The Near East / Dalmatia, Greece and Constantinople

ay like a dream at the foot of the hills where Triest seemed

ill happily primitive, still unashamed to be picturesque. By the way of the sea we journeyed to a capital where no carriages roll through the narrow streets, where there is not a railway-station, where the citizens are content to go on foot about their business, and where three quarters of the blessings of civilization are blessedly unknown. We had still to touch at Pola, in wh

, Triest, were forgotten. Dalmatia is a land of forgetting, seems happily far awa

e traveler, and take him at once into intimacy and the breast of a home. Before entering it the ship coasts along a naked region, in which pale, almost flesh-colored hills are backed by mountains of a ghastly grayness. Flesh-color and

e Slav dialect as they passed on their way to the islands. The huge, gray Velebit Mountains still bore us company on our voyage to the South, but they were losing their almost wicked look of dreariness. In the golden light of afternoon romance was descending upon them. And now a long spur of green land thrus

tic; Cattaro the most remarkable scenically. Trau leaves a haunting memory in the mind of him who sees it. Castelnuovo is a little paradise marred in some degree by the soldiers who infest it, and who seem strangely out of place in i

ich might be taken a dive into the limpid water. And here, when the ship tied up, a well-dressed throng of joyous citizens was taking the air. Children were playing and laughing. Two or three row-boats slipped through the gold and silver which the sun, just setting behind the island of Ugljan opposite, shower

Simeone; and five fountains,-the cinque pozzi,-and a Venetian tower,-the Torre di Buovo d'Antona,-and fortification gardens, and lion g

T-PLACE A

mighty walls; bells whispering among pines and murmuring across green depths of glass-like water; bells

Austrian soldiers make themselves at home in Zara, but Italy seems still to rule there, stretching hands out of the past. Italian may be heard on all sides, but the peasants who throng the calle and the market-place and the harbor speak a Slavonic dialect, and in the piazza on any morning, alm

and great, striding men, brave in embroidered jackets, with bright-red caps too small for the head, silver buttons, red sashes stuck full of weapons and other impedimenta, gaiters, and pointed shoes, march hither and thither, calmly intent on some business which has brought them in from the outlying districts. It varies, of course, with the changing seasons. In the latter part of October and beginning of November most of the male peasants were selling very large hares. Live cocks and hens were being disposed of by many of the women, and it i

AZZA DE

ered in my ear some words I could not understand; but I gathered that something very important was about to take place. Every face was expectant. All eyes were earnestly fixed upon the sarcophagus. A woman came in, carrying in her arms a turkey, which looked anxious-minded, crossed herself, and waited with us, gazing. The droning voices ceased. A sort of carillon sounded brightly. We all knelt, the woman with the turkey, too, as a priest in scarlet and white mounted the steps which divide the altar from the area. There was a moment of deep silence. Then the great, glittering, and sloping lid, with its recumbent figure of the saint, slowly rose between the bronze su

RBOR O

lie almost at the foot of the Venetian tower, near a Corinthian column and the fragments of a Roman arch. Just behind them some steps lead up to one o

Brightly painted vessels, closely packed together, lie on the blue-green water. Beyond them are the trees of Bla?ekovi? Park. And just beneath you, on your right, is the great, yellow stone Porta di Terra Ferma, with its winged lion of St. Mark. Beyond, over the narrow

e deep, time-worn color of the church, the fa?ade of which, with its two rose windows, one large, one small, its three beautiful, mellow-toned doorways, and its curious and somehow touching, though stolid, statues, is very fine. The interior, not specially interesting, contains some glorious Gothic stalls dating from the fifteenth century. They are of black wood, relieved with bosses and tiny statuettes of bright gold, and above each one is the half-length of a gilded and painted man, wearin

ets through which no carriage ever passes, fountains, lion gateways, painted boats lying on clear and apparently motionless waters shut in from the open sea by long lines of mountainous islands, pine-trees and olives and golden viney

tizens and peasants devoutly praying. Incense rose between the dark, hoary walls, the columns of granite and porphyry, to the dome of brick. Outside in the wind the black hornblende sphinx kept watch on those who came and went, mourning for their departed. The sky was a heavy gray, and

f modern dwellings, by a triviality of common commercial life, sparrows where eagles should be. When nature takes a ruin, she usually glorifies it, or touches it with a tenderness of romance. But when people in the wine trade lay hold upon it, hang out thei

O-PERI

the south, and are in the midst of commercial activities. The contrasts are picturesque, but they are rough, and, when complicated by Bora, are confusing, almost distressing. Nevertheless, Spalato is well worth a visit. It contains a small, but remarkable, museum, specially interesting for its sarcophagi found at Salona and its collection of inscriptions. The sarcophagus showing the passage of the Red Sea is very curious. Apart from the now disfigured palace, the Battistero, the very interesting and peculiar cathedral, with its vestibule, its rotunda, and its Piazza of the Sphinx, like nothing else I have seen, the town is full of picturesque nooks and corners; and its fruit market at the foot of the massive octagonal Hrvoja Tower, which dates from 1481, is perhaps even more animated, more full of strangeness and color, than Zara's Piazza delle Erbe. Here may be seen turbans of crimson on the handsome heads of men, elaborately embroidered crimson jackets covering immense shoulders and chests,

s exactly like a blue lake. And what a marvelous blue it is on a cloudless autumn day! Every one knows what is meant by a rapture of spring

