a mason or carpenter received five piastres or 10_d._ a day, while a
common labourer obtained 6_d._ Now the former finds no difficulty in
earning 2_s._ per diem, while the latter receives 1_s._ 4_d._ for short
days, and 1_s._ 6_d._ for long days. The shorthandedness consequent upon
the Christian rising, has of course contributed to this rise in wages;
but the province was at no time self-supporting in this respect. A large
number of _scutors_ or labourers from Dalmatia cross the frontier in the
spring, and hire themselves out during the summer months. The decrease
in the number of these was, I am told, very perceptible during the
Italian war, in consequence of the demand for recruits.

The other products of the country are wool, hides, skins, honey, and
wax, which are exported to Austria. Large numbers of sheep and horned
cattle are, moreover, annually exported to the Dalmatian markets.

The only manufactures of which I could find specimens were coarse
woollen blankets, twist, and carpets. The blankets and carpets are
mostly exported to Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Servia. Besides these, a kind
of cotton cloth is made in the houses by the women, from imported
cotton, and is applied solely to domestic uses, and is not regarded as
an article of commerce.

In considering the question of the trade of the Herzegovina, the
attention should be directed, not so much to what it actually is, as to
what it might be under the fostering care of an enlightened government.
And yet, it is not to the producing and consuming capabilities of the
province itself that its possible importance in a commercial point of
view is attributable, but rather to its position on the confines of the
East and West, and to the fact of its containing within its limits the
natural outlets for the trade of that portion of the Ottoman empire.