[Illustration: View on River Save, looking from Slavonian Brood towards the Bosnian Shore.] But for better or worse our Rubicon is passed, and we land on the Turkish shore, among a group of turbaned gentry, from amongst whom emerges a somewhat tattered soldier, who conducts us to the square, verandahed, Karaula or guard-house. Here we are asked by another official, in Italian, if we have anything to declare in our knapsacks, and having satisfied him by a simple ‘Niente,’ we are again beckoned on by our soldier, and follow him into the narrow street of Turkish Brood to show our pass to the Præfect or Mudìr. Our appearance created as great a sensation as was decorous among the big-turbans of the townlet; crowds of Bosnian _gamins_ followed at our heels; and we caught a passing glimpse of a dusky Ethiopian maiden white-toothing us in the most coquettish fashion from behind a door. As the Mudìr was not at home, we had to wait in the front room of his Konak,[171] if indeed a place which possesses neither door nor window, and is completely open to the air on the street side, can be called a room; and taking our seat on the platform or raised floor—which in the other houses of the town, as generally in Turkey, is used as the squatting-place of the shopkeepers, and the counter on which to display their wares—became the gazing-stock of a motley assemblage, who, crowding round in the street, or taking reserved seats in the melon-shop opposite, ‘twigged us’ at their leisure. We, too, obtained a breathing space in which to realise in what a new world we were. The Bosniacs themselves speak of the other side of the Save as ‘Europe,’ and they are right; for to all intents and purposes a five minutes’ voyage transports you into Asia. Travellers who have seen the Turkish provinces of Syria, Armenia, or Egypt, when they enter Bosnia, are at once surprised at finding the familiar sights of Asia and Africa reproduced in a province of European Turkey. Thrace, Macedonia, the shores of the Ægean, Stamboul itself, have lost or never displayed many Oriental customs and costumes; but Bosnia remains the chosen land of Mahometan Conservatism, the Goshen of the faithful, ennobled by the tombs of martyrs, and known in Turkish annals as the ‘Lion that guards the gates of Stamboul.’ Fanaticism has struck its deepest roots among her renegade population, and reflects itself even in their dress. In no other European province of Turkey is the veiling of women so strictly attended to. It is said that not long ago the fine egg-shaped turbans of the Janissaries might still be found in Bosnia, and the Maulouka, the most precious of all mantles, which had died out elsewhere, long survived among these Bosnian Tories. As to the introduction of fezzes, the Imperial order almost provoked a revolt here; and to this day among Mahometans the fez is almost confined to officials, the rest of the believers going about in the capacious turbans of the East.