F. Hamilton Jackson

“ Large numbers of Herzegovinian emigrants take boat at Gravosa; and I remember one day, when Ragusa was full of them and their friends and every vehicle crowded between that place and Gravosa, what a strange sight the pier presented, so thickly packed with people that one wondered none were pushed off. The variety of colour and picturesqueness of costume and type among the men and women was interesting, and it was touching to think of the sundering of friends and relations, and the grief at parting which many of them showed in their strongly marked countenances. ”

“ While waiting for the train, as the sun set and twilight fell, we saw many of the contadini returning from their work, most of them on donkeys or ponies—a father with a little son before or behind him, a man in a black cloak with panniers laden with branches of trees, which hid the saddle, and, in the semi-obscurity, made them look like some monstrous beast of strange form, another perched upon a great bundle of hay or grass, and so on, all passing rapidly from the malaria of the fields to the safety of the malodorous town. ”

“ The cathedral is not remarkable for its architecture. The façade has a semicircular termination, quadrants above the aisles, and an early Renaissance doorway. The stalls are carved and pierced like those at Arbe and Zara, but have lost the tops and the carved divisions. At each side is an ambo of stone supported on four columns, but with an octagonal body above, arcaded, with shafts at the angles. The arches are all round, but the change in the plan produces a curious pointed appearance in perspective in the lower arcade. ”

“ The town stands upon the summit of a promontory spreading out like the fingers of a hand, and at its base the river foams and rushes, entering a deep winding ravine and plunging beneath a rocky precipice several hundred feet high, on the top of which a few houses appear. The steep sides are green with trees to a certain height, and then the grey rock appears scantily covered with grass in places; above the abyss swallows dart and hawks hover. ”

“ It is said that the devil can be seen if one stand at the church door in such weather with a priest, treading with the right foot upon the priest's right. He is like a great dragon spreading his claws and reaching to the upper clouds from the earth; but the priests never allow the trial, for fear the man should die of fright at the sight. ”

“ In the Bocche scarcely a third of the land is fruitful, yet 40,000 people lived in the district, mainly, of course, by the sea. From their childhood the boys have always longed for the day when they might accompany their fathers into the world beyond the sea. They were always ready to fight, and expected to have to do so, for, until the second half of the eighteenth century, it was unusual good fortune to make a sea or land trip to Albania without being attacked. The ancient houses, with loopholes and little windows, still look more like citadels than convenient dwellings. ”

“ The treasury contains a fine monstrance of silver, Gothic in design, with bands of pierced work and tabernacles at the sides on twisted columns. It has a spire-like top with windows and pinnacles between round its base, a feature which is repeated on the knop. In the seventeenth century several figures were added or replaced and the stem repaired. The Scuola dei Battuti, built in 1451, has a door with a frescoed tympanum beneath a pointed arch on brackets, a good deal weather-worn—Madonna sheltering the penitents beneath her cloak—and pretty arabesque scrolls on the soffit. ”

“ In Trieste and some of the Istrian towns, girls and boys go about throughout the octave of Epiphany with little lanterns, kneel on the steps of the houses, sing a song in honour of the three Holy Kings, and then, knocking, ask for money. The song tells how Christ was born poor, lived poor, and died on the Cross, and then goes on to wish friendly donors as many angels to take them to heaven as a sieve has holes; for the hard-hearted as many devils to take them as nails stuck in the door! ”

“ Every year a pilgrimage climbs to the white-walled little chapel which sparkles on the dark mountain side. The Servian dream is for the waters of Cattaro to be covered with ships under the [Pg 379] eagle of the Nemagna, for the country folk know well the story of Uros, the great Stephan Nemagna, and the epic of the wars against the Turks.
In the city of Cattaro, the ancient Ascrivium or Acrivium, some small remains of the Roman period are to be seen encrusted in the walls of the clock-tower, an altar and a memorial to a girl and her teacher. ”

“ Some forty minutes away, on a small island to the east, is the Franciscan convent, La Badia, a building of the fifteenth century for the most part, containing a rather pretty cloister of white marble erected in 1477. The arches are stilted, pointed, and trefoiled, arranged in groups of three, with wider slightly segmental openings with cuspings for entrances. The spandrils are filled with Gothic leafage, the bases and caps to the columns are early Renaissance, and the frieze is quite plain, with a dentilled cornice. The church is not interesting architecturally ”

