If this book should do anything to interest Englishmen in a land and people among the most interesting in Europe, and to open people’s eyes to the evils of the government under which the Bosniacs suffer, its object will have been fully attained. Those who may be inclined to ‘try Bosnia’ will meet with many hardships. They must be prepared to sleep out in the open air, in the forest, or on the mountain-side. They will have now and then to put up with indifferent food, or supply their own commissariat. They will nowhere meet with mountains so fine as the Alps of Switzerland or Tyrol, and they will be disappointed if they search for æsthetic embellishments in the towns. But those who are curious as to some of the most absorbing political problems of modern Europe; those who delight in out-of-the-way revelations of antiquity, and who perceive the high historic and ethnologic interest which attaches to the Southern Sclaves; and lastly, those who take pleasure in picturesque costumes and stupendous forest scenery; will be amply rewarded by a visit to Bosnia. There is much beautiful mountain scenery as well, and the member of the Alpine Club who has a taste for the jagged outlines of the Dolomites and the Julian Alps, in spite of a certain amount of attendant limestone nakedness, may find some peaks worthy of his attention towards the Montenegrine frontier. It would not be difficult to mention routes of greater natural attractions than that we followed, and I may observe that the falls of the Pliva, which we did not see, have been reckoned among the most beautiful waterfalls in Europe. The first two chapters, written mostly while delayed in Croatia, refer rather to the borderland of Bosnia, and may not be of general interest, dealing much in costumes and antiquities. The last, which describes the old Republic of Ragusa, may serve to show that the Southern Sclaves are capable of the highest culture and civilisation. In the Historical Review of Bosnia I have attempted to elucidate and emphasise a most important aspect of Bosnian history—the connection, namely, between that till lately almost unknown land, and the Protestant Reformation of Europe, and the debt which even civilised England owes to that now unhappy country. CONTENTS. PAGE HISTORICAL REVIEW OF BOSNIA xxiii CHAPTER I. AGRAM AND THE CROATS.