Chapter VI: The Panic in Serajevo (2)

It does not become the English language to record the Sejanian arts by which they rise. Usually, as the lackey of a Pashà or some rich Fanariote, they amass gains which they afterwards lay out in an episcopal speculation—for sees go to the highest bidders at Stamboul.[254] The new Metropolitan arrives at Serajevo, and immediately sets to work to make the speculation pay. To retain their office they have further to send enormous bribes yearly to the fountain-head of corruption. Thus the simony which begins on the patriarchal throne descends to the meanest pulpit, and the poorest pope in Bosnia has to bargain with his bishop for his cure of souls! The shepherd, fleeced himself by his bishop, must recoup himself from his flock. On every occasion of life he levies a contribution in money or in kind, and in some cases he has even succeeded in establishing a system of heriots. On the death of the father of a family he takes the best ox; on the mother’s death, a cow. Not infrequently children grew up unbaptized because the parents were too poor to pay the fee required.[255] As to the parsons themselves, their ignorance is usually so gross that they cannot read the Sclavonic liturgy, and simply repeat it by rote! The Metropolitan of Serajevo is said to wring as much as 10,000_l._ a year from his miserable flock: the other three content themselves with about half that amount apiece. When it is remembered that the salary of the Vali Pashà himself only amounts to 500_l._ a year, the enormity of these figures may be appreciated. These four successors of the fishermen of Galilee extort annually between them a sum equal to one-sixteenth of the total income received by the government of the province from taxation. Since, however, a large part of what they extract from the unhappy rayahs must be transmitted in the form of bribes to Stamboul, the Turkish authorities have orders to assist them in levying their exactions; and whole Christian villages share the fate of a sacked city from Turkish gendarmerie, for refusing, or too often being unable, to comply with the exorbitant demands of Christian prelates.

_De_ vivis _nil nisi bonum_. The predecessor of the present Metropolitan of Serajevo, amongst his other accomplishments, was an habitual drunkard. He lived in Sardanapalian luxury—his table groaned with plate; and at his death he left untold treasures in costly furs alone—the fleecings of his flock! His rapacity was such that even the slavish spirit of the Bosnian rayah was provoked to resistance, and in 1864 the agitation became so dangerous that an assembly of the notables was called at Serajevo to devise a remedy; and a certain standard of ecclesiastical dues not to be transgressed was finally imposed on the bishops by the Turkish authorities themselves. But the Metropolitan, with the shrewdness of his race, read between the lines. All that was meant, as he had the good sense to perceive, was a slight increase of his expenditure under the head of _lubrication_. Thoemmel, writing so soon after these events as 1867, mentions that ‘this standard has already become a dead letter.’ It is no secret that one of the main provocations of the revolt in the Herzegovina was the tyranny of the Turkophile bishop Prokopios. When the storm burst, one of the first attempts at pacification was the translation of this ghostly vampire to a fatter see!

Vain indeed must be the efforts of the rayah flock to save themselves from the wolves while they have a hireling for their shepherd! These episcopal sycophants of the infidel serve the Turk in a hundred ways—they screen a hundred abuses. No sooner does an awkward revelation see the light, than one of these renegade prelates steps forward to throw dust in the eyes of the Christian West. They know well that to a certain class of mind there is something comfortable in the very name of bishop. They trade upon the saintly spell which throws a halo of veracity round any lies they may invent to shield their patrons or themselves. Ill-founded, indeed, seem the complaints of the rayah when his bishop comes forward to confess, from a Christian love of truth and justice—but with how much laudable reluctance!—that the wrongs of his too blatant flock are purely imaginary, and that, if anyone has been aggrieved, it is the honest, the moral, the merciful, the tolerant, Osmanlì![256]