“ In the centre below is a niche with shell-head and grated window, through which the inside of the crypt is visible. To the right is a ciborium altar, with a relief of Christ in the tomb half-length, supported by the Virgin and S. John, flanked by two scroll-bearing angels. An inscription describes it as an oratory, where relics of the saints are venerated. The pillars bear an architrave—a shell-he ad beneath, an arch above, and a gable termination of early Renaissance shape—above a shallow cornice. The effect is heavy. ”

“ The modern town is most picturesque, with narrow streets and numerous courtyards, with outside staircases, quaint shops, and fascinating plays of light and shade, and so much of the life of the people passes in the open air that there is always interesting matter for observation. It is a seaside resort, visited a good deal for bathing during the summer months, and there is also, as at Rovigno, an establishment for scrofulous children. ”

“ The two shores of the Adriatic are totally different in their natural characteristics; the western being almost islandless and destitute of harbours, while the eastern is fringed by an almost continuous chain of islands and possesses several magnificent harbours which communicate with the open sea by narrow channels easily fortified, the rocks rising precipitously from the water along the greater part of the coast, whereas on the Italian side there is an equally continuous strip of alluvial plain between the foothills and the sea. ”

“ The church of S. Domenico (anciently S. Michele) has a pointed Venetian door, with a relief in the tympanum of S. Michael weighing souls, with the Devil pulling the scale down, an armed angel at one side, and a woman with a lighted taper at the other. On the lintel are a Virgin and Child, and several saints in little panels also spreading beyond on to the wall.
The Greek church, S. Elia, which the Servian orthodox Christians have had since the French invasion, is nearly opposite the cathedral. One year we were at Zara at the time when they were preparing to keep Easter. ”

“ Above this is a heavy string course from which two pilaster strips spring, a window flanked by four arches on slender coupled columns, with semicircular niches, filling the space between them; above, a space from which it is cut by a second string forms the next stage; over it is another string and two small windows beneath a gable cornice of corbelled arches, the same cornice raking over the aisles. Beasts project at the gable angles, and the summit it crowned by a finial. All the arches are round, and the little arcade has red and grey voussoirs. ”

“ The southern group lies south of the harbour of Spalato, and includes Solta, Brazza, Lesina, Curzola, Meleda, the more distant Lissa, Busi, and Lagosta, and a few small islands which belonged to the Republic of Ragusa. The interest of these varies a good deal, some containing much to delight the traveller, while others are scarcely worth a visit. Most of them have historical memories reaching from the dawn of history to times which are within the memory of many now living, and some of them are remarkable for their geological formation or luxuriant Southern vegetation. ”

“ Trieste is primarily a modern town, and the people are very proud of the important buildings which adorn it, as they have every right to be. The post office, for instance, is palatial, and round and near to the Piazza Grande are large and showy edifices which include the Town Hall and the Lloyd Palace, while the Greek church is a fine building in the Byzantine style, decorated with mosaics, and the church of Sant' Antonio makes a very effective termination to the Canale Grande. ”

“ The lions from the ancient cathedral doors are now in the atrium of the high-school. The ancient baptistery is close to the north side of the cathedral; it has suffered Renaissance alteration inside, but outside still shows the early arrangement of pilaster-strips and corbel-tables. It is circular in plan, and has several round-headed, unmoulded windows built up, as well as a pointed-arched door with fourteenth-century shields in the tympanum. ”

“ Two steps lead down into the nave, and there is a door in the south aisle, which has two windows, the clerestory having four; though on the north side, where the graveyard lies, there are none. The building consists of a nave and aisles divided by an arcade of five round arches upon rectangular piers without caps, the two eastern bays being enclosed by dwarf walls with framings of marble slabs upon which interlacing patterns of the ninth century are carved. They return across the ends of the aisles, in each of which is an altar beneath a wagon vault, though there is no apse. ”

“ The style of the houses is Venetian for the most part, as might be expected, since it was the port of call for those going to Greece or the Holy Land. Some of them are very interesting and beautiful. The quay has several fronting on to it, specially a lofty tower-like building of the fourteenth century with later windows and balconies inserted. Many marble coats of arms may be seen here and there, and the windows and door-jambs often have charming carved ornaments. The Palazzo Nemira shows a pleasing combination of late Gothic and Renaissance detail in pierced panels and balustrading ”

