The minarets of Mostar now rose before us, the city lying on the Narenta at a point where the mountains on each side again jut forward and overhang the river. To the south of this the valley expands once more, so that Mostar owes much of its importance to the fact that it is the key to the communication between the upper and lower valleys of the Narenta; or, to take a simile from the insect world, this city lies on the narrow duct—the wasp’s waist—between the thorax and abdomen of the river-system. We now made our way to the chief inn, quite an imposing stone edifice, rejoicing in the title of the Casino, and kept by an Italian Dalmatian on what he is pleased to suppose European principles. Our room, at all events, possessed the first beds[287] that we had seen since we quitted Serajevo, and is further adorned with a picture of the _Imperatore e Rè_. Here we were presently visited by our Consul, Mr. Holmes, who is lodging under the same roof, but had been out when we arrived, engaged in relieving the tedium of diplomacy by practising a still more gentle craft on the banks of the Narenta, which is a fine trout-stream. From Mr. Holmes we learnt the official Turkish account of the Herzegovinian insurrection—or rather the official account as served up to suit _English_ palates; for, as was discovered by the consular body on afterwards comparing notes, the wily Governor-General gave a different version of the story to each of the European Consuls! According to _our_ version the whole affair was concocted by about forty agitators, and these not even Herzegovinians for the most part, but Montenegrines and Dalmatians. Certainly, even the Vali allowed, the tax-farming was a grievance—and who more laudably desirous of removing it than he (the Pashà) himself?—but that, so far as the present rising was concerned, it had not even this ground of justification. That the misguided beings who answered to the summons of the professional agitators were what are called Pandours, somewhat corresponding to the Austrian _Grenzers_, who, in return for frontier defence, are freed from ordinary taxes, and who, so far from being ruined by the tax-farmers, are actually in receipt of a small sum annually from the Government. Well, yes, there certainly have been some complaints of misgovernment, and the Pashà, always desirous that the meanest of his (the Sultan’s) subjects should share in the fullest measure the beneficence of his lieutenant’s rule, had sent two Commissioners, the Mutasarìf of Mostar and a respectable _Christian_ of Serajevo, Constant Effendi, to inquire into the alleged grievances. But what did these Commissioners report? Just complaints they could hear absolutely none. Thread-bare grievances, often as much as ten years old, were raked up for their benefit, and even these were retailed, not by the alleged victims or their families, but by self-constituted grief-mongers! True, it might be objected that if