e neighbouring houses to be pulled down. Nor was this
done before it was necessary, a fire having broken out a short time
before in its vicinity. On that occasion the inhabitants destroyed a few
houses, and imagined the fire to be extinguished. The wind rose, and it
broke out again, taking the direction of the magazine. Upon this, the
whole population took to the country, and the prisoners, who were
located close by, escaped in the general confusion. Had it not been
providentially extinguished, the _place of Mostar would have known it no
more_. The prison is a plain white house, which does not look at all as
if it had ever been the sort of place to have long defied the ingenuity
of a Jack Sheppard, or even an accomplished London house-breaker of our
own day.

The tower to which allusion has been made is built on the eastern side,
and immediately above the beautiful bridge which spans the Narenta, and
for which Mostar[K] has ever been famous. The Turks attribute its
erection to Suleyman the Magnificent, but it was probably built by the
Emperor Trajan or Adrian, since the very name of the town would imply
the existence of a bridge in very early days. The Turkish inscriptions,
which may be traced upon the abutments at the E. end of the bridge,
probably refer to some subsequent repairs. At any rate too much reliance
must not be placed in them, as the Turks have been frequently convicted
of removing Roman inscriptions and substituting Turkish ones in their
place. The beauty of the bridge itself is heightened by the glimpse to
be obtained of the mosques and minarets of Mostar, washed by the turbid
waters of the Narenta, and backed by the rugged hills which hem it in.
'It is of a single arch, 95 ft. 3 in. in span, and when the Narenta is
low, about 70 feet from the water, or, to the top of the parapet, 76
feet.'[L]

There is a second tower at the extremity of the bridge on the left bank,
which is said to be of more modern construction.

Mostar is not a fortified city, nor is it important in a strategical
point of view. The only traces of defensive works which exist are
portions of a crenellated wall of insignificant construction. This
accounts for the ease with which the Venetians were enabled to take
possession of and burn its suburbs by a sudden raid in 1717. 'The town
was built,' says Luccari, 'in 1440, by Radigost, Major-Domo of Stefano
Cosaccia;' but in asserting this, he overlooks the existence of the
Roman road to Tr