“ It is extraordinary how serious the men are over it, even when singing over their wine, in which they sometimes exceed. At Traù one Sunday afternoon we saw a party of eight or ten sitting round a table in a café as serious as if at a funeral, with wine before them, and enjoying their melancholy music. ”

“ The city looks most attractive from the sea as one approaches. It occupies a long tongue of land midway along the western coast, and the walls drop into the water both towards the harbour and the open sea. They are nearly complete in their circuit, but have lost their battlements and some portions of their substance. There is a good deal of ruin within them, which makes the foregrounds uninteresting and squalid. ”

“ In the gable is a traceried rose, above which is an elaborate cornice with beasts' heads projecting at the angles, shell niches, and floral finial, and at the meeting-point of the ramps a bust of an elderly woman in the costume of the fourteenth century, with hair in curls at each side of the face, a jewelled circlet, pleated gown with tightly fitting sleeves slashed and embroidered, and a border round the neck above a laced under-garment. ”

“ These Istrian coast towns have always shown enlightenment in the matter of education. In 1699 a school was opened in Capodistria for the sons of citizens and patricians, in which Latin, Greek, Italian, mathematics, rhetoric, and physics were taught. And, in order that poor and talented young men should not be cut off from the possibility of learning, this town, and, after its example, Isola, Muggia, Parenzo, Pola, and Trieste established scholarships at the University of Padua, where Istrian professors became rectors. ”

“ The Croats, being in the majority, are using their power to oppress the Italian-speaking portion of the population. The schools are now all Croat, and the Italians have no means of instruction for their children in their own language except at Zara. At Spalato the race-feeling is especially bitter; it is the only city in Dalmatia in which the anniversary of the Italian defeat at Lissa is fêted with display of flags and music by the municipio. ”

“ On this day the lagoon is alive with numberless craft, the priests' boat leading, with banners and tapers and fully vested ecclesiastics; and the air resounds with simple church melodies. At Barbana the Virgin's picture waits on the pier to greet that from Grado; and report says that it has been observed to nod at the moment the sister picture reached the shore! ”

“ The cliff-like masses of stone are stern and forbidding, and one thinks the citizens must have been glad to escape from them on to the wooded slopes of Monte Sergio (bare and stony now) , though their apparent impregnability must have been comforting in those days; when the strong hand often over-ruled right and justice. ”

“ The children are on the look-out for chance visitors, and ready to point out the road; and sell copper coins and tesseræ of mosaic at a price which lowers remarkably as the basilica is approached. It is to be feared that they come from the great mosaic, which is necessarily unguarded. The basilica consists of nave and aisles, separated apparently by six columns on each side, with a single apse, which seems to have had external buttresses, but there is no trace of the usual internal bench. The total length approaches 150 ft., the nave is 39 ft. ”

“ In the cathedral treasury is a late fifteenth-century silver-gilt chalice with elaborately worked knop and stem; on the knop are saints under canopies, and angels with outspread wings emerge from scroll-work [Pg 92] round the base of the cup. Also a monstrance of the same period with very elaborate and beautiful architectural ornament and figures of angels in adoration. In two elaborate silver-gilt crosses of the sixteenth century there is a curious mixture of Gothic and Renaissance details. ”

“ In a country which still contains so much that is unfamiliar, so many mediæval survivals in customs and costume, and so much that is fine in scenery, architecture, and the decorative arts, the picturesque aspect of the country has been dwelt upon more than was the case in dealing with the Italian side, and the meticulous description of buildings has to a great extent been abandoned, except in cases where it was necessary for the full understanding of the deductions drawn from existing details. ”

“ There is scarcely enough of interest in the town itself to make it worthy of a visit, since the picturesque and horrible exploits of its savage inhabitants (which are its chief title to fame) may be read in the histories of the Uscocs. They were refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, driven out by the Turks; the word "Scochi" in Slav meaning exiles or fugitives. Their first establishment was at Clissa, near Spalato, under Pietro Crussich, lord of Lupoglavo in Istria. From this place they made raids on the Turks, who at last collected an army and besieged the place for a year. ”