Vol. XXIII, No. 12 WASHINGTON 



December, 1912 



CD 



MATHOHAL 

 ©(SJ^AIPIHin© 

 MBAZE 



/rnl 



D 



EAST OF THE ADRIATIC 



Notes on Dalmatia, Montenegro, Bosnia, and Herzegovina 



By Kenneth McKenzie, of Yale University 



EVERY day steamers leave Trieste 

 and Fiume for the ports on the 

 eastern shore of the Adriatic. 

 The express steamers stop at only four 

 or five of the chief Dalmatian towns, 

 and make the journey to Cattaro in 

 about twenty-four hours. Other steam- 

 ers touch at many more places, tie up at 

 night, and take three or four days to go 

 the same distance. O'-her steamers, 

 again, go on to Albania and Greece or 

 across to Italy. 



There is probably no region so easily 

 accessible from the beaten track of Euro- 

 pean travel which offers so much attrac- 

 tion in the way of picturesque old-time 

 life, quaint towns, interesting and beauti- 

 ful national costumes, and extraordinary 

 scenery as Montenegro and the Adriatic 

 provinces of Austria. 



Recent events in Turkey have so ab- 

 sorbed attention that they have crowded 

 out of mind a change in the map of Eu- 

 rope which in the latter part of 1908 

 almost precipitated a war — namely, the 

 formal and definite annexation by Aus- 

 tria of the Turkish provinces Bosnia 

 and Herzegovina. To be sure, the 

 change was rather in name than in fact ; 

 Austria had occupied and administered 

 the provinces, as England has admin- 

 istered Egypt, for thirty years, and it 

 was scarcely conceivable that Turkey 

 would ever regain control of them. Be- 

 fore the Congress of Berlin, in 1878, the 

 provinces had been in a constant condi- 

 tion of turmoil and lawlessness, and 



hence the powers consented to the mili- 

 tary occupation by Austria. In conse- 

 quence, roads and railways were built, 

 commerce and agriculture developed, 

 and the region became, like Dalmatia, as 

 safe for resident and traveler as any part 

 of Europe. 



Some writers maintain that the in- 

 fluence of Austria, outwardly beneficial, 

 has in reality been harmful to Bosnia; 

 however that may be, Austria is now 

 in secure possession not only of the 

 narrow strip of coastland called Dal- 

 matia, a remnant of her Italian his- 

 tory, but of the inland region between 

 Croatia, Hungary, Servia, Montenegro, 

 and Dalmatia. 



It remains to be seen whether this 

 political change will make Bosnia and 

 Herzegovina less picturesque and attract- 

 ive from the traveler's point of view. 

 Probably the large proportion of Mo- 

 hammedans among the inhabitants will 

 prevent any rapid assimilation to the 

 commonplaceness of more frequented 

 resorts. 



The Bosnian Mohammedans call them- 

 selves Turks, but in reality they are of 

 Slavic race and language, like the 

 other inhabitants. Various Christian 

 churches — Roman, Russian, Servian — ■ 

 are represented in Bosnia, and a prac- 

 ticed eye can tell the religion of a man 

 or a woman by slight variations in cos- 

 tume. The Mohammedan women usually 

 go veiled ; in Herzegovina they wear a 

 heavy cape, with a projection in front of 



