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.