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 40,000l., 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.