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112 BOSNIA BOSPORUS lead, iron, and mercury are worked. The chief manufactures are cutlery and firearms. Among the exports are staves, timber, agri- cultural products, wool, honey, and wax. The total value of imports is about $5,000,000, a great part of which consists of salt. Most of the merchandise comes from Constanti- nople and Sophia, to Bosna-Serai or Sera- yevo ; hut commerce is much impeded by bad roads, imposts, monopolies, and the sand banks and trunks of trees in the rivers, which render navigation almost impossible. The most im- portant towns are the capital, Bosna-Serai, Banialuka, Travnik, Mostar, Fotcha, and Novi- Bazar. Of importance in a military point of view are the fortresses Sienitza, Vishegrad, near the frontier of Servia, Nikshity, near the frontier of Montenegro, Bielina, and Trebinye, the last on the main road leading to Eagusa. The towns are generally divided into three Bosnians. parts: the fortress, the city proper, surround- ed by walls and having the gates closed at night, and the quarter occupied by the lower classes. Nearly the whole population belongs to the southern Slavs, who entered the coun- try in the 7th century and dislodged the Illy- Han race, which was probably identical with the Albanian. A remnant of the Albanian ele- ment, numbering about 30,000 souls, is found in the S. E. corner of the country. The pre- vailing language is a dialect of the Servian. The majority of the population are Christians, 431,- 000 belonging to the Orthodox Greek and 192,- 000 to the Roman Catholic church. There are about 5,000 Jews and 8,000 gypsies. The Mo- hammedans, 418,000 in number, are nearly all descendants of Slavs who embraced Islamism in order to preserve their estates, and include the wealthier part of the population, chiefly in the towns. A large portion of the commerce of the country is in their hands. They com- prise the beys, nobility, agas (land owners), and spahis, the descendants of the nobility whose ancestors were invested with fiefs at the time of the conquest. Their vassals pay them a tribute, and in war they form a cavalry of reserve. The Bosnians, especially the Chris- tians, are hospitable, pious, and brave, but iras- cible and vindictive. The head of the family has a patriarchal jurisdiction over it, and his wife or son's wife has sole management of the house. The people are generally but little instructed ; they have some knowledge of mechanics and of the elements of medicine, but scarcely any literature. There were formerly printing presses at Milesevo and Goradye, where church books in Slavic were printed as early as 1531. Bosnia anciently belonged partly to Lower Pannonia and partly to Illyricum. In the 7th century the country was invaded by the Slavs. In the 12th and 13th centuries it belonged to Hungary. In 1339 it passed into the hands of the Servian king Stephen, after whose death it formed an independent government till 1370, when one of the chieftains, Ban Tvartko, seized the reins of power as king of Bosnia. At the be- ginning of the 15th century Turkey asserted its claims upon the province, finally annexing it in 1528; since then, however, the native nobil- ity have frequently caused disturbances, espe- cially in 1850 and 1851. The legal contin- gent of Bosnia in the Turkish army is 80,000, but it actually consists of only about 30,000. In 1857-'8 an insurrection of the peasantry took place at Tuzla against the exactions of the tax gatherers and beys. After an encoun- ter with the troops they took refuge in Aus- trian territory, but returned upon a proclama- tion of amnesty. In 1861 another insurrection took place, and before it could be put down the war in Montenegro broke out, peace not being restored in Bosnia till after the suppression of the rebellion in the former country. A con- ference was held by the consuls of the Euro- pean powers, but without any salutary effects. In May, 1863, an Austrian and Ottoman mixed commission met at Livno to define the boun- daries between Bosnia and Dalmatia. During the administration of Osman Pasha, 1860-'68, Bosnia enjoyed peace and made considerable progress. A railway has been in course of construction since 1870 from Banialuka to the frontier near Novi, as the first section of the great line from the Austrian frontier to Con- stantinople. BOSPORUS (Gr. Watropoc, ox-ford). I. Called by the ancients the Thracian, and by the Turks Istambul Boghazi, the strait joining the Black sea and the sea of Marmora, between Euro- pean and Asiatic Turkey; so named either from the legend of lo, who after being meta- morphosed into a heifer passed over the chan- nel, or because the strait is so narrow that an ox can swim across. It is about 16 m. long ; its greatest width is about 2 m., and its narrowest part, near the middle, only a little