Before Bosnia (including Croatia and the Herzegovina) was placed under the suzerainty of Austria-Hungary by the Treaty of Berlin of 1878—a treaty time-worn and often honoured in the breach—the traveller, in order to cover the one hundred thirty-eight miles between Brod and Sarajevo, was compelled for comfort’s and safety’s sake to resort to the springless mail cart of the Austrian Consulate in Bosnia and spend forty-eight weary hours en route. If, on the other hand, he wished to be lavishly independent and hired a native conveyance for the journey, three nights would have to be spent on the road, sleeping in khans and fearful of his very life.
Although, in point of geographical position, it was the nearest neighbour of civilized Europe, the social condition of Bosnia was at that time the most barbarous of all the provinces of European Turkey. Not one man in a hundred knew how to read, and there was not a single, solitary bookshop throughout the length and breadth of the province. While the soil teemed with various valuable minerals, its hills thickly wooded with virgin forests, its plains and valleys fertile, well-watered and productive, its commerce was contemptible. Under Turkish rule, plums constituted the most valuable article of trade.
THE AUSTRIAN ARMY BARRACKS AT SARAJEVO.
To-day all this is changed. The fields are cultivated; mines have been prospected and developed; public schools are everywhere and education is compulsory; the Austrian army has put an end to the maraudings of the Mohammedans and polices the country, having its headquarters in great garrisons in Mostar and Sarajevo. An admirably operated railway line eats its way throughout the entire length of the province, the proposed extension of this railway through the Turkish vilayet of Novi-Bazaar having been one of the bones of contention between the Sublime Porte and the Austrian Government but a short while ago.
As fate will have it, the express train leaves Brod at midnight, and, consequently, some of the most picturesque mountain scenery along the route is lost to the traveller, but as he does not reach Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, until ten o’clock the following morning, an early awakening will be rewarded with wild mountain scenes and interesting types galore.
The mere mention of a narrow-gauge train seems to convey to the average American the unpleasant idea of discomfort, if not hardship, of travel, but this train will prove itself clean and comfortable far in excess of your expectations.
Each section of the railway carriage comprises two single seats, facing each other as in our own sleeping cars, and there are no upper berths. Furthermore, you may draw the curtains of your section and, although it is not possible to retire in the true sense of the word, you will enjoy being screened, during the night at least, from the stares of your over-curious fellow-passengers.
For some unknown reason I had neglected to draw the curtains of my compartment after I had prepared myself for the night. Across the aisle a Bosnian occupied somewhat more than his allotted space, and when he learned, by quizzing me surreptitiously in German as to my nationality, that I was from America, he launched a volume of questions in my direction, the answers to some of which, I confess, rendered me nonplussed for the moment and sleep impossible.
Was it a long journey from America to Bosnia?