The knives, however, of our friendly family were not of such costly material, the crescent-shaped handle being simply of horn studded with brass bosses. Of other ornaments they displayed on their girdle the usual twin circular brooches, and on their hair an array of gilt coins. Their dress in many respects much resembled that of the rayah women, for they wore the two characteristic aprons; their heads were coiffed with the same light kerchiefs; and one woman whom we met on the road had this head-dress arranged with a flowing white tassel gracefully depending at the side, in the same fashion as the Latin Christian maiden of the Possávina, whose portrait has already been given.[283] But further description of our unveiled Mahometans is needless, as their complaisance was such that they allowed me even to sketch them. But, one naturally asks, how came these Moslem dames and maidens to go about unveiled in this single district of a country where the injunctions of the Koràn in this respect are usually carried out to the letter? I do not think that anyone who surveys the naked rocks that tower above this part of the Narenta valley—who marks the dearth of pasture for cattle, and who realizes how little land there is for cultivation even beside the streams—can be long in doubt as to the true cause of this omission. Here there is a lawgiver more exacting of obedience than the Prophet himself. Amidst this limestone wilderness Nature reigns supreme, and will be obeyed. A voice that cannot be mistaken bids women as well as men go forth to their work and to their labour until the evening. All hands are needed to stave off starvation, and it is essential to the women that they should have the free use of eyes and limbs to aid their brothers, husbands, and fathers. The struggle for existence is too hard to admit of any of the combatants cumbering themselves with the impedimenta of any ceremonial law whatsoever. ’Tis the pitiless clutch of hunger that has dragged even the Moslem women from the seclusion of the harem; and they have cast away their veils and swaddling-clothes that they may glean a bare subsistence in the desert! [Illustration: Unveiled Mahometan Women at Jablanica.] Perhaps the absence of veils may be partly due to the influence of the surrounding population, which is mainly Christian. In any case it would probably be more accurate to say that the Mahometans of this district were incapacitated by their surroundings from ever taking the veil of Islâm, rather than that they threw it off after assuming it; and to look on their present costume rather as an old Bosnian relic which has survived their renegation of Christianity. But this does not make the assertion less true, that the inexorable code of Nature has here over-ridden the Koràn.