BULE OF TH

red, peasants in orange-color, move waist-deep, sometimes shoulder-deep, through the glory, under the glory of the sun. Here and there in a grass-grown clearing, like a small islet in the ocean of vines, appears a hut of brushwood and woven grasses, and under the trees before it sit peasants eating the grapes they have just picked w

f which makes so many Dalmatian places characteristic and almost touching. How odd to live in Trau! Yet might it not be a delicious experience to live in dear little Trau with the right person, s

fine old columns, a tiled roof and a clock-tower, a campanile and a cathedral with a great porch, an

pavement. The finely carved pulpit, with its little lion, and the fifteenth-century choir-stalls are well worth seeing, and the roof of the chapel of St. Giovanni Orsini, which contains a great marble tomb, has been made wonderful by age, like an old face made wonderful by wrinkles. But Radovan's doorway is certainly the marvel of Trau. In color it is a rich, deep, dusty brown, and it is ela

GU

orth to, the calm, blue waters, edged by the red and the gold of the vines. For this place is unique and has an unique charm. Peace dwells here, and beauty has found a quiet

Basilica Urbana, I saw one of those frigid and almost terrible lemon sunsets which come with the wind of the dead. I stayed till night despite the intense cold, till the fragments of the city, scattered far over the sloping ground above the riviera of the Sette Castelli, and creeping up to the solitary dwelling-house built by P

where Richard C?ur de Lion touched land and founded a monastery; is thoroughly and deliciously medieval, yet full of Slav and Austrian life; possesses a railway-station, many well-built villas, and a good hotel, and is surrounded by delightful country. Perhaps in all Dalmatia Ragusa is the best center from which to take long walks and make expeditions. It is cheery, cozy,

yard, a campanile, an exquisite fa?ade, with arches and lovely columns, balconies and carved window-frames; by cloisters, a strange alley ending in flights of steps, which lead to a mountain fro

d voices of clocks chiming the hours, to make the symphony of Ragusa. Men and women from the Breno Valley, from Canali the golden, where oaks grow among the rocks, and the autumn vineyards are a wonder forever to haunt the memory, from Melada and the Stag Islands, from the Ombla and Herzegovina, pass all day down "the Stradone," stroll in the Brsalje, a piazza with mulberry-trees overlooking the sea, talk by the Amerling fountain, or sit on the wall by Porta Pille under the statue of San Biagio, the

he times,"-lie among roses, oleanders, single rhododendrons, trees, and masses of luxuriant vegetation outside Porta Pille. As soon as you have passed beneath Sa

CE AND THE PUBLIC

in Ragusa. From the dimness of venerable doorways smiling faces look forth. They lean down from carved stone balconies. Gay voices chatter at the foot of frowning walls, huge bastions, mighty watch-towers; before the statue of Roland, near the Dogana which has a loggia and Gothic windows; by the fine and massive Onofrio fountain, which for over four hundr

ng some wonderful vases. At the east end of the Stradone, away to the right, are the church of San Biagio, the cathedral, and the Palazzo d

he piazza. The carving of the capitals of the columns is wonderfully effective. Three are said to be inferior to the remaining four, which were the work of an architect of Naples, Onofrio. But all are remarkable. The little winged boys have a tenderness and liveliness, a softness and activity, which are quite exquisite

tributed to Titian, cannot be by him. Much more attractive is a copy of the Madonna della

to be a monk in Ragusa, surely it would be wise to cast in your lot with the Franciscans at the other end of the street, whose Romanesque fourteenth-century cloisters with octagonal columns are quite beautiful and in excellent preservation. The capitals of the columns are carved with animals. Palms flourish there, and roses. Above, a terrace,

atement was untrue. But certainly the ways of Ragusa swarm with religious. Nevertheless,-one thinks of Rome, with its crowds of priests and its crowds of free-thinkers,-the inhabitants of R

ong the Dalmatian riviera, which is as fine as almost any part of the French riviera, and which is still wild and natural, not yet turned into a vanity-box. Those who take this glorious drive wil

like some precious thing that must not be revealed to the dull gaze of the ordinary world, almost, but mercifully not quite, under the giant shadow of the Black

emerge into open water. But between Gravosa and the bocche there is open sea. Nature has not neglected to make her preparations. She gives you the stretch of open sea as a contrast to what is coming. And just when you are beginning to feel its monotony, the prow of the

Austrian flag above it. The sensitive prow of the ship veers again, this time to the southeast, where the ash-gray precipices surely hold the sea forever in check. But the ship knows better. The Canale di Kumbur shows itself, leading to the splendid Bay of Teodo surreptitiously observed from afar by the mountains of Montenegro. If you held your breath and listened, might you not hear the boom of guns by the lake of Scutari? All sense of being at sea fades from you as the ship penetrates ever more deeply into the secret recesses of the mountains. This is like superb lake scenery, austere, grand, almost terrible, and yet radiant. Nature is even coquettish on this perfect morning

CH AND THE MILITA

-blue on the ridges made by the ship. Marvelous harmonies of pearl color, gray, and blue, with here and there faint dashes of primrose-yellow, make magic in the distance before you. This is really an enchanted place, home of a peace that seems touched with eternity. And the ship creeps on, as if fearing perhaps to disturb it, farther and farther into places more secret still, and of a peace even more profo

is triumphant dream. And now surely faint outlines are becoming visible, as of turrets and cupolas striving to break in glory through the mist. The fires of autumn glow more fiercely, like a furnace fanned. Trails of smoke show here and there. Mist, smoke, and fire-it is like a grand conflagration.

NEAR

THENON