1936 On the Continent

background to an even more fascinating life.
    Yet for all that Bosnia is relatively unfrequented by tourists. Only now are people beginning to discover the beauties of this unknown land. The chief reason is that hotel accommodation is not of a standard to satisfy Western fastidiousness. Indeed, only Sarajevo, Mostar, Banja Luka, Jajce and the spa of Ilidža have hotels in accordance with Western requirements. The charges are naturally somewhat lower than in Dalmatia and Slovenia, the reduction amounting to about 10 to 20 per cent., and the cost of living in general bears about the same relation. The railways, winding through the mountain gorges, are all narrow gauge, and cannot therefore offer the comfort of a normal line.
    All this suggests one definite route to the Western traveller, unless he does not mind “roughing it.” The first part of this route rises straight from Dubrovnik in picturesque serpentines, either by rail or road, above the deep green of the Ombla, to the Neretva gorge. It is of this river that the Jugoslav poet Hamza Humo said: “If the Neretva were turned into stone, its green stone shot with gold would be fit to serve for the gates of paradise.”
    At the end of the gorge, which passes through some of the most primitive parts of the country, where Moslems observe ancient Christian customs, and where there are people who live and die without leaving their homes, rises
Mostar
(Hotel Neretva). Framed in hills, with its white mosques rising above stone houses surrounded by firs and olives, Mostar has the beauty of the scene of an exotic film. Its glory is its old bridge spanning in a single picturesque grey stone arch the whole river, which flows fast, green, cool and foaming against the sun-bleached rock. The bridge has a special magic on a moonlit night when there is a silvery shimmer above the swirling waters. Mostar is famous for its fish, which should be ordered grilled on a spit.
The Moslems
    No less interesting is the weird dress of the Moslem women, invented by the jealous Mostarites to conceal the allure of their womenfolk. It is made of stiff black felt, with sleeves made not for use, but to be sown together atthe back, and a stiff cowl. These Ku-Klux-Klan garments easily succeed not only in completely concealing the beauty, but also in obliterating even the faintest suspicion of shapeliness in the female who is unfortunate enough to have been born a Mostarite Moslem.
    As trains on this part of the route have no restaurant cars, it is advisable to give notice to the guard, who will book you a meal at a price of 10 or 12 dinars at Konjic Station, half-way between Dubrovnik and Mostar, where the train stops for fifteen to twenty minutes.
    With Mostar we leave Herzegovina and its warm southern climate, its tobacco fields and its quaint, rickety watermills, and enter the greater freshness of Bosnia over the Ivan range.
Serajevo
(Hotel Europa, Hotel Central), the capital of Bosnia, should really be approached from the east, from the mountains, for it is there that, suddenly breaking through the hills with shimmering roofs above the agged silhouette of its bridges, green waters and innumerable white mosques, that its full magic is revealed.
    But from whichever side you approach Serajevo, you cannot help succumbing to the fascination of this city, for it is indeed unique in its Eastern and Western contrasts. Cafés with blaring radios, quiet mosques with fountains and cypresses where the plaintive chant of the muezzin invokes the faithful to prayer, noisy motor-cars, strings of donkeys, wooden tumbrils clattering over cobbled streets, dignified, white-bearded, ancient Moslems who seem to embody the dreamy East, and young beauties in the latest Western fashions with veils that are the more provocative because they hide nothing—all live here together, blending in a curious shrill harmony of their own.
Serajevo
    Serajevo has a very interesting ethnographic museum, in which are gathered all the national costumes of the country; a carpet factory where all kinds of Bosnian and Eastern carpets are woven with great deftness; and many fine buildings, of which the town hall, built in the Moorish style, is specially striking. Famous is the bridge on which Gavrilo Princip fired at Francis Ferdinand the shots which served as the signal, though not as the cause, for the World War. Then there is the little Serbian orthodox church with a quaint wooden gallery and the weird atmosphereof bygone centuries.