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CHISWICK PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT,

CHANCERY LANE.

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F the numerous maps which the events of the past year and a half have called out, unfortunately,

there is not one which, in the region particularly involved by the operations of the insurrection in Herzegovina, is trustworthy in its details. The best is that of the Austrian Staff; but even this, in the mountain region about Baniani, &c., is extremely inaccurate. That of Kiepert is in general clear and correct, but apparently has not been founded on actual survey in any of the sections bordering on Montenegro. The only entirely accurate one of this section is that made for the Montenegrin Government, but never published. For a general notion of the relations of Dalmatia and Montenegro to Herzegovina-the exposition of which has been one of the principal objects of my book-any of the maps will suffice, and the military strategy hardly requires explanation.

The question of pronunciation of Slav names is one which seems to create a confusion I cannot flatter myself I shall be able to clear up. For the final syllable of all patronymic, &c., names, ordinarily written as ich or itch, the latter method, clumsy though it seems, is the only one which leaves no doubt as to the approximate sound; but, as this combination represents three recognized sounds in the Serb language, we

C

can only approximate. In the Croatian these three are represented by the letter c with accents. This simple expedient is forbidden by our scholastic traditions; and in my spelling I have had recourse to a form which is as capable as the ich of being mispronounced-viz., ics; but the soft sound of ch qualified by s will give the nearest approach to the sound I can contrive. The triple, represented in the Cyrilian alphabet by three letters, is incommunicable by English signs. The nearest idea I can give is as cs, as above, jh, and ch as in rich. The name of the town which I have written Niksics has thus been printed:-Nicksitch, Nichsitch, Nicsich, Niksic, Nichsic, Nichsich, and Niksics. The "Illyrian" is Niksić. The final consonant is always soft,

whatever may be the spelling.

INTRODUCTORY.

HE principal purpose of publishing this fragment of history is to place in clearer light certain motives and causes for the Herzegovinian insurrection which are not generally accepted by, or were not visible to, the general public, and which were hardly to be given in journalistic narrative while events were in progress, either because learned subsequently, or because they became known to me rather from regard for a certain reputation acquired in years gone by, during an insurrection in Crete, of being a sympathizer and active friend of the Rayahs, than because I was correspondent of an English journal; and in some cases were only open to me on the understanding that they were not to be alluded to in correspondence.

Having been in 1866-8 thoroughly conversant with the Turkish manner of making war under similar circumstances, and personally acquainted with many Turkish functionaries, civil and military, I had, naturally, formed very decided opinions as to the merits of that struggle between humanity and the desire for progress on one side and barbarism and an intolerable oppression on the other, which is the element of uncertainty in what is known as the Eastern question. If the

B

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