[Illustration: BOSNIAN TYPES AT SERAJEVO. JEWESS. ROMAN CATHOLIC. MAHOMETAN SCLAVES. TURKISH PRIEST. PRAVOSLAVES OR ‘SERBS.’] To the left of the group before us will be observed two Jewesses belonging to the wealthiest part of the Serajevan population. There are in this city about 2,000 Jews, descendants of those who, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, took refuge from the persecutions of the Catholic rulers of Spain within the dominions of the more tolerant Grand Signior. But they still look back with a certain regretful longing to the adopted land of their forefathers. Although they can speak Bosniac to outsiders without an accent, they still converse among themselves in a language which was that of Spain in the days of their expulsion; and the pure Castilian of the Knight of La Mancha, antiquated in its mother-country, is still to be heard in the streets of Serajevo![258] They have a pride in those old days, and like to keep fresh their remembrance. Their Chacham-bashi, or head Rabbi, serves his friends with confection made of white of eggs and sugar, called ‘Spanish bread,’ as a kind of memorial feast. But they cling with even warmer zeal to their old Hebrew rites and customs, and are so intolerant of innovation that, not long ago,[259] one of their leading merchants here was excommunicated for letting his wife wear long hair and dress herself in European fashion! She might well have contented herself with the coiffure of her co-religionists; for, if too wanton tresses are curtailed, _en revanche_ they wear a most gorgeous head-dress. We had seen in the bazaar some tasteful discs of embroidered work—flowered with a humming-bird brilliance of design—which we took to be meant for small mats, till we found that they were worn at the back of their heads by Jewish women. These Jews are the richest people in Serajevo, but alas! this is not simply due to their commercial talents. It is unfortunately too true that a few years ago these astute Israelites made nearly 100,000_l._ out of Austrian and German houses by a system of fraudulent bankruptcy. They act as treasurers and interpreters to the Turkish authorities in Bosnia, and use the power thus acquired to amass further gains often not less ill-gotten. They are also the chief bankers here, and the only usurers. They are as dirty as their gains, and almost as degraded physically as morally. That they are also undersized may possibly be connected with the fact that they will only marry within their community. On the other hand Miss Irby[260] states that ‘their poor are exceedingly well cared for, and a Jewish beggar is never seen. No Jew is ever accused of murder, theft, or violence, or found in Turkish prisons, except on account of debt.’