CHAPTER I.

N arriving at Trieste at the end of August, 1875, I found that there was very little knowledge of, or

interest in, the Herzegovinian movement there. Bands were known to be hanging about Klek, Trebinje, and Zubci, but there seemed to be nothing known of the upper Herzegovina. Two or three bands were formed in Piva, Baniani, and other districts on the immediate borders of Montenegro, in which was a certain element of Montenegrins proper, and many Crivoscians (Austrian subjects from the Bocche di Cattaro), most of which were under the command of Herzegovinians, the sole exception being that of Peko Pavlovics, an old Montenegrin Turk-fighter, whose courage had been tried in more than sixty battles, and whose presence was an unfailing element in any war or revolt against the Ottoman empire on or near the borders of Montenegro.

There was a committee at Trieste for aiding the movement by supplying arms and forwarding volunteers. The greatest deficiency was that of arms and ammunition, and the Trieste committee could at that time only send old muzzle-loaders of all models, contributed more than purchased. There was no concert and no plan as to any definite object in the insurrection, and all the animus I could perceive was the

chronic sympathy with a people who were known to be grossly oppressed, and who were fighting against their masters. What political tone I could find was distinctly Austrian, and the members of the committee were all Dalmatians, with whom, as with the Dalmatian patriots generally, the best end of the affair would be the union of Bosnia and part, at least, of Herzegovina to Dalmatia. There was no Russian leaning or influence.

My Cretan experience hardly left me to conjecture on the immediate causes of discontent, and inquiry going down the coast, and wherever I saw any of the local committees, confirmed, circumstance by circumstance, the old story. The Christian had neither justice, security, nor the common rights of humanity. No court sat for him, but all against him; no tenure of land held against the declaration of a Mussulman, and even the sanctity of the family was constantly invaded by the carrying off of the young girls for the harems of their masters. Everywhere and from the lips of the most dispassionate men I heard the same confirmations. In Bosnia the slavery was more abject, but in Herzegovina the population was poorer and less able to support exactions like those endured by the Bosnian, and the energy with which the Herzegovinian occasionally resists extreme oppression made it not so safe to the Mussulman; so that on the whole Herzegovina was less repressed than Bosnia. Perhaps the downright killing of Christians was more common in the former province, but, in revenge, more Mussulmans were made to pay this last penalty of a law which comes sometimes to redress lawlessness; and so a certain balance was struck.

A single case of judicial injustice, one of whose victims I saw and questioned, and of which I obtained ample confirmation at Mostar, may be adduced as a sample of the

status quo which we have been often told leaves no real justification for insurrection. A certain young man from the neighbourhood of Trebinje had, in a quarrel, killed an Aga, and fled to Montenegro. His nearest male relations' were therefore arrested, to the number of six, and thrown into prison, being tortured in various ways to compel confession of complicity; two being put in long wooden boxes, like coffins, and rolled downhill, others being stood upright with their heads in a hole in the floor of the prison, which allowed them to rest on their shoulders, having splinters of wood driven under their finger-nails (the boy I saw in Ragusa gave a minute account of the operation, sickening in its fidelity to detail). The father of the murderer died in prison, and one of the cousins was taken out of the prison in Mostar, just five days before the Consular Commission arrived, and hung before one of the mosques to calm the excitement of the Bashi-bazooks, the ruffians who, to show their sense of such occasional luxuries, had, in the beginning of the war, planned a general massacre of the Christians of Mostar, and were only dissuaded from their scheme by being assured by one of the more prudent Agas that such a feat would only result in the Austrian army taking possession of the country.

In general when any Herzegovinian became obnoxious to the authorities, or, which amounted to the same thing, to the Agas or Beys, he fled to Montenegro, if he could escape. I have heard several incidents described as the immediate cause of the outbreak, but the fact is that there was scarcely

1 The practice of imprisoning or otherwise punishing relatives of an offender who cannot be captured is universal in all Turkish jurisprudence. I myself came across cases of it in Crete, perpetrated by Ismael Pasha, a highly reputed functionary, who had been educated in Paris. I believe that every impartial European consul in the whole empire will have known cases of the same abuse of power.

a district in Herzegovina which had not sent its representatives to that city of refuge, the free Montenegro. In one village three Turks had violated two women, and the relatives had killed one or more of the violators, and, with their immediate male relatives, fled to the usual asylum; in another, a man had resisted illegal collection of taxes, and killed an official who attempted to levy them by force; another was driven out of the country by attempts to kill him as a dangerous man -i.e., one who had a great moral influence on his fellow villagers (of this Socica was a remarkable case); and one of the most prominent incidents in this flint, steel, and gunpowder arrangement was that of a local tax farmer at Nevesinjè, who, on occasion of the marriage of his son, attempted to compel his clientèle to pay supplementary tax in the shape of wedding presents,—a form of extortion which was obstinately resisted, whereupon the farmer sent the zapties to enforce the levy. The recusants fled as usual.

The collection of fugitives in the dominions of Prince Nikita became so serious a consideration, that remonstrances were made to the Government at Seraievo; and, after prolonged negotiations, a promise was made to the Prince, that the exiles should return on guarantees of their personal safety, and come to Seraievo to discuss their complaints. Amongst these men were the pope Simonics, since a prominent leader of the insurgents, from Gatschko, and Gligor Millecivics of Bilek, also a captain of note. In consequence of this arrangement, the chief of all the refugees returned to Herzegovina viâ Baniani en route for Seraievo, and were stopped by a patrol of zapties; but the Christians refusing to recognize the right of arrest, a fight ensued, in which several of them were killed. This, of course, drove the rest back into Montenegro, when the agitation became

serious over the whole province, and a number of the Nevesinjè refugees returned home and began hostilities. Luka Petcovics of Shuma, near Trebinje, an old and experienced insurgent, exiled for many years, came to take part; while from Servia came another exile of the insurrection of 1862, Ljubibratics, who was accompanied by several Servians and Dalmatians.

The then governor, Dervish Pasha, was openly accused of stimulating discontent, in order to distinguish himself in the repression, like Ismael Pasha, in Crete, in 1866. A body of troops, with another of Bashi-bazooks, were sent out, who burned a number of villages, and murdered the people they found on the road, armed or unarmed; and Constant Effendi, an Armenian in the service of the Porte (since more known as Constant Pasha), sent an invitation to the principal malcontents to come to a conference and state their griefs. When they came near the rendezvous, they found Constant Effendi's assembly tent pitched within short range of an old fortification, where was concealed a body of troops; and, accusing him of treachery, they refused to approach nearer, and thus ended this effort at conciliation.

Meanwhile the insurrection had caused anxiety in Montenegro, for the principality was not prepared for an outbreak, to which it could not rest alien, and which would surely draw the Montenegrins in. Peko Pavlovics was sent to pacify it. This the old Turk-fighter did modo suo by capturing Ljubibratics, and marching him bodily across the frontier to Ragusa with his hands tied behind his back. I am inclined to think that the matter would have stopped there if the Turks had shown the slightest disposition to conciliation, as the encouraging elements were largely wanting. Russia