As an useful sedative we have taken a Bosnian bath, and found both building and ceremony deliciously Oriental. We entered to find ourselves under a spacious dome, pierced with a constellation of star-like openings, which shed a dim religious light on marble pavements, and ogee archways and niches. In the centre a fountain, playing into a marble basin, glittered and twinkled in the artificial starlight, and faintly echoing with a cavernous murmur through vault and corridor, not only added a refreshing chill to the atmosphere—cooled already by exclusion of sunlight and the marble walls—but seemed to let in a sense of coolness by the ears. Here a venerable Turk came up, and beckoning us to follow him, led us up a flight of steps to an airy gallery opening from this cool vault, where was a divan with couches for our repose. Hence we presently emerged, attired, like the Turks about, in decorous togas and turbans, convertible into towels, and with clogs on our feet, clattered awkwardly through the spacious _Frigidarium_—how the whole brings to life the luxurious days of ancient Rome!—and thence, after passing through an antichamber still cool, plunged into the _Calidarium_ with a vengeance. This was a domed chamber of equal dimensions with the first, from which opened several lesser rooms swelling into cupolas above. But we were so suffocated with the hot steamy atmosphere, that it was not till after we had been seated by our attendant Turk on a daïs in one of these side-vaults, that we recovered breath sufficient to take stock of anything. Just behind us, from a leaden spout fixed in an ogival niche in the wall, gushed forth a hot fountain into a marble basin, out of which, after much patient endurance of preliminary sudation, we were basted by our minister. Then succeeded excoriation by a rough gauntlet that served as strigil, then we were well lathered, and so the process was repeated till a final douche of cold water from a wooden bowl gave the signal for girding ourselves once more and making our way through the cool chamber—tenfold refreshing now!—to our couch. Here, in the same turban and light attire as himself, we accompanied a Turk in _dolce far niente_ tempered with fragrant mocha and cigarettes—though sherbet is equally proper as a beverage, and a narghilé would perhaps have been more decorous. The whole process, including the time spent in recovering from our first succeeding lassitude, lasted about an hour.

Thus re-invigorated, we renewed our exploration of the streets of Serajevo—this time accompanied by a gorgeous consular guard. Besides the baths there are other fine stone buildings here, and the Bosniac countryman gapes with as much wonderment at the domes of the two chief mosques as an English rustic at first sight of St. Paul’s. Of these two Dzàmias, or greater mosques, one, the Careva Dzàmia, is the work of Sultan Mohammed, who conquered Bosnia; and the other, the Begova Dzàmia, owes its foundation to Khosrev Beg, her first Vizier. This latter is the largest, and externally, with its central dome, subsidiary cupolas, and its portico in front, preserves faithfully enough the characteristics of its Christian Byzantine prototypes. Before it is a plot planted with trees, and containing a stone font filled with the purest water for the _ghusél_ or religious lustrations. In the porch are two monolithic columns of brown marble, taken from an earlier Christian church: here, too, is a shrine or chapel, in which is a gigantic sarcophagus, containing the bones of the founder, and a smaller one containing those of his wife—both, especially the former, strewn with costly shawls by the hands of the pious. The interior of the mosque is plain and whitewashed, except for the texts of the Koràn upon the walls, and gay Persian carpets strewn upon the pavement. There are two pulpits, one for ordinary lessons and sermons; the other a loftier perch used on Fridays for reading the prayer for the Sultan; and in the wall may be seen a square stone, the _Kiblà_, which marks the direction of Mecca. But we ourselves were advised not to enter, owing to the dangerous spirit of fanaticism abroad; so these details are gathered second-hand.[257]

Besides her mosques, Serajevo boasts two _Bezestans_ or ‘cloth-halls,’ usually one of the chief public buildings of a Turkish city. The larger of these includes a court, surrounded by cloisters, and with a fountain in the middle; but from the outside you can see little of the building except some stone cupolas, as the wooden shops of the market are built against its walls. Inside we found ourselves wandering along stone arcades vaulted above and bayed at the side with semi-circular recesses, in which the wares are displayed. They consist mostly of cloths; and though light is deficient, the brilliance of the effect is astonishing—the rich display of drapery might recall a street of Ghent in the Middle Ages! Round the Bezestan are crowded the narrow streets of the _Caršia_ or market—by exploring which you can arrive at a fairly exhaustive knowledge of the industries of Serajevo. There was not such a jumble of wares here as in the smaller towns of Bosnia. Shops of a similar kind succeeded each other in a row, or sometimes monopolised a whole street. Here was the blacksmiths’ street, with a display of colossal nails, and a large assortment of the elegant bosses of Turkish door-handles with their knocker-like appendages. Another street was sacred to harness-makers and sellers of horse-trappings; in a third was a double arrangement—a lower row of boot-shops conveniently level with the ground, while, as a roof above the opanka-sellers’ heads, ran the counters of crockery-merchants, with a charming variety of _testjas_ and other water jars—so that foot and mouth could be suited at the same moment! Another street resounded with the hammers of coppersmiths, moulding their metal into coffee-pots or platters; here were rows of salt-merchants, or we came upon a group of armourers’ shops—to-day ominously thronged—bristling with knives and swords of the famed Bosnian steel. In the smaller Bezestan were many second-hand goods, and amongst them magnificent flint-locks of antique form, with stocks richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl and golden arabesques—the masterpieces of the old workshops of Prizren. Near these might be seen gun-flints such as have been described already—the best quality of those imported from Avlona.

