We heard of other charms suspended round horses’ necks, though I am not in a position to describe any of these. But perhaps the most curious amulets were those worn by children against the Evil Eye. Here are some that we succeeded in carrying off. Figures 1, 2, 3, 4, are of lead, severally representing a hare, a fish, a crested serpent, a tortoise. No. 5 is the claw of an eagle or some kind of bird, and No. 7 the horns of a stag beetle; both of these are mounted in tin sockets. No. 6 is a rude face carved in jet. These are fixed on the child’s fez, or elsewhere about the person, and the object served is to avert the first stroke, or as the Italians say the Gettatura of the Cattiv’ Occhio; this first stroke being alone considered fatal. It is for this reason that the amulets against its malign influence are usually of bizarre forms, in order to attract the Gettatura to themselves. But the natural objects—notably the animals, representations of which are used for this purpose here—are extremely interesting, inasmuch as they very strongly suggest a continuity with the amulets against the Evil Eye in use in classic times. Thus, on ancient gems the eye is seen surrounded by a lion, a hare, a dog, a scorpion, a stag and a serpent.[265] There is, besides, a well-known class of Roman brooches in the form of fishes, the animals mentioned above, and others, which may, one would think, with great propriety be looked on as nothing but amulets of the same kind, and many of which bear a striking resemblance to these Bosnian charms. Nor is this superstition, any more than the others, at all confined to the Mahometans of Bosnia; it is universal among the Serbs, who, it is said,[266] find great deliverance from the evil effects of the Cattiv’ Occhio by touching iron or looking at blue objects, and the Franciscan spells already described are chiefly directed against this same malign influence.
Amulets Against the Evil Eye.
Having now fortified ourselves to our satisfaction with these and many talismans of virtue, and being supplied by our kind hosts at the Consulate with a store of wheaten bread, Bologna sausages, and eke Sicilian wine, we bade farewell to our friends at Serajevo, and set forth on foot once more. It was our intention to make our way as best we could to the Herzegovina over the wild ranges to the West, and, as the best line of attack on our mountain citadels, made for the gorge of the Želesnica over the foot of lower hills. About an hour from Serajevo we passed the last trace of comparative civilization. This was a brewery recently established by two Austrian settlers, with one of whom we conversed whilst discussing a glass of very fair German beer. The poor man was in a great state of trepidation. Only the day before his brother brewer had made off for the Austrian frontier, taking with him his family, and our host himself was preparing to follow his partner’s example as soon as he could get his effects together. ‘It’s not the Insurgents,’ he said, ‘that I’m afraid of—it’s only the Turks. You can’t believe what cut-throats those Bashi-Bazouks are!’
This was hardly inspiriting for ourselves, nor did our prospects seem more brilliant when, an hour or so afterwards, in a lonely part of the Želesnica valley, to which we had now descended, we heard a hue and cry behind us, and turning round saw a ferocious horseman armed to the teeth, clattering after us on a gorgeously caparisoned steed. Our infantry thereupon formed, and the cavalry halted a few paces off. Whereupon our dragoon, who, from the sumptuousness of his arms, must have been a Beg at least, roared out to us some commands, in which the insolence alone was intelligible. Thereupon we continued our march, resolved to pay no attention to the insults of the foe; but seeing that he hung about our flanks, and that his general demeanour was becoming momentarily more hostile, we made such an unmistakable sign that we had been sufficiently honoured by his company that he thought better of the matter and beat a retreat. There is one weapon which in Bosnia serves as efficiently for a passport as the Bujuruldu of the Governor-General!
We were in a certain amount of anxiety lest the enemy should renew his attack with reinforcements, but the valley grew wilder and the darkness was rapidly closing in to hide our position. Further up the stream we passed those two monuments, one with a crescent moon engraved upon it, which have been already described—and the position was one which the persecuted Bogomiles might well have chosen. Towards dusk the valley widened out a bit, and we perceived a village a little higher up; but not wishing to run the risk of letting our whereabouts be known, and infinitely preferring the open canopy of heaven to the vermin-ridden shelter of a Bosnian cabin, we sought out some other resting-place for the night, and soon discovered eligible quarters among some haystacks in a meadow by the side of the stream. These haystacks were of a peculiar form, being composed of small sheaves of hay skewered on an upright pole, but they afforded very welcome shelter from the night breeze; so that after taking our tea and an evening meal of simple contrivance, we lay down and slept sound enough till dawn.
