respects are only too prone to cower beneath the despot’s rod: for
one need not be enamoured of liberty coupled with equality and fraternity
not to perceive that, when the choice lies between it and tyranny,
freedom, even in such companionship, is to be infinitely preferred; and
a man must be either blind or a diplomatist not to perceive that in
the Sclavonic provinces of Turkey the choice ultimately lies between
despotism and a democracy almost socialistic.
_Aug. 27th._—There was nothing to see in Coinica except the bridge and
a mosque or two, so we were again on our way this morning, following
the road along the Narenta valley. The scenery much reminded us of
the valley of the Izonzo as you descend southwards across the Julian
Alps. The whiter and more barren rocks: the signs of a more southern
climate in the ripe grapes and what vegetation there was, as well as
in the intense heat of the sun over our heads: the houses, no longer
of wood, but of white stone,[280] almost tower-like, with high stone
stairs outside—recalled one after the other the metamorphoses which had
struck us on a former pilgrimage when emerging on the stifling valleys
of Gradisca from the Predil Pass. And assuredly the Narenta flowing
beside us was as emerald green in its transparency as ever those Sontian
pools which feasted Dante’s eyes when the guest of Pagano della Torre.
The Narenta in its upper course is very dangerous to bathe in, since
the current is not only very rapid, but has short cuts by underground
caverns which form whirlpools not easy to detect in the general
turmoil of the surface waters, but which are capable none the less of
occasionally sucking down into earth’s bowels some of the enormous trees
which are seen to float down this river. We, however, discovered a safe
and sheltered pool of this wonderful blue-emerald purity, in which we
disported ourselves while the soup of our mid-day meal was brewing on the
shore.
Towards evening, still following the road, we began to leave the Narenta
valley, and to cut off a great bend of its course by zigzagging over some
heights. Here we passed some sick and wounded Turks _en route_ from the
scene of war, and other soldiers with them, but our pass again stood us
in good stead. The heights above the road looked more desolate than any
we had seen, as the brushwood had been set on fire, apparently to prevent
the enemy from advancing unperceived and perhaps surprising a convoy, so
that, as we passed, volumes of smoke were rising above us from blackened
thickets. From the summit of this pass opened out a grand view of naked
mountain peaks. Rapidly descending we came once more upon the Narenta
at a point where a party of Turks, under the direction of a Belgian
engineer, were using their best endeavours to complete an iron bridge
across the river.
The Belgian engineer, who had been kindly told by consular agency to look
out for us, received us with open arms, and hospitably offered us the
shelter of his tent for the night. He told us, as a good illustration of
Turkish _laisser-aller_, that the bridge, which had been brought here at
a large expense from England, had lain for two years on the river bank
without being set up. At last the outbreak of the insurrection harshly
aroused the authorities to a sense of their negligence; and now the work
has to be pushed on with the greatest hurry imaginable, as the bridge is
becoming every day more indispensable for the transport of cannon and
other heavy munitions and supplies into the Herzegovina. The workmen
employed are only Mahometans, but there are some booths hard-by for
the sale of raki and provisions, kept by a small Christian colony. The
Belgian himself lodged at the Mahometan village of Jablanica, a little
further down the valley, whither we presently accompanied him to accept
of his hospitable shelter.
As we were walking towards this our engineer pointed to a part of a
maize-plot on the roadside to the right, where the maize was slightly
trodden down. ‘Do you see that?’ he asked; ‘perhaps you would like to
know how the maize got trodden down there?’
He then recounted to us the following narrative, which, coming from an
eye-witness, served to enlighten us considerably as to the amenities of
Turkish rule.
It must be prefaced that at the present time no one can go from one
village to another without being provided with a _teskeri_ or Turkish
pass, and that it was one of the functions of the Belgian engineer,
as head of the Road Commission, to examine and set his _visé_ on
the _teskeris_ of all who passed along this road. A few days ago a
young Herzegovinian Christian—a fine young fellow, according to the
Belgian—stopped at his tent and showed his pass, which proved to be
quite _en règle_, and was _visé’d_ by the engineer accordingly. He then
proceeded on his way with a light heart, but as he was passing by the
booths which I have mentioned near the bridge, two Turks—not officials
or soldiers of any kind, but armed nevertheless—came up and insolently
demanded to see his _teskeri_. This they had not a shadow of a right to
ask for; but the young fellow, knowing that in this country might is
right, did not hesitate to comply, and handed his _teskeri_ for their
examination. Thereupon the two Mahometans, who could not read a syllable,
swore that the whole thing was wrong, and seizing hold of the young rayah
began to drag him along, crying out to the Christians at the booths that
they were taking him off to the Road Commission.
But they had not proceeded far when they suddenly fell upon him, and
hauling him off into the maize where we had seen it trampled down,
butchered him with seven blows from their _handshars_, one of which half
cut through his neck. They then made off in broad daylight, making their
way through the Christians and others whom the young fellow’s cries were
bringing to the scene of the tragedy—not a soul daring to lay a hand on
the murderers, who were also Turks! The Belgian, who was in his tent,
had been also roused by a loud ‘_Homaum! homaum!_’ as he expressed the
cries, and coming out, found the young rayah, who had succeeded in
crawling to the road, past human assistance.
The Belgian at once sent for Zaptiehs to arrest the murderers; but by the
time these functionaries were on their way the birds were flown. At any
rate they never arrested them—but it is well known that Zaptiehs often
let felons escape on purpose, if they are true believers.
When I say that since this event the Belgian has been in a state of
painful agitation, I am but feebly expressing the state of mind in
which we found that unfortunate official. His colleague, an Italian,
has already made off—and the poor man himself has been exercising his
engineering sagacity in planning the nearest route over the mountains by
which to escape to the Dalmatian frontier. He had collected his effects,
and was ready to start at a moment’s notice. He thought he could reach
the border at the nearest point in ten hours. He was most afraid of
the Bosniac Mussulmans, and especially of the Bashi-Bazouks; and when
we suggested that he, being in the Turkish service, ought at least to
feel secure, he assured us that this was not sufficient to restrain the
fanaticism of the native Moslems, who regard the office of an engineer
with pious horror, and curse the new-fangled iron bridge whenever they
pass it, as the devil’s handiwork! His fears were so genuine that he
dared not walk as far as the bridge—just five minutes off—without an
escort of Zaptiehs!
The engineer’s funk, however, did not prevent him from providing us with
a most satisfactory repast, consisting of _pili_, eggs, and fried slices
of gourd, which are excellent. He told us that had it been earlier in the
summer it would not have been safe to sleep in his tent, as this spot,
as well as the whole Narenta valley, is infested in June with snakes
and scorpions. During that month the peasants dare not go about with
bare feet, as they like to do at other seasons; and indeed, though the
dangerous season has passed, we have noticed that the people about here
are more swathed as to their legs than ordinary Bosniacs.
_Aug. 28th._—This morning our Belgian, who was hardly reassured by the
news which we brought from Serajevo, has suddenly discovered that he has
a pressing engagement at Trieste—to meet his mother—and hands us a letter
to the Vali demanding ‘a temporary leave of absence’—his sole object of
course being to visit the old lady. We were much touched by this display
of filial affection.
The heat being again cruel, we secured the luxury of a horse to carry our
knapsacks to Mostar, the destination of our to-day’s trudge; and, while
waiting for the due equipment of our beast in the yard of our Mahometan
_Kiradjì_ or driver, we have leisure to observe a most curious phenomenon
in the costume of the female Moslems of this district. In every other
part of Bosnia and the Herzegovina the veil is _de rigueur_ with the
wives and mothers of the faithful. But here at Jablanica, and in this
part of the valley of the Narenta on both sides of the spot where the
little river Rama[281] debouches into it, the Mahometan women discard
their _yashmak_[282] with one accord, and not only show themselves
before strangers of the other sex bare-faced, but do not blush to hold
converse with them. It is true that even here they display on occasion
a certain shyness of male regards; and the Belgian warned us that, if
looked at too curiously, they did not confine themselves to a prudish
_Haiti!_ but were known to vindicate their modesty with a volley of
stones. We, however, were never saluted after this fashion, the fair
Mahometans contenting themselves at most with turning away their faces
from the passing Giaour.
But while waiting in our Kiradjì’s yard, we were treated with far greater
condescension by the womankind of his family. The yard itself was very
unlike the stockaded prison-court of our earlier Bosnian experiences.
Here, instead of the tall palisade which as a rule so effectively screens
the members of the harem from the public gaze, was simply a low stone
wall; and while we were contemplating the dwelling-house, built, like
the yard wall, of the rough limestone of the country, and admiring the
elegant ogival windows, out came an old Mahometan dame and two younger
women—the mother, we conjectured, and two daughters of the house—and
calmly took stock of us with faces unveiled, and without the slightest
sign of bashfulness. They smiled, and we smiled, and though our stock of
Bosniac was limited, we made ourselves intelligible to one another by
means of the universal language of signs, and in this fashion carried on
a very edifying conversation. As the old lady was particularly desirous
of trying on our spectacles, we hastened to gratify her wishes; and as
we were particularly anxious to see the carnelian and other rings of
virtue that adorned their fair fingers, they obligingly held out their
hands for our perusal. We were pleased to see the finger-nails of these
would-be _Houris_ stained with rosy henna—a fond reminiscence of the
wings, which, as every true-believer knows, Eve lost little by little
when driven forth beyond the gate of Paradise. Here, at last, we have
Darwin defeated on his own ground! Preposterous to suppose that these who
still show traces of the rainbow plumes wherewith their first angelic
fore-mother was wont to flutter—that these _Rhododactyls_—should be great
granddaughters of hirsute gibberers!
From the waistband of these dutiful daughters of Eve knives and keys
were suspended by a short string, on which were strung a variety of
quaint objects, which we were gracefully accorded permission to examine
more closely. They proved to be a selection of large beads of antique
fabric—some apparently Venetian, one certainly Roman; and intermixed with
these were the vertebræ of some small animal—possibly worn as amulets.
The clasp-knife itself, or _Britva_ as it is called, attached to this
chatelaine, is an interesting feature of the national costume of Serbian
women. These are sometimes of the most gorgeous workmanship, inlaid with
gold and mother-of-pearl, and are alluded to in the popular poetry.
Thus in the tragic poem entitled ‘The Stepsisters,’ which Sir John
Bowring has translated, Paul arouses the jealousy of his wife by
presenting his sister Jélitza with
A knife, in silver hafted,
And adorned with gold.
Thereupon Paul’s young wife resolves to ruin Jélitza. She slays her
husband’s black courser and his grey falcon, and accuses her stepsister
of the deeds. Jélitza, however, both times succeeds in persuading Paul of
her innocence, and Paul’s wife must resort to a yet blacker crime. One
fine evening she steals away her stepsister’s knife, and slays with it
her own and Paul’s baby. At early dawn she rouses her husband, tearing
her cheeks, and shrieking in his ear,
Evil is the love thou bear’st thy sister,
And thy gifts to her are more than wasted:
She has stabbed our infant in the cradle!
Paul rushes to his sister’s chamber ‘like one possessed by madness;’
finds ‘the golden knife beneath her pillow.’ ‘It was damp with
blood—’twas red and gory!’ Poor Jélitza, protesting in vain her
innocence, is tied by her infuriated brother to the tails of four wild
horses.
But where’er a drop of blood fell from her
There a flower sprang up—a fragrant flow’ret—
Where her body fell when dead and mangled,
There a church arose from out the desert.
Meanwhile a curse lay on the murderess—
Little time was spent, ere fatal sickness
Fell upon Paul’s youthful wife—the sickness
Nine long years lay on her—heavy sickness!
’Midst her bones the matted dog-grass sprouted,
And amidst it nestled angry serpents.
Which, though hidden, drank her eye-light’s brightness.
In vain she seeks to shrive herself in her sister’s church. A mysterious
voice arrests her at the portal, and warns her from the spot, ‘for
this church can neither heal nor save thee.’ In her agony she implores
her husband to bind _her_ too ‘to the wild steeds’ tails, and drive
them—drive them to th’ immeasurable desert!’ Paul listens to her
entreaties, and binding her to the wild steeds’ tails, ‘drove them forth
across the mighty desert.’ But—
Wheresoe’er a drop of blood fell from her,
There sprang up the rankest thorns and nettles;
Where her body fell, when dead, the waters
Rushed and formed a lake both still and stagnant.
O’er the lake there swam a small black courser:
By his side a golden cradle floated:
On the cradle sat a young grey falcon:
In the cradle, slumbering, lay an infant:
On its throat the white hand of its mother:
And that hand a golden knife was holding.
The knives, however, of our friendly family were not of such costly
material, the crescent-shaped handle being simply of horn studded with
brass bosses. Of other ornaments they displayed on their girdle the usual
twin circular brooches, and on their hair an array of gilt coins. Their
dress in many respects much resembled that of the rayah women, for they
wore the two characteristic aprons; their heads were coiffed with the
same light kerchiefs; and one woman whom we met on the road had this
head-dress arranged with a flowing white tassel gracefully depending
at the side, in the same fashion as the Latin Christian maiden of the
Possávina, whose portrait has already been given.[283] But further
description of our unveiled Mahometans is needless, as their complaisance
was such that they allowed me even to sketch them.
But, one naturally asks, how came these Moslem dames and maidens to go
about unveiled in this single district of a country where the injunctions
of the Koràn in this respect are usually carried out to the letter? I do
not think that anyone who surveys the naked rocks that tower above this
part of the Narenta valley—who marks the dearth of pasture for cattle,
and who realizes how little land there is for cultivation even beside
the streams—can be long in doubt as to the true cause of this omission.
Here there is a lawgiver more exacting of obedience than the Prophet
himself. Amidst this limestone wilderness Nature reigns supreme, and will
be obeyed. A voice that cannot be mistaken bids women as well as men go
forth to their work and to their labour until the evening. All hands are
needed to stave off starvation, and it is essential to the women that
they should have the free use of eyes and limbs to aid their brothers,
husbands, and fathers. The struggle for existence is too hard to admit of
any of the combatants cumbering themselves with the impedimenta of any
ceremonial law whatsoever. ’Tis the pitiless clutch of hunger that has
dragged even the Moslem women from the seclusion of the harem; and they
have cast away their veils and swaddling-clothes that they may glean a
bare subsistence in the desert!
[Illustration: Unveiled Mahometan Women at Jablanica.]
Perhaps the absence of veils may be partly due to the influence of the
surrounding population, which is mainly Christian. In any case it would
probably be more accurate to say that the Mahometans of this district
were incapacitated by their surroundings from ever taking the veil of
Islâm, rather than that they threw it off after assuming it; and to
look on their present costume rather as an old Bosnian relic which
has survived their renegation of Christianity. But this does not make
the assertion less true, that the inexorable code of Nature has here
over-ridden the Koràn.
But we are once more on our way, and as we descend the Narenta valley,
about an hour from Jablanica, the mountains close in upon us and scenery
of the most stupendous character engrosses our attention. The view at
this point is recognised as the most magnificent in the whole of Bosnia.
The road itself[284] is hewn out along the face of a precipice, and the
magnesian-limestone and dolomitic cliffs on either side of the gorge
rise in places three thousand feet[285] sheer above the Narenta, which,
chafing and foaming, hurries passionately through the narrow mountain
portal below. The whole was seen at a time of day when everything looks
most fresh and lovely, lit up with the slanting rays of the rising sun,
throwing into alto relievo the vast rock-sculptures of Nature, and
glorifying her heroic forms. Above, peak after peak of topaz stood out
against the pale azure of this cloudless Southern sky; but no intrusive
shaft of gold—even from a Phœbean quiver—could penetrate the twilight of
the gorge itself. Here all was softened into a pervading lilac, veined
with an intenser purple by infinite striations of strata, till the bare
mountain-walls—bathed in this floating light—seemed to be hewn out of
amethystine agate, and afforded the most exquisite contrasts to the
liquid emerald of the river below. The cliffs along whose surface we were
now making our way were veiled in darker shadow, snow-white against which
expanded a living fan of feathery spray from a stream that gushed forth
in full volume, and of glacier coolness, from a cavern in the rock.
We crossed over to the left steep of the river by an iron bridge—another
English importation—and for many hours were still threading this wondrous
pass. We had indeed passed the _Iron Gates_ of the Narenta, but there
was still much to admire in the scenery. The high mountains continued,
though they ceased to frown abruptly over the river. Lean naked giants
they were: ribbed skeletons, thinly clad with stunted foliage, though
in places still yellow with dwarf laburnum shrubs. The rocks were
perpetually starting up into castles and towers, sometimes a quaint
mediæval castle suggesting a background of Albert Dürer, but oftener more
Roman in their architecture; towers, square and round, which from the
narrow horizontal laminations of the rocks reproduced with surprising
exactness the appearance of ruined masonry, and rugged lines of ancient
brickwork that called up visions of the time-scarred walls of Anderida.
About these ruins of an older world clustered, in place of ivy, the
tender sprays of wild vine laden with unripe beads, or here and there
a beautiful bind-weed with capacious chalices of pink, as large as
Convolvulus major.
As we descended further down the pass, the rocks assumed a glaring
chalky whiteness—rather painful to the eyes—but like most things in
nature, not without redeeming effects peculiar to itself. Perhaps, too,
it was artistically right that everything around should become barer and
plainer, that nothing might distract the eye from enjoying the marvellous
beauties of the river. This was always the same liquid emerald, mottled
with snow-white foam, and shading off into it, as when the gem, it
imitated so well, freezes into its quartzite roots. Now and again the
river would plunge into a deep circling pool—forming a dark blue-emerald
eye, which paling off among the golden pebbles of the shallows, looked
like nothing but some gorgeous peacock’s plume modulating its rainbow
colours in the breeze.
Everything around us began to betoken a more Southern climate—the heat
was almost tropical, and a lurid haze covered the whole face of the
land. On the rocks grew pink cyclamen and a beautiful purple salvia;
amongst the trees were Spanish chestnuts and wild figs, and nearer
Mostar fine rosy pomegranates, which look like quinces blushing at their
monstrosity, and grow on a shrub that reminded us of a homely privet. In
the gardens of the few stone cots we saw are delicious ripe grapes and
golden figs, and we began to understand why it is that the Herzegovinian
contemptuously calls his Bosnian brothers _Slivari_, ‘munchers of plums!’
CHAPTER VIII.
MOSTAR AND THE VALE OF NARENTA.
Amulets against Blight—A Hymn in the Wilderness—We arrive
at Mostar—Our Consul—Anglo-Turkish Account of Origin of
the Insurrection in the Herzegovina—The real Facts—The
‘_Giumruk_’—The Begs and Agas and their Serfs—The Demands
of the Men of Nevešinje—Massacre of Sick Rayahs by
Native Mahometans begins the War—Plan of Dervish Pashà’s
Campaign—Interview with the Governor-General, Dervish
Pashà—Roman Characteristics of Mostar and her Roman
Antiquities—Trajan’s Bridge—Ali Pashà, his Death’s-heads and
Tragical End—The Grapes of Mostar—Start with Caravan for
Dalmatian Frontier—A Ride in the Dark—Buna and the Vizier’s
Villa—Bosnian Saddles—A Karst Landscape—Tassorić: Christian
Crosses and interesting Graveyard—Outbreak of Revolt in
Lower Narenta Valley—The Armed Watch against the Begs—A
Burnt Village—On Christian Soil once more—Metcović—Voyage
Down the Narenta Piccola—Ruins of a Roman City—The Illyrian
Narbonne—Metamorphosis of Sclavonic God into Christian
Saint—The old _Pagania_—The Narentines and Venetians—Narentine
Characteristics—A Scotch Type—Subterranean Bellowings near
Fort Opus: the Haunts of a Minotaur!—Adverse Winds—Tremendous
Scene at Mouth of Narenta—_La Fortuna è rotta!_—Our Boat swept
back by the Hurricane—A Celestial Cannonade—Sheltered by a
Family-Community—Dalmatian Fellowship with the English—Stagno—A
romantic Damsel—Gravosa, the Port of Ragusa.
About two hours and a half from Mostar the pass opened, and our way lay
across a broader part of the Narenta valley, overlooked by the mountains
at a more respectful distance. Here, passing a cottage, we noticed the
poles of the fence that surrounded the adjoining maize-field adorned with
an array of equine skulls. I cannot doubt that these were set up for
the same reason as induced the ancients to set up the skulls of cattle
among their corn-fields—namely, as an amulet against blight.[286] The
superstition survived in mediæval Italy, and Boccaccio tells an amusing
story of a lady who, by turning the two asses’ skulls on her garden fence
in a certain direction, telegraphed to her lover that her husband was out.
At a solitary hut called Potoci, about two hours distant from Mostar,
we took leave of our Kiradjì, who would not trust his beast any
further, since any horse that showed itself in the neighbourhood of the
Herzegovinian capital was sure to be requisitioned. Opposite the hovel at
Potoci was a small stone building, which, on enquiry, we found to be a
church. It laid no more claim to architectural elegance than a barn, and,
with its loop-holed windows, and even these hermetically boarded up, and
a door carefully barred, seemed at present more fitted for withstanding
a siege than for the celebration of divine service. Perchance, in these
troubled times, the congregation preferred to seek the high places
of nature for their worship. Indeed, whilst passing through the more
precipitous gorge of the Narenta, we had caught the solemn cadence of
a Christian hymn, chanted, may be, by some shepherd on the mountain
side; but whoever poured forth the ‘plaintive anthem’ was hidden by
distance and intervening rocks from our view; nor were the tones the less
impressive that their rudeness was thus softened, and that the singer was
‘but an invisible thing, a voice, a mystery.’
The minarets of Mostar now rose before us, the city lying on the Narenta
at a point where the mountains on each side again jut forward and
overhang the river. To the south of this the valley expands once more, so
that Mostar owes much of its importance to the fact that it is the key to
the communication between the upper and lower valleys of the Narenta;
or, to take a simile from the insect world, this city lies on the narrow
duct—the wasp’s waist—between the thorax and abdomen of the river-system.
We now made our way to the chief inn, quite an imposing stone edifice,
rejoicing in the title of the Casino, and kept by an Italian Dalmatian
on what he is pleased to suppose European principles. Our room, at all
events, possessed the first beds[287] that we had seen since we quitted
Serajevo, and is further adorned with a picture of the _Imperatore e
Rè_. Here we were presently visited by our Consul, Mr. Holmes, who is
lodging under the same roof, but had been out when we arrived, engaged in
relieving the tedium of diplomacy by practising a still more gentle craft
on the banks of the Narenta, which is a fine trout-stream.
From Mr. Holmes we learnt the official Turkish account of the
Herzegovinian insurrection—or rather the official account as served up to
suit _English_ palates; for, as was discovered by the consular body on
afterwards comparing notes, the wily Governor-General gave a different
version of the story to each of the European Consuls!
According to _our_ version the whole affair was concocted by about
forty agitators, and these not even Herzegovinians for the most part,
but Montenegrines and Dalmatians. Certainly, even the Vali allowed, the
tax-farming was a grievance—and who more laudably desirous of removing
it than he (the Pashà) himself?—but that, so far as the present rising
was concerned, it had not even this ground of justification. That
the misguided beings who answered to the summons of the professional
agitators were what are called Pandours, somewhat corresponding to the
Austrian _Grenzers_, who, in return for frontier defence, are freed from
ordinary taxes, and who, so far from being ruined by the tax-farmers,
are actually in receipt of a small sum annually from the Government.
Well, yes, there certainly have been some complaints of misgovernment,
and the Pashà, always desirous that the meanest of his (the Sultan’s)
subjects should share in the fullest measure the beneficence of his
lieutenant’s rule, had sent two Commissioners, the Mutasarìf of Mostar
and a respectable _Christian_ of Serajevo, Constant Effendi, to inquire
into the alleged grievances. But what did these Commissioners report?
Just complaints they could hear absolutely none. Thread-bare grievances,
often as much as ten years old, were raked up for their benefit, and even
these were retailed, not by the alleged victims or their families, but
by self-constituted grief-mongers! True, it might be objected that if
the insurrection was altogether devoid of just cause, how was its spread
to be accounted for? but, really, the explanation was very simple. These
frontier agitators, not meeting with sympathy from the loyal Christian
subjects of the Sultan, supplied its want by intimidation. That in many
cases the Turkish authorities had received messages from Christian
villages saying ‘We do not wish to join the insurrection, but we fear
that we shall be forced to join.’ And forced to join they were. If a
village refused to throw in its lot with the rebels, they first burnt one
house or one maize-plot, and then another, till the unhappy villagers,
forced to choose between ruin and rebellion, consented to join their
ranks. As to the way in which the insurgents were conducting the war, it
was almost too horrible to be repeated. That they would often shut up
whole families of Moslems in their houses, to which they then set fire.
That, (to take a single instance,) at Ljubinje they spitted two children
and roasted them alive before their parents’ eyes. And while relating
these and other atrocities to our Consul, the tender-hearted Pashà burst
into tears. The tears were, I believe, exclusively reserved for _our_
representative—a distinguished mark of confidence.
Dervish Pashà has a well-earned reputation for _finesse_, but this
account of the outbreak can hardly claim even the qualified merit of
being _ben trovato_! The authentic history, as elicited by the Consular
Commission of the great Powers,[288] shows very few features in common
with this official Turkish explanation. To begin with, however credible
may seem the statement that the Turkish governors of the Herzegovina
are in the habit of paying Christians to defend their frontier, and
whatever sums the Pandours may have been in the habit of receiving from
a government on the verge of bankruptcy, these considerations are beside
the point, for the focus of the whole movement has been the village of
Nevešinje, not on the frontier at all, but, on the contrary, in the
heart of the country, only a few miles from Mostar itself.
As in Bosnia, the main cause of the insurrection was the oppression of
the tithe-farmers. The case of the Herzegovinian rayahs differs, however,
in many respects from that of their Bosnian brothers. This is due to the
difference in the physical conditions of the two countries. In Bosnia
there are many tracts, like the Possávina, of marvellous fertility,
where the most extortionate government cannot so entirely consume the
fatness of the land as not to leave the rayah considerable gleanings.
Far otherwise is the case in the Herzegovina. The greater part of this
country may be briefly described as a limestone desert, and it is the
terrible poverty of the soil which makes the position of its Christian
tiller so unendurable.
Here, too, the chief product of the earth is not maize, but tobacco and
grapes, and the peculiar character of these crops enables the government
to extort a double impost on each. For the tobacco as it stands on the
ground, and for the grapes when carried off as must, the tithe-farmers
exacts his eighth in his usual arbitrary fashion.[289] But now follows
a supplementary extortion. On what remains to the rayah, after paying
these eighths, he has to pay _giumruk_, or excise. This, like the former
tax, is let out to ‘publicans’ as villanous as the other tithe-farmers,
whom they rival in their extortions. They swoop down on an unfortunate
village with their gang of retainers and Zaptiehs, and live at free
quarters on the villagers. Their business is to find out the quantity of
tobacco still growing on the stalk, and the remnant of the wine drawn
from the must which has escaped the collector of ‘the eighth;’ and their
exactions and insolence are among the grievances on which the insurgents
in their appeal to the foreign Consuls lay most stress.[290] These men
hold an inquisition on every hearth, and the right which they exercise
of intruding themselves into the inmost privacy of the rayah gives them
inconceivable opportunities for outrage.
Another of the special evils of the Herzegovina is also in a great
measure due to the physical aspect of the country. This is eminently
a peak-land. The mountains here are higher than in Bosnia, and the
strongholds of the old feudal nobility consequently more impregnable. In
Bosnia the native Agas and Begs have been to a certain extent brought
under the central government. But in the Herzegovina their authority
retains much more of its old vitality. Here the wretched rayah has not
only to satisfy the Kaïmakàms and Mutasarìfs, who represent the needs of
the Osmanlì ruler, but is at the mercy of a haughty aristocratic caste,
who eye their Christian serfs with the contempt of a feudal lord for a
_villain_, and the abhorrence of a fanatical Moslem for a Giaour.
Suffering from this double disability, social and religious, the
Christian ‘_kmet_,’ or tiller of the soil, is worse off than many a serf
in our darkest ages, and lies as completely at the mercy of the Mahometan
owner of the soil as if he were a slave. Legally, indeed, the Aga who
owns all the land is bound to enter into a written agreement with his
‘_kmet_’ as to the dues and labours to be paid him; but as a matter
of fact this petty potentate haughtily refuses to enter into any such
compact; and since the Turkish government knows well enough that its
tenure of the Herzegovina is not worth twenty-four hours’ purchase if it
were seriously to act counter to the native Sclavonic Mahometans, the Beg
or Aga can break the law with impunity. He is thus allowed to treat his
‘_kmet_’ as a mere chattel; ‘he uses a stick and strikes the “_kmet_”
without pity, in a manner that no one else would use a beast.’ Any land
that the rayah may acquire, any house he may have built, any patch of
garden that his industry may have cleared among the rocks, the Aga seizes
at his pleasure. The ordinary dues, as paid by the kmet to the landowner,
as specified in the appeal of the Herzegovinian rayahs, are heavy enough.
He has to pay, according to the custom of the various districts, a third
or a fourth part of the produce of the ground, about Mostar and the
Plain of Popovo as much as half;[291] to present him with one animal
yearly, and a certain quantity of butter and cheese; to carry for him so
many loads of wood; and if the Aga is building a house, to carry the
materials for it; to work for him gratuitously whenever he pleases, and
sometimes the Aga requisitions one of the kmet’s children, who must serve
him for nothing; to make a separate plantation of tobacco, cultivate it,
and finally warehouse the produce in his master’s store; and to plough
and sow so many acres of land, the harvest of which he must also carry
to his master’s barn. Finally, to lodge the Aga in his own house when
required, and to provide for his horses and dogs.
The insurrection in the Herzegovina has been directed more against the
Mahometan landowners and the tax-farmers than against the immediate
representatives of the Sultan. It is mainly an agrarian war.
Add to the extortion of the tax-farmers and landlords, the forced
labour which the government officials exact as well as the Agas, the
impossibility of obtaining justice in the Medjliss, the atrocious
conduct of the brigand-police or Zaptiehs, and, of course, the wolfish
propensities of the shepherd of the herd—the Fanariote bishop of
Mostar—and we have more than enough to account for the outbreak of the
insurrection without going in quest of foreign agitators.
This is not to deny that the insurrection was aided and abetted by
Sclavonic agitators from beyond the border. The solidarity between the
various members of the South-Sclavonic race has, as we heard from the
most well-informed sources, reached a pitch which demands an attention
that it has not received from the statesmen of this country. It was
inevitable that the Sclaves beyond the Turkish border should sympathize
with their oppressed brothers in their struggle for liberty, and should
aid them with supplies and recruits. Thus there are many representatives
of all the South-Sclavonic peoples from Bohemia to Montenegro fighting
in the insurgent ranks,[292] and one of their principal leaders,
Ljubibratić,[293] comes from Free Serbia. But that the insurrection was
brought about by foreign agitators is strongly disproved by the fact
that the outbreak took the Serbian Revolutionary Society—the _Omladina_
itself—by surprise.
But, it will be asked, have the Sclavonic committees and societies,
partly literary partly political, established for years at different
towns along the Dalmatian and Croatian frontiers, effected nothing? It
stands to reason that they have played their part in preparing the rayah
for the present outbreak. To their influence, no doubt, is due the fact
that among the Christians of several parts of the Herzegovina, including
the districts where the revolt first broke out, a defence organization
had already been set on foot. The rayahs of every village, who in case of
extreme oppression were ready to take arms, had divided themselves into
groups of twenty or thirty called _Čotas_, under a leader whose title was
_Načenik_. When, however, we come to enquire what induced the rayahs to
put a halter round their necks by listening to the advice of their free
brothers beyond the border, and organizing such measures of protection;
when we come to enquire what at last induced them to take up arms—then
there is only one ever-recurring answer—it was simply and solely the
tyranny of the agents of the Turkish government and the Mahometan
landlords.
Nothing shows a more hopelessly wrong conception of the whole character
of the rayah mind, than to suppose that the dull, unlettered peasants of
Bosnia and Herzegovina took up arms as the champions of Panslavism or the
‘Cosmopolitan Revolution.’ Jacques Bonhomme, of whatever nationality, is
an emphatically practical being, and a _grande idée_ is entirely beyond
his comprehension. Poor Herzegovinian Hodge did not exchange his spade
for a musket to secure Provincial Autonomy; he simply wanted to obtain a
fair share of what he earned with the sweat of his brow, to gain security
for life and limb and the honour of his wife and children, to be allowed
at least to live. How far, since the date of the first outbreak, foreign
auxiliaries and emissaries may have succeeded in infusing the refinements
of _la haute politique_ into this raw material, is beyond my province
to enquire. All that I wish to point out is that this insurrection—so
pregnant in its consequences—was in its origin Agrarian rather than
Political. It was largely an affair of tenant-right.
The outbreak of the insurrection was certainly favoured by a variety of
accidental circumstances. The visit of the Emperor of Austria to Dalmatia
in the spring could not fail to raise hopes of Austrian intervention,
and Christians of both sects did their best to lay petitions before
his Apostolic Majesty. The dispute between Turkey and Montenegro with
reference to the Podgorica affair, induced the malcontents of the
Herzegovina to look with confidence for allies among their brothers of
the Black Mountain. Another favourable circumstance was the discontent of
the Franciscan fraternities, due to the recent infringement of some of
their privileges and the delay of the Sultan in confirming their firmans,
which made the leaders of the Roman Catholic communion willing to throw
in their cause for the nonce with the Greek heretics. One of the most
curious features of the present insurrection has been the way in which
the two Christian sects have fought side by side.[294]
The scene of the first outbreak was the district of Nevešinje; and the
history of the oppression there may serve to explain the causes of
discontent among the rayah population of Herzegovina generally. The
village of Nevešinje, which gives its name to the surrounding district,
is about twelve miles distant from Mostar, as the crow flies, and lies
on the south-eastern flank of the mountain range that rises above this
city to the east. It is built on the skirts of an extensive plain, raised
1,800 feet above sea level, and once the bed of a large lake, known
as the Nevešinsko Polje, and overlooked on every side by a wilderness
of bare limestone mountains scattered with fragments of rock. In a
rock-fastness like this, little harvest could be expected in the best of
seasons, but in 1874 the harvest proved a failure altogether. Yet, what
there was might not be gathered in till the tax-gatherer had claimed his
eighth, and as he did not make his appearance, it was allowed to rot
on the ground, till the starving peasantry could endure no longer and
cut a portion of it for their needs. Months passed, and it was not till
January 1875 (I am following the consular report) that the tax-farmers
at last made their appearance, resolved to exact the uttermost farthing.
