20S IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



The country, as opposed to the towns, of the 

 Herzegovina is almost unknown to the traveller. 

 Few but wandering sportsmen like myself know 

 the wild beauties of the Upper Narenta, or the 

 bare wind-swept plateaus fringing the old Ragusan 

 Republic. The "mere sportsman" (to quote an 

 epithet recently applied to myself) is, however, 

 sometimes an observer of other matters than his 

 game, and the attention of the most casual of the 

 tribe can here hardly have failed to have been 

 drawn to the oft-recurring memorials of a long- 

 forgotten, though by no means pre-historical, 

 people. 



As far as I know, the singular beings of whom 

 I am about to write have left but one class of 

 evidence of their being — their last resting-places. 

 The superficial observer, moreover, is very apt to 

 be thrown off the scent of their existence by the 

 fact that their burying-places have in many locali- 

 ties been adopted by either Turks or Christians, 

 so that we find their tombs mixed with the crosses 

 of the " orthodox," or with the turban-headed 



