IMPRESSIONS OF DALMATIA By Ernest C. Peixotto ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR Na crisp evening early in October our two gondoliers rowed us out over the Giudecca Canal toward a steamer lying off the Dogana. The sun was just setting in a bank of purple clouds. Long mares'-tails -signs of wind-streaked fiery and golden across patches of amber sky and mirrored their hot tints in the water. A stiff breeze whipped a froth from the choppy sea and the waves merrily lapped our gondola's prow as the men bent low on their oars against the incoming tide. A little knot of boats huddled about the steamer's side, occupants and gondoliers shouting themselves hoarse in their efforts to get aboard; an extra pull or two, a lunge of the long, black boat, and our poppe caught a rope and we scrambled up the ladder. lay white and graceful as a swan upon the water, her masts rakishly atilt, her promenade deck polished like an inlaid floor, her appointments so luxurious that, had it not been for the fellow-passengers about usAustrians, for the most part-we might have fancied ourselves on a private yacht. As we hung over the rail, the dying glow of the sunset made way for the twinkling stars. For the last time we listened to the singers in the barca below us wafting up the well-known strains of "La Bella Venezia" and "Ah, Maria, Marì." The Doge's palace gleamed like a pale opal, the foliated pinnacles of San Marco, canopied and peopled with saints, pierced the sapphire skythe very stars were dimmed by the magic of that wondrous square. The strains of the Piazzetta band floated in agitated cadences across the water, where flickered tiny lights, like fire-flies-lanterns of uneasy gondolas. Copyright, 1906, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved. The craft on which we found ourselves VOL. XL.-I Vestibule of the Rector's Palace, Ragusa. Three deep blasts of the whistle, a creaking of the anchor chains, and the regular thud of the propeller tells us we are off for Fiume. The Salute's dome fades into the night, the bright lights of the Piazza burst into view, then veil themselves behind the ducal palace, the Riva Schiavoni unfolds its sparkling length, the arc-lights of the Lido double themselves in the lagoon-then darkness black and inky, broken only by an occasional lantern on the breakwater or a brilliant gleam from the search-light of the customsboat following like a nautilus, first on one side of us, then on the other. The last light is passed and we plunge in the teeth of a strong head-wind into the open sea.. The bright sails of a Chioggia fishing-boat flash by the port-hole; the dancing sea is strangely near. It is no dream. Outside day is just whitening in the east and the purple Istrian mountains glide by grotesquely distorted by water-drops on the convex glass. As I go on deck Fiume looms into sight, gray and misty in the morning light, its blue smoke settling on the house-tops. We spend an hour or two wandering about the bright new Austrian streets, and in the byways of old Fiume, and among the fishing-craft clustered under shady sycamores along the quay; then board another steamer and this time are fairly off for Dalmatia. Dalmatia is a country so easy of access, yet so little travelledreached in a day from Venice, or Trieste, yet a new, fresh field for the tourist, untouched by the onward march of the past hundred years. It is a country of transition. In it the Occident touches the Orient and almost mingles. Its coast, inclining toward Italy, has imbibed Latin influence, but once over the mountain wall the Orient begins-Turkey, with all its ignorance and superstition. In its marts Italians of the coast-the "Bodoli"-meet Slavs, and Turks, and Servians in turbaned fez and flowing trousers. Dalmatia is a long, thin strip of territory, bordering the east coast of the Adriaticits northern extremity on a parallel with Genoa, its southernmost point opposite Rome. Like all countries bathed by the Mediterranean, it presents an arid front to the sea. Bald mountains lift their heads from the water's edge; bleak islands break the horizon with clear-cut silhouettes with an almost utter lack of verdure, save on the gentler slopes and in the rocky hollows, where pale. olives and almond-trees shelter their frail branches. Local color is lacking. It is a simple drawing, delicately pencilled as a Da Vinci background. But on this simple drawing Nature plays her choicest color-scales. The whitish mountains and pale rock surfaces catch every variation of the atmosphere-every gradation of sun and shadow, of morning and evening, and sensitively pale into silvery opals, then flush with crimson and gold or threateningly lower under heavy thunder-clouds. Only occasionally man's presence is felt in a bit of ruined castle topping an island, or a chapel perched upon a ledge above the sea, and once in a while only, as a surprise, a town sheltered snug in the recess of a tiny harbor comes to greet the traveller. A quiet day lolling in steamer-chairs with the propeller's thud beneath us. The breath of the bora bears us along, the crested whitecaps chase us. To the east, the Vélébit wraps its ashen summits in foggy sheets; low-lying islands girt with shimmering sands float on an amethyst sea. The dreamy noonday hours wear on. And now up over the bow, rising out of the glittering sea, poising her square-cut mass between the mainland and Ugljan, rises Entrance to the Mausoleum, Spalato. Zara, the capital and first port of Dalmatia. Dalmatia of to-day comprises the greater part of the ancient province of Illyria. Among its archipelagoes, Greeks, Phoenicians, and Syracusans founded numerous colonies. It became a Roman province in the