The Publicans on this occasion consisted of one Christian and two members
of the renegade Mahometan aristocracy of the Herzegovina, who here vie
with the Fanariote Greeks for this shameful office. These gentry, as is
their wont, rated the harvest at far higher than its real value, and
when the peasants refused to comply with their exorbitant demands, let
loose their bloodhounds, the Zaptiehs, and robbed, beat, and imprisoned
whom they would. The _Knezes_ or village elders tried to complain to
the Kaïmakàm, but being insulted and threatened with imprisonment, fled
to Montenegro. The rest of the villagers, unable to obtain any redress,
and hourly subjected to the violence of the Zaptiehs, took refuge, with
their cattle, in the neighbouring mountains. Only one old man was left in
the village, and him the Zaptiehs bound and sent to Mostar. Events of a
similar character were occurring in the neighbouring districts.
But meanwhile the news of these events began to be noised abroad.
Unpleasant rumours of sacked villages had reached the ears of the
consular body, and the Nevešinjans had even attempted to tell the
story of their wrongs to the Emperor of Austria, then engaged in his
Dalmatian journey. The Vali of Bosnia began to perceive that it was
high time for him to interfere, or the agitation might reach such
dimensions as to place him himself in a difficult position. The oppressed
rayahs of Nevešinje and the surrounding districts had appealed to the
commiseration of civilized Europe, and something must be done to satisfy
the great Powers and their representatives, and at the same time to allay
the agitation among the rayahs.
The Vali accordingly appointed the precious Commission, already spoken
of, to confer with the Christians on their grievances; and at the same
time gave the refugees in Montenegro a safe-conduct to their homes. By
these means the Vali secured the double object of revenging himself on
the Christian refugees, and throwing dust into the eyes of the consular
body. The refugees, on attempting to return, were, in spite of their
safe-conduct, fired on by Turkish troops; and when at last some of them
succeeded in finding their way to Nevešinje, the Turkish authorities
permitted Mussulmans of the village to murder several without moving
a finger to punish the assassins! The results of the Commission were
so falsified as to make it appear that the whole agitation among the
rayahs was fictitious, and the outrages committed during the last three
months by tax-farmers and Zaptiehs, the sack of whole villages, the
assassination of men, the violation of women, were, forsooth, reduced to
‘antiquated grievances raked up by self-constituted grief-mongers.’
This might do all very well, so the Vali thought, for the consular
body; but he was well aware that other tactics were necessary in order
to allay the dangerous spirit aroused among the rayah population. The
shooting of the refugees was due, he explained, to a ‘misunderstanding.’
The Christians were to be convinced of the reality of the Commission.
The Turkish government even consented to place among its members the
envoy of the Prince of Montenegro. The real information received by the
Commission was very different from that which the Vali vouchsafed to our
Consul. The grievances of the Herzegovinians generally, as against the
government, are well set forth in the seven demands which the people of
Nevešinje laid before the Commission. They form an interesting commentary
on the Turkish rule in the Herzegovina, and savour neither of Panslavism
nor of disloyalty to the Sultan.
The demands of the men of Nevešinje were as follows:—
1. That Christian girls and women should no longer be molested
by the Turks.
2. That their churches should no longer be desecrated, and that
free exercise of their religion should be accorded them.
3. That they should have equal rights with the Turks before the
law.
4. That they should be protected from the violence of the
Zaptiehs.
5. That the tithe-farmers should take no more than they were
legally entitled to, and that they should take it at the proper
time.
6. That every house should pay in all only one ducat a year.
7. That no forced labour, either personal or by horses, should
be demanded by the government; but that labour, when needed,
should be paid for, as was the case all over the world.
The last two demands were added on Dervish Pashà himself appearing at
Nevešinje; the Pashà promised that he would do all in his power to
satisfy their demands, but that they must first lay down their arms.
This, the Christians, who as yet had committed no overt act of hostility,
expressed themselves ready to do, if the Pashà would first find means
to protect them from the armed Mahometan fanatics by whom they saw
themselves surrounded. This the Vali either could not or would not do,
and on his departure the Christians, alarmed by the hostile attitude of
the native Mahometans, fled once more to the mountains.
The weakness of the government now became deplorably evident. The native
Mussulmans, headed by a Beg, a great landowner of the neighbourhood, who
was also one of the tithe-farmers, broke into the government store and
armed themselves with breech-loaders; and on the 1st of July the civil
war in the Herzegovina was begun, not by the Christians, but by Mussulman
fanatics, who butchered all the Christians they could find in Nevešinje—a
few sick rayahs, who, unable to support the hardships of mountain-life,
had returned to their homes.
The Christian refugees now descended from the mountains to retaliate on
the perpetrators of the massacre; whereupon the government, instead of
interfering in an impartial spirit to stop the disturbances and punish
the malefactors, dispatched two battalions of Turkish troops to aid the
Mahometan assassins, and attack the Christians indiscriminately. It was
now that the rayahs of the neighbouring districts, who had been suffering
from the same outrages, answered the urgent appeal of the men of
Nevešinje, and a great part of the Christian population, from the Roman
Catholic districts of the right bank of the Narenta to the orthodox Greek
clans of the Montenegrine border, flew to arms.
Since then a guerilla warfare has been carried on among the mountains
with uncertain results, but with great atrocity on both sides. In such
matters religion counts for little, human nature for everything; and
there seems no good reason _a priori_ for doubting the worst instances
of Christian atrocity that we heard of. But granting that the Christians
were guilty, as our Consul asseverated, of the terrible _auto da fè_ of
Ljubinje, the blame must be laid at the door, not of the poor wretches
who perpetrated these enormities, but of the tyrants who have brutalized
them for centuries; just as the worst horrors of the French Revolution
were but a counter-stroke to the accumulated misdeeds of the despotism
that had preceded it. It is also true that the rayahs have in some
instances forced Christian villages to join their cause by burning the
crops and houses of the recalcitrants; but if desperate men, standing
at bay against overwhelming numbers, have been forced to seek recruits
by this means, it is that long-continued tyranny has enslaved the very
spirit of many Christians. As with the miserable provincials of the Roman
empire, who saw themselves annually pillaged by barbarian invaders, it
was not that injuries were wanting which should have urged freemen to
take up arms, but that the sense of injury itself—the last relic of
self-respect—had been deadened within them:—
Jam nulli flebile damnum!
Sed cursus sollemnis erat, campusque furori
Expositus; sensumque malis detraxerat usus.[295]
_Aug. 29th._—Dervish Pashà, the Vali, or Governor-General, of Bosnia, who
has lately taken command of the troops in Herzegovina in person, returned
here last night from Stolac, where he has been superintending operations
against the insurgents. Our Consul, who visited him this morning, found
him, outwardly at all events, well satisfied with the results of his
campaign. He is certainly the most likely man to succeed against the
insurgents, for not only is he by repute one of the best generals that
Turkey possesses, but he is also well acquainted with the topography
of the Herzegovina, and already, as far back as 1851, distinguished
himself in the guerilla warfare in this country on the occasion of the
last struggle of the native Mahometan aristocracy against the Sultan.
His plan of operations in the present campaign has been to occupy the
valleys with large bodies of regular troops, then, to draw the mountains
with light-armed detachments, and so to drive the game. But to occupy the
valleys and passes efficiently a body of troops is required out of all
proportion to the number of the insurgents; and so, although Bosnia has
been drained of troops for this purpose, and 6,000 regulars have already
been landed at the port of Klek without hindrance from the Austrian
government, the Vali still complains that his force is insufficient,
and that the insurgents are perpetually escaping out of the toils
prepared for them and doubling on their pursuers. He is, however, so well
contented with the result of his operations that he was about to start
for Tašlidzje and Novipazar in Rascia, where the insurrection seemed to
be attaining dangerous dimensions, and where the commander was altogether
incompetent.[296] To-day he sends three divisions of regulars to Stolac,
Ljubinje, and Nevešinje.
The truth of the matter with regard to the insurrection here seems to be
that neither party have gained any substantial advantage. The insurgents
have burnt several block-houses along the Montenegrine frontier, and
seized some stores. On the other hand, the Turkish garrisons have
generally succeeded in making their escape, and the insurgents have never
succeeded in capturing any considerable town, the Mahometan element being
strong among the urban population here as in Bosnia. News, however, of a
substantial success for the Turks arrives from Bosnia. The Vali has just
received a telegram to say that the insurgents in the neighbourhood of
Gradisca have been beaten across the Save, and that the rebellion in the
Possávina has been virtually got under.
This morning our Consul kindly secured us an interview with the Vali, and
deputed his Cavass to guide us to his Excellency’s Konak. We approached
the official residence through a yard in which there were cannons and
other warlike material, and making our way up a flight of rickety wooden
steps, and thence along a carpeted corridor, were finally ushered by a
gorgeous official into the hall of state—an airy chamber, about which
the swallows were darting to and fro—in the extreme corner of which sat
the Pashà, who graciously rose to receive us and shook hands. We were
next treated to the usual coffee, while his Excellency conversed with us
by means of a French interpreter. Our conversation was naturally of a
personal and not a political character, so that I may confine myself to
recording the amusement evinced by the Vali on our praising the scenery
of the Narenta Valley. The beauty of mountain scenery was an aspect of
the outside world which had evidently never even suggested itself to his
mind, and it tickled his fancy immensely. Our conversation was every now
and then interrupted by the appearance of couriers with despatches. The
Pashà glanced at them rapidly, and signified his will about them to an
attendant secretary; but we were much struck with the nice distinctions
of rank observed, the officers who bore the despatches advancing so
many paces from the door according to their official position, and the
officers in attendance on the Pashà being seated, with due reference to
their social espacement, at unequal distances from the arm-chair which
served as his Excellency’s throne. The Pashà, in spite of his gracious
smiles, looked worn and preoccupied, so that we hastened to cut short
our interview, his Excellency rising and shaking hands again in the most
polite way at our departure.
Dervish Pashà is a little man of a shrewd countenance, and though affable
in his demeanour, not without a lurking cunning in his small grey eyes
beneath his affected cheerfulness. It is indeed a melancholy stoicism
that supports Turks like himself of ability and education. The fact is,
that whatever his private opinion as to the issue of the present contest
in the Herzegovina, Dervish Pashà is conscious that he is fighting for a
lost cause. Like many other of the highest Turkish officials, he feels,
and has confessed it to his friends, that whether the crash come to-day
or to-morrow, the Ottoman Empire in Europe is irrevocably doomed. He is
as well aware as any European that among the governing race of Turkey
public honesty is as dead as private morality, that corruption has
closed the door to progress, and that patriotism has almost ceased to
exist; nor is he insensible that the master whom he serves is the source
and seminary of these evils, and that nothing is to be hoped from the
secluded youth and corrupt morals of him whom the Sultan would impose as
his successor. The Vali, in spite of the characteristic indifference of
an Osmanlì to the sufferings of rayahs, has not been without ambition of
improving the material condition of his Vilayet; but he has seen himself
thwarted from above by the corruption of Stamboul, and below by the
impenetrable ignorance of his own officials. ‘What is the use?’ he would
complain to consular sympathizers when desirous of introducing this or
that reform. ‘What is the use of giving such orders to the Mutasarìf or
Kaïmakàm? they cannot understand them, and if they did they could not
carry them out; the people would laugh at their reforms or throw them
off!’
Mostar, as a town, pleased us more than any we had seen in Bosnia. The
houses are almost all built of stone, instead of the customary wood and
plaster. Here, as at Tešanj, we noticed a _Campanile_. There are many
gay kiosques rising over the graves of Moslem saints. The mosques, of
which there are forty, are many of them domed, and the plate tracery of
their windows is curiously Roman or Byzantine: the minarets—which, not
taking their pinnacles into account, look like unfinished Corinthian
columns—struck us as more elegant than those of Serajevo, and even the
Byzantine church was in better taste. The impression which the streets of
Mostar are perpetually forcing on us is that we have come once more on
the fringe of Roman civilization. These stone houses are no longer the
Turkish _Chalet_, but the _Casa_ of Italy or Dalmatia. Some are roofed
with a rough slate, others with tiles, Romanesque if not Roman. Every
now and then an Italian physiognomy strikes us among the citizens; the
auburn locks and blue eyes of the Illyrian interior are giving place to
swarthier hues. The name of the mountain under whose barren steeps we
passed on our way here—Porim—in the Sclavonic tongue means on, or over
against Rome, and seems to indicate that this part of the Narenta valley
remained Roman at a time when the mountain wilderness of the interior had
passed into the hands of the Sclavonic barbarians.[297] Mostar indeed
owes her name, and perhaps her very existence, to Roman enterprise. The
situation of the present city has been identified with that of a Roman
_Castra Stativa_ mentioned in the Itineraries,[298] and certainly there
are abundant traces here of Roman occupation. This morning I looked
through two hundred coins, nearly all of them Roman, found in Mostar and
its immediate vicinity, and from the number of these of Consular date one
may gather that the Roman settlement dated back to the earliest days of
their Illyrian conquest.[299]
[Illustration: Mostar Bridge.]
But the most interesting monument of her early civilization, and that to
which Mostar, even at the present day, owes much of her importance, is
the magnificent bridge over the Narenta. It is a single arch, 95 feet 3
inches in span,[300] and rising 70 feet above the river when the water
is low. According to tradition, this was the work of the Emperor Trajan,
whose engineering triumphs in Eastern Europe have taken a strong hold on
the South-Sclavonic imagination. Others refer its erection to Hadrian,
and the Turks, not wishing to leave the credit of such an architectural
masterpiece to Infidel Emperors, claim the whole for their Sultan,
Suleiman the Magnificent. He and other Turkish rulers have certainly
greatly restored and altered the work, insomuch that Sir Gardner
Wilkinson declares that none of the original Roman masonry has been left
on the exterior, but he was none the less convinced of its Roman origin;
and anyone who has seen it will agree with Sir Gardner that the grandeur
of the work, and the form of the arch, as well as the tradition, attest
its Roman origin. In the gateway-towers at each end we also detected
something Roman, as besides in some ancient archways and masonry on the
river-bank by the side of the bridge. This sketch was taken looking
down the stream from the left side, and indeed the view from this point
needs not the spell of classic associations to fascinate the beholder!
The soaring arch beneath which the emerald Narenta hurries—fuming and
fretting amongst the boulders that strew her course in many a foamy
eddy—as though after eighteen centuries she were still impatient of the
yoke[301] imposed upon her by the monarch of the world; the steep banks
tiered with rocks, contorted, cavernous, festooned with creepers and wild
vines; above, the arcades of Turkish stores, with brilliant Oriental
wares; the peaks and towers and gables of quaint old fortifications;
two slender minarets, and further still a fainter background of barren
mountain, against which the mediæval outlines of the city were relieved
in the chiaroscuro of a Southern sun. The whole scene presented such a
picturesque combination, alike of colours and outlines, as I have not
seen the like of in any other town.
The very name of Mostar signifies in the Sclavonic tongue ‘the old
bridge,’[302] and would be enough to prove that the bridge was already
looked on as an antiquity before the Turkish conquest. Mostar was already
a place of importance under the dukes of St. Sava. The town appears
to have been much augmented in 1440 by Radivoj Gost, _Curopalata_ or
‘mayor of the palace’ to Stephen Cossaccia, the first duke of St.
Sava.[303] It was originally peopled by Latin Christians, and was the
residence of their bishop, who afterwards emigrated to Narona. On the
Turkish conquest, Mostar became the seat of residence of the Viziers of
Herzegovina; and just as before the dukes of St. Sava had exercised an
authority almost independent of their suzerains, the kings of Bosnia,
so now the Viziers of Herzegovina succeeded in defying their Bosnian
superiors, the lieutenants of the Grand Signior at Travnik. One of the
latest and most representative of these Turkish dukes of St. Sava was the
renowned Ali Pashà, who, for the valuable assistance which he rendered
Sultan Mahmoud in his struggle with the Mahometan magnates of Bosnia, was
rewarded with the Vizierate of Herzegovina, which in 1833 was separated
from Bosnia and erected into an independent government for the benefit of
this faithful servant of the Sultan.
Ali Pashà, originally Ali Aga of Stolac, the seat of his hereditary
castle and possessions, was a scion of the renegade nobility of
Herzegovina, and had been enabled to aid the Grand Signior against his
reactionary Mahometan vassals, by resorting to the bold expedient of
arming his rayah retainers. He appears to have been a man endued above
the average with the Turkish aptitude for dissimulation. While the
Christians were useful to him, he was profuse in his promises of reward,
and used to swear to them ‘by the golden cross’ that their taxes would
be abolished with the exception of a hundred paras yearly of _haratch_.
But, once in the Vizierial palace of Mostar, he increased the _haratch_,
levied the tithes with greater rigour, doubled the other taxes, and,
only anxious to conciliate the Moslems of his Pashalik, allowed his
agents to treat the rayahs with greater cruelty than ever. On the
pretence of seizing Christians who, after fleeing to Montenegro, might
presume, with brigandish intent, to revisit the Herzegovina, he used
to send detachments of fanatical officers, who made the circuit of the
Christian villages, and ill-treated or murdered whom they pleased, under
the pretence that they were _Uskoks_, as these refugees were called,
or had sheltered such. A native historian, a monk of Mostar,[304] has
related with a Herodotean simplicity the history of the civil war in the
Herzegovina and the reign of the terrible Vizier; and the picture which
he gives of the sufferings of the rayahs, of the sort of justice which
was meted out to them in the country districts, and the sights with which
the tyrant in the palace of Mostar was wont to feast his eyes, may serve
to open people’s eyes to the character of the government in this part of
the Sultan’s dominions during the years immediately preceding the Crimean
War. We must remember that the writer is a monk, but there is a charming
naïveté about the following narrations.
If the Pashà had a weakness, it was for impaled heads of rayahs, so
that when these _Uskok_ hunters were disappointed of legitimate game,
they used to resort to a rough and ready way of securing the Pashà’s
approbation. Thus in 1849 Ali Pashà sent Ibrahim, his Cavass-Basha, to
collect _Uskoks_. ‘Ibrahim,’ says our native historian, ‘tarried in
Drobniaki till October, but found no work there wherewith to keep his
hands warm. Therefore he betook himself to the village Cerna Gora,[305]
and after he had passed the night there, he gave orders to the villagers
that one out of every house should come forth and accompany him to Piva.
The poor villagers came forth as he bade them; but when they had gone
with him one hour’s distance from their dwellings, their hands were
bound, and here, on the plain near Lysina, the Cavass-Basha Ibrahim
shot them dead one after the other. And thus were slain fifteen men,
Christians all, miserable indeed in their life-time, but guiltless before
the all-high God. And wherefore were they slain? For naught, but that
there should be fewer Vlachs.’[306]...
‘The greatest delight of the Vizier was to look upon Christian heads
impaled. From his palace in Mostar he could not see the fortress walls,
and therefore had he them made higher that he might see them when he
lay at meals; and round about the whole fortress he set up palisades of
pointed oak-staves, which he topped with Christian heads. At these then
looked he from his window, and his heart leapt thereat for joy. If he
would oppress any man, he straightway spake and said, “Wilt thou never
cease to trouble me, till such time as I hew thy head from thy body, and
bid them stick it on the palisades?—then shalt thou give me peace at
last!” Upon this fortress there were 150 staves, and upon each stave was
always fixed a dead man’s head.[307] But when his murderous bands brought
a fresh head, and there was room wanted for it, then Ali Pashà bade them
take one or more of the dried heads down, and throw them into the street,
where the children were wont to kick them about for sport, and no man
durst take them away.’
But Ali Pashà himself fell at last into disfavour with the Porte, and his
intrigues with the Mahometan magnates of Bosnia in their final revolt
against the Sultan in 1850 brought on his head the vengeance of the
second conqueror of Bosnia, Omer Pashà. The catastrophe of our satrap,
like the episodes of his tyranny, was thoroughly Eastern, and as the
closing scene of the drama is laid with poetic fitness on the bridge of
Mostar, I may be allowed once more to have recourse to our Herzegovinian
historian.
‘The old, lame Ali Pashà was forced to limp on foot, with a staff in
his hand, to the bridge over the river Narenta—and there they set him
for mockery on a lean and mangy mule, and in such a plight Omer Pashà
led with him our Ali Pashà, even he who for so many years had ruled the
Herzegovina according to his will, and had done there so many evil deeds;
but Ali Pashà was sore vexed at his abasement, and straightway began to
rail at Omer Pashà, and amongst other things he said: “Why dost thou
torment me thus? Thou art a Vlach[308] and the son of a Vlach! From whom
hast thou authority to drag me thus? Aye, and had I taken arms against
the Sultan himself, it is not to thee belongs the right to treat me
as one taken in battle, wert thou three times Seraskier. Therefore, O
unclean Vlach! send me rather to my Padishah, that he may judge me, and
vex me not in my old age.” But when Omer Pashà heard this, he feared lest
peradventure he himself should suffer damage at Stamboul; for Ali Pashà
had many friends there amongst those in high places, to whom he was wont
to send much money from the Herzegovina. So Omer Pashà, turning these
things over in his mind, in the end perceived that it were better if
Ali Pashà were no longer of this world. And lo! at night, at two of the
clock, was heard the sound as of a shot, and there came tidings to Omer
Pashà that it had so chanced a gun had gone off, and behold the ball had
passed through Ali Pashà’s head. Thus died Ali Pashà, Rizvanbegović, on
the twentieth day of March, 1851.’
Mostar contains about 18,000 inhabitants,[309] and is therefore a
considerable town for this part of the world. For trade, it has long
been the chief staple of Herzegovina, and was renowned of old for its
manufacture of Damascened swords. The wares, however, here are much the
same as those of Serajevo, so that I have little to record of the streets
of Mostar, except that one old Turk—whose principles I respect—swore by
the beard of the Prophet that he would never sell the meanest knife on
his shop-board to a dog of a Giaour; and that one Mostar damsel—about
whose principles I will not enquire, but of whose amiability there can
be no question—deftly dropped her veil as we passed her doorway, and
favoured us with a private view of a not uncomely face.[310] Indeed we
noticed that in the lower valley of the Narenta generally the use of
the veil is not so rigorously enforced as usually in Bosnia, though the
face-covering is absolutely discarded only at Jablanica and the adjoining
district.
There was one very pleasant feature about the streets of Mostar, and that
was the abundance of fruit. The peaches were poor; but melons, figs,
and the grapes at about a halfpenny a pound, even when a Frank was a
purchaser, were delicious. The grapes, of which the Mostar wine famed
throughout all these lands is made, are of magnificent calibre, and are
celebrated in Serbian song. When the bride of Mahmoud Pashà[311] speeds
with the choicest delicacies of earth to comfort princely Mujo, these are
not forgotten in the dainty _menu_. The lady hides beneath her richest
garments:—
Rosy sweets wrapped up in golden vestments,
Yellow honeycomb in silver dishes,
And spring-cherries all preserved in honey;
Peaches with the earliest dewdrops gathered,
Figs of Ocean, and the grapes of Mostar.
We too, as a preparation for our weary pilgrimage across the Karst
deserts of the lower Narenta to the Dalmatian frontier, took with us a
generous basket of the fruits of Mostar.
The day was terribly hot, and a suffocating miasmatic vapour[312] (such
as we had not met with since we left the valley of the Save) brooded over
the city, which, according to our Consul, possesses a climate decidedly
hotter than that of Constantinople, so that we were naturally desirous
of lightening our day’s journey to the frontier by obtaining horses.
These, however, it was extremely hard to obtain; but the Pashà, to
whom we mentioned our difficulty, generously placed a couple of horses
at our disposal, and told us that if we would start this afternoon we
should have the advantage of a guard that was to accompany a caravan of
Herzegovinians to Metcović, our Dalmatian destination. We being anxious
to push on, as we were really afraid of this climate, took advantage of
the proposal, and about five in the afternoon started with our cavalcade
on the most terrible journey I ever remember.
Our caravan, consisting of sixty horses and men, slowly mustered
together, and having defiled out of Mostar over the steep Narenta bridge,
we jogged for hours along tedious dusty plains, leaving on our left the
ruins of the feudal stronghold of Blagaj, once the treasury, as its name
implies, and castle of the Duke of St. Sava. About sunset we heard many
muttered prayers, and an ‘Ave Maria’ continually repeated by a rayah
who was riding near; then it grew dark, so that my brother and myself,
who both of us suffer from night-blindness, could not see an inch; but
still the whole caravan jogged on, and though the stars, shining with a
reddish, lurid light, looked more like ‘lamps of heaven’ than the pale
stars of old acquaintance, they did not aid our purblind vision in the
least, and we felt particularly helpless when we perceived by the noise
of water running a good way immediately below us that we were riding
along the brink of a precipitous steep. However, our beasts followed
their leaders, till suddenly there was an universal stampede—my horse
rushed down a steep bank, nearly throwing me off, and then plunged into
a stream to drink, and after some more stumbling and climbing we found
ourselves in a struggling crowd of men and horses, and were told to
dismount. Then our steeds disappeared, and we found ourselves together
wedged into a trampling throng in what to us was pitch darkness. Happily,
a Zaptieh, who had been ordered by the Pashà to attend on us, rescued us
from this plight, and we discovered that we had arrived at a Han called
Buna, where we obtained coffee and a room to ourselves over a stable, and
rested three hours.
This Han was erected here by our old friend Ali Pashà, who was something
more than an impaler of rayahs, and did many things to improve the
means of communication and the material well-being of his Pashalik.
To him Herzegovina owes the introduction of rice culture, and also of
silk-worms; and it was here, at Buna, that he planted, with this object,
the first mulberry-trees in the country. The Vizier built a favourite
summer residence here, of which and its grounds the Mostar historian
gives a curious description. The little river Buna, which, issuing from
a cavern in the rock below the castle of Blagai, here pours into the
Narenta, is, like it, according to our monk, ‘rich in innumerable fish,’
while the Pashà’s grounds abounded in ‘all the fruits of the South.’ ‘Ali
Pashà laid down pipes in which he conducted water from the Buna, and
he brought hither a dragon’s head of lead which poured forth the water
from its throat into a stone basin, wherein rare fishes played. Here the
Satrap was wont to tarry for his pleasure; and when his bloodthirsty
servants brought him the heads of Christian Serbs, he bade them to be
stuck on the poles of a palisade that stood opposite, and in gazing on
them had his chiefest delight.’
_Aug. 30th._—During our midnight halt at Buna we were not in a position
to examine the Vizier’s villa, nor had we long given us even for repose,
for at 2.30 we were roused once more by our Zaptieh, and having been
guided to our horses in the dark, were again jogging on our way, and
ascending a range of high limestone hills by a rough winding road,
without the slightest aid from vision. As morning gradually revealed
to us our surroundings, we found that we were crossing a rock-strewn
table-land almost bereft of trees, except a few olives, and some fine old
oaks shading an ancient solitary graveyard The motion was most fatiguing,
as our horses were anything but sure-footed; and the saddle was simply
excruciating. The saddle of these countries is simply formed of two
hurdle-like frames of wood joined together in the middle at an angle
of over fifty degrees, and padded _underneath_, to protect the horse.
We had to sit astride on the sharp upper keel, and had nothing but our
sleeping-gear to mitigate its hardness. Add to this the perpetual jolting
and stumbling, and the fact that the stirrups were simply loops of cord,
which twisted our toes under our horses’ bellies, and our discomfort may
be imagined. The dust kicked up by our caravan was terrible, so that to
avoid it we wished to ride in front; but our horses, who knew their place
in the ranks, could not be induced to stir from it till we dismounted and
literally dragged them in front. The pace was provokingly slow, and the
Herzegovinian drivers were perpetually reminding their beasts of the duty
of sloth by shouts of _Polacko! polacko!_[313] My beast didn’t need any
reminder of this kind, and nothing on earth would induce him to put on a
spurt so as to distance our dusty train, till by some happy inspiration
I whistled to him ‘Little Polly Perkins of Paddington Green.’ Then, at
last, the intelligent animal pricked up its ears and broke into a lively
trot!
For many hours we had been riding through a wilderness, but as we
approached the southern edge of our plateau a prospect of desolation
broke upon us such as those who have not seen it can scarcely imagine. In
every direction rose low mountains, mere heaps of disintegrated limestone
rock, bare of vegetation as a shingly sea-beach—a cruel southern
Karst, aptly compared to a petrified glacier or a moon-landscape, the
creation—as the old Bogomiles of these parts would have supposed it—of
some Evil Spirit. Yet, like most things in nature, this desert prospect
is not without its redeeming specialities of beauty. Where the colours of
earth are so faint there is nothing to interfere with the most perfect
development of atmospheric effects. Nature has, as it were, provided
a white sheet for the grandest of all illuminators, and I have seen
these pale rock skeletons tinged by morning and evening suns with more
delicate saffron and peach-blossom than the green hills of more fertile
lands are susceptible of taking. Even as seen by the light of common day,
this barren panorama was well worth an artist’s study. We were among
mountain-tops without the climbing; and though the languor of the colours
spoke too evidently of the universal waterlessness, their delicacy was
novel and not without a subtle fascination. The sky above was of a pale
hazy azure; the sterile hill-sides a thin ashy grey, stained here and
there with a _soupçon_ of sand colour or faint iron brown; the plain
below was the palest and most languid of greens.
[Illustration: Christian Monuments, Tassorić.]
About 9 in the morning we stopped at a hamlet called Tassorić, where
the caravan made their next halt; but though we tried here and at other
hovels on the road to obtain some food, we met with one universal
response: ‘Nima chlébba! nima jaje!’—‘We have no bread! we have no eggs!’
And the only refreshment we could obtain in this terrible waste was the
never-failing coffee; so that had it not been for the figs and grapes we
had brought with us from Mostar, we might have fainted by the way. The
Herzegovinian peasants who travelled with us had brought their food with
them.
The seat on which we quaffed our mocha here was supported by two
fragmentary bases of Roman columns; but in a graveyard hard by, which we
had leisure to examine, were modern monuments of still greater interest.
These were the gravestones of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Tassorić,
which were ornamented with incised crosses and floral devices of an
elegance indeed surprising when it is remembered that these were the work
of rude peasants, unable to write even the names of the departed kinsmen
whom they wished to honour.
[Illustration: Graveyard at Tassorić.]
The whole appearance of this graveyard was indeed one of the most curious
sights that we observed in our Bosnian-Herzegovinian experiences. Here,
in one God’s acre, alike the Infidel and Christian inhabitants of
the hamlet had found their last resting-place, and the crosses of the
departed rayahs were only separated by a narrow, and in places almost
indistinguishable pathway from the turbaned columns of the Moslem. It
was a striking proof that even in this land of bigotry and persecution
both sectaries can live together in peace; and it afforded a melancholy
contrast to the burnt villages whose ruins we descried a few miles
further on the road.
The fact is, that the animosity of the rayahs of the Herzegovina has not
been directed so much against their Moslem fellow-villagers as against
the Begs, the scions of the renegade feudal nobility, who, besides
exacting their own dues with the rigour that I have described, often—in
the Herzegovina especially, where at present they seem to have retained
more of their old power than in Bosnia—farm the government taxes. The
tithe-farmers here are still called by the old ominous name of _Spahi_.
These oppress the Moslem peasant almost as grievously as the rayah,
and there have been instances during the present outbreak in which the
Moslems of the country villages have made common cause with the rayah. It
was primarily against the Begs that the Roman Catholic population of this
part of the Narenta valley[314] took up arms last June.
A little further on we passed the Roman Catholic village of Draševo,
whose inhabitants, with those of another village called Rasno, were the
first to take up arms in this part of the Herzegovina. These assembled
with arms in their hands at a bridge just beyond, where the high road
crosses the little river Kruppa, and which, though the only means of
transit for any stores and cannon that the Turks may land at their
port of Klek on the other side of the hills, we found in a condition
so dilapidated that we had to dismount from our horses and lead them
carefully over the broken woodwork—the whole fabric being so cranky
that it would only bear one man and beast at a time. At this bridge the
assembled rayahs kept watch and ward, allowing travellers, and even
Zaptiehs, to pass (for it was no part of the design of the insurgents at
first to war against the Sultan), but declaring that they were keeping
watch against the Begs alone.
But it was at a mill called Struge, which we left to the right on
the further bank of the Narenta, that the first actual outbreak of
hostilities took place. The miller here was a Mussulman, who, offended
at the spirited attitude taken up by the neighbouring rayah villages,
refused to grind the corn which the Christians, who depended on his
grindstone for this part of their breadmaking, brought him for that
purpose. Thereupon the Christians of the neighbouring village of Gorica
resolved to take vengeance on the unbelieving miller. The miller, on
his part, was aided by a division of Zaptiehs; and here the first shots
were fired. The Turks were victorious, and the Zaptiehs signalized their
victory by entering Gorica the following night, and burning, after first
sacking, the houses of the rayahs, who had themselves escaped. They then
defiled the church, and as a further insult dug up some dead bodies and
left the naked corpses of a man and a child exposed in the churchyard.
The insurgents of the Narenta valley and the country to the right of it
were thus unfortunate from the beginning, so that when the Turks, by the
murder of the prior of the Franciscan monastery at Livno, had terrified
the Roman Catholic hierarchy of this part into submission, the Catholic
Bishop Kraljević found no difficulty in persuading the Latin peasantry to
follow the example of their spiritual governors.
A little way beyond the bridge where the rayahs first set their
armed watch against the Begs, we came to the ruins of the village of
Doliane, burnt, as we heard, by the Turks at a very early period of the
insurrection. It was a miserable sight, the blackened shells of these
little stone hovels—piteous at any time—clinging to the bare hill-side.
The Turks were utilizing the ruins to build a guard-house, and were
pulling down for that purpose the few homestead walls which had still
been left standing. Yet this is but a single sample of the devastation
which extends along the whole Dalmatian and Montenegrine borders of
Herzegovina, over an area embracing many hundreds of square miles.
A mile more of jolting brought us to the Dalmatian frontier, and at
Metcović we found ourselves once more within the limits of Christendom
with whole skins, but quite worn out after (deducting rests) fifteen
hours of excruciation on Bosnian saddles. Of this future emporium of
Narentan trade there is little to record, except the filth of the
inhabitants. The cleanliness of the Turks and Herzegovinians contrasts
most strongly with the South-Italian squalor of the citizens of Metcović,
which culminated in the family circle of the _Bezirkshauptmann_—an
interview with whom was forced on us for the examination of passports.
The _Bezirkshauptmann’s_ table-cloth was so filthy that there was not a
spot of anything approaching whiteness on its whole superficies!
