l the yacht _Zara_, formerly the
property of the Austrian Emperor, on which we were to live during our
stay in the Dalmatian capital. It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing to
do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the city's few hotels leave much to
be desired, and a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial governor,
is hedged about by a certain amount of formality and restrictions. But
the _Zara_, while we were aboard her, was as much ours as the
_Mayflower_ is Mr. Wilson's. We occupied the spacious after-cabins,
exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the
Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial
crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white awnings stretched
over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could
look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft
and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the
islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the
lazy southern sea. At noon we usually lunched with a score or more of
staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of the officers' mess, and
at night we dined with the governor-general and his family at the
palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian viceroys. Dinner over, we
lounged in cane chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad,
silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, and the maraschino for
which this coast is famous. Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings,
for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a
phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of
orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the
stars seemed very near.

Though the population of Dalmatia is overwhelmingly Slav, quite
two-thirds of the 14,000 inhabitants of Zara, its capital, are Italian.
Yet, were it not for the occasional Morlachs in their picturesque
costumes seen in the markets or on the wharfs, one would not suspect the
presence of any Slav element in the town, for the dim and tortuous
streets and the spacious squares bear Italian names--Via del Duomo, Riva
Vecchia, Piazza della Colonna; crouching above the city gates is the
snarling Lion of St. Mark, and everywhere one hears the liquid accents
of the Latin. Zara, like Fiume, is an Italian colony set down on a
Slavonian shore, and, like its sister-city to the north, it bears the
indelible and unmistakable imprint of Italian civiliza