But the part of the bazaar which interested us most was the goldsmiths’ quarter. Here sate a whole street full of cunning artificers, pinching and twisting the precious metals—but chiefly silver—into brooches, beads, rings, and ear-rings of filigree work—charming, both from its intrinsic elegance and from its clearly marked Byzantine parentage. The Serajevan work, pure and simple, though not without merit, is somewhat coarse, and we were pleased to find that the more graceful flowers of silver-work had been engrafted on the rude Bosnian stock by the taste of an English lady. Mrs. Holmes, the wife of our hospitable Consul, brought over some of the chefs-d’œuvre of Maltese filigree-work and set these as models for the smiths of Serajevo, who have so profited by the lesson that they are now almost able to compete with the productions of the more refined Italian artists. The Serajevan work has not, however, degenerated into mere imitation: certain native characteristics are still traceable in the new style.

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!

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 100,000_l._ 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?

Just as characteristic of a narrow-minded bourgeoisie is the way in which they set their faces against any attempts to better their education. A few years ago a Serb of Serajevo, who had amassed what for a Bosniac was a fortune, as a merchant at Trieste, left a considerable sum of money to be applied in erecting a good school for the Pravoslave community here, on condition of a certain additional sum being subscribed by the Serajevan merchants. The Pravoslave community at large seem to have received the tidings of this generous bequest with sublime contempt; but one or two individuals, who hoped to profit by it as teachers, took the matter up and sent a circular to the European Consuls in the name of the whole Serb community, stating that that body ‘feeling the want of a good education for their sons, and wishing to carry out the design of their benefactor, solicited the aid and patronage of the representatives of enlightened Christendom.’ This sounded very fine. The Consuls took the matter up. Mr. Holmes represented it to the English Government, and though nothing could be given officially, Lord Clarendon very kindly forwarded 30_l._ on his own behalf. Then the bubble burst. The Pravoslave community held an indignation meeting, in which they disavowed the circular of these interested enthusiasts for education: protesting that their children were well enough taught at home, and that a new school they did not want, and a new school they would not have!

Two other most prominent classes of Serajevan society call for mention. One is the Board of Health, whose business it is to keep the streets comparatively clean. The members of this sanitary staff exercise their unclean office at night, when they patrol the streets in troops—and the offal which they then pick up is their only food! At this season these scavengers, who are perpetually falling out among themselves, raise such a terrible hubbub as murders sleep to those unused to their rowdiness. Moreover, it is hardly safe to walk across the street after dark, for these gentry will patch up their own quarrels and unite to assault the unwary foot-passenger; and, though they have no other weapons than those wherewith nature has endowed them, such is the ferocity of their onset that I have myself seen a Turkish soldier forced to keep these guardians of the public health at bay with his sword. They do not wear either fez or turban (so far as we were able to observe), and in this they differ from the generality of Turkish officials; but they are uniformed in a coarse hide of a muddy buff-colour, disfigured with mangy patches, usually out at elbows, and tattered by reason of their nocturnal brawls, in which they show themselves so transported with passion as to tear off each other’s ears. By day they are very _lazzaroni_, and are to be seen in the streets (their only home), lying across the path or roadway on their stomachs—truly a disgusting spectacle. It is a custom not to be transgressed, that both the passers-by, and even waggons, should move out of their way while my lords are taking their repose; and it goes ill with him who should kick, or even, without hostile intent, stumble upon the prostrate sanitary officer, since he and his fellows—a score of whom (you may be sure) are ready at hand—are quick in taking the law into their own hands. Nor can their insulter expect either aid or pity from the bystanders; for the citizens, rightly considering their profession as necessary to the public health, invest their person with a certain sanctity; and, doubtless, were these brutish scavengers expelled by one gate, pestilence would stalk in by the other.