second century before Christ, but remained refractory until the time of Augustus. On the fall of Rome it fell a prey to barbarians, and was never free from war until the thirteenth century. Then Venice was beginning her glorious career, and her warlike doge, Enrico Dandolo, destroying Zara, took possession of the coast. For almost three centuries Dalmatia The north walls of Ragusa. remained under Venetian domination and the great republic has left her impress everywhere upon the land-not only in numerous effigies of her winged lion upon the walls and over the city gates, but in the characteristic architecture of palaces and campanili, in the laws that govern the people, in their language, their arts and letters. In the sixteenth century the Sultan, profiting by the weakness of Venice's old age, pounced down upon this neighboring province and took it. Mosques were erected and a Turkish pasha was installed in the castle of Clissa. But a hundred years later, Venice and the Austrian emperor combined, broke the power of Islam, and Istria and Dalmatia were allotted to Austria and have remained under her dominion ever since, save for a few years of French occupation under Napoleon. We are not novices in travelling, but never shall we forget the strange delight of the first few hours in Zara. Not that the city itself is so interesting, for, though it contains some noteworthy monuments, the general character is that of most Italian towns: narrow streets, tall, straight houses, churches more or less Lombard in character, pointed doorways surmounted by crests as in Venice, courts with old walls shaded by a vine-pergola. But it is the life of the town that is so extraordinary, the wonderful wealth of costume and the variety of types to be seen in its winding streets-costumes the like of whose barbaric splendor is not found elsewhere in Europe to-day. Take your place in the Via Tribunale in the morning hours when the peasants push their way to and from the market-place. Here two women from Benkovac stop and, looking into each other's eyes, carefully deposit their bundles on the ground, then kiss each other with resounding smacks upon each cheek. Their hair is plaited with red and green ribbon; their caps, red as tomatoes and embroidered in silk, are half hidden under large kerchiefs. Over coarse linen shirts they wear dark-blue coats, long and shapeless and richly trimmed with beads and braid; their woollen aprons and dangling fringes are of Oriental design. like Kiskillam rugs; their short skirts show heavy leggings woven like the aprons and feet encased in moccasins. About their Mincetta tower, Ragusa. necks hang numerous jewels and chains of roughly beaten metal, set with bits of colored glass, with carnelians and turquoises. On their fingers gleam cumbrous rings, and their waists are girdled with several lengths of leather strap studded with metal nails, whence hang long, open-bladed knives. The whole costume, rude and barbaric in the extreme, still has had lavished upon it all the art of which the race is capable. Beside them three women entirely clothed in black, with sad, colorless faces such as Cottet paints, make a melancholy contrast to all their savage finery. Over there a group of five athletic men from Knin are discussing their affairs, and a brave bit of color they make. Their wide-sleeved shirts, fringed with tassels, gleam white under two doublebreasted vests, one striped, the other richly wrought in silk and golden braid; thick scarfs bind in their waists and on some are replaced by huge leathern girdles from whose pockets peep knives, long pipes, combs, and towels. Their trousers wide at the hips, taper in close at the ankles, where they meet the opance, a kind of slipper made of woven leather thongs. Each district varies the design of its costume, each individual varies its details to suit his taste; every color is employed, by preference brilliant red. The road by the Porta Terra Firma is a busy scene: women from Obro ermen from Arbe and Pasman make ready their gayly painted boats for the homeward cruise; Slavs from Zemonico, robust Bosnians from Bihac, Servians from Kistanje, herd their flocks of turkeys, their goats and A street of stairs, Ragusa. vac spin from distaffs as they vend dry boughs in the wood-market; others trudge toward distant mountain homes, staggering under piles of goatskins or baskets of provisions sufficient for the week to come; fish sheep and cattle; teamsters from Sinj urge along tough mountain ponies, hitched three abreast to rude wagons piled with sacks of grain-a strange cosmopolitan whirl-half Occident, half Orient, where the blood of many races mingles! No suspicion of a town has yet been revealed to the eye when the grim walls and ugly throats of the guns of Fort San Niccolo threaten to dispute the rocky defile into which our steamer enters a passage so narrow that one can throw a stone across. When the big ship has carefully wriggled through, a broad harbor opens out with Sebenico piling in an amphitheatre at its far extremity. All the landscape is desolate-devoid of verdure-rocky, sunbaked, scourged by the fierce north wind, the bora, and the houses of the city and the great walls of the Spanish castles and the hill-sides and the stony valleys all are tinged with the same ashen hue. The city, rising from the water's edge like Genoa, piles house on house high up the hill, punctuated here and there by a spire or a dome. But it proved more promising at a distance. than on more intimate acquaintance. To be sure, the cathedral, with its fine north door, well repays a visit, and so, too, does the cemetery, commanding a noble survey seaward over the bay and the neighboring islands. The winding |