midst of a great fete.

Flags were everywhere: in arched windows, rich with sculptured stone;
flying over the great gates of the city; festooned in the charming
little houses with fountain courts surrounded by columns. The peasants
of the country round had flocked to town for the holiday. Dark,
velvet-eyed girls in short dresses of bright-coloured silk heavy with
gold embroidery, their hair hidden by white head-dresses flashing with
sequins, and tall men in long frock coats of dark crimson or yellow,
were exactly like a stage crowd in some wonderful theatre; while
handsome Austrian officers wearing graceful blue cloaks draped over one
shoulder, might have been operatic heroes.

There was strange music in the streets, and a religious procession,
which we followed for some time on our way to the maraschino factory
which Mr. Barrymore said we must see. Of course, some monks had invented
the liqueur, as they always do, but perhaps the cherries which grow only
among those mountains, and can't be exported, had as much to do with
the original success of the liqueur as the existence of the recipe.

If Aunt Kathryn had listened to Mr. Barrymore and me we would have gone
from Zara inland to a place called Knin, to visit the cataract of Krka,
described as a combination of Niagara and the Rhine Falls. But she said
that the very sound of the names would make a cat want to sneeze, and
she was sure she would take her death of cold there. So the proposal
fell to the ground, and we kept to the coast route, the shortest way of
getting to Ragusa and Cattaro.

When we had climbed out of Zara by the old post road, begun by Venice
and finished by Austria, our way lay among the famous cherry-trees which
have made Zara rich. There were miles of undulating country and fields
of wheat, interspersed with vines and almond trees which mingled with
the cherries. The pastures where sheep and goats grazed were blue and
pink with violets and anemones; here and there was an old watch-tower,
put up against the Turks; and the rich peasants drove in quaint flat
chaises, which looked as if the occupants were sitting in large
pancakes.

With a motor it was not far to Sebenico, which called itself modestly a
"little Genoa;" and it was so pretty, lying by the sea, with its
narrowest streets climbing up a hill to an ancient fortress, that I
should have loved to linger, but Aunt Kathryn was for pushing on; and,
of course, it is her trip, so her wishes must