me into the little town of Trau, which might have been
under a spell of sleep since mediaeval days. Its walls and gates, its
ornate houses, its fort and Sanmicheli tower, all set like a mosaic of
jewels in a ring of myrtles, oleanders, and laurels, delighted our
eyes; and the farther we went on the way to Spalato, keeping always by
the glittering sea, the more beautiful grew the scene. The walls along
our road were well-nigh hidden with agaves and rosemary. Cacti leered
impudently at us; palms and pomegranates made the breeze on our faces
whisper of the south and the east. Not a place we passed that I would
not have loved to spend a month in, studying in the carved stones of
churches and ruined castles the history of Venetian rule, or the wild
romance of Turkish raids.

Spalato we reached at sunset, as the little waves which creamed against
the pink rocks were splashed with crimson; and Spalato was by far the
most imposing place Dalmatia had shown us yet. As in Italy, the ancient
and modern towns held themselves apart from one another, as if there
could be no sympathy between the two, though the new houses were pushing
and would have encroached now and then if they could. We stayed all
night; and by getting up at sunrise Beechy and I, with Mr. Barrymore and
Sir Ralph, had time for a glimpse of Diocletian's palace, grand in
ruinous desolation.

Still we went on beside the sea, and from Spalato to Almissa--sheltered
under high rocks at the mouth of a river, was a splendid run leading us
by the territory of an ancient peasant republic--Poljica; one of those
odd little self-governing communities, like San Marino, which have
flourished through troubled centuries under the very noses of great
powers. Poljica had had its Jeanne d'Arc, who performed wondrous feats
of valour in wars against the Turks, and I bought a charming little
statuette of her.

At Almissa we bade good-bye to the blue water for a while to run by the
banks of the Cetina, a big and beautiful river; for the range of the
Biokovo Hills had got between us and the sea; but we threaded our way
out to it again, after switchbacking up and down an undulating road
close to the frontier of Herzegovina; and at the end of a wonderful day
descended upon a harbour in an almost land-locked basin of water. It was
Gravosa, the port of Ragusa, still hidden by an intervening tongue of
land. It was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting ships were
unloading their queer