_Aug. 31st._—Next morning, after considerable bargaining, we engaged a
flat beetle-like craft to convey ourselves and our fortunes to Stagno,
_viâ_ the left arm of the Narenta. The landscape now afforded most
startling contrasts of fertility and barrenness. The heights that
overhung the Narenta, or stretched away to environ its broad alluvial
plains, were mere rock heaps, of that lunar desolation already described;
so bare that the mountain goat can scarce glean a pittance on their bony
terraces. But the broad delta below, formed by the double-armed Narenta,
is the richest land in all Dalmatia; the maize by the river-side attains
a gigantic stature; on other places the soil is covered by a luxuriant
network of vines, which, without any training or apparent cultivation,
yield grapes as fine as those of Mostar; and there are mulberry-trees
at Fort Opus fifteen feet in circumference. But how little of this
marvellous rich soil is even culturable now-a-days! To the right of us,
what was once a blooming champaign, covered with tilled fields, and
dowering a city wealthy and refined, is now a stretch of fever-breeding
marshes which it would cost millions to drain. The wretched inhabitants
of the few villages that now remain, are, during the summer months,
never free from intermittent fever, and the stranger who values his life
must not tarry at this season even to explore the interesting relics of
antiquity that we are now passing on our right.
Among the swamps that lie two or three miles to the north of Metcović are
still to be seen the foundations of many of the houses of the Illyrian
Narbonne,[315] further remains of which, including many inscriptions,
are scattered on the hill above, which takes its name from the modern
village of Viddo. Here stood the old Narbona, or as it was called in the
later days of Rome, Narona; a city so ancient that it was already of
renown five centuries before our era, and which lost none of its eminence
when, in B.C. 168, Lucius Annius added it to the possessions of Rome. At
Narbona, now known as Narona, the Romans planted a colony, and among the
many inscriptions that have been discovered, we find ample witness to its
municipal liberties; while from others we learn that temples of Jove,
Diana of the woods, and Father Liber, once graced this spot. Another
inscription on the tomb of a Naronan _lapidary_, to which I shall have
occasion to refer, may, perhaps, bear witness to an art which attained
considerable perfection in the cities of Roman Illyria, and of which many
traces, in the shape of beautifully engraved gems, are still discovered
on this site.
Yet it was not under the Romans that Narona and the rich alluvial plains
of the Narenta, amidst which our boat is meandering, attained that
importance which makes the name of the Narentines familiar to the student
of European history.
In the year 639 A.D. Narona, which till then had remained a flourishing
Roman city, was reduced to ashes by a mingled horde of Avars and Sclaves,
and a few years later the Serbian Sclaves called in by the Emperor
Heraclius took possession of the vacant sites of the lower Narenta. Out
of the ruins of the Roman Narona they built a new town, and here, on the
site of classic temples, reared a fane to a Sclavonic god, whose name,
Viddo,[316] is still perpetuated in that of the modern village. The site
of this Illyrian Narbonne thus became a stronghold of heathendom in these
parts, just as with the Sclavonians of the Baltic shores Paganism found
its last defenders among those staunch Rügen islanders who guarded the
precincts of the sacred city of Arkona. It was not till the year 873 that
Nicetas, the Admiral of the Byzantine Emperor Basil, prevailed on the
Narentines to accept baptism; the temple of their country’s god underwent
a strange conversion, and Viddo lived again in a Christian guise as St.
_Vitus_![317]
In the next century the country of the Narentines is still known
as _Pagania_, the land of the Pagans, by which name Constantine
Porphyrogenitus mentions it in his account of the Serbians; and it was
during the ninth and tenth centuries that these barbarous Sclaves, yet
untamed by a civilized religion, issued forth from the swamps and inlets
of the Narenta, to ravage the coasts of the Adriatic, and to rival their
heathen counterparts and contemporaries, the Sea-kings of the North. As
early as 827 their ‘Archons,’ as the Byzantine Emperor calls the Starosts
of their Republic, refused to pay the customary tribute to Eastern Rome;
and soon after this date we find them in possession of Curzola, Lagosta,
Meleda, Lesina, Brazza, and other islands of the Adriatic. But it is
their rivalry with Venice which exalts the history of the Narentines into
world importance. The rising city of the lagoons saw her commerce cut
off by these hardy corsairs, and was at last actually forced to pay them
an ignominious tribute. It was not till 997 that the Doge Pietro Orseolo
II. succeeded in throwing off the yoke and attacking the pirates in their
Narentan fastnesses. After three centuries of piratic domination, the
Narentines saw all their island empire taken from them, and themselves
not only forced to disgorge their plunder, but to swear allegiance to
their rival. The power of the Pirate State was broken for ever; but the
fate of Venice had trembled in the balance, and for a moment the whole
current of European civilization seemed destined to be perverted from its
channel by the inhabitants of the now obscure valley through which we are
passing. It were perhaps as idle to speculate what might have been the
history of Europe, had the Queen of the Adriatic been smothered in her
cradle, as to discuss the fates of Lerna or Nemea, had infant Heracles
perished in the coils of the serpent which he strangled; but the most
casual student of Venetian annals must perceive that the final triumph
of Venice over the Narentines is the great climacteric in the history of
her rise.
We thought we detected something of the old piratic genius of the race
in the way in which our boatmen plundered the maize and vine fields as
we passed; but there was nothing of Pagan savagery in their demeanour
and conversation, which on the contrary formed a marked contrast to the
rudeness and asperity of the ordinary Bosniac or Herzegovinian. They
spoke indeed a dialect closely akin to the Illyrian of the interior,
but they spoke it with energy, vivacity, elegance; with a softness of
cadence so thoroughly Italian, that when, as all of them did at times,
they changed to that language to address the signori, we hardly detected
the change. Their very form is lither, suppler; of lesser mould, but a
striking contrast to the overgrown ungraceful Bosniac. The eyebrows of
these Narentines are not so arched, the hair is darker; they seemed to
be many of them Sclavonized Italians, descendants perhaps of the Roman
colonists of Narbona. One of our boatmen was a very interesting type of
man. He spoke Dalmatian like the rest, but his face—which, like that of
many other Dalmatian faces that I recall, beamed with all the openness
of a sea-faring people—was typically Scotch; and, oddly enough, he wore
what looked like a Scotch cap, minus the tails. His hair was of a lighter
and more reddish hue than that of the others. One almost fancied that
we had here before us a waif of that early Celtic population of Illyria
already invoked as nomenclators of the Illyrian Narbonne whose ruins we
are passing to our right.
Meanwhile we have been making very slow progress, since a fierce scirocco
has set dead in the teeth of our small craft; and as we arrive at Fort
Opus, an old Venetian station at the apex of the Narentan delta, our
boatmen inform us that our two-master is too lubberly for them to hope
to take us to Stagno in it while the scirocco continues to blow, in
which case the voyage might take two or three days. They professed their
willingness to find a smaller vessel which should be able to cope with
the elements, and to resign half the wages, for which we had agreed upon,
to the new boatmen. ‘You see, Sirs, it is not for want of will—but we
cannot struggle against God!’
At Fort Opus, accordingly, we shifted into another smaller craft, pointed
at both stern and stem, and beetle-like as the other, and were soon on
our way again along a part of the Narenta’s course which might well be
the source of weirdest myth and legend. Just beyond Fort Opus, the hills
on the left—bonier skeletons, if possible, than before—draw nearer to the
river, till they frown over its depths. It is at this point that ever and
anon mysterious boomings and bellowings are heard to proceed as from the
inmost recesses of the mountain. It is, say those who have heard it, as
the bellowing of a bull, sometimes here, sometimes there, and sometimes
everywhere at once. At other times it seems to issue from the darkest
pools of the Narenta itself. I cannot say that we ourselves heard the
‘hideous hum,’ but these noises cannot be set down as the creatures of
superstitious imagination; for a competent observer, Signor Lanza, who
was physician in this district, and to whom is due a scientific account
of this part of the Narenta valley, has himself borne ample witness of
the existence of this phenomenon; nor does it stand alone, for there
are equally authentic accounts of similar subterranean murmurs and
explosions having been heard in Meleda and other islands of the Dalmatian
Littorale. The explanation given by some is that the detonations are
due to the pressure of the tide on the air pent up in the subterranean
caverns which honeycomb the limestone Karst-formation of these Illyrian
coastlands; but Dr. Lanza—who notices that the phenomenon generally takes
place either at sunrise or sundown—confesses that ‘a veil of mystery
hangs over the whole.’ Meanwhile, nothing but the portent is certain; and
fearful as I am of giving publicity to ill-omened words, I cannot refrain
from breathing a suspicion that this unhallowed bellowing may proceed
from some hideous Minotaur, caverned in his labyrinthine den.
This neighbourhood is also much subject to earthquakes, which generally
occur during the winter months; and as our boat toiled heavily past
a succession of rocky headlands, we ourselves experienced a natural
phenomenon scarcely less awful than these subterranean bellowings and
convulsions. The wind rose higher and higher, whistling among the
limestone ‘ruins of the older world’ that frowned above us. Our two
boatmen knit their brows and muttered ‘_la Fortuna!_’ Dame Fortune, the
old goddess of the way by sea and land, still retains some of her old
attributes of wheel and rudder among these Romanized Dalmatian Sclaves;
her name[318] is still used on these coastlands as equivalent to a
tempest; and even in the interior of Bosnia the Sclaves have so far
adopted the idea, that a snow-storm—the kind of storm dreaded most in the
Bosnian mountains—is known to the peasants as ‘_Fortunja_.’
At last, on steering between the two rocky hills, whose barren masses
rise on either side at the mouth of this arm of the Narenta like twin
pillars of Hercules, a tremendous scene burst upon us. Just opposite to
where the river widened into the sea, towered before us—its limestone
crags and boulders up-piled and jumbled in cataclysmic confusion—a small
desolate island, a fit abode for nothing unless it were departed spirits
of the evil. The rays of a pale ominous sunset fell upon these cadaverous
rocks and flooded them with spectral light. On either side of the island
the sea shone with abnormal emerald lustre; but what made the brilliance
of the foreground so unearthly, was the unutterable darkness of all
behind. The rocky island rose like a phantom against a sky as black as
night.
The question for us was whether there would be time to round the nose of
rock to the left of the Narenta mouth, and cross a narrow arm of green
sea to a promontory where we might obtain shelter, before the impending
hurricane came down on us.
The sailors thought it possible, and with set teeth laboured at the oars
as for grim life. But the black pall of clouds that darkened the western
hemisphere drew nearer and nearer; the white sea-mews swept wildly
and more wildly hither and thither against the face of coming night,
shrieking weirdly like the Banshees of coming doom. The wind and thunder
roared louder in our ears, and a thin snowy line of surf stretching
along the emerald horizon, swept like a charge of cavalry across the
intervening fields of sea—but now, so treacherously smooth!—and dashed
down upon our little craft.
The night was already upon us; the brilliant beams of sunset were
suddenly transformed, first into darkness, and then into the lurid
twilight of an eclipse which lit up our men’s faces with a pale ashy
grey, ghastly to look upon. These hardy descendants of corsairs seemed
really cowed, and shouted to us ‘Pray to God, signori! Pray to God! _La
Fortuna è rotta!_’
The storm had burst with a vengeance. The wind rose to a hurricane. The
surf and tempest struck our boat and beat her head round. It was in vain
that the men struggled at the oars; we were borne back, and swept along
helpless as a log in a torrent. We were driven towards the mouth of the
Narenta which we had left, and I thought every moment we should have
been dashed against the rocks; but Dame Fortune was merciful to us, and
notwithstanding that the men lost all command of the vessel, we rounded
the rocky headland, and found ourselves in comparatively sheltered waters
where oars were again available, so that we were presently anchored near
another small Narentan vessel in smoother waters—though even the river
was one sheet of foam. It now began to rain in torrents beyond all our
experience; so we covered ourselves with our macintoshes, and lay down in
the bottom of our boat, resolved not to emerge till the hurricane should
have abated somewhat of its fury. But hardly were we settled, when a
tremendous clap of thunder rent the air, followed by a series of sharp
blows which made us start to our feet, when we found that hailstones
varying in size from a bullet to a walnut, and in shape like Tangerine
oranges,[319] were rattling about our heads. With our helmet hats on,
and under cover of our macintoshes, we avoided being actually bruised,
but the thunder and lightning that accompanied the hail were still more
terrific. The forked lightning literally played around our craft, and it
seemed that it must be struck; the thunder was such as we had neither
of us heard the like of before. For a quarter of an hour we endured the
full brunt of this celestial cannonade, and then the storm passed away
as suddenly as it had come, and rolled on among the more inland ranges
of the Dinaric Alps, which the lightning kept throwing into vivid and
unexpected reliefs behind us; while in front and overhead, sky and rocks
and sea were illumined with the renewed splendour of sunset, and the
surface of the troubled Narenta calmed down into its wonted serenity.
But it was a storm such as one does not meet with twice in a life-time;
it was a fit initiation into this iron-bound coastland, with its
earthquakes and subterranean thunders—the cavernous home of winds and
tempests—the last refuge of piratic races.
We now renewed our voyage, and crossing a narrow arm of sea, landed
in a sheltered cove, where we took refuge in a spacious stone house,
the abode of a Dalmatian Family-community, hoping for the scirocco to
subside, in order to be able to pursue our course up the Stagno. We
were shown into the common eating and cooking room, a spacious chamber
on the ground-floor, where the family gathered round us; and the men,
when they heard that we were English, at once claimed us as brothers,
and entered into a most friendly conversation. ‘We like the English,’
said one; ‘we know your greatness on the sea, and we too are a nation of
seamen; England and Dalmatia!—there are no sailors but in your country
and ours!’ Another of the men had been to London and Plymouth, and he and
the others aired a string of English phrases with a decidedly nautical
flavour, amongst which we detected ‘Or’ right,’ ‘cup o’ tea,’ ‘grog,’
‘haul up,’ ‘ease her;’ and other expressions proving their _entente
cordiale_ with ‘Jack.’ About nine in the evening the woman-kind, the
children, and some of the men, betook themselves to sleeping chambers
above, and we were shown a bed in the spacious hall below, on whose
floor slept our seamen and some of the inmates. But the stuffiness was
so suffocating within, that I preferred the gnats and night air without;
and finding a convenient rock on which to pillow my head, imitated the
example of Jacob.
About midnight the adverse wind fell, and I being, by now, sufficiently
disillusioned of patriarchal repose, hastened to rouse L⸺ and our men,
and we were again on our way before 1 A.M., the wind shifting enough to
enable us every now and then to use our sail. We steered along the Canale
di Stagno piccolo, passing in the dark the inlet in which the Turkish
harbour of Klek is situate. About 8 A.M. we landed at Luka, on the
peninsula of Sabbioncello, and making our way on foot across the isthmus,
entered the old town of Stagno by a gateway through its high machicolated
Venetian walls. It was a small friendly place with clean narrow streets,
and many old stone palaces of the citizen nobility with stone escutcheons
over their doors, quaint rope mouldings and carved corbels under the
windows, some of which were of Venetian-Gothic style. Other houses, whose
owners probably could lay no claim to coats of arms, displayed over
their doorways medallions on which I.H.S. was engraved in a variety of
ornamental forms. In the Piazza just inside the gate by which we entered
lay an old font with many noble shields upon it, and in the city wall
opposite was a Renaissance fountain with a sixteenth-century date upon
it. Stagno was once a port of the Bosnian kings, till sold by one of them
to Ragusa at the end of the fourteenth century.
[Illustration: Women and Child, Stagno.]
The peasants in the Piazza were highly picturesque; the men, like the
inhabitants of the lower Narenta, strongly resembling the Turks in their
attire, except for a yellow sash round their waist, a Dalmatian peaked
fez on their head, and an ear-ring—a plain golden circle—in one ear.
The women, with their kerchiefs crossed about their bosom, showed more
Sclavonic characteristics in their dress, but their straw hats with long
streamers gave them a certain Swiss air.
While sketching the little group above, in the Piazza, I was somewhat
surprised to hear the inspiriting tune of ‘Men of Harlech’ proceeding
from a neighbouring house; but the mystery was cleared up by our shortly
receiving a message to the effect that ‘the daughter of the Judge of
Stagno’ wished to secure an interview with the Englishmen; and then it
was that we found that this amiable young lady, having lived some years
in Wales, and looking back with a tender regret to her sojourn in our
island, had resorted to the innocent device of playing the national
melodies of the Principality in order to attract our attention.... But
alas! the boat is starting for Ragusa—the parting has taken place,—we
have left our romantic damsel to sigh once more for English society, and
stagnate at Stagno.
Our boat—a _Trabaccolo_, I believe it is called—is equipped with an
expansive lateen sail, and as a propitious breeze, the Maestro, has
sprung up, we soon leave Stagno, its olives and oleanders and pretty
flowering shrubs, its siren music and bright eyes, far in our wake,
and scud along between rocky islands to our right, and the bare Karst
mountains of the mainland to our left. The desolate, monotonous hills,
perpetually repeating themselves, were hardly relieved by a stunted
tree—it was the same scenery so well described by Ovid in his Pontic
exile:
Rara, nec hæc felix, in apertis eminet arvis
Arbor, et in terra est altera forma maris!
At one point, indeed, the village of Canosa, there was an oasis of green
in the desert landscape; this was the gigantic group of plane trees,
which are said to rank among the finest in the world. But we are nearing
Ragusa, and after passing a line of jagged _scoglie_ which start up from
the deep like the teeth of a gigantic antediluvian, the sea, hitherto
hardly recovered from its frenzy of yestereen, becomes tranquil once
more, and we glide into the harbour of Gravosa, the port of modern
Ragusa, for depth and capacity reckoned the finest in Dalmatia.
CHAPTER IX.
RAGUSA AND EPIDAURUS.
Marvels of the Valle d’Ombla—Port of Gravosa—Rocky Coves and
Gardens of Ragusa—Ragusa Vecchia; Remains of Epidaurus—Monument
of a Roman Ensign—Mithraic Rock-sculpture—Plan of Canali and
the Roman Aqueduct—Antique Gems: the Lapidary Art in Ancient
Illyria—Epidauritan Cult of Cadmus and Æsculapius—Phœnician
Traces on this Coast—Syrian Types among modern Peasants—_Grotta
d’Escolapio_ and _Vasca della Ninfa_—Cavern, and Legend of
St. Hilarion and the Dragon—Mediæval Sculpture in Ragusa
Vecchia—The Founding of Ragusa—The Roman City on the Rock,
and the Sclavonic Colony in the Wood—Orlando saves the City
from the Saracens, and St. Blasius from the Venetians—Ragusa
as a City of Refuge—Visit of Cœur-de-Lion—Government of
the Republic—Sober Genius of Ragusans—Early Laws against
Slavery—Hereditary Diplomatists—Extraordinary Bloom of
Ragusan Commerce—The ‘Argosies’—Commercial and other
Relations with England—Literature of Ragusa; she creates
a Sclavonic Drama—Poets and Mathematicians: Gondola and
Ghetaldi—The great Earthquake—End of the Republic—A Walk in
Ragusa—Porta Pille—Stradone—Torre del Orologio—Zecca and
Dogana—Ancient Coinage of Ragusa—Palazzo Rettorale—A Mediæval
Æsculapius—Monuments to Ragusan Peabody and Regulus—The
Cross of Stephen Uroš—Silver Palissy-ware by a Ragusan
Master—Cappella delle Reliquie—Discovery of St. Luke’s Arm!—The
Narrow Streets of Ragusa: _Case Signorili_, and Hanging
Gardens—A Bird’s-eye View of the City—The Herzegovinian
Refugees—A jewelled _Ceinture_ from Nevešinje—The Fugitives
taken!—Turkish Influence on Ragusan Costume—Contrast between
Ragusan Peasants and ‘_Morlacchi_’—Refinement of the
Citizens—Blending of Italian and Sclave—The Natural Seaport
of Bosnia—A Vision of Gold and Sapphire—On the Margin of the
Hellenic World.
As we entered the harbour of Gravosa we passed on our left an enticing
watery gorge, which I am doubtful whether to call sea or river. This
is known as the Valle d’Ombla; and as it presents one of the most
extraordinary natural phenomena in the whole of Dalmatia, and is withal
a most favourite pleasaunce of Ragusan citizens, I did not omit to pay my
devoirs to it during my stay in the city of the Argosies.
For two miles and a half after leaving the harbour of Gravosa our boat
(for it is best approached by water) sailed up a broad and winding
channel of the most exquisite crystalline blue, reflecting on either side
rocky heights, and lower slopes covered with cypresses and olives, and
here and there dotted with white villas and cottages. About two miles
and a half from the point where this inlet debouches into the harbour of
Gravosa, the channel suddenly narrowed, and the boat had to be propelled
up the river proper, which is rapid and of considerable volume. Its whole
course was not more than a mile.
A little way beyond a church called Rosgiatto, rose before us a
precipitous limestone mountain, whose ridge forms the boundary of the
Herzegovina, and beyond which we heard distinctly the noise of an
engagement then going on between the insurgents and the Turks. At the
foot of this mountain the river Ombla springs from the bowels of the
earth, with sufficient energy to work a mill at its very source, and in
such volume that we may safely echo the words of the Ragusan poet, Elio
Cervino:—
Danubio et Nilo non vilior Ombla fuisset
Si modo progressus posset habere suos.
At the mill, which has several large water-wheels, we landed, and from
beneath the shadow of a fig-tree, then laden with golden fruit, surveyed
this stupendous spring.
The source itself is nearly forty yards in breadth, squaring off
against a wall of naked limestone rock which rises above it nearly
perpendicularly, some fifteen hundred feet. So untroubled is the pool, so
still is all around, that you can hardly realise that a river is welling
up from far below. Here and there, however, the glassy surface seems to
swell and heave, and in places the waters take a mysterious intensity
of sapphire that speaks of unfathomable depths. For centuries indeed
the sources remained unfathomed, and it needed a line eighteen hundred
feet long before the bottom was reached at last![320] The mystery of the
Ombla’s origin has been solved by observing the sympathy in ebb and flow
which it shows with an inland river, the Trebinjštica, on which lies the
old Herzegovinian city of Trebinje. This river is absorbed by Mother
Earth in two several places, and one of its swallow-holes is distant
about seven miles, as the crow flies, from the source of the Ombla. Thus
the river must pass right under a mountain chain, and accomplish many
miles of underground meanderings before it again emerges.
The Ombla appears to have been known to the ancients as the Arion, and
Virgil might well have given it a preference of immortality over the
Timavus, whose springs are too scattered and of too small a volume to
impress the spectator. Doubtless Arion had his nymphs, and certainly in
mediæval times they seem to have found their successor, even as the mossy
cell of nymph Egeria became the heritage of Santa Rosalia. Just above
the source, amidst a shady grove of fig-trees, I came upon the ruins of
a chapel with some fair fifteenth-century mouldings, and, carved over a
doorway, an angel and St. Mary with the inscription AVE GRACIA PLENA,
which would indicate the Christian Nymph of the Source to have been no
other than Our Lady.
But let us leave this pleasant resort, and resume our way to Ragusa
herself.
As we mounted upwards over the neck of land which separates the modern
port of Ragusa from the ancient city, a magnificent view of the
land-locked harbour of Ragusa, and the shipping anchored on its tranquil
waters, opened out behind us. The stern rocky heights which keep watch
and ward over this fiord of Southern sea, and shield it from the fierce
blasts of Bora and Scirocco, soften down perforce as they approach that
wondrous ultramarine margin. This old historic shore—it too has ‘espoused
the everlasting sea,’ and clothes itself in raiment worthy of the consort
that slumbers in its ample bosom! Luxuriant vines, pale olive woods,
and thickets of stately cypresses overspread the lower slopes; and this
Southern vegetation, with its alternating gloom and pallor, embosoms the
red-tiled roofs and white walls, of the pretty little villas, perfumed
by gardens where roses and verbenas mingle with the citron and myrtle of
a more tropical flora. Here and there was a less pleasing spectacle—a
foretaste of that melancholy flavour which will assert itself in the
Ragusa of to-day. Once or twice we came upon the deserted shell of
what had been the country seat of one of the merchant princes of the
palmier days of the republic, standing with ruinous walls and charred
rafters just as it was left seventy years ago, when the barbarous Black
Mountaineers and Russians sacked the suburbs of Ragusa.
The road by which we ascended was lined with laburnums and acacias. We
passed two exquisite rocky coves, revealing glimpses of blue sea far
below us, and now began to descend towards the city itself. We marvelled
to see amongst the rocks and gardens by the roadside, thickets of rosy
oleander, the spiry flowers of aloes, and here and there a palm-tree
flourishing in the open air. Then we passed an open public garden with
a brilliant array of flowers; and just outside the Porta Pille, the
land-gate of Ragusa, we discovered, in a pleasant grove of plane-trees,
a small hotel, the Albergo al Boschetto, where we settle down once more
into civilized life, in a room overlooking a beautiful gully of sea.
But how tenfold delightful are all these varying beauties of sea and land
to pilgrims like ourselves, fresh from the terrible limestone wilderness
of the interior! What balm in this tropical luxuriance of flowers and
foliage to eyes dazed with the pitiless glare of naked rocks! What
peace in the rhythmic murmur of the waves and ‘the unnumbered smile’ of
the ocean below us! And hardly less refreshing is it to the spirits of
those—who, like Childe Harold, have penetrated
From the dark barriers of that rugged clime,
Even to the centre of Illyria’s vales,
Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales,
—to find ourselves once more among associations as great as any that
ennoble the haunts of man.
Here, at last, after painfully exploring some of the turbid streams and
runnels of the mediæval civilisation of Bosnia, we take our seat beside
the fountain-head of Illyrian culture. This is the city which claims as
her proudest title that she has been ‘the Athens of Illyria.’ This is
the sweet interpreter between the wisdom of the ancients and the rude
Sclavonic mind, who acclimatized on Dalmatian soil the flowers of Greek
and Italian genius. This is the nursing mother of those enterprising
merchants who in the Middle Ages laid bare the mineral wealth of the
Bosnian mountains, and infused the spirit of commerce into their inmost
recesses. This is ‘the Palmyra between great empires,’ the City of Refuge
which received, within walls that never betrayed a fugitive, the hunted
remnants of Christian chivalry who, when Bosnia was trodden down beneath
the hoofs of the Infidel, preferred exile to renegation.
For her allotted part of interpreter between Italian and Sclave, Ragusa
was fitted by her very origin.[321] Her citizens can trace their lineal
descent from the inhabitants of the Greco-Roman Republic of Epidaurus.
When the Sclavonic barbarians, descending from the mountains of the
interior, destroyed the ancient city of Epidaurus, the Roman survivors
emigrated in a body to the present site of Ragusa, then a peninsular
rock. Ragusa thus stands to Epidaurus in the same filial relation in
which Venice stands to Aquileja and Patavium, and Spalato to Salona.
The site of the ancient Epidaurus, to exploring of which I devoted a day
of my sojourn here, lies on the south-eastern horn of the bay on which
Ragusa herself is situated. The site is covered by a small modern town
called, by a strange transference of names, Ragusa Vecchia; for the
same pride of origin which induced the citizens of mediæval Ragusa to
style their city ‘Epidaura,’ led them further to speak of their ancient
Epidauritan seats as ‘Old Ragusa.’
I took my place in the capacious _trabaccolo_ which fulfils the function
of ferry-boat between New and Old Ragusa, and a friendly Maestro filling
our lateen sail as we glided beyond the shelter of the Isle of Lacroma
and the haven of the Argosies, we had soon accomplished our eight
miles’ voyage, and were entering the harbour of Ragusa Vecchia. This
little town, in which most of the relics of the ancient Epidaurus are
discovered, lies on a small two-humped peninsula, and is so nearly an
island that at one point the two seas are separated only by a neck of
land some dozen yards broad, and raised not more than a foot or two above
sea level. This answers very well to the accounts of ancient Epidaurus
which have come down to us; for we read that the original city was on
an island till it was joined to the mainland by an earthquake; and
Procopius, writing in the sixth century, tells us that Epidaurus had two
harbours. Everywhere around one seems to trace the volcanic activity
which, to the Greco-Roman city as well as to her offspring Ragusa, was
ever the most terrible foe. The rocks that start up from the sea at the
nose of the present peninsula are but so many fragments from the wreck
of the old Epidauran site. Indeed, it is evident that Epidaurus covered
a much larger area than the site of Ragusa Vecchia can supply; besides
the remains on the peninsula, many, and amongst them the tomb of a P.
Cornelius Dolabella, have come to light on the plain to the east about
the modern village of Obod, which, I take it, preserves, in a Sclavonic
disguise, the first two syllables of Epidaurus. In the adjoining bay of
St. Ivan the walls of the Roman houses are, I was assured, distinctly
visible beneath the surface of the sea, which proves that here a great
subsidence of land has taken place within historic times.
At Ragusa Vecchia I found an intelligent peasant, who took me round to
show me all the old stones that were known of in the place; and as others
of the Ragusa Vecchian inhabitants showed a good-natured readiness to aid
my search, and nobody minded my entering their abode, I had soon seen
quite a museum of Roman antiquities scattered among old walls and cottage
yards, and was so far successful as to come upon some inscriptions
that have not been hitherto described,[322] and at least one piece of
sculpture on which the antiquary’s eye had never gazed. There were two
antique bas-reliefs walled into the houses of the quay—a Cupid, and a
female figure, by a chariot, perhaps intended for Amphitritè, but very
badly executed. On a column in another part of the town was a comic head
of good workmanship; and walled into a cottage yard a very fine effigy
of a Roman Signifer, holding an ensign, and coifed in a lion-skin cap,
like many standard-bearers on Trajan’s Column, which this figure much
recalled. Our soldier was shod in curious sandals, and wore at his side
a short sword with a curved handle, much resembling a modern Dalmatian
knife.
On the peninsula I also saw nine more or less perfect Roman inscriptions,
one of considerable interest, as it bore witness to the existence here of
an _Ordo decurionatus_ or municipal senate. Other inscriptions were to
be seen on the mainland towards the village of Sveti Ivan, and the owner
of some oliveyards here showed me some mortuary inscriptions engraved on
the huge scattered blocks with which the heights, which here rise above
the sea, are everywhere strewn. How terrible is the nakedness of this
land, where monuments stand ready for the graver!
[Illustration: Sculpture of Roman Standard-Bearer at Ragusa.]
Overlooking the bay of St. Ivan, and the peninsula of Ragusa Vecchia,
rises a rocky hill known as the Colle San Giorgio, up which I ascended to
investigate a monument which had accidentally been found there, not long
since, by a party of sailors belonging to the Greek communion. The way in
which in which it was discovered is interesting, as it was due to the not
altogether chance coincidence of two superstitions. Just below the hill
to the east is a Greek church, duly oriented; and the sailors, standing
against the wall at the west end, were gazing idly at the hill in front,
when a curious rock facing due east caught their eye; and climbing up
to examine it more closely, they found that an ancient bas-relief was
sculptured on it, which they presently laid completely bare by pulling
away some rocks which had fallen against it. Nobody could give me a
clearer account of the design than that it represented a man and a
bull; but on arriving at the spot, I found that it was, as I expected,
a Mithraic monument of a not unfrequent kind. The carving on the slab,
which was much mutilated and of very inferior art, represented Mithra, in
flowing mantle and tunic, sacrificing a bull, on which he was kneeling
in the usual attitude. To the left and right of this central subject was
an attendant—he to the left holding out one arm, apparently to hold the
bull’s horn. Below this device the slab seemed hollowed out, and though
the rocks in front were too large to remove without artificial aid, it
seemed quite possible that there might be a Mithraic cavern underneath.
From this hill were pointed out to me the traces of the ancient aqueduct
of Epidaurus, which ran right across the plain to the limestone mountain
beyond. Here out of the rock gushes a glacier-cool underground stream,
one of the effluents, it is supposed, of the Trebinjštica, which the
aqueduct once conveyed to the Greco-Roman city. The plain through which
it ran is still known as _Canali_ from this Roman work, and this whole
district was known to its early Sclavonic conquerors as the _Župa
Canawlovska_. Some remains of this work are to be seen where it abuts
on the rocky peninsula of Ragusa Vecchia, but there is nothing here to
remind one of the soaring arches of Salona.
The point where the aqueduct abuts on the rock of Ragusa Vecchia is,
however, remarkable for other reasons. It is just about here that
quantities of antique gems have been discovered, and one would suppose
that this was the lapidaries’ quarter of ancient Epidaurus. I have looked
through a great number of these, and have been so fortunate as to obtain
many, some here and some at Ragusa. It is remarkable that the habit of
wearing engraved gems has survived among the peasants who occupy the
modern site of Epidaurus. The Ragusa-Vecchians and Canalese take the
ancient intaglios that they from time to time pick up, and exchange them
with the jewellers of Ragusa for new gems of coarse Italian fabric! The
engraved stones found here are mostly carnelian, agate, sard, bloodstone,
onyx, and a few carbuncles. They are of various qualities and dates;
some, as can be told not only from their execution, but from the Greek
letters which appear on them, dating back to the Hellenic period of
Epidaurus; but most are Roman, and of inferior workmanship.
Nor, as I have already pointed out, does Epidaurus stand alone in this
fecundity of gems. The same phenomenon, to a greater or less extent,
characterises the remains of all the Roman sites in Illyria with which
I am acquainted. The sites of the ancient Narona, Salona, and Ænona are
equally prolific. From Salona there is a fine selection in the museum at
Spalato, and the Direttore, Signor Glavinich, showed me one there which
he believes to represent an early king of Illyria.
Yet, as stones adapted for these ornamental purposes are not to be
found on the Dalmatian shores, it seems difficult to account for their
abundance on the Roman sites of the coast-land. Whence were they derived?
The clue towards solving the mystery is, I think, to be found in the
abundance, in the interior of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, of just the
same stones engraved as Turkish amulets and talismans, to which attention
has been called already. In parts of the Herzegovina these stones are
accounted so cheap that they are worn for merely ornamental purposes.
