Yet our Consul complained that, as regards skilful workmanship, the incapacity of the Bosniacs was great even compared with the Asiatic provinces of Turkey. In Kurdistan, for example, he found no difficulty in obtaining articles of furniture—sofas, and so forth—of European elegance, by simply supplying patterns to the native upholsterers; but here, when he tried to do the same, people laughed at the very idea! The only carpenters here are Austrians settled in Serajevo.
The motley groups of citizens of different denominations which one comes upon in the streets of Serajevo are at least as Oriental as the wares. Here is a kind of happy family of Turks, Jews, Heretics, and Infidels. It will be noticed that the Mahometan women of the capital are not so rigorously veiled as those of the provincial towns—Travnik, for example. Those of the better condition here are infected with Stamboul fashions, and now and then you will see a Mahometan lady pass in her flowing peach-coloured silk, and a veil so transparent that she might just as well have discarded it altogether. As we descend in the social scale, modesty increases, and I will not deny that many of the Serajevan women, with their long white shrouds, bear a certain resemblance to Lot’s wife after her metamorphosis; though with reluctance it must be confessed that we sometimes saw a nose or even an eye! It is amusing to watch the gradual transformations of the little Mahometan girls here. How charming was the little maiden opposite!—with her pale green vest and flowing pink—can they be really pantaloons?—with her childish beauty peeping forth from beneath a scarlet fez—and so demure, too, for all her gorgeousness! But by the time she is eleven the transitionary process will begin; for a while she will content herself with wrapping a cold white mantle round her head and her pretty dress—for a while you may still catch a glimpse of her face and the border of her fez—and then—the cocoon!
BOSNIAN TYPES AT SERAJEVO.
JEWESS. ROMAN CATHOLIC. MAHOMETAN SCLAVES. TURKISH PRIEST. PRAVOSLAVES OR ‘SERBS.’
To the left of the group before us will be observed two Jewesses belonging to the wealthiest part of the Serajevan population. There are in this city about 2,000 Jews, descendants of those who, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, took refuge from the persecutions of the Catholic rulers of Spain within the dominions of the more tolerant Grand Signior. But they still look back with a certain regretful longing to the adopted land of their forefathers. Although they can speak Bosniac to outsiders without an accent, they still converse among themselves in a language which was that of Spain in the days of their expulsion; and the pure Castilian of the Knight of La Mancha, antiquated in its mother-country, is still to be heard in the streets of Serajevo![258] They have a pride in those old days, and like to keep fresh their remembrance. Their Chacham-bashi, or head Rabbi, serves his friends with confection made of white of eggs and sugar, called ‘Spanish bread,’ as a kind of memorial feast. But they cling with even warmer zeal to their old Hebrew rites and customs, and are so intolerant of innovation that, not long ago,[259] one of their leading merchants here was excommunicated for letting his wife wear long hair and dress herself in European fashion! She might well have contented herself with the coiffure of her co-religionists; for, if too wanton tresses are curtailed, en revanche they wear a most gorgeous head-dress. We had seen in the bazaar some tasteful discs of embroidered work—flowered with a humming-bird brilliance of design—which we took to be meant for small mats, till we found that they were worn at the back of their heads by Jewish women.
These Jews are the richest people in Serajevo, but alas! this is not simply due to their commercial talents. It is unfortunately too true that a few years ago these astute Israelites made nearly 100,000l. out of Austrian and German houses by a system of fraudulent bankruptcy. They act as treasurers and interpreters to the Turkish authorities in Bosnia, and use the power thus acquired to amass further gains often not less ill-gotten. They are also the chief bankers here, and the only usurers. They are as dirty as their gains, and almost as degraded physically as morally. That they are also undersized may possibly be connected with the fact that they will only marry within their community. On the other hand Miss Irby[260] states that ‘their poor are exceedingly well cared for, and a Jewish beggar is never seen. No Jew is ever accused of murder, theft, or violence, or found in Turkish prisons, except on account of debt.’
The other members of our happy family are the Bosniacs of the Greek Church—the Serbs or Pravoslaves, as they style themselves. Of these there are about 6,000 in Serajevo, and they approach the Serbs of the Free Principality in dress as well as in name. They show, as may be seen, a great variety of head-dress—sometimes the hair plaited round a central fez à la Serbe—sometimes light white muslin drapery—sometimes a fez stuck coquettishly on one side, from which descends what looks like a cascade of black hair flecked with golden spray, and of such a length as to fall about the hips. It needs close inspection to detect that this is really black silk interwoven with gold thread; so that the Serbian maidens of Serajevo may be congratulated on adding a cubit to their tresses! They further embellish their hair with flowery sprays, and, on high days, both fez and bosom with a barbaric superfluity of jewellery—especially coins. They carry their fortune about with them, and a Bosniac girl is admired in proportion to the number of coins that spangle her! Perhaps the same may be seen elsewhere under a civilized disguise, but here it is paraded with all the naïveté of the savage! ‘What a pretty girl!’ enthusiastically exclaimed a Bosniac, in the Russian Hilferding’s hearing; and on his asking with surprise what the Serajevan might find to admire in a flat nose and a decided squint: ‘What? Don’t you see? There are ducats there to last a lifetime!’ But there is one kind of beauty which even the Bosniacs can admire, and that is—fatness! A fat[261] girl is here synonymous with a beauty.
The character of the Christian merchants of Serajevo is, perhaps, sufficiently indicated. They are, in truth, a money-grubbing, unamiable lot, and, it need hardly be added, set their faces against culture in every form. Next to the Jews, they are the richest class in Serajevo—richer than the Turks, for the Mahometan is incapacitated by his fatalistic want of enterprize from taking part in any but small retail trades. The Serbs, on the contrary, hold in their hands most of the external commerce of the country, for which Serajevo is the natural staple, being the meeting-place of the main roads leading to Austria, North of the Save, Dalmatia, and Free Serbia, and being situate on the caravan route to Stamboul. But they do not make use of the wealth thus obtained either to elevate themselves or to aid their oppressed countrymen who lie outside the pale of consular protection. On the contrary, they form themselves into an exclusive caste, not only standing apart from the miserable rayah, but even pooh-poohing his cry of agony when it happens to stand a chance of being heard by Foreign Consuls or the Turkish Governor. Is it likely, indeed, that they should do otherwise, with such a spiritual guide as the Fanar Metropolitan?