ees
are of a special kind, which work hard, and go out in wind and slight
rain; but the excellence of the honey was probably due to the rosemary
blossoms, on which they feed by preference, only visiting other flowers
when these have been completely rifled. Of late years the inhabitants
have cleared a great part of the land in order to cultivate vines or
chrysanthemum, so the yield of honey is much reduced. Remains of mosaic
pavements found here and there show the sites of Roman villas.

Brazza is the largest of the Dalmatian islands, the most populous, and
the richest in wine and oil. The stone for Diocletian's palace came
mainly from this island; and Professor Bulic has found abandoned
fragments partially worked in the quarries, as well as inscriptions. The
greater part of the stone with which Salona was built also came from
Brazza. Its history commences with the destruction of Salona and Epetium
in the seventh century, much of the population taking refuge in the
island, though it is believed that Greeks inhabited it before the
Romans. The legend that S. Helena, the mother of Constantine, was born
here (though most historians regard her as English) probably arose from
the name of Brettanide, which is said to have been the Greek name for
the island, though Brattia is also met with. The most ancient document
preserved is a privilege of 1077, given to the nobles by Demetrius
Zvonimir; but the island belonged by turns to Byzantium, Venice, the
Ostrogoth, Frank, Narentan, and Hungarian, becoming finally Venetian in
1420, except for the disturbed period which closed in 1815; since then
it has been Austrian. In a convent of Dominicans at Bol, on the south
coast, is a Gothic church, with a restored altar-piece representing the
Marriage of S. Catherine, with SS. Mary Magdalene, Paul, and Dominic as
witnesses. An entry in the convent register attests the authorship--"to
Master Jacomo Tintoretto, painter, a further payment of 200 ducats for
the high-altar piece." In the convent is a collection of coins and a
Lombard lintel with ninth-century interlacings; and on the Casa Nisiteo
a knocker resembling that at Curzola--a female figure with an anchor in
the middle, a lion on each side with head turned up, a shell below and a
shield with arms above, charged with a sun and dolphin one above the
other; a crowned lion and an eagle as supporters.

In a hut at Birce, near Serip, Andrea, son of Salomon the exiled king of
Hungary, lived as