Mostar may boast of, or bemoan, as the case may be, a collection of thirty mosques, for, of its fourteen thousand population, half are Mohammedans, and two thousand of the remaining half comprise the troops of an Austria-Hungarian garrison. The streets of the town are dirty and narrow, and the sun beats down between the white walls of the houses as if in the tropics. A bridge of modern steel construction spans the Narenta just near the hotel of that name, while half a mile farther down the river one of the most famous bridges in all Europe stretches its single arch out of the shadows across the sea-blue water of the Narenta, which gurgles in and out among the volcanic boulders ninety feet below the key-stone. The age of this bridge is indeterminable. It is supposed to have been built by the Cæsars at a time when the Herzegovina was a Roman province. Be that as it may, nothing like its construction or architecture is to be seen in bridge-building in Europe, no matter how ancient or how modern, and it is still used by market-people and the inhabitants of that quarter of the city. One would almost expect to see a centurion or two, in togas and sandals, walk out across the old structure any minute. The veiled Turkish women of Mostar are world-famous for the style of their headdress, which is as characteristic of this city as the old bridge itself. In addition to being heavily veiled they wear a sort of black hood of stiffened material, which protrudes in front like the upper half of the pointed bill of a bird. But, aside from the Roman bridge, the veiled women, and an old Turkish graveyard, there is really nothing much of interest in Mostar. At any rate, after a short visit here, you will be a little tired of the sameness of these cities, which the Turk fain would still hold as his own, and you will want to hurry along to the Dalmatian coast towns, as different from those you have recently visited as day is from night; different climates, different peoples having different customs, different architectures; all so different that when you come upon them you will wonder if you haven’t been awakened suddenly, then launched upon another dream-excursion. [Illustration: THE OLD ROMAN BRIDGE, MOSTAR.] Again, after leaving Mostar, the railroad commences to climb, snake-like, over the mountains toward the coast, for the building of this road has required no small amount of engineering skill. It would be difficult to find in England or America, or in fact in any other country, a railway line more substantially built or kept in better condition. The crushed rock track ballast is evened off at each side of the rails as if with a pair of calipers, the roadbed is smooth and the grades, although long, are not as steep as would be imagined, considering the heights to be climbed. At Ravna the final ascent of the mountains is commenced and from here to the top the road is built on an almost continuous wall of stone masonry.