We spent the next forenoon in exploring some of the neighbouring house-communities, a description of which has already been given; and about twelve, after a parting wrangle concerning passports with a sentry on the river bank, took our places in the ferry-boat that was to convey us to the Turkish side of the Save. As the shores of Christendom were receding from our view, we had leisure to reflect on some slightly sensational topics which had lately been forcing themselves on our attention. There could be no doubt that the insurrection in the Herzegovina was at least holding its ground, and that the agitation in the neighbouring Sclavonic lands was increasing in intensity. A revolutionary committee had already been formed in Agram, at Laibach, Spalato, and other Austrian towns. At Agram we came in for a concert in aid of the insurgents; at Siszek there arrived the same night as ourselves thirty Herzegovinians, who had left the employments which they had in Free Serbia, and were hurrying to aid their revolted brothers, while many Croats and Slovenes from Agram, Marburg, Laibach, and other places were—so the Siszekers assured us—also leaving for the seat of war. Vague rumours of insurgent successes were afloat, and Siszek was thrown into a considerable state of excitement by a report that Mostar and Trebinje had both fallen into the hands of the Christians. We were assured from many sides that if the insurrection were to spread a little further, the rayahs of Bosnia would rise also; and fears were entertained for the safety of the Christian minority in Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, and the head-quarters of Moslem fanaticism. But what touched us more nearly was a proclamation which had just appeared, signed by Dervish Pashà, the Turkish governor-general of Bosnia, the authorship of which the wily Vali, later on, thought fit to deny, but which for the present had the desired effect. By it the whole of Bosnia was subjected to martial law, as well as the Herzegovina, and its terms were vague and comprehensive enough to legalise any violence. ‘It is my will,’ so ran the manifesto, ‘that every true believer in the Prophet have the right to seize and bring before me anyone suspected of taking part in the revolt, or of giving aid to the enemies of our exalted master the Sultan. And I order that all strangers direct themselves according to the laws of the country during the insurrection, which probably will not long endure, for already doth the sun of the insurgents verge towards its setting. And assuredly’—we were informed in the poetic imagery of the East—‘shall the lightning of the Sultan strike all who order not themselves according to my will.’ ‘But as to those who harbour the unruly, by the sword shall they be cut off; and in all God’s houses subject to our jurisdiction shall prayers be offered up for the help of God and the protection of the prophet, on our exalted master the Sultan and his government.’