Some of the rayah women, who had taken refuge in Ragusa from Nevešinje
and the neighbouring districts of the Herzegovina, wore broad belts
studded like ephods with suchlike stones. These were mostly, like the
antique gems of Epidaurus, carnelian and agate, but I also noticed a
few amethysts and one or two roots-of-emerald; they were rudely cut,
and none, as far as I saw, engraved. On enquiring whence they came, the
women told me that they picked them up in their own country, especially
in a valley near Nevešinje. Here, it seems to me, is the true clue to the
origin of the Roman intaglios. The raw material must have been gathered
in these inland valleys, and thence carried to Narona, Epidaurus, and the
other great coast cities, there to be engraved with the elegant designs
of classical mythology. That there was a regular manufacture of such
_bijouterie_ in the Roman cities of Dalmatia seems to be proved not only
by the great abundance of these gems on their sites, but also by the
fact that a very large proportion of these had evidently never been set
in rings and other articles of jewellery, which would certainly be their
ultimate destination. In those found near the head of the aqueduct in
Ragusa Vecchia, we have doubtless the stock-in-trade of some lapidary,
probably lost during one of the earthquakes from which the ancient city
suffered; and Signor Glavinich told me that he was convinced that Salona
had been the seat of a regular manufacture of Roman gems.[323] Doubtless,
were there sufficient evidence forthcoming, it would be found that Roman
Dalmatia was the seat of an export trade in such articles with other
provinces of the empire.
Some of the gems which I obtained from the site of Epidaurus bore
allusion to the Mithraic cult, the existence of which is witnessed to
by the monument on the Colle S. Giorgio. Two gems, one a bloodstone
representing Æsculapius with his serpent-staff; and another, a carnelian,
on which the same god of medicine stands side by side with his companion
Salus, were especially interesting as bearing allusion to another
Epidauritan cult of which we have historic evidence.
The Illyrian Epidaurus laid equal claim with her two Peloponnesian
namesakes to be the chosen seat of the god of healing, from whom the
inhabitants of this part are even said to have called themselves
_Asklepitani_. The temple of Æsculapius at the Saronic Epidaurus was
indeed of more world-wide celebrity among the ancients, and it was from
this that the cult was grafted on to Rome itself; but perhaps if we knew
more, it would be found that this Illyrian city could boast a greater
antiquity for her worship. Here, at least, this form of serpent-worship
seems to fit on to another, the Phœnician origin of which is beyond
question, and which is intimately connected with the earliest historic
traditions of this coast.
This district has been identified with that of the Encheleans, the
Illyrian people with whom Cadmus and his wife took refuge according to
the legend. Near here, according to ancient geographers, rose the rocks
of Cadmus and Harmonia, where was the sacred cavern in which they were
metamorphosed into dragons. Cadmus—whose very name is equivalent to ‘the
East’—was recognised by the Greeks themselves as of Phœnician origin,
and the whole myth is generally accepted as bearing reference to the
civilising influence of Phœnician colonies on the Hellenic border.
It certainly seems more than a coincidence that the mythic account of
Cadmus should connect him with this part of Illyricum, where we know not
only from historical sources, but from actual remains, that Phœnician
settlements existed in very early times. One account of the origin of
the neighbouring city of Narona or Narbona makes it a Phœnician colony;
the island of Meleda, whose ancient name is identical with that of the
Phœnician Malta, the island of Lagosta, and others contain Phœnician
inscriptions. What more natural than that the serpent-worship of these
coasts should have been derived from the votaries of Esmun?
At the present day the Canalese peasants who inhabit the district about
the site of ancient Epidaurus differ so essentially in face and form from
the surrounding Sclavonic races whose language they speak, and are so
Oriental in their appearance, that Appendini, the historian of Ragusa,
has recorded an opinion that they are nothing else than descendants of
the old Phœnician colonists of this coast. He would be indeed a bold man
who should accept this theory without reserve, but I can bear the most
emphatic testimony to the existence of a strikingly Oriental type in this
neighbourhood. In Ragusa Vecchia itself the countenances struck me as
of ordinary Serbian or Italian types. But in the market-place of Ragusa
I noticed three peasant women whose faces bespoke, as plainly as faces
can speak, an entirely different origin. On enquiring whence they came I
found them to be natives of the Golfo di Breno, a cove about three miles
distant from the site of Epidaurus. The faces were strikingly alike. They
were long and narrow, the nose thin and long, very finely chiselled,
and inclined to be aquiline, their eyes black, and their tresses to
match. The big gold beads of her necklace, and the brilliant red and
orange kerchief that coifs her head, are the same as those worn by her
Serbo-Italian neighbours; but, assuredly, the face of the girl I sketched
is that of a Syrian rather than a Serbian beauty!
[Illustration: Head of Brenese Peasant.]
But to return to Cadmus. The modern Ragusa-Vecchians and Canalese
cling with obstinacy to the tradition that a capacious cavern which
opens beyond the Pianusa Canalitana, on the limestone steep of Mt.
Sniesnica, is the very subterranean shrine where Cadmus and Harmonia were
metamorphosed into serpents, and where afterwards Æsculapius kept his.
It is still known as the _Grotta d’Escolapio_. Being four hours distant
from Ragusa Vecchia, I had not opportunity to visit it; but Appendini,
who explored it, has left a curious account of the cavern, which is very
beautiful. Most interesting is the way in which Sclavonic mythology has
appropriated the haunts of classical legend. The Vila herself, under a
thin Italian disguise, has taken up her abode in the cavern of Cadmus
and Æsculapius, and a religious awe falls on the Canalese peasant as he
points out the _Vasca della Ninfa_. This is a natural vase formed by the
stalagmite, looking into which, Appendini descried beneath the water
three coins—offerings, doubtless, made to the goddess of the grot by her
peasant votaries; but when this impious mortal would have put forth his
hand and taken them up, his terrified guide restrained him—_he knew_ that
the cavern would close its jaws on whoever should attempt to carry off
the Vila’s treasure.
I heard of another cave also associated with Æsculapius in the peninsula
of Ragusa Vecchia itself, and as there is a strange fascination about
caverns, with or without legendary associations, I hastened to explore
it. A corps of observation was soon organised among the natives, so that,
guided by a party armed with candles and torches, I presently found
myself at the opening of the cavern. To arrive at the actual entrance
you have to drop a few feet into a crevice of the rocks, which are
overgrown with a profusion of beautiful true maidenhair fern.[324] We
then penetrated through a narrow mouth, and the light of the torches
revealed a spacious rock chamber with a rapidly descending floor. The
descent was now rather risky; the men had to feel carefully every step,
as the slightest slip sets in motion a miniature avalanche, and pebbles
set rolling bound down to an unfathomed pool below, in which several
people have been drowned. We were not able to reach the water, but it is
quite possible that there exist other once accessible pools, the avenues
to which have been blocked up with breccia. If so, this may well have
been the cavern from which, in the fourth century, the Epidauritans
(whose aqueduct we may suppose had already been cut off by earthquakes
or barbarian foes) were wont to obtain their supply of fresh water.
In that case I had been exploring the haunts of another most terrific
serpent—this time of Christian mythology.
About the year of grace 365—St. Jerome be my witness!—Epidaurus and its
inhabitants were in a very bad way.
Now hard-by Epidaurus was a certain cave called _Scipum_, in which
they of that city were wont to draw water. And in this cave a grievous
dragon[325] called _Boas_ had taken his abode, and wrought much slaughter
both of men and cattle. And it came to pass that St. Hilarion entered
the city, and when he saw that they of that place quaked and feared,
for the dragon was of huge and monstrous size, he bade them be of good
heart, for that he would slay the fiend. Now Epidaurus was yet pagan.
Therefore St. Hilarion gat him to the mouth of the cavern, and having
made the sign of the holy cross, he cried with a loud voice and saith
unto the monster, ‘Come forth.’ But when the dragon Boas heard the voice
of the holy man, then quailed his heart within him, and he came forth.
Then saith St. Hilarion unto the dragon, ‘Follow me.’ And the dragon
followed him, and he went on foot till he came to a place called ‘the
mills,’ which is distant from the city three miles and fifty paces. And
when they were come there, St Hilarion saith unto them of Epidaurus that
went with him, ‘Make now a pyre that we may consume the monster and his
works.’ And the pyre being now made, St. Hilarion saith unto the dragon
Boas, ‘Get thee on to the pyre.’ And the dragon gat him on to the pyre.
Then was fire set to the pyre that the dragon was utterly consumed. But
they of Epidaurus, when they saw what salvation was wrought for them by
the holy man, rejoiced in spirit. And at that spot which is called ‘the
mills’ they built a temple to the honour and praise of St. Hilarion. And
once in every year, at a set season, there went thither much people from
Epidaurus, and offered worship unto St. Hilarion, singing pagan hymns,
and before sundown returned to their own city.
So much for the true and faithful legend of St. Hilarion; and if anyone
doubts its veracity, let him know that the mills are to be seen unto
this day, and that the village hard-by them, S. Ilarione, preserves the
name[326] of the saintly dragon-slayer, who, I may add, is still held
in great veneration by the Ragusan church. But how interesting is this
personified triumph of Christianity over the Cadmean and Æsculapian
serpent-worship of earlier Epidaurus!—how suggestive is this annexation
of local mythology by the new religion!
It may be believed that after this miracle the faith grew in Epidaurus,
especially when, twenty years afterwards, St. Hilarion followed up his
first success by once more appearing as saviour of the city. In the year
385, we are told there was a grievous earthquake, and the waves were
piled up like mountains, and threatened to engulf Epidaurus. But the
saint graved three crosses in the sand of the seashore, and the ocean,
which hearkened not to Cnut, obeyed Hilarion. Christian bishops of
Epidaurus are mentioned in the sixth and seventh centuries, and we hear
of one nine years before the final overthrow and transplantation of the
city. I did not notice any Christian monuments on the site of Epidaurus
of Roman date; but I was pleased to find in a cottage of Ragusa Vecchia,
built into the interior wall of an upper room, a very beautiful monument
of mediæval Christian art, which I have here attempted to represent. It
was known to the cottagers as the ‘Bambino,’ and represents the Mother
and Child; but the influence of classical art is strongly marked, and
though the tenderness of the whole design is Italian, the head of the
Virgin might have been mistaken for a heathen goddess.
[Illustration: Virgin and Child.]
As early as A.D. 550 the Sclaves had begun to annoy Epidauras, but it
was not till the year 656 that the city finally yielded, it is said to
a combined attack, on land by the heathen Narentines and Terbunians,
and from the sea by Saracen corsairs from Africa. Then it was that the
survivors of the Roman population fled to the rocky site on the other
horn of the gulf on which Ragusa stands. Every morning the same migration
from Old to New Ragusa takes place on a smaller scale. A bevy of bright
Canalese market-women, in their clean white crenellated caps, and
their more sombre husbands—who, with their black turbans, jackets, and
trouser-leggings, look like Turks in mourning—embark before dawn in the
broad _trabaccolo_, that they may sell their fruit and vegetables in the
Ragusan market. In their company I will return to Ragusa and her history.
The rock on which the refugees from Epidaurus laid the foundations of
what is now Ragusa, is said originally to have been an island, though
it is now only a peninsula. Ragusa herself owes her name, according to
Constantine Porphyrogenitus,[327] to the Greek word Λαῦ, signifying
‘rock,’ and the fact that the rock on which the original city was
built was known long afterwards as ‘Lavve’ is rather favourable to the
Byzantine etymology. Thus, both her name and origin are representative
of the rôle which the city was to play throughout her earlier history,
and to which she owes so much of her greatness. Like ancient Rome,
Ragusa began life as an asylum. She was at first a rock of refuge for
the survivors from the wrecks of Roman coast-cities of Dalmatia. The
fugitives from Epidaurus obtained citizen recruits from those inhabitants
of Salona who, when their city was destroyed, did not trust to the walls
of Diocletian’s palace for security, or could not find room there. Later
on, when the Roman cities that occupied the sites of the present towns
of Rizano, Cattaro, Budua, and other places on the Bocche di Cattaro and
the Albanian coast, were ravaged by the Saracen corsairs, a new influx of
Roman refugees set in to Ragusa.
Ragusa was thus originally Roman. Her necessities led her to ally with
the Eastern Empire against the Saracen corsairs, and, however little real
authority the Byzantine Emperors possessed within her walls, Constantine
Porphyrogenitus places Rausium among the imperial cities on the Dalmatian
coast. But this Roman coast-city, with her inheritance of ancient
civilisation, was already consummating that alliance with the ruder
energies of the Sclavonic mainland, to which her future eminence was so
largely due.
The barren mountain which frowns so abruptly over Ragusa on the
land-side, was once covered with an immemorial pinewood,[328] which
stretched over a large part of what is now included in the mediæval walls
of Ragusa. It was in this wood that a Sclavonic colony settled, outside
the Roman rock stronghold, and as in process of time the two populations
blended, _Dubrava_—which signifies ‘the wood,’ and had been the name
given by the Sclaves to their colony outside the walls—was attached to
the whole city, so that Ragusa is still known to the Sclavonic world as
_Dubrovnik_—the forest town.
For long the new rock asylum is engaged in a life-and-death struggle with
the Saracen corsairs, who desolated the Dalmatian and Albanian coasts.
Generally, still Roman Ragusa turns to the Byzantine Empire as her
natural protector; but for a moment we see dimly reflected in her saga
the influence of the revived Empire of the West; and one may, perhaps,
be allowed to see in it a witness to the authority which for a while the
great Carl succeeded in extending over the Illyrian Sclaves. We were
surprised to find in the more classic court of the Palazzo Rettorale
here, a colossal statue such as one meets with often enough beneath the
quaint gables of a North-German Rathhaus. It was, in fact, a Ragusan
Rolandsäule. According to the Ragusan annalists, Orlando, or Rolando,
the sister’s son of Carl the Great, and a brave Paladin, had heard in
Bretagne, where he was governor, that Saracen corsairs were ravaging the
Roman towns of the Adriatic. Orlando at once set out for Ragusa, embarked
on board a Ragusan galley, won a sea-victory over the Saracen pirates off
the island of Lacroma opposite, took their Emir Spucento captive, and cut
off his head in Ragusa. Thereupon the grateful Ragusans set up then and
there a marble statue of Orlando, which remains unto this day.[329]
Another time the treacherous Venetians prepare to surprise Ragusa under
the pretence of provisioning their ships. But St. Blasius, of Armenia,
appears to a priest in a dream and warns him of the danger to the
city. The priest gave the alarm, the walls were manned in time, and
Ragusa showed her gratitude to her preserver by choosing him as her
patron saint. A church was reared to St. Blasius, his effigy was placed
on the great seal, the banners, and coins of the Republic, and his
miraculous interposition was commemorated every year at the feast of the
Purification.
This is not the place to trace out all the ‘dim complicacities’ of
Ragusa’s earlier history. Ragusa was by birthright a City of Refuge,
and her rise was mainly due to the wise and heroic policy of defending
at any cost her rights of hospitality. Whether it be the children
of the rightful king of Serbia, or the widowed queen of Dalmatia,
or the Bosnians who had fled from the wrath of their Ban, all alike
obtain shelter from their pursuers within these hospitable walls.
Again and again Ragusa consented to see her territory ravaged and her
walls beleaguered for the protection which her Senate accorded to
the unfortunate. When Bodin, the Grand Župan of Serbia, Rascia, and
Bosnia, then at the height of his power, demanded the extradition of
the sons of the Serbian prince whose dominion he had usurped,[330] and
threatened in case of refusal ‘to fly his eagle to the destruction of
Ragusa,’ the Senate nobly replied ‘that it was the custom of their city
to refuse asylum to no man, but to protect everyone who fled to them in
misfortune.’ On this occasion Ragusa underwent a seven years’ siege.
Even those who had been the bitterest enemies to the Republic were glad
in less prosperous days to throw themselves on a hospitality that never
failed. Bogoslave, the king of Dalmatia, had besieged Ragusa with 10,000
men for sheltering the widowed queen, Margarita; but when, on his death,
his widowed queen and son were driven forth from their country, Ragusa
did not hesitate to give them shelter, too. Stephen Némanja, the Grand
Župan of Serbia and Rascia, who had twice laid siege to Ragusa, once
with an army of 20,000 horse and 30,000 foot, seeing himself likely to
be worsted in his struggle with the Byzantine Emperor, sent to ask the
senate of Ragusa if he, too, should be allowed to claim their right
of asylum, and obtained permission to retire here with his family if
defeated; and that, though his adversary was allied to the republic.
A city strong enough and generous enough to shelter the unfortunate
on either side could not fail to find many well-wishers among the
neighbouring peoples and princes; and though Ragusa suffered much in
defence of her privilege of asylum, she won more. Silvester, a king
of Dalmatia, who had found shelter within her walls, on recovering
power, testified his gratitude by presenting Ragusa with the islands of
Calamotta, Mezzo, and Giupan. Stephen, a former king, in return for
hospitality conferred on him as a voluntary guest, made over to the
Republic the neighbouring coast-lands from the Val-di-noce to Epidaurus.
The good relations which she cultivated with the Bosnians, and the
gratitude of the Némanjas, enabled Ragusa to lay the foundations of her
commercial eminence in the heart of Illyria; and in 1169 two Ragusan
merchants built a factory on the site of what has since become the
capital of Bosnia.
But Ragusa obtained one reward for hospitality to a royal stranger which
must claim an especial interest from Englishmen. Richard Cœur-de-Lion,
during his ill-fated voyage from the Holy Land, overtaken by a storm
in the Adriatic, vowed that he would build a church at the spot where
he should reach land in safety. He landed on the small rocky island of
Lacroma, which lies opposite the old port of Ragusa. But he was conducted
to the neighbouring city of Ragusa with great pomp by the Senate, and
entertained with such profuse hospitality and magnificent shows, that
he yielded to the prayers of the Ragusans, and obtained a dispensation
from the Pope, to build the promised church in Ragusa itself, though it
appears that his Holiness made him build a small church on Lacroma as
well. The church which was now built with English money (though Richard
had to borrow for the purpose), was the old cathedral of Ragusa. For
beauty it was unrivalled in Illyria,[331] but unfortunately no trace of
it now remains, as it was entirely destroyed by the earthquake of 1667.
The year 1203 marks a new epoch in the history of Ragusa. In this year
the Rector of the Republic, Damiano Juda, endeavoured to prolong his
government beyond the year for which he had been elected. By the help
of the popular party he succeeded in retaining the supreme authority
for two years, and became so obnoxious to the nobles, that considering
the suzerainty of a foreign state to be preferable to the tyranny of a
fellow-citizen, they held a secret conclave in which it was decided to
invoke the aid of Venice. The Venetians, whose power from the recent
conquest of Constantinople was then at its zenith, accepted the overtures
of the Ragusan nobles. Damiano was decoyed on board a Venetian ship,
where, on finding himself a prisoner, he committed suicide; and Lorenzo
Quirini, the nominee of Venice, was introduced as Count of the Republic.
But Ragusa never sank like Zara or Spalato, and the other Dalmatian
cities, under Venetian domination. Quirini had only been received on
condition that Ragusa should preserve her ancient liberties. When the
Ragusans began to perceive an intention on the part of the Venetian Count
to violate this agreement they turned him out; and though they once more
received a nominee of Venice in 1232, the relation of the Ragusans to
Venice was rather that of a free ally than that of a dependent. It was
indeed stipulated that the Doge and a majority of the Venetian Senate
should nominate the Count of Ragusa, that her archbishop should be born
on Venetian territory, and that her citizens should swear fealty to
the Doge; but Ragusa retained the right of conducting her own affairs
by means of her Senate, of which the Count was only president; she was
still governed by her own laws; her own flag floated from her walls,
and she struck her own coins with the effigy of St. Blasius. The treaty
stipulates that both states are to have the same friends and foes; but
towards Venetian expeditions beyond the Adriatic, Ragusa was only to
contribute one thirtieth. So free indeed was Ragusa, that in fact she
never accepted Venetian archbishops; and in 1346 the Venetian _Conte_ was
forced to look on and see the republic transfer its suzerainty to the new
Serbian empire of Czar Dūshan.
Thus it was that Ragusa, though for a while under Venetian overlordship,
never, like the other Dalmatian cities, saw her native institutions
swept away by Venice. At the present day, at Cattaro or Spalato, along
the Dalmatian coast-land on each side of Ragusa, you hear the Venetian
dialect; at Ragusa the language is pure Tuscan. St. Blasius, and not the
lion of St. Mark, adorns the mediæval walls and gates of Ragusa. On the
other hand, in costume, manners, and the form of government, the Venetian
influence here has been very perceptible.
It is about the time of the Venetian suzerainty that the government
becomes finally fixed.
Ragusa had doubtless originally inherited her aristocratic-republican
institutions[332] from the _municipales_ of ancient Epidaurus. Her
Senate, which we hear of in very early days, is doubtless, like the
Senates of Arles, Nismes, Vienne, and the other great cities of Languedoc
and Provence, but a continuation of the Roman _Curia_, of whose existence
in Epidaurus we have both historic and epigraphic proof. Her patricians
could no doubt trace back their ancestry to the late Roman Honorati; they
were twitted, indeed, with tracing it back to Jupiter!
From the time of the Venetian suzerainty onwards, the government is
vested in three councils, and the city divided into three orders: the
Nobili or Patrizj, the Cittadini, divided into the two _Confraternite_
of S. Antonio and S. Lazzaro; lastly the Artigiani, who appear to have
stood to the Cittadini much as our craft-guilds to the merchant-guilds.
The government was entirely aristocratic; the Cittadini could indeed fill
some public offices,[333] but the appointments were reserved for the
Senate.
The body in which the sovereignty ultimately rested was the Gran
Consiglio,[334] including all the members of the nobility who had
reached the legal age of eighteen, and whose names were registered in
the _Specchio di Maggior Consiglio_, a Ragusan _Libro d’Oro_. This body
elected, every month, the Rector of the Republic, and, annually, all the
great magistrates, imposed the customs and ordinary taxes, confirmed or
abolished laws, and possessed the power of pardoning and passing sentence
of death.
The more ordinary functions of government were in the hands of two
smaller bodies. The Senate, or _Consiglio de’ Pregati_, composed of
forty-five members, drew up the laws and imposed extraordinary and
indirect taxes, appointed ambassadors and consuls, decided on peace or
war, treated of important state affairs, and acted as a court of appeal.
The Senate met four times a week, and on occasions of emergency. The
members were elected for life from its body by the Gran Consiglio, but
were confirmed in their office every year by this greater council, and
sometimes a Senator was suspended by it from his functions.
Lastly, the Minor Consiglio, consisting of seven senators and the Rettore
of the Republic, acted as the executive of the greater council, exercised
judicial authority on greater cases, received ambassadors, and treated
with foreign Powers.[335] The Rettore of the Republic, who presided over
this body, held office only a month, during which time he was bound to
reside perpetually in the Palazzo Rettorale, only leaving it on public
occasions.[336] He was clad in a long red robe, with a black stole over
his shoulders as a sign of supreme authority, kept the keys of the city,
the archives of the Republic, and convoked the Gran Consiglio and Senate.
As a further constitutional precaution, thoroughly Venetian, three
magistrates, called Provveditori della Repubblica, were chosen, who were
superior to all but the Senate and Greater Council, and who possessed the
right of suspending laws and decrees, and their execution till the Senate
had re-examined them.[337]
Truly, from a constitutional point of view, Ragusa deserved her title
of _Piccola Venezia_! But the aristocratic government at Ragusa worked
with even greater smoothness than at Venice. Though the rule of the
Ragusan patricians had endured for nigh seven centuries before the
time of Damiano Juda, and was prolonged for over five centuries after
his date, it was only broken by this solitary revolution.[338] Take
into consideration the small size of the city, and the stability of
the Ragusan constitution becomes the more remarkable. Here there was
no room for feudal lords living on their own domains, amidst their own
retainers, protected and secluded by moats and castle walls. The nobles
of Ragusa elbowed their fellow-citizens in the same narrow streets; and
these fellow-citizens, far from being ignorant serfs, were often their
equals in education and their superiors in wealth. Yet the Cittadini
and Artigiani of Ragusa were content to leave the reins of government
in the hands of an aristocratic caste, and that caste was so exclusive
that during eight hundred years there is no single instance recorded of a
_mésalliance_ with the bourgeoisie.
The secret lies in the sober genius of both the nobles and people of
Ragusa, and in that elevated conception of patriotism which linked
it with their religion. A judicial gravity presides over the whole
constitutional history of Ragusa. The governing classes looked on their
authority, not as a mere prize of birth, but as a sacred trust. The
prayer for the magistrates of the Republic, which opens the Ragusan
_Libro d’Oro_, breathes that exalted spirit which animated all classes of
Ragusan citizens from first to last. ‘O Lord, Father Almighty, who hast
chosen this Commonwealth to Thy service, choose, we beseech Thee, our
governors according to Thy will and our necessity; that so, fearing Thee
and keeping Thy holy commandments, they may cherish and direct us in true
charity. Amen.’[339]
Turn where we will among the pages of Ragusan history, we find ourselves
amongst a grave and sober people—a people who are never carried away
with success, and who support adversity with calm endurance. The
heroes of Ragusa are of the majestic Roman type, and her greatest is
a second Regulus. Her peculiar genius reflects itself in her arts
and sciences, which are severe and practical. Her Senate forbids the
erection of a theatre. The fine arts here fall into the background, and
mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy take the lead. Ragusan nobles
are mathematicians, and her poets are also merchants; the masterpieces
of her muse are stately epics. Her sympathies are with the dignified
spirit of the East, and the noblest homage of her bards is rendered to a
Turkish Grand Signior. But Ragusa nowhere displayed the severe gravity
of her manners more conspicuously than in the education of her children.
Palladius,[340] writing in the middle of the fifteenth century, says of
the Ragusans: ‘To make manifest how great is the severity and diligence
of the Ragusans in the bringing up of their children, one thing I will
not pass over, that they suffer no exercises to exist in the city, but
literary. And if jousters or acrobats approach they are forthwith cast
out, lest the youth (which they would keep open for letters or for
merchanding) be corrupted by such low exhibitions.’ Truly, in mediæval
Ragusa, Jack must have been a dull boy!
The same sober and religious spirit asserts itself in the laws, and the
philanthropic and industrial institutions of mediæval Ragusa. Few indeed
were the towns which could boast of a City Police and Sanitary Board in
the middle ages! There was a ‘Curates’ Augmentation Fund’ here in the
fourteenth century;[341] this city lays claim to having possessed the
first foundling hospital[342] and the first loan-bank in the civilised
world, and the annual revenues of the pious institutions of Ragusa
amounted to 800,000 ducats. If we except the early English legislation
which put a stop to the human exports of Bristol, Ragusa was the first
state to pass laws abolishing the slave trade. In the year 1416 the great
council of Ragusa, hearing that several Ragusan merchants residing on the
Narenta were in the habit of selling those under them as slaves, passed
a law—by a majority of seventy-five in a house of seventy-eight—that
anyone who henceforth sold a slave should be liable to a fine and six
months’ imprisonment: ‘Considering such traffic to be base, wicked, and
abominable, and contrary to all humanity, and to redound to the no small
disgrace of our city—namely, that the human form, made after the image
and similitude of our Creator, should be turned to mercenary profit, and
sold as if it were brute beast.[343] During the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries, large sums were left by philanthropic citizens
of Ragusa to be spent in purchasing the freedom of slaves.
Perhaps the stability of the Ragusan government is due as much to her
peculiar situation as to the sobriety of her citizens. Ragusa is well
described by mediæval writers as a ‘Palmyra between great empires.’ She
had to preserve her independence in turn from Byzantine Cæsars, the
pirate state of the Narentines, the queen of the Adriatic, the Serbian
Czar, the kings of Hungary, and finally from the Turks and Spaniards.
She had to be perpetually on her guard against the ambitious designs
of the most powerful states of the mediæval world. When her neighbours
quarrelled, she was continually placed in the most difficult position,
and the ramifications of her trade put her at the mercy of the most
remote assailant. Thus it was that in her government foreign affairs
were of supreme importance; there was constant necessity for secret
discussion, prompt decision, and the wisdom of a hereditary caste of
statesmen. A state whose empire is mercantile must be mighty indeed
to afford the luxury of popular government. Ragusa was too small, too
closely bordered by powerful empires; and the sterling sense of her
citizens acquiesced in the necessity of an aristocratic constitution.
Nothing, indeed, is more wonderful in the history of the Republic than
the tact with which these hereditary diplomatists conducted foreign
affairs. In an earlier stage of her history, and a ruder state of
society, we have seen the obstinacy with which the Senate clung to the
Ragusan rights of asylum. In a later and more diplomatic age the City
of Refuge becomes the champion of the rights of neutrals. We are lost
in wonder at the skill with which the Republic preserves its neutrality
between Venice and the Greeks, Venice and the Narentines, Venice and the
Hungarians; between the Serbian Czar and Byzantine Cæsar, between the
Turks and the Hungarians, the Turks and the Venetians, the Turks and the
fleets of Charles V. It appears to have been a secret of Ragusan policy
to yield a certain suzerainty to that Power which was strong on the
mainland. While Venice is omnipotent in Dalmatia, Ragusa recognizes the
overlordship of the Doge; Czar Dūshan stretches the Serbian empire to the
sea, and Ragusa transfers to him her homage. The Serbian empire breaks
up; the Hungarian flag floats on the walls of the Dalmatian cities in
place of the lion of St. Mark; and from 1358 to 1483 Ragusa accepts the
suzerainty of the kings of Hungary. But with admirable perception the
statesmen of Ragusa turn towards the rising sun; and already, in 1370,
when the rest of Eastern Europe was hardly conscious of the existence of
its future conquerors, the Ragusans sent an embassy to Broussa, in Asia
Minor, to the successor of Orchan,[344] Emir of the Turks, in which, in
return for a yearly payment of 500 sequins, they obtained a firman of
trade privileges, still preserved in the archives of Ragusa, and laid the
foundations of a friendship which afterwards saved the small Republic
when the empire of Byzantium, the despotates of Serbia and Albania, and
the kingdoms of Hungary and Bosnia, were swept away. The treaty was
renewed with Bajazet, and on his final conquest of the Herzegovina in
1483, Ragusa, true to her policy, transfers her suzerainty to the Porte.
It was the vast commerce of Ragusa with the interior of the Balkan
peninsula which made her government so sedulous in securing friendly
relations with the dominant power of the mainland. The citizens were
repaid tenfold for their deference to the ruling caste by the benefits
which their trade reaped from the keen foresight and the marvellous
powers of negotiation displayed by their government. The friendship
of Serbian, Bosnian, Hungarian, and later on of Turkish potentates,
enabled them to plant their factories throughout the Sclavonic lands
that lie between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. At the time of the
Turkish conquests the Ragusans possessed mercantile colonies at the Serai
in Bosnia, Novipazar in Rascia, Novibrdo and Belgrade in Serbia, at
Bucharest and Tirgovisce in Wallachia, at Widdin, Rustchuk, Silistria,
and Sophia in Bulgaria, and in the original capital of Turkey-in-Europe,
Adrianople. To these colonies the Turks conceded a special jurisdiction,
and even the right to build cathedral churches. Ragusan caravans passed
without let or hindrance throughout all these lands; and the Pope
himself granted the Ragusans permission to trade with the infidels. An
astounding monument of the industry of these colonists is found in a
treaty between George Branković, despot of Serbia, and the Republic, by
which the Ragusan government leased the working of the three gold mines
of Novibrdo, Janovo, and Kratovo, for a yearly rent of 300,000 ducats—an
enormous sum for those days.
Besides this trade with the Sclavonic interior, Ragusa conducted a
maritime traffic with the Levant, and as early as the beginning of the
fourteenth century had concluded treaties of commerce with the sultans
of Egypt, Syria, Iconia, and Bythinia. Ragusan factories existed in the
great Italian cities of the Romagna, the Marches, and Abbruzzo, and
throughout Sicily and Naples, and much of the transit trade between those
countries and the Levantine ports was conducted in Ragusan bottoms. Of
these commercial colonies in Italy, the most important was that which
gave the name _Strada de’ Ragusei_ to a street of Florence, and the
Messinese, established at Syracuse, which gave the name of Ragusa to a
castle that rose above the ruins of Camarina. Her merchants penetrated
not only to France and Spain, but even to our shores, whence they
transported English wares, especially cloths and woollens, to the south
and east.[345] Ragusan merchants were settled in England in the sixteenth
century, and later on Cromwell granted the Ragusans trade privileges
in English ports. The mighty merchantmen of Ragusa ‘with portly sail,
like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,’[346] have added a word
to the English language. Our ‘argosy,’[347] once written ‘_Ragosie_,’
meant originally nothing but a Ragusan carrack. Nor was it only in the
peaceful paths of commerce that our forefathers made acquaintance with
the stately vessels of Ragusa. As the price of many trade privileges, the
Republic was forced to recruit the navies of Spain with her ships and
take part in her enterprises. The loftiest carracks in the Spanish Armada
sailed forth from the old harbour of Ragusa, and in 1596 twelve Ragusan
three-masters fought the English in the Indian Ocean.
By the end of the fifteenth century the commercial bloom of Ragusa
had reached its prime, and the city must have been amongst the most
flourishing in Europe. As early as 1450 the merchant navy of Ragusa
consisted of 300 vessels. ‘There is no part of Europe,’ says the
contemporary Palladius, ‘so hidden or so hostile to strangers that you
will not find there merchants of Ragusa.’ And this commercial prosperity
abroad was supplemented by manufacturing enterprise at home.
In 1490 a Florentine weaver was called in to instruct the Ragusans in
cloth-weaving. Mills were built, a Neapolitan constructed a conduit to
aid the dyeing, machinery was set in motion by water-power, and in five
years a new manufacture was in full operation. A few years later[348]
the silk manufacture was introduced by an enterprising citizen of Ragusa
from Tuscany. Besides these and such minor industries as supplied the
neighbouring Turkish provinces with wax, hides, salt, and sandals, there
was the cannon foundry, the powder mill, the docks, the coral fishery,
the glass manufactory, and the production of that filagree work of gold
and silver, in which the Ragusans excelled, to divide the energies of
the citizens. At the end of the fifteenth century the population of
Ragusa is reckoned at 40,000, the treasury of the Republic is said to
have contained a reserve of seven million sequins, and the merchants of
a single quarter of the city, called Prieko, were possessed of capital
amounting to two hundred million ducats.
At this time an additional lustre is shed over the ancient City of Refuge
by the nobility of those who sought refuge within her walls. After the
fall of Constantinople and the overthrow of the Sclavonic kingdoms of the
interior, Ragusa was thronged with fugitive princes of Eastern Europe.
Scions of the imperial houses of Byzantium, the families of Lascaris and
Cantacuzene, the Comneni and Palæologi, the wife of the Despot of Serbia,
the widowed Queen of Bosnia, with a host of lesser rank, sought and found
a haven in these hospitable streets; and the name of Stephen, duke of St.
Sava, is still to be seen inscribed on the roll of Ragusan nobility in
the Specchio del Maggior Consiglio.
