the Mahometans of Bosnia; it is universal among the Serbs, who, it is said,[266] find great deliverance from the evil effects of the Cattiv’ Occhio by touching iron or looking at blue objects, and the Franciscan spells already described are chiefly directed against this same malign influence. [Illustration: Amulets Against the Evil Eye.] Having now fortified ourselves to our satisfaction with these and many talismans of virtue, and being supplied by our kind hosts at the Consulate with a store of wheaten bread, Bologna sausages, and eke Sicilian wine, we bade farewell to our friends at Serajevo, and set forth on foot once more. It was our intention to make our way as best we could to the Herzegovina over the wild ranges to the West, and, as the best line of attack on our mountain citadels, made for the gorge of the Želesnica over the foot of lower hills. About an hour from Serajevo we passed the last trace of comparative civilization. This was a brewery recently established by two Austrian settlers, with one of whom we conversed whilst discussing a glass of very fair German beer. The poor man was in a great state of trepidation. Only the day before his brother brewer had made off for the Austrian frontier, taking with him his family, and our host himself was preparing to follow his partner’s example as soon as he could get his effects together. ‘It’s not the Insurgents,’ he said, ‘that I’m afraid of—it’s only the Turks. You can’t believe what cut-throats those Bashi-Bazouks are!’ This was hardly inspiriting for ourselves, nor did our prospects seem more brilliant when, an hour or so afterwards, in a lonely part of the Želesnica valley, to which we had now descended, we heard a hue and cry behind us, and turning round saw a ferocious horseman armed to the teeth, clattering after us on a gorgeously caparisoned steed. Our infantry thereupon formed, and the cavalry halted a few paces off. Whereupon our dragoon, who, from the sumptuousness of his arms, must have been a Beg at least, roared out to us some commands, in which the insolence alone was intelligible. Thereupon we continued our march, resolved to pay no attention to the insults of the foe; but seeing that he hung about our flanks, and that his general demeanour was becoming momentarily more hostile, we made such an unmistakable sign that we had been sufficiently honoured by his company that he thought better of the matter and beat a retreat. There is one weapon which in Bosnia serves as efficiently for a passport as the Bujuruldu of the Governor-General!