Plevlie. When he was taken before General Kukoli, he was asked to tell all that he knew about us. He said we were merely two Englishmen travelling for pleasure in those parts. The general then flew into a rage, said it was not true, and that he had been bribed by us to conceal the truth. They offered to let him go, if he would make a clean breast of the whole matter. He then, according to his own account, drew himself up to his full height, said he had nothing to divulge, as we were perfectly innocent, and asked them to examine our baggage and see for themselves; and if," he added, you find anything suspicious about them, then 'fusillez-moi le premier, moi le premier fusillez-vous.' I have given his exact words here, as they are a favorable example of his best French style. This apostrophe drove General Kukoli into a wild state of fury. Away with you to prison, since you will not confess!" was his exclamation; and Matthias was accordingly locked up for the night. The Austrians then went, we were told, to the Turkish Pasha, and asked him to arrest and search us. But the Pasha shrugged his shoulders and politely refused. Though they had been able to arrest Matthias, because he was an Austrian subject, they had no power over us, while we were in Turkish territory. But they knew that we could not move from Plevlie without our guide; and they now invented the brilliant device of luring us across the Austrian frontier, by dangling the guide in front of us as a bait. I do not think the stratagem was a very profound one. If we had really been intriguers, with inculpatory documents in our possession, we should hardly have been so simple-minded as not to get rid of them before crossing the Austrian frontier. However, whether the device was in itself good or bad, it was entirely unnecessary in our particular case.

To resume our story. Next morning about ten o'clock the captain came to see us, and first ordered the two soldiers, who had been keeping guard over us all night, to take away themselves and their fixed bayonets. The soldiers retired. He then informed us that he had received a message from Serajevo to say that it was all a mistake, due to false

information; and that we might now be set at liberty. At the same time he made many apologies for his own part in the affair, asking us to understand that he had simply been obeying his orders. We had quite a scene of reconciliation, and parted very good friends. We once more mounted our cart, and resumed our journey toward Serajevo. In the afternoon we stopped at a place called Gorazda. As we were having dinner there, the colonel who commanded the district-a benevolentlooking old man in spectacles, rather stout, and rather like a professor in appearance-came into the room, accompanied by three or four other officers, and walking up toward us, began to make the most profuse apologies for the events of the previous night. said he had come to apologize to us, in the name of the commander-general of Serajevo, for the annoyance we had been caused. It was all a mistake, and they were heartily sorry. We were now free to go wherever we liked to Mostar, Cattaro, Cettinje, anywhere. The old gentleman was so effusive, that we were quite overcome, and it nearly ended in a general embrace. We left Gorazda in the greatest good humor, and reached Serajevo, the capital of Bosnia, on the afternoon of Monday, the 11th of September.

Не

Serajevo, as you approach it, is a very picturesque town. It lies in a sort of hollow, surrounded by gently sloping hills. The outskirts of the town stretch for some distance up the sides of these hills, whch are covered with trees. As you approach from the south, a turn in the road suddenly brings the town before your view, lying some distance beneath you in the hollow. Innumerable minarets, of graceful shape, prick upward from the midst of the thick foliage upon the slopes, and produce a very pleasing effect. But when you enter the town itself, you find the usual squalor and neglect. The streets are narrow and badly paved, and the houses dirty and ruinous. Nor have the Austrians made much improvement in this respect. They have begun to erect a few large buildings, but the greater part of the town is left as they found it. Serajevo has decayed considerably in numbers and prosperity since the Austrian occu

pation. It used to be a very important trading centre; but the larger part of its trade was with Novi-Basar; and the Austrians have now completely put a stop to that trade, by the imposition of heavy duties upon the frontier. The loss of trade toward the south has not been compensated for by any addition to the trade northward. It cannot be said, then, that the people of Serajevo have any special reason for blessing the Austrians.

Soon after we had taken up our quarters in the one German inn which the place boasts of, a message came from the director of police to say that he wished to see us at his office. The director of police is one of the chief officials of Bosnia, and superintends the police arrangements of the whole country. The present director is a young man from the diplomatic service, called Oliva. Most of the police officials in Bosnia are young members of the diplomatic service, it being a special hobby of Count Callay, himself a diplomatist, to appoint to these posts men whom he knows, and who have been brought up in the same atmosphere as himself. When we were introduced into the presence of Herr Oliva, we naturally looked at him with some curiosity, as the author of all our trouble, from whom had come all the telegrams which had caused us so much annoyance. He was a tall, thin, very youthful-looking person, with dark hair, and a sallow complexion; and when he tried to be polite, he broke out into a forced, unpleasant smile, which did not sit easily upon his features. I will give in full the conversation which now took place, as it throws great light upon his method of dealing with strangers.