But the greatest glory of Ragusa lies neither in her wealth nor her
princely hospitality, but rather in the civilizing influence which she
exercised over the most barbarous European member of our Aryan family.
It is the literature of Ragusa that lives still in the minds of men in
days when her commerce has deserted her, and her own nobility has been
extinguished with her liberty.
We have seen Ragusa by her very birth partly Roman and partly Sclave. Bit
by bit the ‘city of the rock’ becomes fused with the forest-town outside.
In her vast and varied intercourse with the Sclavonic interior Roman
Ragusa becomes Serbian Dubrovnik. From the beginning of the fourteenth
century the Serbian language, so vigorously proscribed by earlier laws,
may be considered the mother-tongue of Ragusa. In 1472 the Sclavonic
language became so dominant that even the Senate had to pass a law
enforcing Italian as the language of their deliberations. Thus Ragusa
became a Sclavonic city at the very moment when her extended connection
with the rest of Europe, and especially with Italy, brought her into the
full current of the Western Renascence. She had become Sclavonic, but
she never lost the Italian side to her character. Her wealthy citizens,
though they spoke the Serbian dialect of Dubrovnik in their family
circles, sent their children to the Florentine schools, and, just as
educated Irishmen and Welshmen often speak the best English, so, to this
acquired knowledge of Italian, is largely due that purity of accent which
has preserved the Italian of Ragusa from the Venetian and Dalmatian
barbarisms of the other cities of this coast, and which makes it still
the _lingua Toscana in bocca Ragusea_.
Ragusa was thus fitted by her very composition to be the interpreter
between the Italian and Sclavonic minds, and to give birth to that
literature which has won for her the title of ‘the Sclavonic Athens.’
The magistrates of the Republic, true to the same wise policy which had
founded her schools, invited hither the most learned men of Italy, and
towards the end of the fifteenth century many were enticed to Ragusa
as professors, chancellors, and secretaries. Nascimbeno di Nascimbeni,
the celebrated philologist, was invited here as rector of the school,
and Demetrius Chalcochondylas deserted Florence herself to accept the
chair of Greek at Ragusa. For Ragusan culture was something more than a
mere reflection of the Italian Renascence, and the exiled scholars of
Byzantium flocked hither as to a city which had held literary communion
with their own, centuries before the days of its captivity, and whose
inhabitants were in some sort their fellow-citizens. As early as the
year 1170 the Ragusans had been admitted citizens of Constantinople
by Manuel Comnenus, and the Imperial Chamber had undertaken to defray
the expense of educating a certain number of Ragusan youths in Greek
learning. By the beginning of the fourteenth century Ragusa herself had
become a school of Greek for the Serbian mainland. Sclavonic Kings and
Czars sent hither the young barons of their realms to be instructed in
learning and manners; and the Serbian Czar, Stephen Dūshan, presented the
city with a precious collection of codices, Greek and Latin, discovered
in the Illyrian interior.[349] Thus the citizens of Ragusa were in every
way well fitted to play a leading part in the revival of letters in
Western Europe; it is said that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
there was not one of her families but could boast its man of letters;
her scholars toiled eagerly at the new learning, and emended the texts
of Virgil, Ovid, Cicero, and other classical authors. It is extremely
significant of the position held by Ragusa in the world of letters at the
end of the fifteenth century, that Aldus Manutius sent his son Paolo here
for his classical schooling.
But this erudition was but the prelude to an outburst of original genius
such as has been paralleled by few cities of the globe. Perhaps, indeed,
no other people had brought before them so vividly every stirring aspect
of the most romantic age that the world has seen. The Ragusans had sat at
the feet of Byzantine masters in days when learning was their insolent
monopoly; they had already been familiarised in the schools of Florence
with the masterpieces of Italian genius; they had caught from Virgil
and Ovid an inspiration of antiquity; and the dramas of Sophocles had
been translated by a fellow-citizen into their Serbian mother-tongue. To
these creations of exotic fancy they added, what they had never lost,
a heritage of Serbian poetry, enshrining a mythology that had felt in
some mysterious way the spell of Arabian genii—a mythology still so
real that, to the last days of the Commonwealth, effigies of fantastic
Serbian deities, and amongst them the ‘flowery-kirtled’ Vila, were borne
in procession at Ragusan carnivals.[350] The merchant-citizens of the
Republic had already enlarged their sympathies with the acquaintance of
every European people. They had now seen the boundaries of the Old World
broken through, and sailed forth to explore the New. They had rounded the
Cape in the wake of the Portuguese; their argosies had touched at the
port of Goa, and trafficked in the Persian Gulf. They had sailed with
the Spaniards to Peru and Mexico; they had marvelled with the followers
of Cortes at the temple-pyramids of the Aztecs, and plucked roses in the
gardens of Yucay. Nearer home, their imagination had been kindled by the
overthrow of an empire which Julius had founded. They were surveying from
their very walls the tragedy of nations, and their streets were thronged
with discrowned sovereigns. The most beautiful creations of the Hellenic
muse had sprung Aphroditè-like from the spray of the self-same sea that
sparkled in the havens of Ragusa.
Living in this poetic world, one can hardly wonder that Ragusa caught
the inspiration of her surroundings; that she ‘awoke to ecstasy the
living lyre,’ in the tones of her mother-tongue; that, surveying the
catastrophe of the Serbian race, she created a Serbian drama. From the
commencement of the last quarter of the fifteenth century onwards,
Ragusa produces a long succession of poets and dramatists,[351] who
are great and valuable almost in proportion as they are unknown to the
West. For their pre-eminent value lies in their having composed in a
Sclavonic tongue. Amongst the most celebrated works of Ragusan poets
may be mentioned the ‘Dervishiade’ of Stephen Gozze, a comic epos;
the ‘Jegyupka’ or gipsy-woman, a satiric poem by Andreas Giubronović;
and the lyrics of Dominico Zlatarić, also known as a painter, and as
translator of Tasso and of some plays of Sophocles. Nor was Ragusa
wanting in poetesses to rival her poets; the epigrams of Floria Zuzzeri,
who wrote in Italian as well as Sclavonic, are still of renown. But
the most celebrated names in the long annals of Ragusan literature are
those of Junius Palmotta and Giovanni Gondola.[352] It is a high merit
of Palmotta’s dramas that the subjects are taken from the history of
Southern-Sclaves.[353] The master-work of Gondola is the ‘Osmanide,’
an epic poem recording the prowess of Sultan Osman against the Poles.
This is a strange witness to the Turkish sympathies of the Republic, and
the noblest monument of Ragusan genius. The poems of Gondola are still,
among all South-Sclavonic peoples, ‘familiar in their mouths as household
words;’ and though Ragusa has lost her wealth and liberty, her most
golden memories live still in the bard—
Whose tuneful lyre,
Resounding sweet from Save to Drave,
Forbids Illyrian nations to expire,
Vibrates immortal airs, to kindle patriot fire.[354]
Ragusa also produced Latin poets, and a race of historians, among whom
may be mentioned Cervario Tuberone, Nicolas Ragnina, and, greatest of
all, Anselmo Banduri, whose name is of European renown. The breadth of
the Ragusan genius is illustrated by the fact that her additions to
the exact sciences are as splendid as the works of her imagination.
Her citizens Gazoli, Antonius Medus, Ghetaldi, and at a later period
Boscović, rank among the patriarchs of astronomy and mathematics.
Marino Ghetaldi, born at Ragusa in 1566, anticipated Descartes in the
application of algebra to geometry, and lays a claim to the invention
of the telescope. Amongst other feats he tested the experiment of
Archimedes, and is said to have consumed a boat with his burning-glass.
On the shore of a bay to the south of Ragusa is still pointed out the
fern-valanced cavern where Ghetaldi loved to pursue his discoveries; and
such was the impression wrought by the man of science on the popular
mind, that to this day the sailor, as he passes the mouth of Ghetaldi’s
cave, invokes St. Blasius to frustrate the incantations of the magician.
The literary and commercial bloom of Ragusa continued to the middle
of the seventeenth century, little abated by a plague, which in 1526
destroyed twenty thousand of the population in six months; or by the
loss of many ships in the Spanish service. But Ragusa had already
received warnings of a more tremendous catastrophe, such as had befallen
her Roman ancestress Epidaurus. In 1520, 1521, 1536, and 1639, the city
had suffered from shocks of earthquake.
It was half-past eight o’clock on the morning of April the 6th, the
Wednesday in Holy Week, 1667. The Maggior Consiglio was about to hold
a session, for the purpose of according grace to delinquents, and the
Rector of the Republic, Simeon Ghetaldi, and some of the councillors,
were already preparing to take their places. The inhabitants of Ragusa
were mostly at home, or in the churches at morning prayer, when, without
a moment’s warning, a tremendous shock of earthquake overwhelmed the
whole city and entombed a fifth of the population in the ruins. The
Rector of the Republic, five-sixths of the nobles, nine-tenths of the
clergy, a Dutch ambassador with his suite of thirty, then on his way
to Constantinople, and six thousand citizens, were buried. Marble
palaces—the accumulated embellishments of ages of prosperity—valuable
libraries, archives, irreplaceable manuscripts—all alike perished. The
sea left the harbour dry four times, and rising to a mountainous height,
four times threatened to engulf the land. The ships in the port were
sucked into the vortex of the deep, or dashed to pieces against each
other or the rocks. The wells were dried up. Huge cliffs were split
from top to bottom. The sky was darkened by a dense cloud of sand. The
earthquake was succeeded by a fire, and a strong gale springing up spread
the flames over every quarter of the ruins. Finally, to complete the
catastrophe, the wild Morlachs descended from the mountains and pillaged
what remained.
Ragusa never recovered from the blow. Her commerce was for long reduced
to the coast-traffic of small _trabaccoli_. Her literature, indeed,
partly revived; and during the early years of the French war the
neutrality of Ragusa secured for her once more much of the Mediterranean
carrying trade, and by the end of the last century her population
amounted to 15,000. But, in 1806, Napoleon seized Ragusa, and two years
later an adjutant of General Marmont announced that the Republic of
Ragusa had ceased to exist. It yet remained for the diplomatists of the
Allied Powers to consummate in cold blood what Buonaparte had perpetrated
in the frenzy of his ambition; and at the Congress of Vienna an English
plenipotentiary set his signature to a document by which the ancient
Republic was handed over to what was then the most brutal and despotic
government in Europe. Since that date Ragusa has been the head town of
a ‘circle,’ and the stately palace of her Rectors has sunk into the
‘_bureau_’ of an Austrian ‘_Kreis-chef_!’
And yet how fascinating is Ragusa still! It far surpassed our most
sanguine expectations. We entered the once sovereign city by the
Porta Pille, one of two gates which form the north and south poles
of the little town, and are the only public openings in the circuit
of its massive walls. From a niche above this portal the old saviour
of the Republic, St. Blasius, looked down upon us benignantly, with
finger raised aloft in the act of benediction; and the same figure
of his saintship occurs at intervals all round the walls, which have
been likened to a girdle of amulets. The Porta Pille passed, we found
ourselves in the _Stradone_ or _Corso_, the main street of Ragusa, and
the finest and widest in Dalmatia.
From the student of Ragusan history this street claims a peculiar
interest. Originally it was nothing else than a narrow channel of
sea—the ‘silver streak’ that moated off the Roman rock asylum of Lavve
from the more rustic dwellings of Serbian Dubrovnik, scattered among
the pine-trees on the rocky steep of the adjoining mainland. But in
the thirteenth century, when the antagonism between Serb and Roman had
already ceased, and the Serbian language had become the mother-tongue
of the descendants of the Epidauritan refugees, the channel was filled
in and the site levelled to make room for an airy piazza,[355] where,
in the succeeding age, stately palaces of four or five storeys rose on
either side, and rivalled those of Venice in their magnificence. Thus
what had originally been a barrier between two hostile nationalities,
has since become a bond of union, as the favourite meeting place and
social promenade for all classes of Ragusan citizens. The lofty palaces
of the original Piazza were overwhelmed by the great earthquake, and
their loftiness made them terribly destructive of life, so that when the
Senate rebuilt this part of the city the height of the new houses was
limited to two, or at most three, storeys. The Piazza itself shrank into
the present Stradone, in sympathy with the straitened circumstances of
New Ragusa; but, shadow as it is of its former majesty, it still forms a
noble thoroughfare.
Every building on either side, as indeed throughout the town, is of fine
stone, and the street—like all other streets of Ragusa—is paved with
large deftly squared slabs, which take the polish of marble, and caused
us to slip more than once. Immediately on entering we passed on the
right a fifteenth-century cistern[356] decorated with quaint heads of
dragons; it is from this that Ragusa derives her water supply, brought
hither by a conduit from a mountain source fifteen miles off. Opposite
is the _Chiesa del Redentore_, in classic Venetian style, the elaborate
carvings of its façade thrown into exquisite reliefs by the golden
colours of the stone; and above its portal an inscription recording the
building of the church (legend says that the matrons of Ragusa brought
hither the material) after the earthquake of 1536—_ad avertendam cœlestem
iram in maximo terræ tremore_. Alas! it averted not a greater ruin,
though by some strange irony of fortune it survived the earthquake of
1667, to stand a monument of disregarded piety. Next is the Franciscan
convent in several tastes, and then, on either side of the road, a
vista of solid stone houses, built with great regularity in a plain but
dignified style, with classic cornices.
A five minutes’ walk—such a little place is this!—brought us to the
other end of the city, the street terminating abruptly in the Porta
Plocce, the sea-gate, and otherwise the south-pole of Ragusa. But just
before reaching this, the Stradone opens on the right on to a small
Piazza, where the most beautiful and interesting edifices in Ragusa are
congregated.
Everywhere around is something which takes us back to the most glorious
days of the Republic. Opposite is a living monument of that mechanical
genius which shines in the great works of Ghetaldi and Boscović. This is
the Torre del Orologio, with a domical cupola containing a wonderful
clock, in which a revolving globe shows the moon’s age, and two bronze
figures of men in armour strike a bell to tell the hours. Upon the bell
are the Latin lines:—
Acta velut Phoebus distinguit tempora cursu
Terrigenis, peragens signa superna poli;
Sic sonitu nostro numeratur civibus hora
Nocte monens requiem, luce, laboris opus.[357]
To the left is a beautiful Moresco-Gothic building, the Dogana and
Zecca or Mint of the Republic—at present serving as the _Ricevitoria
principale_ of the Emperor and King. From here issued forth those half
Byzantine pieces with their saintly Blasius and ‘_Tuta Salus_’ scroll,
of which we had seen so many examples on the former sites of Ragusan
industry in Bosnia. The Mint, which is behind the Dogana, I visited in
company with Signor Vincenzo Adamović, who is one of the representatives
of numismatics in modern Ragusa, and who, besides possessing a
considerable collection, has published some interesting essays on
the medallic history of the Republic. The coins of Ragusa date back,
according to Signor Adamović, at least to the ninth century. The earliest
coin is of brass, bearing the Byzantine name ‘_Follaris_’ or ‘_Obolus_,’
and displaying on the obverse a laureated head, evidently, like some
of our Anglo-Saxon monetary effigies of the same date, copied from the
fourth-century coinage of the Roman Empire. The earliest silver coin, the
_Grosso_ or _Denaro_, dates from the end of the thirteenth century,[358]
and is the first coin on which St. Blasius makes his appearance. The
Mint is at present converted into a granary for oats, so that there is
little to remark inside the building except an inscription over the
massive arch of the standard office of weights and measures:—
Fallere nostra vetant et falli pondera, meque
Pondero dum merces, ponderat ipse Deus.
The present Zecca and Dogana were built in the year 1520, and are among
the few buildings which by their massive construction withstood the shock
of the great earthquake of 1667. But there is another building hard by,
of greater antiquity and more absorbing interest, which has also happily
come down to us uninjured. The Palazzo Rettorale, the residence of the
old Rectors of the Republic, whose rich colonnade faces the Piazzetta on
the left, is a monumental epitome of Ragusan history—the grandest relic
of the ancient commonwealth. An inscription on the exterior records
that it was founded in 1435 ‘by the nobles and most prudent citizens
of Ragusa, under the divine auspices of Blasius, martyr and most holy
priest, being patron of this city of Epidaura Ragusa.’[359] The date of
its completion, 1452, takes us back to the period when the commerce and
literature of Ragusa were first bursting into bloom. The style of the
architecture, Florentine, and not Venetian, is typical of the Tuscan
source whence Ragusan literature drew its earliest inspiration, and bids
a kind of architectural defiance to the Lion of St. Mark. This is not so
huge a pile as the palace of the Doges, but neither has it that element
of barbaresqueness. These massive arches and the backbone of iron girders
within, which enabled the building to withstand the terrific ordeal of
the earthquake, characterise well the sober sense and heroic endurance of
the citizens who reared it.
This is the _Lararium_ of the Republic. Within are the effigies of her
greatest heroes and benefactors, the archives of her history,[360] the
rolls of her nobility. This is a treasure-house of the associations of
every age of Ragusan story. The stone benches in the porch beneath the
spacious arcade are the same on which the senators and patricians of old
used to discuss the gravest affairs of state. The massiveness of the
Roman arches and that classic colonnade may well be taken to betray the
spirit of that race to which the ancient rock of asylum owed her first
foundations; the too imaginative patriotism of Ragusa has even gone
farther, and claims the capitals themselves to have been transported
hither from the Epidauritan mother-city. On one of these is carved an
alchemist, seated book in hand amidst his crucibles and alembics, and
a Latin inscription[361] of apparently the same date as the sculpture,
informs the spectator that he is viewing the inventor of medical
arts—Æsculapius, ‘the glory of his birth-place, Ragusa.’ At least it
records the pious devotion of mediæval Ragusa to her Roman _penates_;
and though the Cupids that sport amidst the acanthus-leaves of the other
capitals were certainly never carved at Epidaurus, we may yet see in
them an interesting tribute of Ragusa to the beautiful paganism of the
Renascence.
[Illustration: Palazzo Rettorale and Torre del Orologio, Ragusa.]
In a corner of the fine columniated court within the palace lies the
monument of Orlando, whose exploits in slaying the Saracen Emir have been
already recorded. Near it stood of old the banner of the second saviour
of the Republic—San Biagio. In the middle of the court is a patinated
bronze bust of a man with peaked beard and somewhat careworn expression,
and, on the pedestal, the inscription ‘Michaeli Prazzato benemerito
Civi ex S.C. MDCXXXVIII.’ Michael Prazzato was a well-deserving citizen
indeed! He left no less than 200,000 Genoese doubloons to the Republic—a
sum equivalent to 600,000_l._ of our money—but the actual equivalent
of which in the present day would have to be reckoned in millions.
Such were the merchant princes of Ragusa! But the monument, curiously
enough, recorded the catastrophe as well as the prosperity of the city.
On the back of the pedestal was a further inscription commemorating the
overthrow of the bust by ‘the great earthquake,’ and its setting up anew.
The head had been seriously caved in behind.
In the ‘Mother Church’ of the neighbouring, formerly Ragusan, island
of Mezzo, is another memorial of Michele Prazzato, a napkin which once
belonged to Charles V. At a time when Spain was desolated by a famine,
Prazzato earned the gratitude of her sovereign by transporting there
large cargoes of grain in his huge carracks. Hearing of Prazzato’s
presence, the Emperor called him in, it is said, while he was shaving,
and offered him a large sum of money,—titles, and office under his
government. ‘Sire,’ replied our merchant prince, ‘if I am satiated with
riches it is that I never took them as a gift; if I am king on board my
carracks, it is that I never sought for honours; if I am a free citizen
of my fatherland, Ragusa, it is that I have never sought for titles. As a
remembrance of your sovereign favour, grant me rather this napkin.’[362]
Charles V., struck at such greatness of soul, took what was asked for
from beneath his beard and handed it to Prazzato.
But walled into a doorway at the side of Prazzato’s monument is another
inscription recording patriotic devotion of a still higher order. Nicola
Bunić[363] has well deserved the title of the Ragusan Regulus. It was
after the great calamity of 1667, when Ragusa was beginning a new start
in life, that Kara Mustapha, intent on strangling her new birth, sent
in a monstrous claim for 146,000 dollars. The senate and citizens of
Ragusa, who knew the personal animosity of Mustapha against the Republic,
were in despair. At this critical juncture two citizens, who had already
rendered themselves eminent by their efforts in remedying the effects
of the earthquake and in repulsing the Morlach incursions, volunteered
to risk their lives in averting the storm. One was Marino Caboga[364]
and the other Nicola Bunić. On their arrival the Grand Vizier attempted
to extract from them a treaty surrendering Ragusa to the Turk. They
refused, and were thrown into noisome dungeons. Caboga, after languishing
several years in captivity, was enabled to return to Ragusa and receive
the acclamations of his fellow-citizens. This slab was the only homage
which the Republic could offer to Bunić. The inscription, Englished, is
as follows:—‘To Nicola Bunić, a Senator of singular discreetness, who,
in the most perilous times of the Commonwealth, undertook of his own
accord a most perilous embassy to the neighbouring Pashà of Bosnia, and
being sent on by him by way of Silistria to the Turkish Sultan, there,
after long imprisonment, died in chains for the liberty of his country,
and who by his death and constancy of soul hath earned an immortal name
through all posterity; to the honour and memory of whom this monument is
by decree of the Senate set up, in the year 1678.’[365]
Near the Palazzo Rettorale rises the Duomo of St. Mary—but alas! except
the foundations on which the present building rests, not one stone has
been left upon another of Cœur-de-Lion’s original cathedral. In the
present eighteenth-century Italian edifice there is little to arrest the
attention; but the Reliquiario[366] is wonderful! When Ragusan commerce
was at its acmè, ‘the merchants of the Republic,’ we read, ‘collected
the precious relics of the saints from all parts of Thrace, Bulgaria,
Bosnia, Albania, and Greece, where they had business, following the
promptings of their piety; sometimes at their own expense, sometimes at
the expense of the Republic, rescuing them from barbarism and ignorance.’
Hither, too, when the Infidel overran the South-Sclavonic lands, pious
votaries carried for safety what was more precious to them than worldly
goods or life itself. Here, in the City of Refuge, are gathered together
the penates of the Serbian people. Among the most interesting of these
national relics was the silver cross of Czar Dūshan, which is double,
like the Hungarian. It is set in front with crystals, and covered with
volute filigree work; at the back with vine ornaments. As to St. Blasius,
there seemed enough relics of the patron saint of the Republic to make
several originals, if pieced together! An Oriental crown enclosing
a piece of his cranium, brought hither from the East in the eleventh
century, is a master-piece of Byzantine art. Then there is a very choice
fragment of John the Baptist’s arm, which was added to the collection
in 1452; under, to say the least of it, remarkable circumstances. The
Ragusans had taken care of it for a sick Bosniac, who had promised his
precious relic to the Florentines. The Bosniac recovered his health; but,
as neither Papal thunders nor Tuscan threats availed him to recover the
smallest fraction of St. John the Baptist, he turned for help to Bajazet.
Bajazet referred the matter to one of his Pashàs, and the Turk, no doubt
richly bribed by the Ragusans, cut the matter short by observing to the
claimant that if he was in want of Christian bones he might pick up
plenty on the field of Kóssovo!
Although as Englishmen we could get up no particular enthusiasm for
St. Blaze’s collar bones, the cases were magnificent, and the ancient
filigree work of Ragusa particularly struck us. In general appearance
the later specimens of the Ragusan silversmith’s art resemble Maltese
work, and effloresce into the same flowers and foliage. But the taste
for the natural, which followed on the revived study of antiquity,
displays itself here still more conspicuously in the development of a
kind of silver Palissy-ware by the hands of a great Ragusan master.
The most wonderful objects in the Reliquiario are a silver basin and
ewer, wrought in the fifteenth century by a Ragusan artist, Giovanni
Progonović,[367] in a style so original, that I doubt if anything at
all resembling it has even been attempted elsewhere. These are covered
with all kinds of shells, creeping things, flowers, and foliage—elegant
lizards, not like those that the great potter moulded at his best, but
perfectly animate—such as the Neapolitan casts from the living creature.
Nay, more, the most perfect mechanism is added to perfect art, and if
water be poured into the basin the little creatures move as if they were
alive! Everything is enamelled of its natural colour, and though now
somewhat diminished in brightness, you have actually to touch the plants
and animals to realize that they are not real lizards or fern-leaves
preserved in some way. In the vase is a nosegay of silver grasses, each
delicate thread, each minutest seed, perfectly reproduced and coloured;
among them I recognised a beautiful three-spiked grass that I had noticed
growing in the neighbourhood of Ragusa—so true, so indigenous, is this
art!
The kindness of Signor Adamović enabled me to see the Reliquiario of the
Dominican monastery here. Chief amongst the relics was the silver cross
of another Serbian monarch, Stephen Uroš, son of his greater namesake and
father of Czar Dūshan, with remains of angular ornamentation, and the
following inscription:—[368]
‘_Isus Hristos Nika._’
‘_This venerable cross was made by the Lord King Stephen Uroš,
for the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul: that it
may be unto him for a safeguard and for remission of sins. And
the bishop of Rascia, Gregory II., made this venerable cross
in like manner as that widow who gave her two mites. Whosoever
shall presume to carry off this cross, let him be accursed of
the holy Apostles and of the venerable wood. Of this Cross am
I defended; I oppose myself to demons, fearing neither their
toils nor their deceits, even as the proud was made foolish and
crushed beneath the force of Christ crucified._’
Such is superstition!
There were also many early specimens of filigree work with floral
tendencies, and a head—I dare not call it unique—of St. Stephen of
Hungary. There was one arm the attribution of which was unknown to the
monks, but having succeeded in deciphering a mediæval inscription at the
base, I was pleased to be able to inform them that they were the happy
possessors of St. Luke’s arm! In the Dominican church and adjoining
chapels are many interesting monument of Ragusan citizens, amongst others
the tomb of Ghetaldi. There are many family vaults of the Ragusan nobles
with _Jure hereditario_ inscribed on them; but one slab inscribed in
Italian as ‘the Common Sepulchre of the Confraternity of the Carpenters,’
was peculiarly interesting as a memorial of the guild-brotherhoods of the
old Artigiani, which formed such a prominent feature in the early history
of the commonwealth.
One may spend days in wandering about Ragusa—exploring her streets, her
churches and monasteries, her palaces, and the private houses of her
citizens—and always lighting on some interesting memorial of the past.
In the meanest houses, in the old walls, in the pavement beneath your
feet, you stumble against fragments of sculptured marble—waifs from the
wreck of Ragusa as she existed before the earthquake. Of the clean sweep
wrought by that terrible calamity, the streets themselves, laid out at
right angles, are an eloquent witness; and yet it is surprising how many
vestiges of the mediæval city are still to be traced. Not one of the
narrow side streets but has its sculptured doorways and mouldings—its
ogee window-arches, and luxuriant, half classical, half Gothic foliage.
Here and there you pass one of the palaces of the old nobility—the _Case
Signorili_, as they are called—with the family scutcheon carved over the
portal, and dignified projecting balconies. So marvellous is this climate
that the most beautiful garden and hothouse flowers grow wherever there
is a chink in an old wall. In the narrowest alleys the stately shadows
of bygone magnificence are lighted up by hanging gardens of scarlet
geraniums, golden zinnias, balsams, and fragrant carnations clinging
to the crevices of ancient palaces and houses, while here and there a
vine-spray joins the opposite sides of the street.
On the landside of the _Stradone_ or high-street the city extends in
terraces on the lower flank of the limestone mountain which dominates it.
The streets here are prolonged flights of steps, of the usual slippery
marble, up which we made our way with difficulty, to obtain a bird’s-eye
view of the city from the upper wall. The view was well worth the pains.
The whole of Ragusa lay below us, circled on three sides by a sapphire
ring of sea. To the north was the fine rock of Fort Lorenzo, whose very
foundations saved the infant Commonwealth from the Venetians, and,
beneath it, the narrow cove of sea which almost threatens to cut off the
land gate of the city. To the south opened the old port of Ragusa, the
haven of the Argosies; beyond, rose the gardens and convent of the isle
of Lacroma, where Cœur-de-Lion landed, and from whose western precipices
malefactors were cast headlong into the sea in the days of the Republic.
The colours were simply marvellous—the roofs, the walls, the domes, the
campaniles, of the city below, took the rose and orange hues of a ripe
apricot; the sea beyond was of the most wondrous ultramarine—and Ragusa
with her lofty Oriental walls, rose from its now tranquil bosom like
Jerusalem the golden from some crystal sea above. But it is the smallness
of Ragusa that strikes one almost more than anything. It seems almost
impossible to realize that this little town below should have maintained
its independence for centuries amidst surrounding empires; that the
wealth of what is now Turkey-in-Europe was once hoarded beneath these
closely huddled roofs; that the mightiest carracks of the Spanish navy
sailed forth from this petty haven. Ragusa looks the mere plaything of
the ocean; and indeed they say that in storms the sea surges up these
narrow gorges, and flings its spray right over the cliff-set walls on to
the house-tops within, frosting roofs and windows with crystalline brine.
Ragusa is still, as ever, a city of asylum. At the present moment a
number of houseless Christian refugees from the Herzegovina have sought
shelter here. A colony of these is domiciled outside the Porta Plocce,
or sea-gate, in some stable-like buildings which once served as the
Lazaretto. On our way there we passed the Turkish market, where a number
of Turks were purchasing salt, corn, and fodder for the starving troops
of the Sultan in the revolted districts.
The condition in which we found the refugees did great credit to the
hospitality of the Ragusans.[369] We had expected to find a set of
half-starved miserable wretches, clad in rags and worn with anxiety for
absent fathers, husbands, sons. Quite the contrary! They were well fed;
they did not seem at all forlorn, and with their light white kerchiefs
and chemises they presented a picture of cleanliness which would have
put to shame the squalor of many an Italian-Dalmatian. Among the Bosnian
refugees of the Save-lands were to be seen many able-bodied men. Here
it was far otherwise. The Herzegovinians are made of sterner stuff, and
we noticed among the refugees no boys over thirteen, and no men, except
one cripple, under seventy, and there were few enough even of these.
The women, too, showed something of the spirit of the matrons of old.
They had sold their silver trinkets to buy arms for their husbands.
Most of them were already stripped of the coins with which they love to
bespangle their fez—of the silver brooches of their belt, shaped like
two convolvulus leaves—of the broad girdle studded like an ephod with
rudely cut carnelians, agates, amethysts, and roots-of-emerald, set like
the mediæval gems in the neighbouring Reliquiario. One woman who still
possessed this superb _ceinture_ offered it me for twenty gulden—rather
less than two pounds. The gems came, she told us, from the Herzegovinian
valleys about Nevešinje—she did not know that the agates and carnelians
of these prolific sites were exported of old to the sea-ports of Roman
Dalmatia, there to be set, as now, in rings and trinkets, and carved with
classical devices![370] Attire so neat and graceful needed not, however,
the embellishment of barbaric jewellery; the bright crimson fez, the
light white kerchief drawn over it and falling about the shoulders in
artistic folds, the dark indigo jacket harmonising with the deep reds
and oranges of the apron—these were amply sufficient to make the little
groups highly picturesque as they sat or leant before their new homes,
plying their spindles most industriously. Little children were playing
before the women—such frank pleasant faces!—many with hair as fair as
ever that of young Angles.
There were about sixty families on this spot, as we found out on
distributing a small largess of ten kreutzers a family; and there is
another colony of fugitives at Gravosa. The Austrian Government allows
each family on an average twenty kreutzers a day, and the commune
of Ragusa makes up the amount to thirty-six kreutzers—not more than
eightpence of our money, but sufficient to support life out here. To-day
(September 3) there is a three days’ truce between the Turks and the
insurgents, and a proclamation has been issued by the Turkish governor
of the Herzegovina, in which the Pashà promises full indemnity and
freedom from molestation to any of the refugees who may consent during
this period to return home. Very few, however, have accepted the kind
invitation, and for one very good reason—that they have no homes left
them to return to.
We were very anxious to secure some memorial of the fugitives; so
bringing down the photographer of Ragusa to their colony, we induced the
Herzegovinians, by promises of largess, to form a series of groups. As
may be easily imagined, there was great difficulty in getting them to
keep quiet. The children kept moving about, the women always wanted to
set their caps a little differently at the last moment, and one gentleman
was very particular about the posture of his wooden leg. However, we
succeeded at last, and for a glimpse at the Herzegovinian refugees, as
we saw them at Ragusa, I can refer the reader to the frontispiece of this
work.
The turbaned figure to the right of the illustration, and the elegant
damsel with whom he is walking arm in arm, are not refugees, but peasants
from the immediate neighbourhood of Ragusa. The man’s costume, so closely
approaching the Turkish, is an interesting example of the influence
wrought by the peculiar relations in which, of old, Ragusa stood to the
Turks.[371] Nowhere else in Dalmatia does the costume of the peasant so
nearly approach that of the true-believer. Here we have not only the
same jacket and vest with their gorgeous gold embroidery, the same sash
and schalvars, but even a turban on the head; and were it not for his
white stockings and a certain preference for crimson jackets, the Ragusan
peasant might easily be mistaken for a Moslem. This habit of dress is
not confined to the peasants; it is still to be seen among the servants
and lower classes in Ragusa itself, and was doubtless originally adopted
by the Ragusan merchants to avoid raising the susceptibilities of the
infidels with whom they traded, by appearing in the garb of a Giaour.
In the seventeenth century, as may be gathered from the relation of
an English traveller, the Ragusan merchant who travelled in Turkey in
European costume did so at his peril. Blunt, who voyaged himself ‘clad
in Turkish manner,’ tells us,[372] in his quaint style, how ‘foure
Spahy-Timariots’ met his caravan, ‘where was a Ragusean, a Merchant of
quality, who came in at _Spalatra_ to goe for Constantinople, he being
clothed in the Italian fashion and spruce, they justled him: He not yet
considering how the place had changed his condition, stood upon his
_termes_, till they with their Axes, and iron Maces (the weapon of that
_country_) broke two of his ribs, in which case, we left him behinde,
halfe dead, either to get backe as he could, or be devoured of beasts.’
‘If I appeared,’ says Blunt a little farther on, ‘in the least part
clothed like a Christian, I was tufted like an Owle among other birds.’
