rld has had so varied and
romantic a history or so many masters as this Dalmatian seaboard. Since
the days of the tattooed barbarians who called themselves Illyrian, this
coast has been ruled in turn by Phoenicians, Celts, Macedonians, Greeks,
Romans, Goths, Byzantines, Croats, Serbs, Bulgars, Huns, Avars,
Saracens, Normans, Magyars, Genoese, Venetians, Tartars, Bosnians,
Turks, French, Russians, Montenegrins, British, Austrians, Italians--and
now by Americans, for from Cape Planca southward to Ragusa, a distance
of something over a hundred miles, the United States is the governing
power and an American admiral holds undisputed sway.

Leaning over the rail as we fled southward I lost myself in dreams of
far-off days. In my mind I could see, sweeping past in imaginary review,
those other vessels which, all down the ages, had skirted these same
shores: the purple sails of Phoenicia, Greek galleys bearing colonists
from Cnidus, Roman triremes with the slaves sweating at the oars,
high-powered, low-waisted Norman caravels with the arms of their
marauding masters painted on their bellowing canvas, stately Venetian
carracks with carved and gilded sterns, swift-sailing Uskok pirate
craft, their decks crowded with swarthy men in skirts and turbans,
Genoese galleons, laden with the products of the hot lands, French and
English frigates with brass cannon peering from their rows of ports, the
grim, gray monsters of the Hapsburg navy. And then I suddenly awoke,
for, coming up from the southward at full speed, their slanting funnels
vomiting great clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, incredibly
swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which
sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground. As
they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a
flag of stripes and stars.

The sun was sinking behind Italy when, threading our way amid the maze
of islands and islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we saw beyond
our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the
slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara. It was so still
and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene
upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and
destroy the illusion. The little group of white-clad naval officers who
greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral
Count Millo, had placed at our disposa