[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.’