When do you intend to leave Serajevo?" he asked.

"We thought of going to-morrow morning," we replied.

"And what route do you intend to take ?''

"We intend to go down the valley of the Narenta, through Mostar, and so round by the Adriatic to Spalato."

"Indeed! I would not advise you to go that way. It is very dreary and uninteresting.

66

The fact is, gentlemen, that I cannot sign your passports except for Brod. When the country is more settled, you will be allowed to travel in it as much as you like. But in the present state of affairs I must ask you to proceed straight to Brod."

This put an end to the conversation. We had our passports signed and returned to our inn. One can trace his diplomatic education in the manner of his behaviour toward us. He first tried, by means of what were (to put it mildly) two very gross misstatements, to induce us to give up the route to Mostar of our own freewill. Of course this would have been much more satisfactory to him. He would have got his object without the employment of force. It was only when he found that we were not to be taken in, that he came out in his true colors, and let us know that we had no choice in the matter, and that it had been decided from the first to send us to Brod. I may remark that the commissioner of police at Plevlie had praised the beauty of the Mostar route, as a means of inducing us to enter Austrian Bosnia; and that at Gorazda the colonel had told us in the name of the commander-general of Serajevo, that we were free to go wherever we liked. But all this counted for nothing with Herr Oliva.

We now paid a visit to Mr. Freeman, the English consul at Serajevo. He was the first Englishman we had seen for several weeks. We told him what had happened, and that we did not wish to go to Brod; and he said he would do what he could for us. Next morning he paid a visit to the director of police, and tried to induce him to relent; but without success. He asked what charge they had against us. The director replied that our entourage was suspicious, and this was all he would say. entourage could only have meant Matthias, our servant. Mr. Freeman explained that we had no further need of a guide, and if Matthias was a bad character, we were quite ready to part with

Our

him, and travel by ourselves to Spalato. The director was now driven into a corner, and could only reply: The fact is, we don't want any strangers just now in Bosnia.' Mr. Freeman then went to call upon Count Callay, who at this time happened to be staying in Bosnia; but Callay was ill with a fever, and could not be seen. However, he saw Baron Nicolics, the civil governor of Bosnia, and got him to promise to do his best to induce the Count to annul the decision of the director of police. In the afternoon as we were sitting talking with the consul in his house, a letter came from the Baron, of which the following is a word-for-word translation. "Dear sir-I regret infinitely that I am not able to be agreeable, but the decision of the director of police must be maintained. - Yours, etc., Nicolics."

This extremely disagreeable note settled the matter. We started next morning for Brod. The most irritating part of the affair is that there was absolutely no reason at all for sending us to Brod, in preference to Mostar; and it can only have been done to cause us annoyance. Along the whole of the route our steps were dogged and our movements watched by inquisitive gen-. darmes; and it was with a feeling of considerable pleasure that we at length crossed the Save at Brod, and left Bosnia and its suspicious officials behind us. I should add that our servant Matthias, who had been declared to be such an extremely bad character that his mere presence in our company made us seem suspicious characters also, was allowed to return quietly to his home at Belgrade. As soon as they had disposed of us, they never thought anything more about him.-Blackwood's Magazine.

NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXVII., No. 4

30

Cornhill Magazine.

If an author's special faculties cut their image most sharply on his political estimates and social speculations, his nature as a whole finds its largest expression in his religion. Even if it be merely an undisturbed tradition, the fact that this suffices for him is far from insignificant. And if it be self-formed, whether spontaneously given or deliberately thought out, it not only carries in it all the traits of the personality, but presents them in magnified scale and true proportion. Hence Mr. Greg's "Creed of Christendom," quite apart from its merits as a theological treatise, possesses a high biographical interest; for it is a transparently sincere book, and lays bare the interior dealings of an eminently veracious, exact, and reverent mind with the supreme problems of human belief. In order to give it its

*"The Creed of Christendom." By the late W. R. Greg.

true value as a chapter in his history, it should be taken into view not as an isolated product, but in connection with the earlier state of mind from which it recedes, and the later which speaks in the Preface to the third edition (1873). This Preface-perhaps the finest of his essays-contains his last word of doubt and faith, and probably marks the resting-place of his mind in its best vigor ; for, though we have since heard from him both brighter and sadder things, they seemed to be, the one the sunshine of a passing mood, the other the expression of a growing languor and weariness of life.

The education and habits of a refined and devout Unitarian family gave him the theory of life from which his independent thought set out. Outside observers, both sceptical and mystical, have always upbraided that theory as a weak attempt to blend incompatible elements and settle the contradictions of