The Turk and his lost provinces

by William Eleroy Curtis

It is the prevailing impression that the Turks are the most difficult of all races to govern, but the Austrian experiment in Bosnia has demonstrated that this is a mistake. The better class of the Turkish population have welcomed the restoration of order and have been the strongest supporters of the new government. The officials have suppressed the fanatics by the application of a punishment which they dread more than death. To shoot or kill a Mohammedan is simply to send him to the paradise he is seeking, and he believes that he will rise again in the actual body; but if his body is burned or cut to pieces it is impossible for him to attain paradise, for he cannot rise again or be translated if his soul has no body to inhabit. Therefore all Moslem believers who have been convicted of murder or other capital crimes have been sentenced to death and cremation, which so terrified the fanatics that they have left the country.

The Bosnians are naturally very bright, although the lack of educational facilities and the ordinary compensations for industry and ingenuity have kept them down. Occasionally some man like Nikola Tesla, the famous electrician of New York, who is a native of Bosnia, has broken through the restrictions and has found an opportunity to develop his genius elsewhere. But such cases are very few. Long Turkish oppression crushed the minds as well as the spirits of the people, and only with the coming generation are they beginning to show the talents, ingenuity and other natural qualities which their admirers have claimed for them. They are naturally honest, too, although until recently they have had few examples of integrity to imitate. There is very little stealing, and corruption in office has been so severely punished that the government is almost free from it. At first natives who were favored with official positions attempted to imitate the practices of the Turks who preceded them, but soon found that it would not be tolerated, and I was assured that for four or five years there have been no cases of official dishonesty detected. On the other hand, the Austrian officials have set excellent examples for the natives in this respect.

A large part of the property in Bosnia belongs to the government or the ecclesiastical authorities, or has been bequeathed or appropriated to religious and charitable objects and held in trust by officials for the benefit of mosques, hospitals, schools, fountains and for the relief of the sick and the poor. Under the Turks the revenues of these properties were generally stolen, but since the Austrian occupation the business has been so well managed that it has not only supported but paid for the extensive improvement of the charities for which it was intended. The same may be said of the government revenues. Under the Turks the harvests were not allowed to be gathered until the collectors had calculated the amount of taxes and had received the money, which was often one-third of the total value and usually one-fifth, and a great part of the money went into the pockets of the collectors instead of the public treasury. This was such a common practice that everybody knew all about it, and hence the reforms which the Austrians have introduced are all the more conspicuous.

The most fascinating town in Bosnia is Jajce, where the people have had so little intercourse with the outside world that they still retain the customs and manners and wear the costumes of their ancestors four or five centuries back. The women are clothed in brilliant colors and load themselves with ornaments of silver, bronze and enamel. Like the Hindus and the North American Indians, they wear the greater portion of their wealth upon their bodies. The men dress in white sheepskin, beautifully tanned. In summer they wear the wool outside and in the winter they wear it inside. The arms and hands of both men and women are usually tattooed with religious emblems. They are devout Catholics, and you seldom find a boy or a girl over sixteen who does not carry a crucifix tattooed upon some part of the person. Both men and women wear their hair long.

At Jajce is one of the most celebrated of sanctuaries, the Church of St. Luke, which is venerated equally by Catholics, Greeks and Mohammedans, as everybody believes that it was the early burial-place of the apostle, and that when it was threatened with destruction by the Turks in the Middle Ages an army of angels lifted it from one side of the river to the other. You are shown the place where the church formerly stood on the east bank, and the inhabitants of all the surrounding country would regard you as a hopeless skeptic if you expressed a doubt of the truth of the story that it was lifted by invisible hands, carried several hundred yards and placed intact upon a new foundation. Thousands of pilgrims, especially people who are crippled and diseased, visit the shrine, and many miracles have been performed there.

According to the local belief, St. Luke lived and died in Jajce, and was buried in this church, but the priest in charge says that is a mistake. He does not know of any evidence that the apostle ever lived at Jajce, and believes that he died in Syria, but the records show that in the thirteenth century the remains of the apostle were brought from Constantinople to Rogus, one of the towns upon the Adriatic coast, and, in 1436, George Brankovic, King of Servia, purchased them of the Turkish governor of that province. The latter, fearing a riot in the town if an attempt were made to take them away, caused his spies to circulate a rumor that the Sultan had ordered a census for the purpose of taxation and military service, and that it would be taken on a certain day. All the Christian population had business in the country for a few days about that time, so that they might evade the enumerators. While they were absent the holy casket was secretly taken from the church and carried aboard a vessel. For several months it was not missed, and the theft was not detected until rumors began to come back from Servia concerning its reception in that country.

Helena, daughter of Brankovic, married Tyrtko, the last king of Bosnia, and took the body with her as part of her dowry. When Jajce was captured by the Turks she managed to escape and carried it to Italy, where it was placed in the convent of St. Giustina at Padua.

A voyage up the Adriatic to Venice or Trieste along the Dalmatian coast is one of the most enjoyable that can be imagined. The scenery is sublime. The cloudless blue of the skies and the water, the purple tints of the hills, mingled with the orange and scarlet of the autumn foliage, make a harmony of color that can scarcely be found elsewhere, while the little islands that make up the archipelago protect the coast from rough water, and the steamers glide in and out among them without feeling the wind or the tide or any other marine disturbance that a passenger can object to. It is very much like sailing through the famous Inland Sea of Japan, only in this case you have a continuous coast on one side, while in the other it is on both sides. There is a choice of steamers, two or three a week, so that one can stop off at any of the beautiful little towns for twenty-four or forty-eight hours and then take up his journey again.

Cattaro is only interesting and important as the port of the little principality of Montenegro, which has caused so much dissention among the European nations, and the terminus of the road to Cetinje, its capital. Cattaro does not belong to Montenegro, because England and Austria are afraid Prince Nicholas would cede it to Russia if he had the power to do so. Montenegro is theoretically independent, and under the protection of the great Powers, but there is a very close intimacy between the ruling family and the imperial house of Russia, and everybody believes that there is a secret treaty of alliance also. Like the other Balkan States, Montenegro was a province of Turkey until 1878, when the treaty of Berlin made it independent, and, although it contains a population of only 228,000, less than that of the District of Columbia, its political importance is great. Two of the daughters of the reigning prince have married cousins of the Czar, another is the wife of the King of Italy, and a fourth is the Duchess of Leuchtenburg, whose husband is next to a king.

Ragusa, another of the towns on the coast, and a charming old place, is identified with some of the most stirring incidents in history. In the Middle Ages it was almost as powerful as Venice, Naples or Genoa, and was able to resist the attacks of the Turks. Here Richard Cœur-de-Leon landed on his return from the Crusade. During a gale at sea he made a vow that he would build a church to his patron saint on the spot where he was permitted to make a safe landing. He finally went ashore on the little island of La Croma, then moved over to Ragusa, where the people received him with such hospitality that he asked the Pope to relieve him from his vow and let him build the church in Ragusa, which had several thousand inhabitants, instead of upon a barren little island. But the Pope would not grant his prayer, and, like the gentleman that he was, he built churches in both places. That at Ragusa was destroyed in an earthquake in the seventeenth century, but the church at La Croma still stands.