Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/395

Rh From The London Quarterly Review.

Herzegovina the harvest of 1874 was a bad one, and the peasantry foresaw a hard winter before them. The tax-collectors, agents of the officials who farm the taxes, require the agriculturists to keep the crops standing until it suits their convenience to come and levy the tithe due to the sultan, estimating the crops as standing damaged there to be worth the highest Constantinople market-prices. But in one district the tax-gatherer did not come till January, 1875, when hunger had compelled the sale and the eating of parts of the crops. The tax-gatherer estimated the tax at an enormous sum; the people resisted his demands; they were robbed, beaten, imprisoned, and their chiefs threatened with arrest when they complained. Some fled to the mountains of the neighbouring independent state of Montenegro, secure to find shelter among people of the same faith and race. They found the leading Montenegrins at the capital, Cettinje, consulting how to act with reference to a Turkish infraction of boundary rights, and were welcomed as fellow-sufferers. During their absence another district of Herzegovina was roused to discontent and resistance by the arbitrary conduct of the police and by the way in which forced labour was imposed by them. The district authorities reported to their superior, and gendarmes were sent to compel submission. Other neighbouring districts were quiet; but the clergy of some Roman Catholic districts, whose ancient privileges had never been confirmed by the present sultan, stirred their flocks to support the dignity of their religion against threatened inroads on the part of the local authorities.

Just then the emperor of Austria visited his province of Dalmatia, which is peopled by Slavs, the near kinsmen of the Herzegovinians, and borders on Herzegovina to the south-west. His visit had a political significance in the eyes of the simple peasantry, who hoped that he had come to see how best to help them against their oppressors. He probably had no such aim, but his visit encouraged them nevertheless.

The gendarmes arrived in rebellious Nevesinje at the end of April; the Christians fled to the mountains, their chiefs to Montenegro. The gendarmes went on to Bilec; but here the peasantry offered only a passive resistance to their entering the villages, and refused to appear before the local authority. The flame broke out here on a Christian woman suffering insult at the hands of a gendarme. A pasha, Vali Selim, had already been despatched by the governor of Bosnia to inquire into the result of the emperor of Austria’s visit to Dalmatia, and was instructed to give the discontented population the alternative of returning submissively to their homes or of emigrating to Montenegro. They refused to deal with any but an envoy direct from the sultan; being not rebellious against his authority, but compelled to defend themselves, their families, and their property, from his Mussulman officials of the same race as themselves.

It was as yet two small districts only that were involved; few were even interested in their affairs. But the refugee chieftains were inconvenient to Montenegro, and safe-conducts were procured by Prince Nicholas for their return. The Turkish frontier-guards attacked them in spite of their passports, and a second application was necessary to get them across the border. On their return home they were left comparatively unmolested, merely having some of their houses burned, one being assaulted in the bazaar, another killed as he left the court in which he had complained of the assault, another being murdered in his field, and an innkeeper who had entertained them paying for his hospitality with his life. The authorities made no sign of any intention to punish these outrages, but still there was no general outbreak. Isolated attacks were made on single Turks, and the matter became grave enough to attract the attention of the Porte. Accordingly the