Of course the principal attraction in Sarajevo is the bazaar, a sort of perennial market where the Turk and his art may be studied to advantage. This bazaar is a permanent affair, divided into streets or lanes which tangle and twine themselves around a small square centered by a public fountain. Wednesday is characterized by a “grangers’ meeting” and the streets overflow with Turkish and Bosnian truck-farmers bartering their produce. This is the day to rub elbows with the sullen, lazy Mohammedans. They squat about the fountain, presumably caring little whether they sell their fruits and vegetables or not; immense four-legged loads of hay or wood, which cover the little pack-animals from nose to tail, wobble up and down through the narrow thoroughfares, compelling you to seek the shelter of a convenient doorway to allow them to pass; veiled women, with even their hands shielded by cotton gloves from the admiring gazes of the men-folk, amble silently by, ghost-like, while the kafanas, or coffee houses, buzz with the gossip of outstretched Turks who sip their coffee and smoke cigarettes until the place smells like the hybrid of a tobacco factory and a coffee-packing establishment.
Almost any day of the week, however, the pound and tinker of sandalled artisans are to be heard in the workshops which border the streets of the bazaar. The coppersmith hammers out his Turkish coffee sets and his brass trays, many of which he etches with a sharp-edged tool in ornate designs and figures; the shoe and harness-maker sits cross-legged as he plies the needle back and forth, a cigarette between his lips and a cup of thick, black coffee ever at his elbow; the gold and silversmith deftly inlays his gun metal cigarette cases with threads of precious metals, first scoring with a tool the design to be worked upon the object, much as a dentist might prepare a cavity in a tooth for a gold filling. You might readily imagine yourself in Damascus, instead of in the capital of a province of Austria-Hungary.
Objects of considerable interest to me in this Bosnian city were the home-made street sprinklers which tend to serve the purpose of the municipal government, although they never would be regarded by us as labour savers. A huge hogshead is mounted on four wheels, filled with water and hauled through the streets by a horse driven by a native. In that much the contrivance somewhat resembles our own variety, except for the native. But here lies its salient feature: it requires two men to operate it, for how on earth would it be possible for one man to drive the horse and sprinkle the street at one and the same time, in Bosnia?
DOUBLE-DECKED STORES IN THE TURKISH BAZAAR, SARAJEVO.
From the rear of the hogshead protrudes a long hose terminating in a sprinkler, like the nozzle of a watering pot. One end of a rope is fastened to this sprinkler, and the other is attached to a second native, whose duty it is to walk behind the cart and swing the hose from side to side by means of the rope, the while sprinkling himself as well as the roadway. Wet feet invariably result from this crude method, but the “man behind the street sprinkler” should be deemed above his fellows in point of cleanliness, if such a condition meets with any commendation whatever in Bosnia, for the labourers in Sarajevo, as a rule, look as though they had never been on intimate terms with soap and water in all their lives.
In the afternoons horse-races usually take place at the quaint little summer resort of Ylidze, at the foot of the mountains, to be reached either by train or by a rather dusty drive of eight miles. These races furnish about the only excuse the fashion and élite of Sarajevo have to display their dresses and uniforms. The grandstand and paddock are packed with Worth gowns and three-foot hats, (mind you!) and the bookmaker does a land-office business with the be-medalled and gold-braided Austrian army. But the real devotees of the races are the Turks and peasants who drive for miles and miles to attend them, and whose Oriental costumes outline in gayest of colours both sides of the course. In the late afternoon, at the conclusion of the race-meet, Bosnian society repairs en masse to the beautiful and fashionable Villa Bosna, where, in the cool of the evening, in the casino or under the great trees, it sups and dines and chatters, until it is time for the last of the evening trains to leave for Sarajevo.
Like the Turks of any Eastern city those of Sarajevo comprise many different sects, and it was on the day before I took my departure that a Bosnian porter, whose patron I had been repeatedly during my stay in the city, and who took seriously to heart the alleged fabulous wealth of all English-speaking people, came to my hotel to ask if I might care to witness a Dervish dance that evening. These calisthenic devotions, held by this most fanatical sect of Mohammedans in their mosque upon the night of each full moon, constitute a weird religious ceremony, not excelled as a spectacle even by the famous Antelope and Snake Dances of the Hopi Indians, and I promptly accepted the invitation to attend.
“THE REAL DEVOTEES OF THE RACES.”