Herzegovina eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 227 pages of information about Herzegovina.

Herzegovina eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 227 pages of information about Herzegovina.

The night which followed our arrival at Bieliki was, I think, the most sleepless I have ever experienced.  So thoroughly tired was I, that the deafening crashes of thunder, the forked lightning, and the deluge of rain, which poured in torrents through the tent, might have passed unheeded, but for the mass of minute life, which defied sleep.  With early dawn I wandered off, too glad to escape from my tormentors, and went through the hospitals, surgery, and other buildings connected with the permanent encampment.  The irregular lines of tents gave a picturesque appearance to the camp, which was heightened by the configuration of the surrounding hills.  Far off to the SE. rise the rugged mountains of Montenegro, at the foot of which lies the plain of Grahovo, a spot fraught with disastrous reminiscences to the Turks.  Important as that affair was, since Grahovo was ceded to the Montenegrins in consequence, its details have been grossly exaggerated.  It is currently accepted that 7,000 Turks were cut to pieces by 4,500 mountaineers, the real truth being that the latter were probably nearly as numerous as their opponents.  The Turkish force consisted of two entire battalions and a portion of a third, and, from the impracticable nature of the country, it would have been strange had the result been otherwise than it was.  Hemmed in and mowed down from all sides by an unseen foe, the Turkish soldiers lost all self-reliance, it is true, and the panic which ensued must have tended considerably to increase the magnitude of their loss.  In justice to Hussein Pacha, the Turkish General, it should be known that the operations which placed his army in this false position were not of his planning, but were carried out in deference to the wishes of the Civil Governor, and against his advice.  From the above remarks I would not have it supposed that I am desirous of detracting from the well-merited praise to which the Montenegrins are entitled for their long and successful resistance to the Turkish arms.  Their gloriously stalwart frames, and their independent spirit, both of which they inherit with their mountain air, entitle them to admiration and esteem; but an undue appreciation of these should not be allowed to warp the judgement or prejudice the mind.  Some there are who invest them with almost supernaturally noble qualities, while they attribute every conceivable enormity to their enemies the Turks.  Each of these views is incorrect.  The Osmanlis, whether it be from a consciousness of their own decrepitude, or some other cause, appear to have lost the spirit of cruelty which characterised their more successful days; and it is a matter of fact that the atrocities committed by their Christian antagonists in the Greek War of Independence, during the incursion of the Hellenic bands into Thessaly and Epirus in 1854, or in the present emeute, equal, if they do not surpass, anything which they can lay to the charge of the Turks.  Travellers are apt to form their opinions upon the evidence of their own senses; and when such is the case, their verdict cannot fail to be favourable to the Moslems:  for things seen with one’s own eyes will always make a deeper and more lasting impression than the most harrowing details, the scene of which is laid in times gone by.

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Herzegovina from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.