your flock on
"vakuf" land. The Christian loses his privilege and has to serve in
the army which he hates. He cannot run to a foreign consul for
support against his Moslem neighbour, nor earn good pay by acting as
spy for one Power or another. He complained bitterly that the
Turkish Government never made roads or mended bridges, When he
finds, however, that the new foreign government expects him to
contribute to their making by giving labour, or paying tax, he is
furious. "Liberty" for most Balkan Christians means liberty to
massacre Moslems and take their property. The Bosnian Orthodox
peasant found precisely the same law applied to him and the Moslems.
The strict impartiality observed by the Austrian Government towards
all three sects caused the wrath of all. "What," said a Catholic
fiercely, "can you think of our Government when I tell you that a
priest baptized and converted three Moslem lads, and the Government
actually made him send them back to their parents and censured him
because they were not of age? Not of age, if you please, and so
their souls are not to be saved!"

The Moslem was equally furious with the equality treatment, for he
was no longer top-dog.

The most remarkable work of the Austrian Government gave perhaps the
most offence. It was the medical. The Bosniak, in appearance, is
often a giant. But his appearance is deceptive. Stripped of his
numerous waistcoats his chest measurement, as the military doctors
informed me, is so poor that a larger percentage of Bosniaks were
rejected from the army than in most of the other recruiting
districts of Austria-Hungary. As in all South Slav lands,
tuberculosis raged. "Thirty per cent, affected, without counting an
apex" as a Bosnian doctor told me. And scattered over the country,
but especially virulent on the eastern districts along the Serbian
frontier, was syphilis. In some parts this was so rampant that the
Government posted on the village walls and in the schools, notices
warning persons never to drink from a glass after some one else, or
wipe with the same towel, and other advice. All of which went
against the custom of the people. Against tuberculosis the schools
waged an anti-spitting war. A child who spat on the floor had to
clean it up, which was considered a great indignity and gave great
offence. Compulsory cleaning of streets to a population who regarded
the street as the proper receptacle for all garbage was a further
source of trouble. That