Aug. 25th.—We had breakfasted and were on our way again by half-past four next morning, and the light of the rising sun revealed to us a most beautiful cliff of rock, as it were of ivory veined with gold, rising above our encampment. After passing the straggling village of Jablanica, which we had seen the night before, the valley contracted, and we were forced to climb along a rocky steep overlooking the torrent on the left. The mountains on each side grew higher, wooded with small oaks, thorns, and beeches, with here and there a brilliant Colossus of rock in the same chryselephantine style; while the stream below, pent up in so precipitous a gorge, naturally waxed more boisterous, and dashed from one emerald pool to another, flaked with snow-white foam. But our steep quickly became so impassable by reason of rocky bastions, that we were forced to relinquish our design of following the water-course, and in preference ascended the mountain whose flank we had been hitherto hugging. We made our way upwards with difficulty through the tangled brushwood, and from this summit descended once more through the stunted oaks, intending to steer for a hilly ridge running south-west towards Mt. Bielastica. Chancing, however, to hit on a path more or less in our direction, we followed it, and found ourselves before long at a small Christian hamlet consisting of two or three huts, each, as usual, in its paled enclosure. Here we found some peasants—men in long white tunics, women with dress and coiffure of Serbian fashion—all of whom were very friendly, and hastened to satisfy our thirst with sour milk. One of the girls, in the bloom of her age, was really beautiful. Both her hair and eyes, shaded with eyebrows low and broad, were dark, and, in the refinement of her features, the pale olive of her complexion, softly contrasting with her raven tresses and sparkling sombreness of eye, there was a charm almost Italian—had it not yet been eminently South-Sclavonic. She seemed as amiable as she was lovely, and was evidently recognised as a belle even in her small circle; for she alone, we noticed, was possessed of ear-rings. Her comeliness was indeed the beau idéal of Serbian fancy; but I should hardly have drawn attention to it here, were not really transcendent beauty so rarely seen among these uncultured South-Sclavonic peoples, perhaps one might say, among the barbarous members of our Aryan family generally. In a highly civilized society like our own, the proportion of Peris—if I dare generalize—is greater; but, on the other hand, if anyone wishes to find examples of the deepest human degradation, he must search, not among the mountain homes of the oppressed rayahs of Bosnia, but rather in the alleys of one of our great cities. With us the gamut of beauty is greater.
But it is high time to take a fond farewell! so, leaving this flower of the Bosnian highlands ‘to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air,’ we began ascending our ridge, and finding another path, came, an hour or so further on, to a leafy canopy supported by four poles, beneath which squatted two venerable Mahometans with sage and hoary beards. We recognised the signs of a rustic café, and taking our seats on a convenient grassy bank, refreshed ourselves with sundry fragrant cupfuls, the while much delighting our ancient coffee-maker and his fellow with an exhibition of English hunting-knives. We soon after reached the summit of the ridge, and following it along a succession of down-like lawns, gained, from its southern-most bluff just above the Priesnica torrent, a fine mountain panorama, and in especial a good view of the limestone precipices of Mt. Trescovica (which here forms the boundary between Bosnia and Herzegovina), frowning over lower forest-covered heights. So sharp was the contrast between the bold curves and contortions of the light limestone rock and the softer contours and verdant shades beneath, that one could fancy that the green undulations of the Planinas round had at one point burst into foaming billows; and, indeed, the mountain crest seemed to curl over as to imitate a breaking wave,—but alas! how flat is the poetry of nature when reduced to black and white by a prosaic pencil!
Mount Trescovica, from South-Eastern Spur of Mount Igman.