with a great number of Turks and Slavs, entered Bosnia." Stefan
Ostoja was now King of Bosnia, but he too seems to have been more
intent upon annexing Ragusa than in organizing defence against the
Turk. Nor can we stop to unravel the complicated series of quarrels
of one Slav prince with another, of their intrigues with Venice,
with Hungary, with Ragusa, each playing for his own hand, though the
Turks were now established as near as Uskub, and in 1415 invaded
Bosnia for the third time. Sigismund, King of Hungary, alone of the
neighbouring princes, realized the gravity of the situation and sent
an army against the Turks, only to find that the Herzegovina sided
with the Turks against him. As a result, we learn from the Ragusa
archives, "the whole of Bosnia is laid waste and the barons are
preparing to exterminate each other."

Venice meanwhile crept down the coast and occupied much of Dalmatia,
while the South Slavs fought each other.

Nationality is the craze of to-day. Religion, in the Middle Ages,
played a similar part. Catholic, Orthodox, and Bogumil, hated each
other more than they hated the less known Turk. Each was willing to
use him against the other.

People of the same race and language then fought each other because
they differed about religion. To-day, even holding the same
religious views, they fight in the sacred name of nationality. But
then, as now, there were a few people who recognized the folly of
the fashionable differences. At the Council of Basel in 1431 an
effort was made to induce the Balkan chiefs, Catholic, Orthodox and
even Bogumil, to send delegates to Basel with a view to ending
religious strife and opposing a united front to the Turk.

It was vain. The King of Bosnia, and Stefan, Despot of Serbia,
declared war on each other and fought for several years. And
Sandalj, Lord of the Herzegovina, sided with the Serbs and bought of
the Sultan the right to take Bosnia. They failed to do so, but their
efforts certainly helped the final destruction of Slav independence.

Sandalj's successor, Stefan Kosatch, assumed the title Duke of Sava
(whence "Herzegovina" the Duchy), became Bogumil and consequently
fought both the Orthodox of Serbia and the Catholics of Ragusa. And
ever the Turk advanced slowly and always found a Slav chief ready to
side with him against a neighbour. At Fotcha, in the Herzegovina, I
bought a bracelet of a silversmith, who related that his ancestor
was the man who had guided