One would expect the brows of a pure fatalist to be smooth as marble. There could be, one would think, no trace of emotions to which he is superior. But the features of these Bosniac Mahometans are fretted with a positive network of wrinkles—far more than those of an average Englishman. The truth is that, superior as they are to many of the ‘changes and chances of this mortal world,’ they, too, have their weak points, and vanities of their own, about which they are touchy as other people. It is their wish on all occasions to seem oracular, to be lawgivers, to impress you with the profundity of their learning, to give the idea that they know a great deal more than they choose to say—to make up for the paucity of their observations by accentuating their value. Thus on the slightest occasion they will elevate or depress their brow, and otherwise contort the features with a kind of measured emphasis. The wrinkling process resembles that of the dogmatic and self-important type of German; it is the very opposite to that theatrical adaptiveness which leaves the footprints of every emotion on the Zingar’s face. Not indeed that the expression arrived at smacks by any means of Teutonic cantankerousness; it is rather a Spanish _Grandezza_—a stately condescending politeness—which converts every shopkeeper you converse with into a Grand Signior! Of course in their manner of life and their way of conducting business there are traces enough of the numbing influences of fatalism. Though these Mahometan tradesmen are distinguished by their honesty, which, as everybody knows, is also the best policy, though they are favoured by belonging to the ruling caste, there is a want of enterprise among them which precludes them from favourably competing with the Christians. Almost all the larger businesses in the country are in Christian hands; the Mahometans are shopkeepers at most, not merchants—they are too stationary by temperament. Perhaps they indulge more than the rayahs in narcotics; it was woful to see the ghastly pallor of so many Turkish faces. Here and there in the course of our journey amusing features in Mahometan interiors bore witness of the _laisser-aller_ spirit of the inmates. In the Konak at Tešanj was a writing-table made for no less a personage than the Kaïmakàm, and it was put together with bits of wood of uneven sizes, just as they came handy; and here, in the telegraph office at Travnik, was another—quite an elegant escritoir—but the whole spoilt and rendered ridiculous by a piece of wood of insufficient length being stuck in the middle, Providence having been pleased to place it in the way of the upholsterer. If a button comes off an official’s coat, he never thinks of replacing it; and if a beast dies before a Bosniac’s house, instead of removing it, or even burying it, he leaves it there to stink!