The city of Mostar is one of the most picturesque I have ever seen.  At that time its dirt, decay, and generally unkempt appearance added to the picturesqueness, but not to the comfort.  We got shelter at a khan, whose owner hardly knew if he dared admit a Christian guest; but the authority of the English consul, Mr. Holmes, reassured him, and we were admitted to the society of more fleas than I had considered possible at that time of the year.  I had, however, provided myself with an ample supply of the Dalmatian product known as “flea powder,” the triturated leaves of the red camomile which grows in great perfection all over the mountains of Dalmatia and Montenegro, as if nature had foreseen that it would be especially needed there, and I slept in comparative immunity, though my prior experiences in hostelry had never given me an adequate understanding of the khan filth and discomfort.

I found that the consuls had all been fully informed of the general state of the country and the treachery exercised by the Turkish commanders, and Holmes told me that he had reported to the ambassador at Constantinople what he had learned, and that his report had been sent back with orders to make it less unfavorable to the Turks.  Holmes (later Sir William Holmes, the distinction being well deserved for the courage and honesty with which, though strongly Turcophile in his tendencies, he exposed the abuses) said to me, relating this fact, “What can I do?  I tell him what I know to be the facts as I have learned them, and he wants me to change them to make the report more favorable to the Turks!” I put his case before the public in the “Times,” and the honest fellow reaped the reward he deserved, though against the will of his ambassador.

Here I met again an old Cretan friend, Server Pasha, sent to try the same silly, futile tactics which so failed in Crete, i.e. offering the insurgents elaborate paper reforms in exchange for actual submission.  He reminded me of the reply of the local commandant of the army at Mostar when one of the consuls remonstrated at the authorities having taken no action in a case of peculiarly brutal assassination in the city of Mostar, the author of which had not even been arrested.  The Colonel Bey replied, astonished, to the indignant consul, “Why, haven’t we made a report?” The case was rather a peculiar one:  a young Mussulman, having received a present of a new rifle, went out into the suburbs, and, seeing a Christian boy gathering the grapes from his mother’s vineyard, took a pot shot at him and shot him through the body.  The young assassin was carried in triumph about the town on the shoulders of his playmates, and was never in any way punished for the crime.  I had the story from the surgeon who attended the Christian boy, and from Mr. Holmes.  I took a keen delight in illuminating the intelligent mind of Server Pasha as to the true condition of the country, telling him what I had seen and reported to the “Times;”