Be pleased to observe the elegant pose of the Ragusan damsel who has
condescended to visit these unfortunates arm in arm with our turbaned
signior! There is a marked contrast between these refined peasant
gentle-folk—these ‘_Nostrani_,’ as the Ragusans call all those who dwell
within the limits of the old Republic—and yonder ‘_Morlacchi_’—the ruder
sons and daughters of the Herzegovinian mountains. Ragusa, even in her
days of mourning, has inherited something of her former civilization;
a peculiar refinement, both in her peasants and citizens, not to be
met with anywhere else throughout these lands, must strike the most
unobservant traveller. Not here the rude stare, the pestering beggary,
the meanness and mendacity—the painful relics of that barbarous Venetian
policy which condemned Dalmatia to perpetual poverty and ignorance. The
lion of St. Mark has never weighed like an incubus on Ragusa. It needs
to have visited Spalato and other Dalmatian cities to appreciate the
extraordinary exception in favour of cleanliness and good manners that
presents itself here.
The language here, not counting the German spoken by the Austrian
soldiery, is partly Italian and partly Sclavonic, but the bulk of the
population speak only Sclavonic. Here you hear the Serbian language at
its best; it, too, seems to have felt the influence of the literary
Italian which was once the official and scholastic language of the
Republic, and falls from the lips of Ragusan citizens with Tuscan
elegance and softness. The two elements of which Dubrovnik-Ragusa was
originally composed, the Serbian and the Roman, blend to form the typical
Ragusan features—now and again separating themselves in all their
individuality. In the streets of Ragusa the turquoise eyes of the true
Sclave peep out often enough from beneath the raven locks and lashes of
the Italian.
Is the time, one asks oneself, to arrive once more when Ragusa
shall take up anew the work for which by her very birth she is so
eminently fitted—will she once more take her place as the pioneer of
South-Sclavonic literature and civilisation? Her ‘gift of tongues,’ her
sober industry, her position, still remain. Though the old haven of the
Argosies has become too small for the leviathans of modern days, she has
at hand in Gravosa the finest harbour on the Dalmatian coast—the nearest
port to the point where the Narenta debouches on the sea after cleaving a
path through the Dinaric Alps towards the Drina and the commercial basin
of the Danube. The old trade route of Ragusan merchants only waits for
the demolition of artificial barriers to be opened out anew. Already we
hear of the improvement of the navigation of the lower Narenta, and a new
steam service is planned between Stagno and Ragusa.
Ragusa is the natural port of the Illyrian interior—the born interpreter
between the Italian and Sclave. Those only who have traversed the
barbarous lands between the Adriatic and the Save can adequately realise
how intimately the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina is bound up with the
future of Ragusa. The plodding genius of the Serbs needs to be fanned
into energy by these fresh sea-breezes—their imagination languishes for
want of this southern sunshine!
Here at last, after groping among the primeval shadows of the mighty
beech and pinewoods of the Bosnian midlands, we take our ease in one
of the gorgeous rock-girt coves which beautify the environs of Ragusa.
Overhead are hanging groves and gardens of rosy oleander, ferny palms,
myrtles, and creepers with flame-coloured trumpets. On the steep, a
spiry aloe leans forward, stretching towards the south; beneath us the
cliffs sink precipitously into the blue-emerald waters—intensified in
the deeper pools into a vinous purple—stretching away to the horizon in
marvellous ultramarine—on either side of the cove, fretting in a silvery
line of foam against walls of orange rock whose natural brilliance is
glorified now into refined gold by the setting sun. This is not the light
of common day!—it stands to it as some gorgeous mediæval blazoning to a
modern chromo-lithograph. It dazzles our dull northern eyes. We are on
the borders of another world. We catch an inspiration of the South. The
waters of the next sea-bosom lap the ruins of Hellenic Epidaurus.
But the gold on the rocks melts into more sombre browns and greys; the
western steeps of the cove lose their outlines in vague shadow; the
intense azure of sea and sky dies into a dark sapphire; the plashing of
the waves below asserts itself in tones more solemn with the gathering
twilight, and the darkness deepens into night.
FOOTNOTES
[1] This is not the place to discuss the question of earlier Sclavonic
immigrations.
[2] _De Administrando Imperio_, capp. xxx., xxxi., xxxii.
[3] Chorvat, one of the supposed Croatian leaders, is evidently the
eponymus of the whole race of Croats, whose own name for themselves,
Charvati or Hrvati, seems to signify ‘mountaineers,’ and to be connected
with the name of the _Carpathian_ mountains, and the Carpi of Roman
historians. Hilferding points out that of the names of Chorvat’s four
brothers, as given by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, two are equivalent
in meaning to ‘Delay’ or ‘Tarrying,’ and Chorvat’s two sisters bear the
Sclavonic names of ‘Joy’ and ‘Sorrow.’ The names are perhaps allegorical
of the gradual character of their conquests, and of defeats sustained as
well as victories won.
[4] This seems to me far more probable than the poetic derivation of Župa
from the same word in the sense of ‘sunny land.’
[5] Presbyteri Diocleatis, _Regnum Slavorum_ (in Lucius, _De Regno
Dalmatiæ et Croatiæ, libri sex_. Amst: 1676: p. 291.)
[6] See _Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiæ, Dalmatiæ et Slavoniæ_, p. 188
(u Zagrebu, 1874). Sub Anno 1100. The seven Bans appear in the following
order:—1, the Ban of Croatia; 2, the Ban of Bosnia; 3, of Slavonia; 4, of
Posega; 5, Podravia; 6, Albania; 7, Syrmia.
[7] According to the Presbyter of Dioclea, Basil subdued the whole of
Bosnia, Rascia, and Dalmatia, including what is now Herzegovina. But this
subjection, if it was ever effected, must have been of the most temporary
character. From 1018 to 1076 the diadem of the Croatian Prince was
received from Byzantium.
[8] The allied Serbian troops, under Dobroslav and Niklas, overwhelmed
the army of Michael the Paphlagonian’s general in the gorge of Vranja
in Zenta, and, subsequently, that of Michael the Logothete, Governor of
Durazzo under Constantine Monomachus, in the defiles between Cattaro and
the lake of Scutari, which form at present the heart of Montenegro. See
Maximilian Schimek’s _Politische Geschichte des Königreichs Bosnien und
Rama_. Wien, 1787, p. 21.
[9] See p. 317. Perhaps this stream once formed the boundary of Croatia
in this direction. Evidently the name must first have been applied to
Bosnia by _Dalmatian_ borderers. The name Rama at first comprised the
territory between this river and the Adriatic.
[10] Hilferding, _Serben und Bulgaren_, p. 150.
[11] The Ban Borić. The passages relating to Bosnia in Cinnamus are in
his _Historiar._ lib. iii. c. 7 and 19.
[12] See pp. 220, 241, 403.
[13] At Novibrdo, in Serbia, the most flourishing of the Saxon colonies,
spoken of rapturously by an old Serbian writer as ‘a city of silver and
gold,’ the Teutonic word for ‘Burgher’ became naturalised, and a letter
of the Ragusans is extant addressed in 1388 to the Captain and Burghers,
_Kefalii i Purgarom_, of the town. See Jireček, _Gesch. der Bulgaren_, p.
401.
[14] See the _Synodic_ ‘written in the Bulgarian language by command
of the Czar Boris in the year 1210,’ a translation of which from the
original manuscript is given by the Russian historian Hilferding (in the
German translation of his History of the Serbs and Bulgarians, part i. p.
118).
[15] Excerpted in Sam. Andreæ, _Disquisitio de Bogomilis_.
[16] Recent Sclavonic writers accept the Bulgarian traditions as to
the Pope Bogomil; but they seem to me not to allow sufficient weight
to Byzantine evidence. It is right, however, to note that ‘Bogomil’ is
a possible Bulgarian personal name, and exactly answers, as Jireček
observes, to the German ‘Gottlieb.’ It is remarkable that the heretics
never called themselves Bogomiles, but simply ‘Christians,’ as did the
Patarenes and Albigensians of the West. By the orthodox Sclaves they were
called Bogomiles, _Babuni_, _Manicheji_, and in Bosnia also _Patareni_,
and, apparently from a corrupted form of that word, _Potur_.
[17] According to the Armenian Chronicle of Acogh’ig (iii. 20-22) the
Czar Samuel himself embraced the Manichæan religion. According to the
legend of St. Vladimir his son Gabriel and his wife were Bogomiles. See
Hilferding, op. cit.
[18] Cited in Hilferding, op. cit.
[19] Alexiados, lib. xv.
[20] Though she afterwards admits that the heresy had infected high
families.
[21] One, _Slovo na Eretiki_, against the heretics; and the other, _Slovo
o Cerkovnom Cinu_, on church government. The works of Cosmas are the only
monuments of Bulgarian literature dating from the epoch of Czar Samuel.
The passages relating to the Bogomiles are excerpted in Hilferding.
[22] Hilferding, op. cit. i., identifies this original sect with a
division of the Bogomiles known as ‘The Church of Dregovišce,’ and the
later with ‘the Church of Bulgaria.’ These two Churches are among the
thirteen Churches of the Cathari reckoned by the Italian Reniero Sacconi,
a renegade member of that sect, in the thirteenth century. The two
divisions are traceable in the Western heresies.
[23] The statements of Cosmas with reference to the existence of these
dualistic tenets among the Bogomiles are attested by the ‘Synodic of Czar
Boris,’ already referred to; by Euthymius Zygabenus, _Panoplia_; and, as
regards the Bogomiles of Bosnia, by Raphael of Volaterræ, _Geographia_;
and by the recent researches of Raški.
[24] Euthymius Zygabenus, _Panoplia_.
[25] It is remarkable that the only Bogomilian version of the Gospels
which has been preserved, a Bosnian Codex written in 1404, contains,
in spite of its late date, most primitive forms of speech; proving the
care with which the Bogomiles copied from their older manuscripts. See
Daničic’s account of the Bosnian Chval Codex in the _Starine_ of the
South-Sclavonic Academy, III. 1-146. Cited by Jireček, op. cit. p. 177.
[26] τελειοῦν.
[27] Cosmas, corroborated by the ‘Synodic’ and Harmenopulos.
[28] For their aversion to the cross see also Euthymius, _Panoplia_, Anna
Comnena, and Harmenopulos. See also p. 176.
[29] Cosmas. Their aversion to images, churches, and a hierarchy, is
borne out by the testimony of Euthymius and Anna Comnena.
[30] So too Anna Comnena and Euthymius.
[31] Rački (in Jireček, op. cit.)
[32] Thus Pope Gregory XI. writes in 1376: ‘Cum Bosnenses uxores
accipiant cum condicione, si eris bona, et intentione dimittendi, quando
sibi videbitur’ (MS. of the South Sclavonic Academy, cited in Jireček,
op. cit. p. 183).
[33] Cosmas is again slanderous when he says that the Bogomiles begged
from door to door.
[34] Jireček, op. cit. p. 180.
[35] Jireček, op. cit. p. 181.
[36] So Cosmas, ‘At the fifth time, however, they have the door open.’
According to Euthymius, who also bears witness to the Paternoster being
their only form, they prayed five times during the day and seven at
night. Euthymius (see also Epiphanius) says that they prayed also to
demons to avert evil, and that Basilius, their heresiarch, declared
that in their gospels was the text, ‘Worship demons, not that they may
do good to you, but that they may not do you harm.’ On this charge of
devil-worship, however even Cosmas is silent.
[37] This is illustrated by the missionary work of St. Sava in that
century. At the end of the ninth century the Narentines, living in the
immediate neighbourhood of Spalato and Ragusa, the two focuses of Roman
Christianity, were still unconverted, and their country, according to
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, was still known as Pagania. See p. 367.
How much more must this have been the case with the inland districts of
Bosnia!
[38] I find that this explanation of the rapid advance of the Manichæan
heresy among the Sclaves has suggested itself, quite independently, to
Herr Jireček in his recent history. He says (_Gesch. der Bulgaren_, p.
175): ‘Es war für Bogomil keine schwere Aufgabe, das unlängst erst dem
Heidenthüme entrückte Volk für eine Glaubenslehre zu gewinnen, welche,
gleich dem alten slawischen Mythus von den Bosi und Bêsi, lehrt, dass es
zweierlei höhere Wesen gebe, nämlich einen guten und einen bosen Gott.’
Herr Jireček, however, seems to forget that Armenian missionaries were at
work in Bulgaria considerably before even the reputed date of Bogomil.
If we remember that at the time when Manichæism first sought a footing
among the Bulgarians a great part of the nation was still pagan, these
considerations become still more cogent.
[39] See Schimek, _Pol. Gesch. des Königreichs Bosnien u. Rama_, p. 36.
[40] This is Hilferding’s conclusion.
[41] Or Spalato. Ragusa also laid claim to be the Metropolitan Church of
Bosnia in Culin’s time.
[42] Culin had married a sister of Stephen Némanja of Serbia, whose
Bogomilian opinions were notorious before her marriage. See Schimek, op.
cit. p. 48.
[43] This we learn from a letter of the Apostolic Legate of Alexander
III., then in Dalmatia, directed ‘Nobili et potenti viro Culin Bano
Bosniæ.’ The Legate writes to say that he is in very good favour with the
Pontiff; that he would like for himself a couple of slaves and a pair of
martens’ skins; and ‘if you have anything to signify to the Pontiff we
will benignantly listen to it.’ (!)
[44] Farlati, Episcopi Bosnenses. (In his _Illyricum Sacrum_, t. iv. p.
45.)
[45] The German word ‘_Ketzer_’ is derived from ‘_Cathari_,’ another name
for the sect.
[46] As an example of the doctrinal identity of the Bogomilian and
Albigensian creeds, I may be allowed to recall a few main features of
the heresy about Toulouse as they struck the Roman Inquisitors in 1178.
The heretics, we are told, declared that there were two Principles: one
Good Spirit, who had created invisible things alone, and only those that
were not susceptible of change and corruption; the other Evil, who had
created the sky, earth, man, and all things visible. That the sacramental
bread and wine were not transubstantiated into the body and blood of
Christ. That they rejected priests, monks, bishops, and sacerdotalism
generally. That churches were an abomination to them. That the laying
on of hands, and that, on adults, was the only true baptism. As to
marriage—‘virum cum uxore non posse salvari si alter alteri debitum
reddat.’ That beggars deserved no alms. That they made use of the
vernacular in their prayers: they were so ignorant of Latin ‘that they
could not speak a couple of words.’ ‘It was necessary,’ says the Cardinal
of St. Chrysogonus, ‘to condescend to their ignorance, and to speak of
the sacraments of the Church, though this was sufficiently absurd, in the
vulgar tongue.’ Their preachers seem to have styled themselves, in the
figurative language common to the Bogomiles as well, ‘Angels of Light.’
The Abbot of Clairvaux states that one of them, doubtless in the same
figurative sense, called himself John the Baptist. This man, their chief
leader, was an aged man, who presided at the nocturnal prayer-meetings
of the sectaries, clad in a tunic or dalmatic. See _Roger of Hoveden’s
Chronicle_, (Prof. Stubbs’s edition, in the Rolls Series, vol. ii. p.
153, &c.)
[47] Of the two divisions of the original Bulgarian Church, that of
Dragoviče, with its more uncompromising dualism, was followed in the
West by the Churches of Toulouse and Albano on the Lake of Garda. The
other Western Churches accepted the modified monotheism of what was known
as ‘The Bulgarian Church’ _par excellence_. This was in the thirteenth
century. At an earlier period, however, the absolute dualism of the
Dragovician Church had triumphed at the heretical Council of St. Felix de
Caraman, near Toulouse. See Jireček, op. cit. p. 213.
[48] ‘Patarenes,’ the name by which the Bogomiles of Bosnia and other
Sclavonic lands are always called by Roman writers, was derived from
‘Pataria,’ a suburb of Milan where heresy first raised its head in Italy.
[49] Jireček, loc. cit. The Armenian influence on Bulgaria and Bosnia,
and the Bogomilian influence on the West, is connected with the spread
of a curious heretical literature, derived from Oriental sources; of
phantastic Apocrypha and spurious Gospels, as well as of works of
Oriental magic, which, disseminated by the more corrupt adherents of the
sect, entered into the mediæval mythology of the West, and have still
left their traces on its folklore as well as on that of the Russians,
Bulgarians, and Serbs. Jireček cites, among other such works, the
favourite Bulgarian legend of St. John Bogoslov, containing a vision
of the Dies iræ, which was brought from Bulgaria in 1170 by Nazarius,
bishop of the Upper Italian Patarenes, and translated by him into Latin.
Another such work is the account of the wanderings of the Mother of God
in hell; but perhaps the most interesting of all, and one which in its
origin seems to be almost purely Sclavonic, is the account—reflecting the
primitive Sclavonic custom of the ‘_Pobratimstvo_’—of how the Sirmian
Emperor, Probus, made Christ his sworn brother.
[50] Radulphi de Coggeshale, _Chronicon Anglicanum_ (in the Rolls Series,
p. 121, &c.) The name ‘_Publicani_,’ by which the Essex chronicler
alludes to them, is a common name for the Bogomiles in the West, and is,
of course, a corruption of Pauliciani, or, perhaps, of a Sclavonic form
of that word. The heretics seem to have spread to England from Flanders,
where they were much oppressed by the Count. From the fragmentary details
which Ralph has given us, they seem to have preserved their Bogomilian
faith in a very pure form. They believed in the Two Principles and the
evilness of matter, rejected Purgatory, prayers for the dead, invocation
of saints, infant baptism, and accepted no scriptures but the Gospels
and Canonical Epistles. Some went so far as to charge them (as Euthymius
had done long before) with praying to Lucifer in their subterranean
meeting-houses. They were ‘rusticani,’ and therefore not amenable to
the argument of authority; by which, I suppose, the preference of the
early Protestants for the _vulgar tongue_ is alluded to. They observed
a vegetable diet, and condemned marriage. From a shameless relation of
Gervase of Tilbury which Ralph reports, it appears that there were holy
women of the sect under vows of perpetual chastity. Gervase himself, a
clerk of the Archbishop of Rheims, coolly related to his monkish friend,
who chronicled the story with pleasing gusto, how, having failed to
seduce a beautiful country girl, he perceived her heresy, accused her
successfully of being a ‘Publican’ before the Inquisition, and feasted
his eyes with her dying agonies at the stake. Girl though she was, she
died without a groan, ‘instar,’ as even the monk cannot refrain from
adding, ‘martyrum Christi (sed dissimili causa) qui olim pro Christiana
religione a paganis trucidabantur.’ The tragedy, even as told by Ralph,
is of an intense pathos, and deserves immortalising. How beautiful
is that innocence and how unutterable the villainy which provokes an
under-current of humanity even in a monkish narrator! After relations
like this, the conduct of Henry II. to the Oxford ‘Publicans’ will appear
almost merciful: he merely gave orders that they should be branded on
the forehead with a red-hot key and thrust forth from the city, and that
nobody should give them food or shelter. The notices of the Publicani,
Albigenses, and other Bogomilian sects who gained a footing in England,
both by way of Flanders and Guienne, never seem to have attracted the
attention they deserve from English historians. Yet the hatred born
by the orthodox against these Bulgarian intruders has added a word of
reproach to the language.
[51] Nor is this the place to enquire how far, in the Languedoc at all
events, the spread of these doctrines may have been aided by survivals
of an earlier Gnosticism. What, for example, became of those _Gnostici_
who had established themselves in the end of the fourth century in Spain
and parts of the south of Gaul? (See Sulpicius Severus, _Sacræ Historiæ_,
lib. ii.)
[52] By means of two merchants of Zara, Matthew and Aristodius,
who brought the Patarene doctrines from Bosnia to Spalato. Thomas
Archidiaconus, c. 24, quoted in Wilkinson’s _Dalmatia_.
[53] With the exception of the Croats, who perhaps hardly came under the
denomination of Balkan Sclaves.
[54] _Hist. Maj. ad annum_ 1223 (Rolls Series, vol. iii. p. 78); and
compare Ralph of Coggeshale’s account (Rolls Series, p. 195). Jireček
(op. cit p. 214) refers to a diploma of Innocent IV. in 1244, which
reveals an intercourse between Bosnia and the _Waldenses_ he cites
Palacky and Brandl in the _Čas. matice moravské_, 1, 2.
[55] His residence is fixed as ‘on the borders of the Hungarians and
between the limits of Bulgaria, Croatia, and Dalmatia,’ which indicates
the position of Bosnia with sufficient exactitude.
[56] The style of Bartholomew, the vicar of the Roman antipope, was,
according to Matthew Paris, ‘servus servorum sanctæ fidei;’ according to
Ralph of Coggeshale, ‘servus servorum hospitalis sanctæ fidei.’ Ralph
writes ‘Poios’ instead of ‘Porlos.’
[57] Raynaldus, _Annal. Eccles._ sub anno 1233.
[58] The Prince himself is described as ‘King of the Ruthenians, and
Ban of Sclavonia.’ See Farlati, op. cit. and _Spicilegium Observationum
Historico-Geographicarum de Bosniæ Regno_, Lugd. Bat. 1737.
[59] Yet the historian of Latin Christianity might have spared a line
to chronicle the struggles and sufferings of these early Protestants of
Bosnia, to whom even the cultured sons of Provence turned for spiritual
guidance.
[60] Raynaldus, _Annal. Eccles._ s. a. 1238.
[61] Raynaldus, s. a. 1246. Ninosclav had succeeded Zibisclav as Ban.
[62] Farlati, _Episcopi Bosnenses_.
[63] Under the Franciscan ‘Vicar of Bosna’ we now read of the following
_Custodiæ_, viz. Dulmna, Greben, Bosna Civitas, Ussora, Machovia,
Bulgaria, Corvinum, and Rascia.
[64] Farlati, _Ep. Bosn._
[65] Waddingus, _Annales Minorum_ (Ed. Fonsecæ), tom. vii. sub. anno 1325.
[66] Presbyter Cosmas. Just the same account of the _apparent_ innocence
of the Bogomiles appears in Euthymius: ‘They bid those who listen to
their doctrines to keep the commandments of the gospel, and to be meek
and merciful, and of brotherly love. Thus they entice men on by teaching
all good things and useful doctrine, but they poison by degrees and draw
to perdition.’
[67] Anonym. Acutheanus (in Farlati).
[68] Raynaldus, _Annal. Eccles._ sub anno 1369. The Franciscan Mission
had complained to the Pope of Tvartko the same year, as protector of
the Patarenes and ‘persecutor of that true son of the Church,’ his
brother, Stephen Wuk. In 1370 the Pope writes to the bishops of Ragusa,
Spalato, and ‘Dirrhachio’ to put the Patarenes under ban. In 1372, from
a letter of Pope Gregory XI. to the Vicar of the Minorites in Bosnia, we
learn that, in view of the continuance of the heresy in Bosnia, Rascia,
‘Bassarat,’ and the neighbouring regions, he granted them many privileges
of building religious houses in those countries; ‘Bourich, belonging to
the noble Nicolas de Altomanich’ in Rascia, and the ‘Contrata de Glas’ in
the dominion of the King of Hungary, being specified. Waddingus, _Annales
Minorum_, sub anno 1372.
[69] Farlati, _Ep. Bosn._
[70] Waddingus, _Annales Minorum_, tom. xiii. sub anno 1462.
[71] See Farlati, _Ep. Bosn._; and _Spicilegium_, &c. _de Regno Bosniæ_.
[72] Raynaldus, _Annal. Eccles._ sub anno 1450.
[73] Laonicus, _de Rebus Turc._ lib. x.; Gobelinus, lib. ii.; and
Johannes Leunclavius. The Sultan is said to have made use of the
authority of the captured king to obtain the seventy cities, but the
account given of the betrayal of Bobovac shows that the Bogomiles were
the real cause of the quick submission.
[74] I have already noticed the early branching off of a Bogomilian
church which rejected _Dualism_ pure and simple. Herr Jireček remarks
this compromising tendency, and observes that an Italian adherent of the
sect, Giovanni di Lugio, taught the real humanity of Christ and accepted
the Old Testament: while others conceded free will.
[75] Waddingus, _Annales Minorum_, sub anno 1478. There is also a
curious passage in Raphael of Volaterra, who appears to have written his
_Geographia_ towards the end of the fifteenth century. He says (_Geog._
p. 244, ed. Lyons, 1599), ‘In Bosnia, Rascia, and Serbia the sect of
the Manichees is still followed. They say there are two _Principia
Rerum_—one good, one evil. Nor do they acknowledge the Roman Pope, nor
Christ “_Omousion_.” They have monasteries (cœnobia) in hidden mountain
valleys, where go matrons who have escaped from certain diseases.’ These
matrons say that for a certain period they act as menials to holy men in
accordance with a vow: ‘Atque ita inter monachos mixtæ una vivunt; quæ
quidem labes adhuc durat.’
[76] Besides the evidence on this point which I have gathered from other
sources, I may notice a most interesting allusion to the Bogomiles or
Patarenes who had turned renegades, and a direct testimony that they
went over wholesale to Islâm, in J. Bapt. Montalbano, _Rerum Turcarum
Commentarius_, written certainly before the year 1630 (when it was
published in the Elzevir _Turci Imperii Status_). After mentioning the
Catholic inhabitants, the writer goes on to say, ‘Est aliud eo in regno
(sc. Bosnæ) hominum genus _Potur_ appellatum, qui neque Christiani sunt,
neque Turcæ, circumciduntur tamen, pessimique habentur.’ ‘Potur’ is
evidently a Sclavonised form of Patarene. The writer goes on to say of
these ‘Poturs’ that they, ‘to the number of many thousand,’ offered to
renegade from the Christian faith to that of Mahomet if Sultan Soliman
would grant them indemnity, and release them from tribute. Soliman,
says the writer (a Bolognese Doctor), thereupon doubled their tribute,
and enrolled their children among the Janissaries, and ‘hence they are
despised by both Turks and Christians.’ But this whole account evidently
bears witness to the wholesale renegation of the Bogomiles. Further
on the same writer, who had visited the country, bears witness to the
continuance of Protestantism in Turkish Bosnia in the sixteenth century.
‘Eos inter,’ says he, of the inhabitants, ‘Calvinistæ Arrianique multi.’
[77] I am indebted for this fact to Mr. W. J. Stillman, the excellent
correspondent of the _Times_ in the Herzegovina, who gives an account
of these refugees in a letter from Ragusa dated Oct. 19, 1875, which
I may be allowed to quote as illustrating the more recent sufferings
of this interesting sect, and the sad case of the Christian refugees
of Bosnia and the Herzegovina generally. ‘The people of Popovo were
tranquilly engaged in their fields and houses, when the troops—Regulars
and Bashi-Bazouks—came up; the latter killed the first they came upon
where they found them (one of them, the brother of a villager who had
appealed successfully to the Pashà at Trebinje against the extortions of
the Agas some months ago, being cut to pieces alive), and all the rest
fled in panic. The good _curé_ of Ossonich is doing all he can for them;
but there are only eighty-five houses in this village, and he has 2,125
souls of the Popovites on his register for succour. Of these 300 were out
on the mountain-side on the night of the worst storm we have had this
season. One woman with a new-born babe was so exhausted in her flight
that she went to sleep, sitting on a rock nursing her child, fell off
in her sleep, and was found by one of the other peasants next morning
still sleeping, with her babe at her bosom, in a pool of water which had
fallen during the storm. The _curé_ tells me that these people are mainly
Bogomilites, remains of an ancient sect once widely spread in Bosnia and
identical with the Albigenses.’ I observe that Jireček, quoting Kosanović
(Glasnik 29, (1871), 174), alludes to a rumour that in the valley of the
Narenta and near Creševo, ‘there are still Christians who neither submit
to Franciscans, nor Popes, nor Imâms, but govern themselves according
to old traditions, which an Elder delivers to the rest.’ I hope at
some future period to be able to say more on the present state of the
Bogomiles.
[78] See p. 214. There seems, however, to be some discrepancy as to
dates. According to Schimek (op. cit. p. 76), Czar Dūshan only annexed
Bosnia in 1347, whereas the date of the Armorial is 1340. The Ban,
Stephen Kotromanović, retained a small part of his dominions on the
Hungarian frontier. Dūshan placed the rest under the despot Lazar of
Rascia. On Dūshan’s death in 1355 the Ban recovered the whole of Bosnia,
including a part of Serbia beyond the Drina and the grave of St. Sava at
Mileševo, where he built a Franciscan Monastery, and where he himself was
buried in 1357.
[79] Spicilegium, &c., _De Bosniæ Regno_, p. 51; Farlati, _Ep. Bosn._ &c.
Schimek (op. cit. p. 84).
[80] Henceforth he is generally known as Stephen Myrza.
[81] Thoemmel, _Vilajet Bosnien_, p. 12.
[82] For an account of the collection of Bishop Strossmayer I am entirely
indebted to Canon Liddon, who visited Diakovar in the summer of this
year. As a slight monument of mediæval art in Bosnia I may refer the
reader to the Great Seal of King Tvartko III. engraved on the title-page
of this book.
[83] See p. 384 for the Župa Canawlovska and the Roman aqueduct from
which it derived its name. Tribunja or Terbunja is, of course, Trebinje,
the Roman Terbulium.
[84] Jireček (op. cit. p. 338), who brings out clearly the prominent part
played by King Tvartko in the last great South-Sclavonic struggle against
the Turks.
[85] Rački, _Pokret na Slavenskom jugu, koncem XIV. i pocetkom XV.
stolieca_ (cited in Jireček, loc. cit.)
[86] The English reader will find a full and graphic account of the
battle of Kóssovo Polje (or the field of Thrushes) in _The Slavonic
Provinces of Turkey in Europe_, by G. Muir Mackenzie and A. P. Irby, ch.
xv. Some extracts from some of the Servian _Pjesme_ on this subject are
translated by Sir John Bowring in his _Servian Popular Poetry_. There is
also an interesting account of the battle in Knolles’ _Turkish History_,
1610, which shows how great was already the poetic influence on the
story. ‘The brightness of the Armor and Weapons,’ writes our English
historian, ‘was as it had been the Lightning, the multitude of Launces
and other horsemen’s staves shadowed the light of the Sun. Arrows and
darts fell so fast that a man would have thought they had poured down
from Heaven. The noise of the Instruments of War, with the neighing of
Horses and outcries of men was so terrible and great that the wild Beasts
of the mountains stood astonied therewith; and the Turkish Histories,
to express the terror of the day (vainly say) that the Angels of Heaven
amazed with that hideous noise for that time forgot the heavenly hymns
wherewith they always glorifie God.’ It is possible that the thunder of
cannon was now heard for the first time in the Balkan peninsula. In 1383
the Venetians had sold King Tvartko a _Falconus_.
[87] Zinkeisen, (I. 290) cited in Jireček (op. cit. p. 344).
[88] See p. 106.
[89] Also known as Tvartko II.
[90] See pp. 105, 106.
[91] Spicilegium, &c., _De Bosniæ Regno_, p. 7.
[92] See deed of Stephen Dabiscia to Goiko Mergnjavić (translated on p.
223) in return for services performed: ‘Quando venit Paiasit cum Turcis
et stetit in Naglasincis et destruxit Bosnam.’
[93] According to the Spicilegium he assumed the title _Princeps Bosnæ_
et dominus Jayczæ. When under Ostoja’s suzerainty he styled himself
‘_Supremus Vayvoda Regni Bosnæ et Vicarius Regum Vladislai et Ostojæ_.’
According to Schimek (op. cit. p. 25) his land extended from the middle
of the vale of Bosna along the Croatian border.
[94] Stephen assumed the style _Liber Princeps et Dominus Bosnæ, Ussoræ,
Salæ atque plurium aliorum locorum, atque Chelmi Comes_.
[95] From him the noble Venetian family of Cozzas derives its origin.
[96] It seems to me probable that the title accorded by Frederick was
Duke of _Primorie_ (which is now incorporated in the County of Chelm),
and that the name Duke of St. Sava was rather a popular piecing together
of this and his other title of ‘Keeper of the Sepulchre of St. Sava.’
In 1446 he is called _Herzegh Sancti Sabbæ_ by the Bosnian king in the
account of the Conventus of Coinica; but if we may judge from the Italian
style used by his son, the refugee duke, he called _himself_ Duke of
Primorie. Stephen Cosaccia’s son calls himself ‘_Duca Primorschi, Signor
di Hum, e Guardiano del Sepolchro del beato Sava_.’
[97] Herzegovina, the adjectival form of Herzega—literally ‘the
ducal’—land being understood.
[98] Stephen Cosaccia’s father, Sandalj Hranić, in addition to his
original heritage of Chelm, had been ceded lands beyond the Drina by
Ostoja. Stephen himself succeeded in annexing from Tvartko’s successor
the districts of Duvno, Rama, and Ljubuška. On the other hand Sandalj
had parted with Ostrovizza to the Venetians, and the Župa Kanawlovska
to Ragusa. See _L’Herzégovine, Étude Géographique, Historique, et
Statistique_, par E. de Sainte-Marie.
[99] For Mostar and its bridge see p. 347, &c.
[100] Schimek (op. cit. p. 100).
[101] This is illustrated by a curious fact. A deed (described by
Schimek, op. cit. p. 117) is still extant in the Imperial Archives at
Vienna, in which King Thomas, in return for services in reconciling him
to his Hungarian suzerain, grants John Hunyadi an annuity of 3000 ducats.
In this document, _datum in Castro Bobovacz, feria quarta post festum
Pentecostes (3 Junii) An. Dom. 1444_, Thomas still makes use of the
seal of his predecessor Tvartko III. A representation of this seal from
Schimek is given on the title-page of this book.
[102] See p. 307.
[103] Schimek (op. cit. p. 119, note 2), on what authority I know not,
asserts that the _Electi omnium comitatuum regni nostri nobiles_, who
attended at the ‘Conventus,’ were the Elders of the Patarene (Bogomilian)
clergy, ‘und die Edlen (nobiles) scheinen, nach der polnischen Art, die
Landboten gewesen zu seyn.’
[104] Datum sub castro nostro regali de Bobovatz in oppido Sutischæ, die
xxiv Julii, A.D. 1457 (in _Spic. De Bosniæ Regno_).
[105] This appears from a curious document, dated that year, by which
King Stephen Thomas engages not to introduce the Turks into Hungary. ‘Nec
iisdem Turcis in tenutis nostris, apud manus nostras existentibus a Drino
usque fluvium Ukrina, vadum seu navigium præstabimus.’ It does not appear
whether these were actual settlers, or a Turkish garrison quartered on
the dominions of the Bosnian King.
[106] Other accounts make Mahomet disguise himself as a merchant; others
transfer the scene to Jaycze; and, according to another version, the
Bosnian King was not Stephen Thomas, but his son Tomašević.
[107] Proceres Regni.
[108] Præfecti.
