Whatever were the favouring causes of this wide-spread renegation, its effect has been to afford us the unique phenomenon of Mahometan feudalism and the extraordinary spectacle of a race of Sclavonic Mahometans. This must be borne in mind at the present moment, for nothing is more liable to confuse the questions at issue than to look on the Mussulman inhabitants of Bosnia and the Herzegovina as _Turks_. Conventionally, perhaps, one is often obliged to do so, and I must plead guilty in this respect in the course of this work. But it should always be remembered that, with the exception of a handful of officials and a certain proportion of the soldiery, the Mahometan inhabitants of Bosnia and the Herzegovina are of the same race as their Christian neighbours, speak the same Serbian dialect, and can trace back their title-deeds as far. It is a favourite delusion to suppose that the case of Bosnia finds a parallel in that of Serbia; that here, too, an independent Christian principality could be formed with the same ease, and that the independence of Bosnia has but to be proclaimed for the Mussulman to take the hint and quit the soil, as he has already quitted the soil of Serbia. But, as I have said, the cases of the two provinces are altogether different; in Serbia the Mahometans were an infinitesimal minority of Osmanlì foreigners, encamped; in Bosnia, on the contrary, they are native Sclaves, rooted to the soil, and forming over a third of the population. Under whatever government Bosnia passes, it is safe to say that the Mahometans will still form a powerful minority, all the more important from having possession of the towns.