we all stood up and the major said that he would accompany us down to
the boat. I told him that I would join him there after I had seen some
Yugoslavs, and Pommerol was good enough to walk away with him while I went
round the ancient little town--it even has some Cyclopaean walls--with
certain Yugoslavs, two lawyers and a doctor. One of the lawyers turned out
to be the ex-mayor, whose Austrianism had apparently taken a less active
form than that of his successor, for he had only been an Austrian subject,
while the actual mayor--Dr. Tama[vs]kovi['c]--had served, until the end of
the War, in the 22nd Austrian Regiment. With regard to the events of 1885,
they told me that this was the time when the Croatian national
consciousness awoke, so that an insufficient number of people had remained
either to support an Italian school or yet an orchestra. And now the number
of Italian adherents was about 200 (out of 3600), and might increase if
ice-creams were handed round in all the schools. One of my companions
happened to live in the house of Hektorovi['c], the sixteenth-century poet,
and we spent a few minutes in the perfectly delightful garden with its
palms and shady paths and bathing tank, like that one in the Alcazar at
Seville. Then we went on to the harbour where a number of the people were
collected. Pommerol was in the middle of a group of military and naval
officers and civilians, these latter being partly visitors from Istria and
Zadar. Suddenly a woman, standing near me, threw her head back and cried:
"Viva Italia!" when other people joined her she redoubled her efforts. I
should say that about thirty people were gathered round the major, shouting
for Italy, and he was obviously gratified. But then a much larger number of
persons who had different sentiments began to shout for Wilson, Yugoslavia
and so forth. The carabinieri rushed among them, howling vengeance. A Mrs.
Politeo, who was holding a bouquet, was flung down by them and trampled on.
The lawyers and the doctor with whom I had been walking were all three
struck over the head or on the shoulders with the butt end of muskets. (_La
Dalmazia_ wrote that I had been filling their heads with idle tales.)
Children were screaming. I saw another woman, hatless, being dragged off by
a couple of carabinieri--and a naval officer, who was disgusted, sternly
ordered them to let her go--and they obeyed reluctantly. Four Dominican
monks were next attacked--they had not taken part