[109] This summons is preserved in the monastery of the Holy Ghost at
Foinica, and is given in Balthasar Kerselich, _De Regnis Dalmatiæ,
Croatiæ, Sclavoniæ, notitiæ præliminares_, Zagrab, _s. a._ In my first
edition I had followed the wrong chronology of Farlato and referred it to
Stephen Thomas, but there can be no doubt that it is, as Schimek points
out, the act of Tomašević.
[110] Schimek (op. cit. p. 144).
[111] Variously described as Radovil Večinćić, Radić, Radac, and, in
latinised forms, Radazes and Rastizes.
[112] For the fall of the Bosnian kingdom and the Banat of Jaycze I have
compared the accounts of Johannes Leunclavius, Laonicus, _De Reb. Turc_,
lib. x.; Gobelinus, lib. ii.; Isthvanfius, and Bonfinius.
[113] A few towns on the Bosna and Save, where, as nearer Hungary,
the strength of the Bogomilian malcontents would be weakest, are said
(Schimek, op. cit. p. 109) to have resisted, but were soon reduced by the
Beg Omer from Thessaly, and laid waste with fire and sword.
[114] Schimek beheads Tomašević at Blagai after the Herzegovinian
campaign.
[115] So too in the Languedoc the strength of the heretics seems to
have lain with the industrial population of the times, and one of the
names applied to them, _Tisserands_, shews that they made many converts
among the weavers. This illustrates what I have already noticed, the
connexion between Bogomilian propagandism and commercial intercourse.
It is interesting to notice that the Bogomiles who still survive in the
district of Popovo have retained certain mechanic arts that have died out
among the rest of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian population.
[116] Including Ragatica, Cernica, Kecka, and Michiac.
[117] The Venetians at different times succeeded in extending their
dominion over parts of Herzegovina. The coast-land (_Primorie_),
including Macarska, Castelnuovo, &c., passed definitely into their
hands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to become at a later
period the inheritance of Austria. The Venetians at one time extended
their suzerainty over the Popovo Polje, Gacko and Piva. In 1694 their
Proveditor-General in Dalmatia, Delfino, took Gabella Citluk (Počitelj);
and their general, Marcello, pursued the Seraskier to Nevešinje. At
this time the Christian inhabitants of the districts of Trebinje,
Popovo, Klobuć, and Grahovo (i.e. of much the same area as that of
the latest Herzegovinian outbreak) rose against the Pashàs and Agas,
and the Mussulman inhabitants. By the peace of Carlovitz in 1699 the
Herzegovinian towns of Citluk, Gabella, Cattaro, Castelnuovo, and Risano,
with Knin and Zengg and other places, were left in the hands of the
Venetians; and the only remaining strips of Herzegovinian coast-land, the
narrow _enclaves_ of Klek and Sutorina, were left to the Turks by English
influence and Ragusan precaution, which feared Venetian contact.
[118] The Duke’s son.
[119] Possibly rather _restored_. A convent and royal residence (the
two were generally combined by the Sclavonic princes) had certainly
existed at Sutisca much earlier, and as far back as 1278 a Ban, Stephen
Kotromanović, dates a diploma ‘from our palace of “Suttisca.”’ The
convent reared by the pious Thomas and his Queen was destroyed by the
Turks, but the Franciscans obtained permission to rebuild it, and set
a great cross there, which according to their own account (Relation
of Bosnian Monks in Farlati) was made by St. Bernardin, ‘and is most
formidable to demons and drives off airy tempests.’ Perhaps it acted as a
lightning-conductor.
[120] This account is taken from the relation of Bosnian monks ‘On the
Present State of Bosnia,’ supplied to Farlati in 1769. I have assumed
above that the picture of King Thomas still exists.
[121] Her mother was Helena Comnena, wife of Stephen Cosaccia.
[122] Waddingus, _Annales Minorum_, sub anno 1475.
[123] Waddingus, op. cit. sub anno 1478.
[124] See frontispiece to this Historical Review of Bosnia. I have copied
my illustration of the monument of Queen Catharine, from a representation
of it as existing in 1677, in Alphonsi Ciacconii _Vitæ et Res Gestæ
Pontificum Romanorum et S. R. E. Cardinalium ab Augustino Oldoino
recognitæ_, &c., tom. iii. col. 41 (Romæ, 1677). I do not know whether
the monument is still existent.
[125] Ciacconius, loc. cit.
[126] Foinica also appears to have belonged to Mathias. See the
interesting diploma of 1469, by which he cedes it to Tomko Mergnjavić,
given on p. 224.
[127] Niklas Ujlak was made titulary king, and assumed the style
_Nicolaus Dei Gracia Rex Bosniæ_. See diploma of 1464, given by
Kerczelich, _Histor. Eccl. Zagrab._ cap. xiii. p. 183 (cited by Schimek).
With Nicklas’ death even the titulary kingship of Bosnia died out, and
his son, in a diploma of 1492, styles himself simply _Dux Boznæ_.
[128] Literally ‘a little egg,’ the diminutive of ‘_Jaje_,’ an egg.
[129] Waddingus, sub anno 1478.
[130] See p. 115.
[131] _Kraljevo Polje_, perhaps ‘Field’ in the old English sense, would
be a better rendering of _Polje_. According to one account, it was the
scene of the execution of the last king of Bosnia.
[132] _Tormenta Curulia._
[133] J. Bapt. Montalbano, _Rerum Turcicarum Commentarius_, s.v. _Bosnæ
Regnum_.
[134] A very interesting account of ‘the War in Bosnia,’ during the years
1737-9, has been left us by a native Bosnian historian, Omer Effendi, of
Novi, which was printed by Ibrahim in Turkish, and was translated into
English by C. Fraser, and published by the ‘Oriental Translation Fund’ in
1830.
[135] Thoemmel, _Vilajet Bosnien_.
[136] Of course there are plenty of accounts of border warfare carried
on between Bosnian Pashàs and Agas and the Imperialists and Venetians,
many of which have been collected by Schimek, whose work—which professes
to be a political history of Bosnia—is absolutely silent as to the inner
relations of the province for the last two centuries of Bosnian history
after the conquest, which he professes to describe. A more confused
and purposeless tissue of wars and rumours of wars it is impossible to
conceive. The difficulty of obtaining trustworthy materials for the
history of Bosnia after the Turkish conquest has led me to confine my
sketch of this period to a few general remarks. I hope to discuss the
subject more fully at some future opportunity.
[137] J. Bapt. Montalbano, loc. cit. The writer had visited Bosnia,
apparently in the days of the Banat of Jaycze.
[138] See p. lxxx.
[139] To this westward and northward immigration of Serbs and Rascians I
am inclined to attribute the peculiarity of many of the Bosnian _Piesme_,
the half mythical heroes of which are taken rather from the history of
the Serbs proper than of the Bosnians.
[140] _Die letzten Unruhen in Bosnien_ (translated into English by Mrs.
Alexander Kerr, and published in Bohn’s series).
[141] I am indebted to Canon Liddon for this valuable information. On
such occasions the bishop generally takes his text from the Sermon on the
Mount.
[142] M. de Ste. Marie.
[143] Ami Boué. In corroboration of this I may cite the testimony of an
English traveller, Edmund Spencer:—‘While attending the Parliamentary
debates of the Skuptchina, I was much struck with the self-possessed,
dignified air of the almost unlettered orators, who were earnest
without violence, impassioned without intemperance, depending rather
on the force of their arguments than the strength of their lungs and
theatrical gesticulations, to win the attention of their auditors. The
Serbs resemble us in more than one particular: they have the same dogged
resolution, the same love of fair play, the same detestation of the use
of the knife, together with no inconsiderable portion of that mixture of
the aristocratic and democratic in their character which so especially
distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon race.’ The last remark is now peculiarly
applicable to the Bosnian branch of the Serbs.
[144] M. Yriarte, _Bosnie et Herzégovine_, p. 245.
[145] Franz Maurer, ‘Reise durch Bosnien, die Saveländer und Ungarn.’
Berlin, 1870, p. 45.
[146] See Brachet, ‘Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Française,’
and Wedgewood’s ‘Dictionary of English Etymology.’
[147] See, for instance, the Croat man in the engraving on p. 4.
[148] The Italian Testo, the Spanish Tjesto, and French Têt, came rather
from the Latin Testum; while Testa, among the Romance population of Gaul,
supplied the word for a head, tête. But in East Europe Testa does not
seem to have developed this secondary meaning, as the Wallacks use Cap
(Caput) for ‘head;’ and therefore _Testa_ may still have retained its
sense of ‘a pot.’
[149]
‘Fistula cui semper decrescit arundinis ordo,
Nam calamus cera jungitur usque minor.’—Tibullus II. v. 31.
[150] This, however, may be connected with the Croatian word _Fuk_, which
is used to express the howling of the wind, the whirring of birds’ wings
and other sounds, and can hardly be a derivative from Fistula.
[151] γαμήλιον αὔλημα. See Chappell, ‘History of Music,’ vol. i. p. 277.
[152] Chappell, loc. cit. p. 301.
[153] See Diez, _Etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen_.
[154] Venice strove to make the connection political; from 1115 to 1358
A.D. her Doges maintained the title of Dukes of Croatia.
[155] Vuk Karadjić was not a Croat, but a Serb.
[156] Called by Germans and Germanizers, Carlstadt.
[157] Thus our forefathers knew the Romans as Rom-Weallas. Wales and
Welsh still preserve their name for Roman Britain and its inhabitants.
The Romance population of the Netherlands is known as Walloon. Italy is
still Welschland to the German. It is, however, quite wrong to suppose,
as good writers do, that the Wallacks got their name from a German
population. They certainly were first called Vlach by their Sclavonic
borderers. Vlach is also said to be Sclavonic for shepherd.
[158] _Slavonia_ and _Slavonian_ are used throughout this book to denote
the Austro-Hungarian province and its people. The branch of the Aryan
Family of which these, the Serbs, Croats, &c., are severally members, I
call _Sclaves_, and their tongue _Sclavonic_.
[159] For the charter of Rudolf to Karlovac, in 1581, and its
confirmation by Ferdinand III., see _Balthazar Kerselich, De Regnis
Dalmatiæ, Croatiæ, Sclavoniæ, Notitiæ Præliminares, Zagreb. s. a._ p.
392, &c.
[160] If we understood the peasants correctly, it was called Terg;
and if so, is almost identical in name with _Torg_, the Swedish for a
market-place. Terg in Croatian means generally ‘wares;’ Tirgovac, a
merchant or dealer; Tirgoviste, a market.
[161] The house-father and house-mother are not necessarily man and wife;
nor, though generally chosen with respect to age, are they always the
oldest members of the community.
[162] The usual word for brigand, &c., in Eastern Europe. The word is
said to be Magyar originally, and to signify ‘the unmarried.’ It was
originally applied to youthful Free-lances—‘_Knights Bachelors_’—and has
been compared with the derivation of Cossack, which has the same meaning.
In Hungary the population of certain towns are known as Hajduks, and the
towns are called Hajduk towns.
[163] Belenus, the Celtic Apollo, and tutelary god of Aquileja.
[164] From whom the earlier title of the city _Flavia Siscia_ may have
been derived.
[165] Ausonius, _De Claris Urbibus_. The order of eminence given by the
rhetorician to the great cities of the empire is evidently perverted
by pedantry and provincial favouritism. Neither Siscia, Sirmium, nor
Nicomedia is mentioned. Illyria has, at least, as much right to be heard
on this question of precedency as Aquitaine!
[166] Very few _tituli militares_ have been discovered at Siscia. The
camps originally established here and at Pætovio were soon moved on to
Aquincum and Brigetio. See Mommsen, _Corpus Inscriptionum_, vol. iii. pt.
1, where he insists on the _civil_ character of Siscia.
[167] Prudentius, Peristephanon vii.
[168] The inscription was
CERERI‖AVG SAC‖Q. IVLIVS‖MODERATVS‖B. PROC‖VSLM.
It is given in the _Corpus Inscriptionum_, vol. iii. pt. I. No. 3944. The
vase, however, beside the _patera_, is not mentioned there.
[169] Balthasar Kerselich, _De Regnis Dalmatiæ, Croatiæ, Sclavoniæ
Notitiæ præliminares_; and see _Danubian Principalities, by a British
Resident of Twenty Years in the East_, vol. i. p. 88.
[170] See p. 85.
[171] The usual name given to the residence of a Turkish official.
[172] According to some accounts _Dobor_, a village further down the
Bosna, was the scene of this conspiracy and its _dénouement_. But
_Doboj_, whose great castle was certainly the scene of the tragedy of
1408, seems the more probable reading. It seems to me possible that Doboj
was first called Dobor like the lower village, and that the name Doboj or
_Dvoboj_ was afterwards affixed to it by reason of its having been the
scene of these two struggles. Towns run a good deal in couples in Bosnia,
and there may well have been a _Veliki_ and _Mali_ Dobor.
[173] Martial, _Ep._ lib. iv. 64.
[174] I assume that the Castrum Tessenii of the Chronicles mean Tešanj.
[175] This curious impress of Mahometanism on Bosnian Christianity may be
illustrated by other facts. Pilgrimages to Jerusalem are undertaken by
Christians almost as frequently as pilgrimages to Mecca by Mahometans.
The performance of such is reckoned as honourable among the rayahs as
among the Turks, and the Christian pilgrims assume the same title of
Hadji. The Holy Sepulchre is often known by the name Tjaba, which is
nothing but the Arabian Caaba!—_See_ Ranke, ‘Die letzten Unruhen in
Bosnien, 1820-1832,’ (in Bohn’s translation, p. 314.)
[176] For the story of Marko Kraljević or ‘Kings’ son Marko,’ and the
Cycles of Serbian poetry, see ‘The Slavonic Provinces of Turkey in
Europe,’ by G. Muir Mackenzie and A. P. Irby, p. 87, &c.
[177] Wessely, quoted in Introduction to ‘Servian Popular Poetry,’
translated by Sir John Bowring.
[178] Let any English reader who thinks these encomiums overdrawn procure
the faithful and beautiful translations of Sir John Bowring, cited above,
and judge for himself.
[179] Miller.
[180] ‘Servian Popular Poetry,’ translated by J. Bowring, p. 219.
[181] ‘A Voyage into the Levant. A Briefe Relation of a Iourney lately
performed by Master _Henry Blunt_, Gentleman, from _England_ by the
way of _Venice_ into _Dalmatia_, _Sclavonia_, _Bosnah_, _Hungary_,
_Macedonia_, _Thessaly_, _Thrace_, _Rhodes_, and _Egypt_, unto _Gran
Cairo_.’ The Third Edition. London: 1638; p. 8. The giant size of the
Bosniacs also struck the Bolognese doctor J. Bapt. Montalbans who visited
Bosnia in the 16th century. v. _Rerum Turcarum Commentarius_,—_Bosnæ
Regnum_.
[182] An officer of the general staff who was employed by the Austrian
Government to draw up a map of Bosnia, and followed this up by his
‘Studien über Bosnien und die Herzegovina,’ partly an itinerary, partly a
statistical account, but meagre and disappointing. Franz Maurer, ‘Reise
durch Bosnien,’ is equally loud in his denunciations of the Major’s map.
[183] Had Milton viewed a scene like this? or was his sublime simile for
the fallen Angels a pure creation of his imagination?
‘Yet faithful how they stood
Their glory withered; as when heaven’s fire
Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines,
With singed top their stately growth, though bare,
Stands on the blasted heath.’—_Par. Lost_, i. 612.
[184] Asplenium Trichomanes.
[185] Clausilia laminata.
[186] Omer Effendi of Novi, op. cit. p. 85.
[187] Bryum ligulatum.
[188] As, for instance, some rough Roman sarcophagi found at York, and
now in the garden of the Philosophical Society of the town.
[189] There are at present about 3,000 Jews in Bosnia, resident mainly in
Serajevo, Travnik, Banjaluka, and Novipazar. See Thoemmel, _Beschreibung
des Vilajet Bosnien_, p. 108.
[190] _Dalmatia and Montenegro_, by Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, F.R.S.,
vol. ii. p. 181, &c. For some in Narenta Valley, see p. 31.
[191] The coincidence between the appearance of the moon on these
monuments and on the Bosnian arms had already suggested itself to me
before I was aware that it had also struck Sir Gardner Wilkinson.
[192] The moon and stars were favourite symbols on Mithraic gems and
monuments, which are nowhere more plentiful than in Illyria, if I
may judge from personal experience. They were also in vogue with the
Gnostics. According to Manes the moon was a purgatory of good spirits;
their immediate haven after death. See King’s _Gnostics and their
Remains_. But, for a more probable explanation of the moon and stars on
Bosnian arms and monuments, see page 219.
[193] Euthymius Zygabenus, _Panoplia_. Presbyter Cosmas, Harmenopulus,
and Anna Comnena give the same account. See my _Historical Review of
Bosnia_.
[194] Raph. Volat. 1-8.
[195] See the introductory _Historical Review of Bosnia_.
[196] The respective numbers at the last official return were:—Greeks,
576,756; Mahometans, 442,050.
[197] See p. 222.
[198] In Bosnia even the parochial duties are performed by monks of
this order, who discard the monastic dress and wear the ordinary civil
costume, including cutlasses and pistols. Every three years the chapter
of the order (the Provincial, that is, of the Minorites, with a custos
and four definitors) elects a ‘mission for the cure of souls,’ and the
monks who are doing service an secular priests are either confirmed in
their office or exchanged for others. The head or ‘Quardian’ of every
monastery is also priest for his district. Thus the parish churches
are completely dependent on the Franciscan brotherhood, each monastery
possessing so many churches. This at Gučiagora has nine; that at Sutiska,
the largest in Bosnia, as many as twenty-two churches. As parish priests,
however, the brothers find their allegiance somewhat divided between
the Vicar Apostolic of Bosnia and the Provincial of their order. See
Thoemmel, _Beschreibung des Vilajet Bosnien_, p. 96, &c.
[199] Gustav Thoemmel, op. cit. pp. 94-6, gives statistics showing
the improved state of the Roman Catholic Church in Bosnia since the
establishment of the Austrian Consulate-General in Serajevo. Writing
in 1867, he says that in 1850 there were only forty-one parsonages in
Bosnia, now sixty-nine. Up to 1860 only the three old monasteries of
Sutiska, Foinica, and Kreševo existed; since then three more have been
founded, namely this at Gučiagora, one at Gorica, near Livno, and one at
Siroki-brieg, in the Herzegovina, six hours west of Mostar. In 1850 the
Roman Catholic population was 160,000, in 1874 it had risen to 185,503.
[200] Gustav Thoemmel, _Beschreibung des Vilajet Bosnien_. Wien, 1867, p.
101.
[201] According to the last census there were 576,756 Bosniacs of the
Orthodox Greek Church, and only 185,503 Roman Catholics.
[202] I am indebted to Canon Liddon for this fact.
[203] Since the new constitutional laws of July, 1865, Travnik has become
the seat of Government for one of the seven circles, or Mutasarifliks,
into which the Vilajet of Bosnia (including Herzegovina) is divided. The
Mutasarìf is an officer superior to the Kaïmakàm as the Kaïmakàm to the
Mudìr. The Mutasarifliks answer to the German _Kreise_, the Kaïmakamliks
(districts under Kaïmakàm) to _Bezirke_.
[204] Omer Effendi of Novi, whose writings were edited and printed by
Ibrahim in Turkish, and were translated into English by C. Fraser in 1830.
[205] See Roskiević.
[206] I take this anecdote from the author of _The Danubian
Principalities_ (vol. ii. p. 326), to whom Omer Pashà related it.
[207] See A. von Hilferding, _Bosnien,—Reise-Skizzen aus dem Jahre 1857_,
p. 12 (translated from the Russian).
[208] In the French translation (Paris, 1674), which is the only copy I
have by me. P. 76.
[209] The old name of Travnik appears to have been Herbosa. (See Farlato,
_Illyricum Sacrum_, t. iv.) I notice a serious error in Dr. Spruner’s
_Historisch-Geographisches Hand-Atlas_, where Travnik is made identical
with Bobovac, the old seat of Bosnian bans and kings, which is 40 miles
to the west, near Vareš.
[210] It is curious that the Italian word should pass current in Bosnia.
[211] See page 118.
[212] Of what place I am uncertain. He was only visiting Foinica, which
itself does not possess so exalted a functionary.
[213] In the original Bosnian, as written into Latin characters for me
by one of the monks, it ran—Rodoslovje Bosanakoga aliti Iliričkoga, i
Srbskoga vladanja, zai edno postavlieno po Stanislaú Rubčiću popu, na
slavu Stipana Nemanjiću, Cara Srblienak Bosniakak, (1340.)
[214] Hunc codicem ab immemorabili tempore, nempe a captivitate Regni
Bosniæ, studiose conservatum esse a Reverendis Fratribus Franciscanis
Familiæ Foinicensis.
[215] Query, a monastic error for St. Mark.
[216] I refer to the Church of _Giurgevi Stúpovi_, whose dome still rises
on a hill above Novipazar. A description of it will be found in _Travels
through the Slavonic Provinces of Turkey in Europe_, by G. Muir Mackenzie
and A. P. Irby. London, 1866, p. 309.
[217] I find this erroneous theory put forth by the author of the
_Spicilegium Observationum Historico-Geographicarum de Bosniæ Regno_,
Lug. Bat. 1736, p. 84. He supposes that this change must have taken
place about 1463, when Mahomet subdued the Duchy of St. Sava, and quotes
Varennes to the effect that the original arms of Bosnia were an arm of
offence—Varennes himself having mistaken the arms of Primorie for those
of Bosnia. The Bosnian arms, however, appear to have changed. Thus, in a
MS. armorial in the Bodleian Library, the date of which seems to be about
1506, they are given as—Quarterly, first and fourth, gules, a crown or;
second and third, azure, a heart argent. This may have been the arms of
the _titulary_ Kingdom of Bosnia, erected by Mathias when Upper Bosnia
was in the hands of the Turks. Compare also the arms on the monumental
slab of Queen Catharine of Bosnia.
[218] The Ban Legeth, who reigned at the end of the tenth century.
Risano, Castelnuovo, &c., on the Bocche di Cattaro, belonged directly to
Bosnia till King Tvartko ceded his immediate sovereignty over them to the
Duke of St. Sava.
[219] ‘There can be no doubt,’ says Sir Gardner Wilkinson, ‘that the
crescent on the Turkish arms is an old Byzantine emblem copied by the
Moslems on their invasion of the provinces of the empire.’ It had been
chosen of old, so the story goes, by Byzantium because she had been saved
from a night attack of Philip by the moon coming out and revealing the
approach of the enemy. See _Dalmatia_, &c. vol. ii. p. 184. The Osmanlìs
must have borrowed the device from their Saracenic predecessors.
[220] Of course it is not meant to connect either family with the royal
races of France or England.
[221] This is given by Thoemmel, _Vilajet Bosnien_, p. 92, from whom I
take its substance.
[222] ‘Indicia vetustatis et nobilitatis familiæ Marciæ vulgo Marnavitzæ,
Nissensis.’ Per Joannem Tomkum ejusdem generis collecta. Romæ typ. Vat.
1632. Whether this book is still attainable I know not; its contents are
copied as curious by Balthasar Kerselich in the seventeenth century. See
_De Regnis Dalmatiæ_, &c. p. 295, _et seq._
[223] ‘In Naglasincis:’ no doubt—Nevešinje, near Mostar. See ‘Historical
Review of Bosnia.’
[224] ‘Dedi et donavi et descripsi Goico Marnaitio, Voinicum et
Godaliensem Campum in Imoteschio territorio prope Possussinam, et illi
et illius posteritati, et postremæ posteritati in sæcula sæculorum.
Amen.’ Posusje, near Imoschi, seems to be the ‘Possussina in territorio
Imoteschio.’
[225] It was translated into Latin in 1629, and witnessed by the Pope.
To avoid fraud two translations of the original document were prepared,
one by the interested Tomko, and the other by a certain Father Methodius
Terlecki.
[226] In Kerselich, ‘Pagus Huonice,’ a misprint for Foinicæ.
[227] At the village of Dušina.
[228] Gučiagora, which is the centre of another Roman Catholic district,
may be added to these. The waters of the Lašva, which runs through this
neighbourhood, contain gold, for which its sands were formerly washed.
But I noticed another trace of _Ragusan_ mining influence in the name of
the spur of Mt. Vlašić, which overlooks the monastery. This is called
_Mt. Mossor_, a name given in the Dalmatian coast-lands to mountains
where gold existed, and which will recall the Mossor that rises above
Almissa in Dalmatia. The derivation is simply ‘_Mons Auri_,’ the gold
mountain.
[229] Præpositus Thesaurorum Dalmaticorum.
[230] The Serbs or members of the Greek Church are most imbued with
_patriotic_ ideas, it is true; but these aim rather at a re-establishment
of a Serbian Empire, or a Democratic government of some kind, with, or
without, a princely figure-head. The _Provincially_ historic party are
the Roman Catholics, or rather their instructors, the monks.
[231] See, for the original French, Stubbs’ _Select Charters_, p.
461. I have followed Professor Stubbs’ translation, substituting only
‘wheresoever’ for ‘whereas.’
[232] To such a conclusion I am led by an examination of several similar
monuments given in Montfaucon—_L’Antiquité Expliquée_. A monument of
this kind is alluded to by Isaac Disraeli (_Curiosities of Literature_)
in ‘The Skeleton of Death,’ where the contrast between the Classical and
Mediæval representations of death is drawn out.
[233] Dr. Blau (formerly Prussian Consul at Serajevo), who has worked
at the Roman remains in Bosnia, does not mention any in this vicinity,
and even thinks it worthy of mention that he could hear of no Roman
remains near Illidzje. See papers in _Monatsbericht der k. preuss.
Acad. der Wissensch_. Dec. 1866, Nov. 1867, and Aug. 1870. Dr. Blau has
especially explored the remains at Tašlidzje or Plevlje (about half
way between Serajevo and Novipazar), where he has discovered twenty
inscriptions and other antique fragments. The existence of a Roman
Municipium here is shown by two monuments—one recording a decree of the
_Decuriones_; another mentioning the _Duumviri_. On these and other
Bosnian inscriptions one can trace the development of a kind of Illyrian
_Romance_ dialect. _Masimile_ appears for _Maximillæ_, _Amavilis_ for
_Amabilis_, and another reads _Filie defunte_.
[234] The Roman baths at Novipazar are briefly described by Roskiević,
op. cit. p. 75.
[235] Dr. Blau identifies Banjaluka with the Roman station AD LADIOS.
[236] Banjaluka = Luke’s bath.
[237] Omer Effendi, of Novi, compares the climate of Bosnia to that of
Misr and Sham (Egypt and Syria). Op. cit. p. 85.
[238] Damascus is described by Easterns as ‘a pearl set round with
emeralds.’
[239] Engel, _Geschichte des Freistaates Ragusa_. See Roskiević, p. 175.
The Ragusans worked mines in Mt. Jagodina, where the present Turkish
citadel of Serajevo is. Traces of these are still to be seen.
[240] Blunt, _Voyage into the Levant_, p. 8. Anno 1634.
[241] Eugenii _Heldenthaten_, cited in Spicilegium, &c.
[242] See Ranke’s _Bosnia_, ch. 1, and especially ‘_The Danubian
Principalities_,’ vol. ii. p. 345.
[243] Miss Irby and Miss Johnston are at the present moment engaged,
amid the barbarous wilds of Slavonia, in alleviating the urgent needs
of the Bosnian refugees, with a philanthropy and devotedness worthy of
the land which can number among its daughters a Mrs. Fry and a Florence
Nightingale. Those who, by subscribing to the ‘Bosnian and Herzegovinian
Fugitives’ Orphan Relief Fund,’ have aided their efforts, will be glad
to learn that these practical manifestations of English sympathy have
rescued hundreds from incalculable misery, and produced a profound
impression on all South-Sclavonic peoples.
[244] See ‘Bosnia in 1875,’ an interesting paper by Miss Irby in the
_Victoria Magazine_ for Nov. 1875.
[245] The Cattle-tax is of three kinds: the _Porez_, or from fifteen
to twenty piastres on every head of large cattle; the _Resmi Agnam_,
of two piastres on every head of small cattle; and the _Donuzia_, or
hog-tax. To these pastoral imposts may be added the _Travarina_ or
_Herbatico_, four piastres for every head of neat cattle pastured in
mountain forests claimed by the State; four piastres levied on every plot
of ground planted with _Broc_, a flower which produces a red dye much
used in Bosnia; a tax of four piastres on every beehive; the _Rad_, or
labour-tax, of about twenty-five piastres; Corvée on public roads; and
the _Komore_, or forced loan of horses.
[246] ‘The tax in lieu of military service, which is paid by all
non-Mussulmans, weighs very heavily on the poor, who have to pay, equally
with the rich, twenty-eight piastres for every male. In the poorest and
most miserable family this sum must be paid for the male infant who has
first seen the light a few hours before the visit of the tax-gatherer.
I have heard the bitterest complaints of the cruelty of this tax on the
young children of the rayah.’—Miss Irby, loc. cit. p. 79. In principle
this tax (known as _Bédélat Askarié_) is only levied on males between
the ages of sixteen and sixty. In practice it is levied on old men of
eighty as well as infants in arms, and often amounts to thirty piastres.
A round sum is demanded from every village, and the _Knez_, or Mayor,
has to divide it as best he may; but the sum demanded by the Government
is always out of all proportion to the number of those who are legally
called on to pay it.
[247] The tithe or ‘dime’ was converted into an eighth a few years ago,
(to pay the expense of the Sultan’s European tour), by the imposition of
an extra two-and-a-half per cent., which, by an artifice common to the
thimble-rigging financiers of Stamboul, was called ‘a temporary aid.’
Since the revolt this aid has been given up by the _Iradè_ of October 10,
1875.
[248] See on this device of extortion, M. Yriarte’s _Bosnie et
Herzégovine, souvenirs de voyage pendant l’insurrection_. Plon, Paris,
1876, p. 199.
[249] To show that these and other tortures are by no means new in
Bosnia, I may be allowed to cite a curious passage from a book on
Turkish _Manners and Customs_, and having especial reference to the
Turkish border-province of Dalmatia, written in the sixteenth century
by a citizen of Zara, Messer Luigi Bassano, and entitled _I Costumi et
i Modi particolari de la vita de Turchi_. Roma, 1545. Ch. xxxiii. is
headed ‘_Modo che usano d’impalare, e d’altre sorti de Morti, e torture
che danno_.’ After giving the most ghastly details as to the method of
impalement, and instancing the case of a certain Capitan Lazero Albanese,
who had been recently captured on the Dalmatian-Herzegovinian frontier,
and had suffered in this way, the writer continues:
‘_Usano oltro l’impalare anchora l’inganciare sopra le forche,
dove sono tre ganci fatti à modo d’una falcetta da mietere il
grano, ma grosse tanto che possin sostenere un’huomo, e qui
s’appiccha chi v’è condennato, e vi pende per molti giorne
miserabilmente. Appicchano anchora con una fune sottile e
lunga, tal che l’appiccato tocca quasi terra co piedi, con
tutto che la forcha sia alta. Soglion’ anchora ligare l’huomo
tra due tavole, e con quelle dal capo dividerlo per il mezzo
con una siega. Usano tormentare lardando, hor con pece hor con
lardo, metter celate rouide in testa, metter’i temperatoi sotto
l’ungna, cacciare un’ asciugatoio, di quei che loro usano da
cingersi, bagnato d’aceto giu per la gola e retirarlo poi su
à poco à poco, e questo è un tormento crudelissimo. Sogliono
tal’hora ligare un’huomo per un piede nudo à una colonna,
attorno la quale fanno assai buon fuoco, l’ultimo rimedio, poi
che il ligato è caldo, è di muoversi hor di la, hor di qua,
ma poi che non puo piu, stanco e sforzato mancare, e morire,
arrostito e rosso, com’un Gambero._’
Recent accounts of impalement in Bosnia have been received with
incredulity by a portion of the English public, and that although the
Turkish denials were absolutely worthless. For my own part I am credulous
enough to believe that the impaled figure seen by Canon Liddon and Mr.
McColl was not a scarecrow; and further, that Bishop Strossmayer was
well-informed in stating that this was by no means an isolated case.
The recent instances attested by Miss Irby’s friends now set the matter
beyond dispute. Impalement was common in Bosnia during the disturbed
times immediately preceding the Crimean war, and the supposition that a
time-honoured institution like this should in a few years’ time have died
out in the most conservative country in Europe, is, _à priori_, extremely
improbable. Barbarities like these are characteristic of a certain stage
of society, and need excite no surprise. Many of the tortures still
practised in Bosnia are an inheritance from præ-Turkish times, and should
be considered in connection with the general survival there of feudalism
under a Mahometan guise.
[250] The Rev. W. Denton, _The Christians in Turkey_, p. 44. Hilferding
(_Ruskaja Besiéda_, quoted by M. Yriarte, op. cit.) gives a frightful
account of how a Bosnian landlord, a Beg, extorted money from six rayahs
by suspending them over a fire of maize-stalks. ‘_Les six raïas ne
furent rendus la liberté qu’à moitié asphyxiés, après que la douleur
leur eut arraché la promesse de donner tout ce qu’ils possédaient._’ In
the forthcoming work of Mr. Stillman, the _Times’_ correspondent, on the
‘Insurrection in the Herzegovina,’ the reader will find (p. 9) an account
of horrible instances of judicial torture perpetrated on a rayah family
near Trebinje, in the period immediately preceding the revolt. Two were
put in long wooden boxes like coffins and rolled down hill: others were
stood upright with their heads in a hole in the floor of the prison which
allowed them to rest on their shoulders, and splinters of wood were then
driven under their finger-nails.
[251] Dervish Pashà has since been removed from the Vilajet of Bosnia.
[252] For the organisation of the Greek Church in Bosnia, see Thoemmel,
op. cit. p. 102.
[253] According to the official reports of 1874, there were 576,756
Christians of the Greek Church in the Vilajet of Bosnia (which includes
the Herzegovina). The total population was 1,216,846, of whom 442,050
were Bosnian Mussulmans; 185,503 Roman Catholics; 3,000 Jews; 9,537
Gipsies.
[254] Even in Greece, where the state of the Greek Church is said to
be somewhat better, the simony is as rampant, and most humiliating
disclosures are now (1876) taking place.
[255] For these facts, and some further statistics, I am indebted to
Thoemmel. The ordinary price of a cure of souls is from twenty to thirty
ducats.