Then there is another class of functionaries with whom the streets of Serajevo, and one in particular, are literally swarming, and who are even more brutal than this precious Sanitary Board. These are the Zaptiehs—call them, if you please, gendarmes, police, enlisting sergeants, soldiers, tax-collectors, executioners—for they are Jacks-of-all-trades. They are the factotums of the Mahometan government—a terrible engine in the hands of tyranny—ready to execute its worst behests. We have seen them as the instruments of the tax-farmer or the bishop, wringing the little hoards of penury from the miserable rayah—or playing the part of apparitors in those Inquisition scenes of torture. These are the hired bravoes who live at free-quarters in the Christian villages; rob, violate—and in many cases murder—whom they will. There are of course exceptions; and their worst offences are nothing to the infamy of the Government which lets loose ignorant fanatics among a population whom their creed teaches them to count as dogs, and which leaves them, without pay sufficient for their bare subsistence, to plunder those whom they nominally protect. When in the presence of Europeans they usually possess tact sufficient to keep on their good behaviour; but from the atrocious scenes of which I myself was a witness at the Christian pilgrimage, their conduct, when freed from any restraint of foreign surveillance, may be faintly imagined. Those who have had most acquaintance with the country described them to us as ‘covering the land like a blight.’ Though there are enough of them in Serajevo in all conscience, we were assured that the number at present here is smaller than usual, since many have been sent out to collect the Redìf or reserve, and many have been hastily draughted into the soldiery. To-day a gang of these commissioned bandits has been scouring the country with orders to seize thirty horses, but they have only been able to lay hands on a couple. The Government exercises the right of seizing horses at need. Nominally it is only a loan, but the peasants rarely see their beasts back, and dare not hope for recompense of any kind; besides which the owner is often impressed himself as kiradjì or driver, without receiving a penny for this _corvée_. This forced labour and seizure of horses was one of the most crying wrongs of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian rayahs, and one of the many causes of the revolt. How inveterate must be that misgovernment which continues to sow the wind at the very moment that it is reaping the whirlwind!

Here, at least, affairs are becoming hourly more ominous. We hear tidings of a Christian victory near Novipazar, which means that the single road connecting Bosnia with the rest of Turkey is seriously threatened. Isolated tales of bloodshed and massacre form the common topic of conversation. A Serb cuts the throat of a Turkish Mollah near Mostar; the Christian is hanged; his friends surprise a party of Mahometans in an inn, and massacre them to a man; the cry for vengeance is now caught up by the Turks, and so the tragedy developes. Such details are revolting, but they give a true picture of the reign of terror which is setting in. To-day a large number of Austrian women, the wives of artizans beyond the Save, are leaving the town.

This evening, our last in this city, a strange atmospheric phenomenon seemed to shadow forth the uncertainty of all around. In the afternoon it began to pour, and at first the clouds, as they shifted hither and thither, threw the mountains, that frown around the city on every side, into strange and novel reliefs. Then they sank lower, till they hung like a pall above mosque and minaret, and shrouded even the ‘nodding hills’ around in impenetrable gloom—half cloud, half mountain. The city alone stood out with clear and well defined outlines in the livid half-light, but the mist literally lapped its outer walls, and so thickly, that a foe might have approached to the very entrance of the town without possibility of detection. It was, indeed, portentous of the present state of Serajevo; nothing but the present certain; her nearest future overclouded; forebodings of internecine struggles within; the sulphurous vapours of civil and religious war rising around her—doubly awful in the uncertain light of rumour. ‘It is the beginning of the end,’ said a foreign representative to us; ‘do not be surprised if you are surveying the last days of Ottoman rule in the Serai.’