THE HEROINE OF HERZEGOVINA.

Evening Star, Issue 4291, 27 November 1876, Page 1

THE HEROINE OF HERZEGOVINA.

Miss Marcus, who has r been surnamedthe Joan of Arc of Herzegovina, is a Dutch woman, but of French origin. She belongs to an excellent family, and one of her brothers is an admiral in the Duteh serviee. Of about thirty years of age, and of somewhat diminutive stature, she has' adopted the masculine attire, which has ended by taking from her gait and gestures a great portion of the feminine graces. She wears her black hair cut Bhort; her forehead is high, and her of a light blue, sparkle with malice. She is pale complexioned, with a most charming sweetness of smile. She cannot be said to be pretty, but seems to you some strange apparition when you see her scale on horseback the goat-traoks of the mountain with her hand resting on the stock of her revolver. In a moral point of view, Miss Marcus is a kind of illummata. Her first idea was to erect at Jerusalem a Protestant temple over againßt the tomb, of Christ. The temple exists, and is main* tained at her expense ; it has cost her about 360,000f. Althoughflshe has in her adventures . scattt red abroad a great part of her fortune, she has still left 1,800,000f. Her ideas of liberalism, her theories of independence, have brought her gradually and almost insensibly to the limits of insanity. Although placed under legal interdiction at the request of her family, she does not the less continue her pranks, now in one insurrection, now in another. It has even been said, though I am unable to verify the fact, that shehad a handin the affairs of our Commune. She spends her life in. seeking adventures in whatever country "war may be going on, and making these adventures agreeablo to herself, at least so it is said, by all sorts of amorous freaks, somewhat in contradiction with the name that has been given her. At one time she was in dlose intimacy with Liubibratitch, one of the chiefs of the Herzegovinian insurrection; at the f)resent moment she pretends to be madly in ove with the Servian Minister of War. Extravagant as all such persona ire, she is at certain times capable of the strongest energy. Last winter, in Herzegovina, it was proposed to blow up, by means of dynamite, a Turkish fortress situated between Kajula and Trebinje. When they arrived before the fortress in the night, there was a moment's hesitation among the men charged with the dynamite, and when the time came to go and place it beneath the fire of the fortress, they refuged. Miss Marcus was present. Snatching uptime cartridges of dynamite she against her boßom, exclaiming, " Y©lj are all cowards j since not ona «£ you dares to do it I will show yoti the way," and she bounded forward. Two or three men stopped her half way; and, constraining her to put down her burden, took upon themselves the perilous " duty. Misß Marcus, pale, and quivering with anger, let them go on without savinc a word, *^*