[256] Lest this account of the Fanariote Hierarchy, as it exists in
Bosnia should appear incredible to my readers, I may be allowed to appeal
to Herr Kanitz’s description of the spiritual rule of these same gentry
in Bulgaria, now happily terminated by the resolute action of their
Bulgar flock. Herr Kanitz, who is a most candid and impartial observer,
and has the advantage of twelve years’ residence in the country, finds
no word for them but Spiritual Pashàs. Four thousand ducats (2,000_l._)
was a tolerably cheap price for a bishopric in Bulgaria, and the bishops,
even of the poorest dioceses, sucked as much as 1,500_l._ a year from
their flocks. When the Porte proposed the erection of school-houses for
the Christians, the Fanariote Hierarchy stood out against this liberal
measure, and embezzled their educational fund to build new churches in
their usual swaggering style. ‘What need have you of better schools?’
asked the Archbishop of Nish of his congregation. ‘Do you want your
children to become unbelieving heretics?’ True to their Grecizing policy,
these Angels of Darkness burnt all the monuments of old Bulgarian
literature that they could lay hands on, and imposed Greek services on
congregations who could not understand a word. Of their moral influence I
will let Herr Kanitz speak—in German:
‘_Die schlimmste Demoralisation wurde in directester Weise in
die Familien hineingetragen. Weder Frauen noch Jungfrauen waren
vor den Gelüsten des höheren Klerus aus dem Fanar sicher. Die
dem Grossvezier im Jahre 1860 vorgebrachten Anklagen in allen
Städten, die er durchzog, überstiegen, was die Abscheulichkeit
und Zahl betrifft, alle Begriffe. Unter vielen Thatsachen sei
hier nur erwähnt, dass der Griechische Bischof von Sarköi
von dem griechischen Arzte dieser Stadt beschuldigt wurde,
13- bis 14-jährige Mädchen der dortigen Schule geschändet
zu haben. Zu diesen Verheerungen in der Unmündigen Jugend
ihrer Sprengel gesellte sich ein anderer, nicht minder
schwerer, sehr häufig gegen die fanariotische Geistlichkeit
erhobener Vorwurf: ihre Begünstigung des Kindesmordes im
Mutterschoosse._’—Donau-Bulgarien und der Balkan, I. Band, p.
129.
Herr Jireček, in his recent _Geschichte der Bulgaren_, corroborates these
facts, and adds others even more gross (_see_ p. 513). Brought to bay
at last by the sturdy opposition of the Bulgarian people, the Fanariote
bishops got rid of some of their principal opponents by poison. See
Jireček, op. cit, p. 555.
[257] Both Maurer and Roskiević were able to visit this mosque. For
further details I will refer the reader to their descriptions, to which I
am indebted.
[258] I am indebted to Miss Irby for this fact. Were the Bosnian Jews to
return to Spain, we should have a strange illustration of the fable of
the ‘Seven Sleepers’!
[259] Maurer, who gives an account of the commercial frauds practised by
the Serajevan Jews.
[260] ‘Bosnia in 1875.’ See _Victoria Magazine_ for November, 1875.
[261] _Pretyla_, which means originally fat, is also used for
beautiful!—Hilferding.
[262] King, op. cit., connects the abundance of Gnostic remains in the
Gothic part of France, with the triumph of the Albigensian and other
heresies of the same area. The same may perhaps be true of the Bogomiles
of Bosnia.
[263] This stone is now in the garden of the French Consulate. It reads
I.O.M.‖TONITRA (T)‖RORI A/R‖MAXIMVS‖VI (?) P. AVGG‖_SALVTI_. The (?)
means that an uncertain letter is missed out. The _Saluti_ is doubtful.
I saw several Roman coins in the silversmiths’ shops, and in some cases
Ragusan coins found with them—another evidence of the way in which the
Ragusans may be said to have stepped into the shoes of the Romans in
these parts.
[264] _Bosnie et Herzégovine_, p. 241.
[265] Also a thunder-bolt. See King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_.
[266] Ami Boué.
[267] Fritillaria.
[268] Hralimir in the first half of the eleventh century had married the
sister of the Bosnian Ban Niklas, his vassal.
[269] Farlato appears to have obtained this from a Vladmirović, a member
of the same noble family as the bishop who, in the capacity of secretary,
drew up the document for the king.
[270] In pago nostro de Cogniz.
[271] In generali congregatione.
[272] Proceribus.
[273] The Bogomiles are meant.
[274] Sedis Regiæ.
[275] Herzegh Sancti Sabbæ.
[276] Castra.
[277] Aulæ.
[278] It is interesting to observe the Byzantine influence on the Bosnian
court and civilization which this charter incidentally reveals. It seems
connected with the flourishing state of the Eastern Church in Bosnia at
this time, and is further evidenced by the titles of the court officials.
[279] Or Dapifers.
[280] The best stone houses in Turkey are said to be in the Herzegovina.
[281] The little river Rama—which is the first stream in Bosnia, after
crossing the frontier from the Herzegovina by the Narenta valley
highway—is interesting from having given the name Rama to the whole
country before it was known as Bosnia.
[282] As a parallel instance to this, I may mention that in parts of
Upper Albania, according to Ami Boué, the Mahometan women are to be seen
unveiled.
[283] See p. 96.
[284] This part of the road is known as Klanac, a name used in Bosnia
to signify an ‘overhanging place,’ or a road hewn along the side of a
precipice. At this point we re-cross the Herzegovinian frontier.
[285] Their height above sea-level is circ. 6,000 feet.
[286] See King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_, who cites Boccaccio.
[287] For the benefit of any future traveller who may wish to _sleep_
at the Casino, I may mention that a sure preservative against certain
_fauna_ of the country is to be found amongst its _flora_. Our Consul
kindly supplied us with some Herzegovinian flea-plant, by scattering
which, previously reduced to chaff, about the bed, a magic circle is
formed round the body of the sleeper, which is fatal to every noxious
insect that attempts to cross it.
[288] See the report of a _Foreign Consul_ in the _Times_ of December 15,
1875, for a more detailed account of the insurrection and its causes. I
must refer my readers to this. _A personage_ who was also in a position
to obtain authentic information on this subject, has communicated an
interesting account of the origin of the insurrection in the Narenta
Valley to the _Pesther Lloyd_; and many details, proving the falsity
of these Turkish statements, have been published by the distinguished
gentleman who has been acting as the _Times’_ correspondent in the
Herzegovina.
[289] See p. 256, &c.
[290] The rayahs in their ‘Appeal’ say of these ‘Giumrukers’:—‘They go
in procession from house to house, and from plantation to plantation,
and prolong the time as they please, in order to feed gratuitously. But
for fear they may have put down too little, the round is repeated twice
again, on the pretext of correcting any mistake that may have been made.
Then they are in the habit of sending other searchers after the first, on
the pretence of finding out any trickery on the part of these, as if they
were not all accomplices; and they give themselves airs of patronage, and
would make it appear that they are acting with a scrupulous regard for
justice and the public welfare. So that the people are ever in the midst
of inconceivable injury and abuse of authority.’
The Herzegovinian rayahs have such a good cause that it is a pity that
a tone of undignified vituperation should run through the greater part
of their appeal to the civilized Powers. Indeed, I should have supposed
that the document in question had been drawn up by an old woman, did I
not find internal evidence of a monkish pen! The passage quoted above is
comparatively moderate.
[291] The _Metayer_ system is mostly in vogue. In general the tiller
of the soil has to furnish the implements of agriculture. See on this
M. de Sainte Marie (who was for some time French Consul at Mostar),
_L’Herzégovine, étude géographique, historique et statistique_, p. 102,
&c.
[292] M. Yriarte, who visited Bosnia and the Herzegovinian frontier
shortly after our return, with the object of reporting on the causes
and progress of the insurrection, estimates the total number of the
insurgents in Bosnia and the Herzegovina at about 15,000 men, of which
2,000 were auxiliaries of kindred race from beyond the frontier. Of these
he sets down 1,000 as Montenegrines, who had come in defiance of their
own Government, and divides the rest among the Sclaves of Dalmatia,
Croatia, Slavonia, and the Free Principality of Serbia; to which he
adds a few Italians, and an infinitesimal contingent of Poles, Russians
and Frenchmen.—_Bosnie et Herzégovine, souvenirs de voyage pendant
l’insurrection_, p. 277. I am indebted to M. Yriarte for an account of
the organization of the _Čotas_ in Herzegovina.
[293] Captured shortly after this was written by Austro-Hungarian
authorities on _Turkish_ soil, and now (1876) languishing, not in a
Turkish, but an _Austrian_ dungeon! Ljubibratić, however, was born in
Lower Herzegovina.
[294] Though, since this was written, many of the Roman Catholics have
deserted the national cause. According to the consular report quoted,
the sole wish of the Franciscan monks all along was to make a display
of the extent, and consequent value, of their influence among the Latin
population.
[295] The lines in which Claudian (_In Ruf._ lib. ii. v. 45, &c.)
describes the sufferings of the inhabitants of these lands (_plaga
Pannoniæ miserandaque mœnia Thracum, arvaque Mysorum_) subject to the
annual incursions of the barbarians, are hardly less applicable now than
they were then! Claudian’s lines may, perhaps, be translated:—
The devastating course each year renews,
Each year his ravaged fields the peasant views,
Nor weeps he, now, the havoc of the foe—
Long use has stolen e’en the sense of woe!
[296] This movement of Dervish Pashà may, however, have been not such a
matter of his own discretion as he wished to make out. Its announcement
synchronizes suspiciously with his removal from the Governor-generalship
of Bosnia by the Porte, and this account may have been devised to conceal
his discomfiture from the consular body.
[297] Since writing this I observe that the derivation of Mt. Porim had
also struck M. de St. Marie.
[298] Though authorities differ as to whether it is the ancient Andetrium
(otherwise Mandertium), Saloniana or Sarsenterum. By the Sclaves it was
originally called Vitrinica.
[299] The coins I saw were silver and brass. There were one or two Greek
of Dyrrhachium, and besides Consular and Imperial Roman denarii, there
were many third-brass coins dating from the time of Gallienus to that of
Constantius II., but the series broke off so abruptly with Constantius,
that one would think that the Roman settlement must have been destroyed
about the middle of the fourth century. At Siscia, on the other hand,
Roman coins were common till the time of Honorius.
[300] I take this measurement from Sir Gardner Wilkinson, who visited
Mostar about thirty years ago, and then took accurate plans of the
bridge. See _Dalmatia_, vol. ii. p. 58, &c. On the piers of the abutment
at the east end of the bridge Sir Gardner deciphered two Turkish
inscriptions, one of them bearing the date 1087 A.H. (1650 A.D.), the
second year of Sultan Mahomet, probably referring to repairs made in his
reign.
[301] ‘VIRTUS ROMANA QUID NON DOMAN? SUB JUGUM, ECCE, RAPITUR ET
DANUVIUS,’ was the inscription on Trajan’s bridge over the Danube.
[302] _Most_ = bridge; _Star_ = old.
[303] Though it is probably hardly true to say that he founded Mostar.
[304] Cokorilo. His account was originally published in Russian, and
has since been translated into German in the Bautzen series entitled
_Türkische Zustände_.
[305] A village of Herzegovina, not _the Cerna Gora_ or Montenegro.
[306] This word is applied by the Mahometan Sclaves of the Herzegovina to
the rayahs. For its other uses see p. 35.
[307] But the monk should have mentioned that some, at least, of these
were the trophies of war with the Montenegrines, who adorned their
Vladika’s palace at Cettinje with the same barbarous spoil. The Bosnian
arms, with their impaled Moors’ heads, are perhaps a witness to the
antiquity of this practice in these countries. Sir Gardner Wilkinson
tried to persuade Ali Pashà to give up the practice, and even attempted
a mutual agreement between the Pashà and the Vladika on the subject,
but Sir Gardner hardly appreciated the character of the man with whom
he was dealing. When the author of _Dalmatia and Montenegro_ visited
Mostar he only saw five heads on the palace, but as these were over the
tower, there may have been far more. The monk mentions that over 1,000
Christians were executed in the Herzegovina under Ali Pashà’s government,
and, during the same space of time, only three Mahometans! Ali Pashà used
also to impale rayahs.
[308] For _Vlach_ see p. 36. Here it is applied by a native Mahometan
in the sense of a Giaour-Turk, or Christian generally. Omer Pashà was a
renegade, the son of a Christian, and to this the taunt alludes.
[309] Of these 3,000 to 3,500 are of the Greek communion, which possesses
two churches; 400 to 500 are Roman Catholics, who have a chapel; the rest
are Mahometans.
[310] Sir Gardner Wilkinson, who made an excursion to Mostar during his
Dalmatian travels, met with similar adventures. ‘Some,’ says he, ‘of the
Mostar women go without their mask and pull the cloth _feregi_ over their
heads, holding it tight to their faces, and peeping out of a corner with
one eye, who, when pretty, frequently contrive to remove it “accidentally
on purpose.”... I am bound to say that they were often very pretty, and
with very delicate complexions.’
[311] See Sir J. Bowring, _Serbian Popular Poetry_, p. 36.
[312] In a climate such as that of the lower Narenta the traveller must
be careful to take abundant doses of quinine, or he will be struck down
at once with malarious fever.
[313] Slow! slow!
[314] An account of these events, to which I am indebted, was
communicated to the _Pesther Lloyd_.
[315] I venture to assume an etymologic connexion between the Dalmatian
_Narbona_ and the _Narbo Martius_ of Southern Gaul. If we had not
the testimony of ancient writers to the fact that there was a Celtic
ingredient in ancient Illyria, we should surely be justified in assuming
it from the names of some of the cities. Orange seems to repeat itself
in the Illyrian _Arauso_; Anderida in Andretium; and Corinium gives us a
Cirencester in the neighbourhood of Zara. Epulus, the name of an Illyrian
king, is curiously suggestive of the Eppillus of British coins. This
Narbona has certain analogies of position with its Gallic homonym. Of
course the ancient name of the Narenta—_Naro_—is also connected with that
of the city. This city is called Narbona by both Ptolemy and Polybius,
but accounts of its origin differ. According to one it was a Phœnician
colony; according to others its founders were Phrygian or Thracian.
The chief authority on Narbona or Narona is Dr. Lanza, in his _Saggio
storico-statistico-medico sopra l’antica Città di Narona_, Bologna,
1842, which I only know through the summary in Neigebaur’s _Süd-Slaven_.
For the inscriptions of course the Illyrian volume of the _Corpus
Inscriptionum_ is now the authority; but in elucidating and first calling
attention to these much credit is due to Dr. Lanza, Major Sabljur, and
Sir Gardner Wilkinson, who gives fac-similes of thirty-three in his work
on Dalmatia. Some Naronan inscriptions were published at Ragusa, in 1811,
in the _Marmora Macarensia_.
[316] Viddo seems to answer to the Vid or Vit in the Rügen deities
Sviantovid, Rugevit, and Porevit, in which names it is variously
interpreted as ‘warrior’ or ‘sight,’ Sviantovid being ‘holy sight’ or
‘holy warrior.’ In Illyria _Vid_ means ‘sight.’ It is possible that this
Vid is connected with another Sclavonic god Woda, who has been compared
with Woden.
[317] San Vito is curiously like Sviantovid.
[318] A tempest is also called _Fortunale_.
[319] They were mostly oblate spheroids, formed of three layers, and when
broken showing an agate-like section.
[320] Kohl, _Dalmatien_.
[321] In my account of Ragusan history I have chiefly followed Appendini,
_Storia di Ragusa_, which is the chief authority; Engel, _Geschichte des
Freistaates Ragusa_; Chiudina (as given in Neigebaur’s _Süd-Slaven_); and
Kohl’s _Dalmatien_; and the most recent work on the subject, _Ragusa,
Cenni Storici_, compilati da Stefano Skurla, Canon Onor., Profess.
Ginnasiale (Zagabria, 1876). For English readers Sir Gardner Wilkinson in
his _Dalmatia_, and Mr. A. A. Paton in his _Danube and Adriatic_, have
given such excellent accounts of Ragusan history that I only give here a
general sketch of it, in which I have tried as much as possible to avoid
treading in the footsteps of English fellow-investigators.
[322] Professor Mommsen visited Epidaurus and took down most of the
inscriptions for the Illyrian volume of the _Corpus Inscriptionum_. I
have no wish to give more than a general description of the antiquities
of Epidaurus here, as I hope to give a full account of my epigraphic
gleanings elsewhere.
[323] In the _Monumenta Macarensia_, Rhacusæ, 1810, p. 47, is a votive
inscription reading I.O.M.S. ‖ MAXIMVS ‖ LAPIDARI ‖ VS EX VOTO ‖ ARAM
POS., found at Narona (Viddo). Is it possible that this was raised by a
_Lapidary_ in our sense of the word? May not the coarser craft have been
combined with the more refined? Mediæval architects were often goldsmiths
as well.
[324] _Adiantum Capillus-Veneris._
[325] Or serpent.
[326] It is, perhaps, worth noticing that the two _St. Hilaries_, of
Arles and Poitiers, are signalised in ancient iconography as slayers of
serpents or dragons.
[327] _De Administrando Imperio._ The derivation _Roccosa_ or _Reclusa_
might be suggested. Ragusa appears in early writers under various forms,
Lavusa, Labusa, Labuda, Labusædum, Rausium, Rangia, Rachusa, &c.
[328] Sir Gardner Wilkinson and others called it ‘oak-wood,’ forgetting
that _Dubrava_ and _Dub_ mean ‘oak-wood,’ and ‘oak’ only as their
secondary meaning, and primarily signify a wood and tree generally.
Remains of the original pine-wood still covered the mountain side till
the French destroyed it about the year 1806, when they swept away the
freedom of the Republic. See Kohl’s _Dalmatien_, vol. ii. p. 45.
[329] Alas! that I should have to record that the statue dates at least
eight centuries later than Orlando’s time. This statue, which originally
stood before the Church of S. Biagio, was thrown down in 1825 by a
hurricane, when the following inscription was found on a brass plate
beneath its pedestal: MCCCC.... III. DI MAGGIO ‖ FATTO NEL TEMPO DI PAPA
MARTINO QUINTO ‖ E NEL TEMPO DEL SIGNOR NOSTRO ‖ SIGISMONDO IMPERATOR
ROMANORUM ‖ ET SEMPER AUGUSTUS ET RE D’ONGARIA ‖ E DALMATIA ET CROATIA
ETC. FÒ MESSA ‖ QUESTA PIETRA ET STENDARDO QUI ‖ IN HONOR DI DIO E DI
SANTO BLASIO ‖ NOSTRO GONFALON. LI OFFICIALI.... It is interesting to
notice that the Ragusan account of Orlando as ‘Governor of Bretagne’
agrees with the contemporary Einhard’s account of the historical Roland.
The historian of Charles the Great calls him ‘Hruodlandus Brittannici
limitis præfectus.’ Orlando’s exploits are associated with other towns of
the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Sir Gardner Wilkinson mentions that
the magnificent harbour of Pola is called ‘Orlando’s house.’ The probable
design of the statue of Roland at Ragusa was, as in the free German
cities, to signify her independence of external authority.
[330] A full account of these events is given by Sir Gardner Wilkinson
from Appendini.
[331] Giacomo da Evora, who published his poems in 1596, writes of
Cœur-de-Lion’s Cathedral at Ragusa:
‘Aurea templa micant regis monumenta Britanni
Quo nullum majus Dalmata vidit opus.’
[332] Perhaps the earliest testimony to the municipal government of
Ragusa in the Middle Ages is a diploma of the Byzantine Emperors Basil
and Constantine VI., dated 997, addressed ‘Vitali Archiepiscopo et
Lampridio præsidi civitatis, una cum omnibus ejusdem civitatis nobilibus.’
[333] As the _Segretaria_, _Cancelleria_, _Notaria_, _Dogana_,
_Tesoreria_, and _Annona_.
[334] Or Maggior Consiglio.
[335] Decrees and letters to foreign princes from this body are signed
‘Il Rettore e Consiglieri della Repubblica di Ragusa.’
[336] E.g., to head a procession to the Cathedral. Such days were
scrupulously marked in the Ragusan almanacks—‘_Oggi sua serenità si porta
al duomo._’
[337] For criminal causes there was a tribunal of four judges; for civil
causes four consuls—_consoli delle cause civili_.
[338] There was, indeed, a serious squabble in 1763 between the old and
new nobility, the Salamanchesi and Sorbonnesi, but it evaporated in high
words.
[339] ‘Domine Pater Omnipotens, qui eligisti hanc Rempublicam ad
serviendum tibi. Elige, quæsumus, gubernatores nostros secundum
voluntatem Tuam et necessitatem nostram, ut Te timeant et tua sancta
Præcepta custodiant, et nos verâ caritate diligant et dirigant. Amen!’ I
take this from Kohl, who copied it from the beginning of the _Specchio
del Maggior Consiglio_.
[340] _De situ oræ Illyrici_, lib. i.
[341] The _Congregazione dei Preti_ was instituted here in 1391 for the
relief of poor priests.
[342] The senate erected a foundling hospital here in 1432.
‘_Considerando di quanta abbominazione et inhumanità era il gettar delle
creature humane piccole, le quali molte fiate non erano raccolte, nè
secondo humanità e bisogno sovvenute._’ This institution was called
‘Ospitale della Misericordia.’ In 1347 the Republic built a Poor-house,
‘_Ospitale ad consolationem et suffragium pauperum cunctorum._’ In 1540
an Infirmary for the poor was added.
[343] This law had to be repeated in 1466 with graver penalties; and
unless the slave-dealer could recover those he had sold from captivity
within a fixed term, he was to be hanged.
[344] Appendini makes it actually Orchan, but Engel’s account is the only
one reconcilable with the date 1370.
[345] There is an interesting correspondence between Ragusa and Cardinal
Pole on the subject of Ragusan merchants settled in England, and a letter
is extant from the cardinal to the Ragusan senate, dated July 11, 1558.
[346] _Merchant of Venice_, Act I., sc. i., where Salarino is speaking of
Antonio’s ‘argosies.’
[347] Often wrongly derived from Argo. Possibly the word arrived to us by
way of Spain.
[348] Between 1530 and 1535.
[349] See Skurla, op. cit. p. 54.
[350] Representations of these effigies as they still existed in
Appendini’s time, will be found in his _Storia di Ragusa_.
[351] Appendini has occupied a volume of his _Storia di Ragusa_ with the
literary history of this single city.
[352] Or in their Sclavonic forms _Gundulić_ and _Pulmotić_.
[353] As, for instance, ‘Danitza the daughter of Ostoja,’ ‘Paulimir and
Zaptisclava.’
[354] See Mr. A. A. Paton’s ode ‘To the Shade of Gondola,’ in his
_Researches on the Danube and Adriatic_, where the English reader will
find a brilliant notice of Gondola. Mr. Paton says:—‘The elastic vigour
of Ariosto, and the smoothness, the elegance, and completeness of Tasso,
seem to mingle their alternate inspirations in the genius of Gondola.’
[355] Skurla, op. cit. p. 70.
[356] An inscription on it shows that it was erected in 1438 by the
Neapolitan architect Onofrio di Giordano: ‘Rhaguseorum Nobilium
providentia et amplissimi Ordinis jussu, coacto argento publico.’
[357] Below this is the date, 1506, and the name of the maker,
Giambattista d’Arbe, who made it ‘to the honour and glory of St. Blasius.’
[358] The date seems tolerably fixed from the resemblance of these coins
to those of Stephen Uroš. See _Della Monetazione Ragusea_, Studi di
Vincenzo Adamović, p. 17. The administration of the Mint was entrusted to
three senators called Zecchieri.
[359] Civitatis Raguseæ Nobiles Providentissimique Cives Blasii Martyris
Pontif. q. SS. Præcl. hujus Epidauræ Raguseæ Patroni auspicante Numine,
ad prid. Idium Sextilium Aug., Faustum Feliciss.que Diem, ex S.C. et
Amplissimi Ordinis decretis, Atrium Prætorianum hoc Insigne ut Publ.
Civit. aulam et Senatoriam Ædem Optumis Curanib. (sic) V. Vir. Optimm.
in omnem opportunum præsentem et Posteritatis Usum Ære publico Dicandum
Exornandumque Dedere. K. A. A.D. MCCCCXXXV SIGISMVNDI IMP. A. II.
[360] Many of the Ragusan archives have been carried off by the Austrians
to Vienna. What still remain are practically inaccessible, since, to
obtain permission to view them, an order is required from the Governor
of Dalmatia at Zara! Among the archives are the Rolls of the Consiglio
de’ Pregati, for the years from 1301 to 1802; of the Maggior Consiglio,
from 1415 to 1806; of the Minor Consiglio, from 1415 to 1805; _Lettere
e Commissioni di Levante_, from 1339 to 1802; _Lettere e Commissioni di
Ponente_, from 1566 to 1802; many _Lettere e Relazioni_ of Ragusan nobles
at foreign courts; and many _Trattati Turchi_, relations of ambassadors
to the Sublime Porte, and negotiations with neighbouring Pashàs. There is
also a kind of Ragusan Domesday book—the _Libro Matizza_.
[361]
Munera diva patris, qui solus Apollinis artes
Invenit medicas per secula quinque sepultas,
Et docuit gramen quod ad usum quodque valeret,
Hic Esculapius celatus, gloria nostra,
Ragusii genitus, voluit quem grata relatum
Esse deos inter veterum Sapientia patrum,
Humanas laudes superaret nata quod omnes:
Quo melius toti nemo quasi profuit orbi.
According to De Diversis (as cited by Signor Skurla) the conceit which
originally identified the sculpture of the alchemist with Æsculapius is
due to a Cremonese noble, Niccolò Lazziri, to whom the above lines are
also attributed.
[362] ‘Sire, io sono abbastanza ricco, per non accettar ricchezze; sono
re sulle mie caracche, per non cercar onori; sono cittadino libero di
Ragusa mia patria, per non cercar titoli; qual memoria della sovrana
vestra grazia cedetemi quest’ asciugamano.’ Skurla, op. cit. p. 16.
[363] Or Di Bona.
[364] Of Marino Caboga and his embassy Mr. Paton gives an excellent
account in his _Danube and the Adriatic_, vol. i. p. 224, &c.
[365] D. O. M. Nicolao de Bona, Joannis filio, singularis prudentiæ
senatori, qui, gravissimis Reip. temporibus, gravissimâ legatione
sponte susceptâ, ad vicinum Bossinæ proregem per vim (sic) Silistriam
ad Turcarum Imperatorem transmissus, ibi diuturno in carcere pro Patriæ
Libertate catenatus obiit, morte ipsâ animique constantiâ immortalitatem
nominis in omnem posteritatem promeritus. Hoc ex Sen. Con. monumentum
honoris et memorie positum, Anno MDCLXXVIII. Underneath this is written:
Qui lapis veterem Aulam Senatoriam incendio et variis casibus corruptam
diu ornaverat in vestibulo ædium civicarum positus est ex Consilii
Publici Sententiâ, MDCCCLXX.
[366] We experienced some difficulty in obtaining access to the _Cappella
delle Reliquie_, as three keys have to be obtained: one from the bishop,
one from the commune, and one (I think) from the Government.
[367] Progonović was commissioned to make it by the Archbishop, Timoteo
Maffei, who wished to present it in person to Matthias Corvinus, but died
in 1471 before he could accomplish his journey. The Archbishop left it to
his grandson, who sold it to the Republic. See Skurla, op. cit. p. 100.
We did not witness ourselves the effect of pouring water into the basin.
[368] I have followed Signor Skurla’s Italian rendering of the old
Serbian original.
[369] I communicated this account of the refugees to the _Graphic_ of
Oct. 9, 1875, and with it the illustration of which the frontispiece is a
reduced copy.
[370] If my theory is correct (see p. 390). The peasants about Cattaro
wear the same kind of girdle set with stones.
[371] Another interesting evidence of the Turkish influence on Old Ragusa
is to be found in the names and values of her coins under the Republic.
Thus the _Mischlin_ or _Vižlin_ is derived from the Turkish _Altmishlük_;
and the _Altiluk_ or _Artilucco_ is the Turkish _Altilük_.
[372] _Voyage into the Levant_, p. 98.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF THE VILAYET OF BOSNIA including THE
HERZEGÓVINA OR SANDJAKATE OF MOSTAR, but excluding RASCIA or the
Sandjakate of Novi-pazar.
_To illustrate the Itinerary described in this Book._ Prepared from the
Austrian Official Survey _With additions & Corrections_.]
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
‘A work which at the present time no intelligent Englishman can overlook.’
ENGLISH INDEPENDENT.
‘This is an opportune publication, of much interest at present in
connection with the Servian rising.’
NATURE.
‘Of this book we can say, as the author does of Ragusa, “it far surpasses
our most sanguine expectations.”’
THE ACADEMY.
‘One of the freshest, and most opportune, and instructive books of travel
that has been published for some time.’
EXAMINER.
‘The numerous sketches and illustrations found throughout this volume
help to bring most vividly before the reader the costumes of the people
and the aspect of the country. _Through Bosnia and the Herzegovina_ is a
book which will well repay reading.’
THE FIELD.
‘This well-written, interesting, and seasonable book discusses the
north-western districts of Turkey in a scholarly and lucid style, with
the pen of a competent writer, to whom description is clearly no hard
or irksome task, and who displays judgment and original thought in the
exercise of his literary calling.’
PALL MALL GAZETTE.
‘In the present deplorable state of political affairs in the East, a book
of travels descriptive of two provinces of European Turkey, which are now
in rebellion against the sway of the Sultan, and written by an able and
observant eye-witness, has more than ordinary interest.... Throughout
the book the Author gives ample proof of a tourist endowed with quick
observation and the happy faculty of vividly reproducing what he sees
and hears.... Mr. EVANS’S book is very able, instructive, and readable;
and students of history will gladly make acquaintance with its lucid and
interesting pages.’
MORNING POST.
‘This is a most opportune contribution to the geography, customs,
and history of a country which has suddenly emerged from the dimmest
obscurity into the full glare of European observation. A few months
ago it would not have been easy to find anyone who knew exactly where
Bosnia, or even Servia, was situated, or what was the character of
their inhabitants, or the nature of their relation to the Porte; and,
though this ignorance has since been partially dispelled by the pressing
interest of the events that have happened there, and the still more
important issues to which these events are probably the prelude, we are
still very grateful to anyone who will enable us to see and understand
these countries more distinctly. This has been very effectively done
for a single district by Mr. EVANS.... These are but samples of the
curious information which is to be gained from this book. It is, besides,
extremely well written and very amusing, and we confidently recommend it
to all who desire to gain some knowledge, at the present critical moment,
of the outlying provinces of the dissolving Turkish empire.’
GUARDIAN.
‘This is a most interesting volume, and its publication at the present
time is exceedingly opportune, as it gives information which may be
relied on, accompanied by excellent engravings and woodcuts, and may
help to form a public sentiment in England in reference to the war in
the East, which it seems to us can only end in the overthrow of the
hateful Turkish power in Europe. The Author and his brother had planned
to visit these districts before the outbreak, from special curiosity to
see a race of Sclavonic Mahometans; and it was during their walk through
the country, under the protection of an autograph letter from the
Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish forces, that the
insurrection burst out into a flame. They travelled on foot, encamped in
the open air, in the forest or on the mountain, as necessity required,
mingled with the inhabitants in friendly and pleasant intercourse. They
have recorded the results of their visit in a form that may assist
in the solution of difficult political problems, interest those who
take pleasure in foreign travel, and strengthen the sympathy which, in
free Protestant England, is gradually but steadily being awakened by
the stragglers for freedom in these unhappy countries.... A valuable
historical review of Bosnia is found at the beginning of the volume,
which will enable the reader to trace the political history of these
lands through their many changes and degradations to the present time.
Truly the darkness that now rests upon them is a darkness that may be
felt, but the deepest darkness is that which precedes the dawn.’
LITERARY WORLD.
‘Many volumes of travel have been published which profess to describe the
aspects of those South Slavonic lands in which the insurrection against
the Turkish power, has now for more than a year been aflame; but we have
not met with any that deserves to be compared with the book which lies
before us. Mr. EVANS combines a variety of qualities, every one of which
contributed its share to the excellence of his work, but which even
taken singly are not too commonly found among writers of travel, and
in well-harmonised union are still more rare. Sound scholarship, wide
historical and archæological reading, an intimate previous knowledge of
other Slavonic populations, and an appreciation of the peculiar merits
of the Slavonic character prepared Mr. EVANS for an investigation into
the state and prospects of Bosnia, which was the more valuable because it
had been projected long before even the first outbreak in Herzegovina,
and was carried out without any idea that the troubled scenes amid
which it was conducted involved the large political issues subsequently
apparent. But, other travellers with similar advantages of knowledge
and prepossession might have missed the most important of Mr. EVANS’S
observations. To have passed through the Slavonic provinces of Turkey in
a travelling carriage, along the main roads, from city to city, and to
have been the guest of Pashà after Pashà, would have been the ordinary
fate of the English traveller, and such an experience would have revealed
little or nothing of the character and condition of the rayahs. Mr.
EVANS, to the amazement of the Turkish officials, and not a little to
their embarrassment, made up his mind to penetrate across the country
on foot, and to see close at hand the common life of the Christian
peasants. In this purpose he persevered, in spite of the remonstrances
and menaces of puzzled and suspicious Turks, and his success has secured
us a most important mass of testimony bearing upon that phase of the
Eastern Question which Europe can no longer put aside. Moreover, a
refined and educated taste has enabled Mr. EVANS to reproduce, for the
benefit of his readers, the sensations of pleasure aroused by grand
or tender scenery, by historical associations and dim suggestions of
antiquity, by those beauties of nature in tree and flower, and even
insect life that escape the careless eye. For Mr. EVANS is something of
a botanist and an entomologist as well as an antiquary and a scholar.
He is as ready to call our attention to interesting mountain forms, to
the delicate beauty of the flora, and to the moths and butterflies that
revel among these blossoms, as to a trace of Roman inheritance in the
form of a jar, or to an apposite allusion in Claudian or Ausonius. His
style, it must be added, is vigorous and well sustained, often pleasantly
touched with humour, and sometimes approaching to eloquence. Few indeed
will take up Mr. EVANS’S volume who will decline to read it through, and
even those who feel no active curiosity about Slavonic society, or who
turn from the Eastern Question as an interminable tangle of inconsistent
theories, cannot refuse to interest themselves in this record of travel
through scenes that have now obtained for themselves a permanent place in
history.’
THE TIMES.
London, LONGMANS & CO.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROUGH BOSNIA AND THE HERZEGÓVINA ON FOOT ***
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