’Their tyrants then
    Were still at least their countrymen,’

and that the iniquities perpetrated by the renegade Beys cannot be with justice laid to the charge of their Osmanli conquerors.  It would, indeed, be strange had four hundred years of tyranny passed over this miserable land, without leaving a blight upon its children which no time will ever suffice to efface.

As years wore on, other and more important conquests absorbed the attention of the Mussulman rulers, and the rich pasture-lands of Bosnia, and the sterile rocks of Herzegovina, were alike left the undisputed property of the apostate natives of the soil.  Thence arose a system of feudal bondage, to a certain extent akin to that recently existing in Russia, but unequalled in the annals of the world for the spirit of intolerance with which it was carried out.  Countless are the tales of cruelty and savage wrong with which the old manuscripts of the country abound, and these are the more revolting, as perpetrated upon those of kindred origin, religion, and descent.  The spirit of independence engendered by this system of feudality and unresisted oppression could only lead to one result—­viz. the increase of local at the expense of the central authority.  The increasing debility of the paternal government tended to strengthen the power of the provincial Magnates; and the Beys, the Spahis, and the Timariots, stars of lesser magnitude in their way, could not but be expected to adhere to the cause of the all-powerful Kapetans rather than to the transient power of a Vizier appointed by the Porte.

This last-named official, whose appointment was then, as now, acquired by successful intrigue or undisguised bribery, was never certain of long tenure of office, and invariably endeavoured by all the means in his power to remunerate himself while the opportunity should last.

The disregard entertained for life in those times, and the indifference manifested by the Ottoman government for this portion of the empire, often rendered it the safer policy for the Vizier to make common cause with the recusant Kapetans, who were too powerful to be subdued by force, and too wily to be entrapped by treachery or fraud.

But another and more self-subsistent power had taken deep root throughout the Ottoman dominions, and nowhere more than in those provinces which lie between the Save and the Adriatic.  ‘In Egypt,’ says Ranke, ’there was the power of the Mameluke Beys revived immediately after the departure of the French; there was the protectorate of the Dere Beys in Asia Minor; the hereditary authority of the Albanian chieftains, the dignity of the Ayans in the principal towns, besides many other immunities—­all of which seemed to find a bond of union and a centre in the powerful order of the Janissaries.’  Of all the provinces of the empire Bosnia was perhaps the most deeply imbued with the spirit of this faction, the last memento of that ancient chivalry which had carried fire and sword over a great part of civilised Europe.