ow the piazza, where
Sanmichele's gate stands. He was born in 1802, and was philologist,
philosopher, historian, poet, novelist, critic, psychologist, statist,
politician, and orator, leaving behind him, when he died in 1874, some
two hundred works. In its time of prosperity the city owned several
islands, of which Zlarin is the most populous and the richest.

Sebenico is the usual starting-point for the excursion to the Kerka
falls; and, on the arrival of the boat, tourists make arrangements to
share carriages. It is a drive of about twelve miles, through a barren,
stony land, till one reaches the park-like country along the banks of
the river. The falls can also easily be reached from Scardona, to which
a little steamboat runs in the morning; but there is none back in the
afternoon, so those who are pressed for time generally drive. Scardona
is an ancient city mentioned by Pliny as a principal market-town of
Liburnia. The ruins which remain are late Roman. In the Middle Ages,
Venice, Hungary, and Turkey all coveted it, and it suffered accordingly.
In 1411 it became Venetian, in 1522 was sacked by the Turks, and retaken
by the Venetians in 1537. The fortifications were destroyed, and the
town abandoned and afterwards burnt; but the Turks held it till 1684,
when they finally evacuated it. The falls are about three-quarters of an
hour's walk away up the river, which was the ancient boundary between
Liburnia and Dalmatia. They form its final plunge to sea level, for two
tributaries join it, one on each side of Scardona, where it virtually
becomes an estuary. The water precipitates itself over five terraces
some 300 ft. wide, a magnified artificial cascade with a fall of 150 ft.
The main fall occupies the centre of the stream, and is slightly
horseshoe in shape; to the right and left are numerous smaller cascades
with a little island between. Many partly artificial channels conduct
the water to flour and fulling mills on both sides of the stream, of
which there are some fifty, the sound of the mill-wheels and the
fulling-hammers mingling with the rush of the waters. On the Sebenico
side are a mill for insect-powder made from the pyrethrum, and the
pumping-house for the water-supply of the city, the power for the
electric lighting being also generated here. The mills are not so busy
as they used to be, for the Hungarian and Russian flour is driving the
home product out of the market. The spray from the falls rises high in
t