We crossed over to the left steep of the river by an iron bridge—another English importation—and for many hours were still threading this wondrous pass. We had indeed passed the Iron Gates of the Narenta, but there was still much to admire in the scenery. The high mountains continued, though they ceased to frown abruptly over the river. Lean naked giants they were: ribbed skeletons, thinly clad with stunted foliage, though in places still yellow with dwarf laburnum shrubs. The rocks were perpetually starting up into castles and towers, sometimes a quaint mediæval castle suggesting a background of Albert Dürer, but oftener more Roman in their architecture; towers, square and round, which from the narrow horizontal laminations of the rocks reproduced with surprising exactness the appearance of ruined masonry, and rugged lines of ancient brickwork that called up visions of the time-scarred walls of Anderida. About these ruins of an older world clustered, in place of ivy, the tender sprays of wild vine laden with unripe beads, or here and there a beautiful bind-weed with capacious chalices of pink, as large as Convolvulus major.
As we descended further down the pass, the rocks assumed a glaring chalky whiteness—rather painful to the eyes—but like most things in nature, not without redeeming effects peculiar to itself. Perhaps, too, it was artistically right that everything around should become barer and plainer, that nothing might distract the eye from enjoying the marvellous beauties of the river. This was always the same liquid emerald, mottled with snow-white foam, and shading off into it, as when the gem, it imitated so well, freezes into its quartzite roots. Now and again the river would plunge into a deep circling pool—forming a dark blue-emerald eye, which paling off among the golden pebbles of the shallows, looked like nothing but some gorgeous peacock’s plume modulating its rainbow colours in the breeze.
Everything around us began to betoken a more Southern climate—the heat was almost tropical, and a lurid haze covered the whole face of the land. On the rocks grew pink cyclamen and a beautiful purple salvia; amongst the trees were Spanish chestnuts and wild figs, and nearer Mostar fine rosy pomegranates, which look like quinces blushing at their monstrosity, and grow on a shrub that reminded us of a homely privet. In the gardens of the few stone cots we saw are delicious ripe grapes and golden figs, and we began to understand why it is that the Herzegovinian contemptuously calls his Bosnian brothers Slivari, ‘munchers of plums!’
CHAPTER VIII.
MOSTAR AND THE VALE OF NARENTA.
Amulets against Blight—A Hymn in the Wilderness—We arrive at Mostar—Our Consul—Anglo-Turkish Account of Origin of the Insurrection in the Herzegovina—The real Facts—The ‘Giumruk’—The Begs and Agas and their Serfs—The Demands of the Men of Nevešinje—Massacre of Sick Rayahs by Native Mahometans begins the War—Plan of Dervish Pashà’s Campaign—Interview with the Governor-General, Dervish Pashà—Roman Characteristics of Mostar and her Roman Antiquities—Trajan’s Bridge—Ali Pashà, his Death’s-heads and Tragical End—The Grapes of Mostar—Start with Caravan for Dalmatian Frontier—A Ride in the Dark—Buna and the Vizier’s Villa—Bosnian Saddles—A Karst Landscape—Tassorić: Christian Crosses and interesting Graveyard—Outbreak of Revolt in Lower Narenta Valley—The Armed Watch against the Begs—A Burnt Village—On Christian Soil once more—Metcović—Voyage Down the Narenta Piccola—Ruins of a Roman City—The Illyrian Narbonne—Metamorphosis of Sclavonic God into Christian Saint—The old Pagania—The Narentines and Venetians—Narentine Characteristics—A Scotch Type—Subterranean Bellowings near Fort Opus: the Haunts of a Minotaur!—Adverse Winds—Tremendous Scene at Mouth of Narenta—La Fortuna è rotta!—Our Boat swept back by the Hurricane—A Celestial Cannonade—Sheltered by a Family-Community—Dalmatian Fellowship with the English—Stagno—A romantic Damsel—Gravosa, the Port of Ragusa.
About two hours and a half from Mostar the pass opened, and our way lay across a broader part of the Narenta valley, overlooked by the mountains at a more respectful distance. Here, passing a cottage, we noticed the poles of the fence that surrounded the adjoining maize-field adorned with an array of equine skulls. I cannot doubt that these were set up for the same reason as induced the ancients to set up the skulls of cattle among their corn-fields—namely, as an amulet against blight.[286] The superstition survived in mediæval Italy, and Boccaccio tells an amusing story of a lady who, by turning the two asses’ skulls on her garden fence in a certain direction, telegraphed to her lover that her husband was out.
At a solitary hut called Potoci, about two hours distant from Mostar, we took leave of our Kiradjì, who would not trust his beast any further, since any horse that showed itself in the neighbourhood of the Herzegovinian capital was sure to be requisitioned. Opposite the hovel at Potoci was a small stone building, which, on enquiry, we found to be a church. It laid no more claim to architectural elegance than a barn, and, with its loop-holed windows, and even these hermetically boarded up, and a door carefully barred, seemed at present more fitted for withstanding a siege than for the celebration of divine service. Perchance, in these troubled times, the congregation preferred to seek the high places of nature for their worship. Indeed, whilst passing through the more precipitous gorge of the Narenta, we had caught the solemn cadence of a Christian hymn, chanted, may be, by some shepherd on the mountain side; but whoever poured forth the ‘plaintive anthem’ was hidden by distance and intervening rocks from our view; nor were the tones the less impressive that their rudeness was thus softened, and that the singer was ‘but an invisible thing, a voice, a mystery.’
The minarets of Mostar now rose before us, the city lying on the Narenta at a point where the mountains on each side again jut forward and overhang the river. To the south of this the valley expands once more, so that Mostar owes much of its importance to the fact that it is the key to the communication between the upper and lower valleys of the Narenta; or, to take a simile from the insect world, this city lies on the narrow duct—the wasp’s waist—between the thorax and abdomen of the river-system. We now made our way to the chief inn, quite an imposing stone edifice, rejoicing in the title of the Casino, and kept by an Italian Dalmatian on what he is pleased to suppose European principles. Our room, at all events, possessed the first beds[287] that we had seen since we quitted Serajevo, and is further adorned with a picture of the Imperatore e Rè. Here we were presently visited by our Consul, Mr. Holmes, who is lodging under the same roof, but had been out when we arrived, engaged in relieving the tedium of diplomacy by practising a still more gentle craft on the banks of the Narenta, which is a fine trout-stream.
From Mr. Holmes we learnt the official Turkish account of the Herzegovinian insurrection—or rather the official account as served up to suit English palates; for, as was discovered by the consular body on afterwards comparing notes, the wily Governor-General gave a different version of the story to each of the European Consuls!