ch the Bay of Teodo another of the narrows is passed, the Canal of
Kombor, by the foot of Mount Dvesite. Here is a naval station. The land
is the most fertile in the whole district, and here is grown the famous
Margamino wine. At Bianca, near Teodo, Danilo, Prince of Montenegro,
used to pass the summer. Farther on is the Strait of Le Catene, so
called because in 1381 Lewis of Hungary actually put chains across it to
protect the inner portions. Opposite to the channel is Perasto, to the
left the Valle di Risano, to the right the Gulf of Cattaro. In front of
Perasto are two little islands, with picturesque buildings upon
them--the Scoglio S. Giorgio, and the Madonna del Scarpello, a little
church with a green cupola, containing a picture of the Madonna ascribed
as usual to S. Luke, a Byzantine work decked with gold and silver,
brought hither from Negropont in 1452. For many years the Bocchesi
brought shiploads of stone to increase the size of the island, and
still, on July 22 of each year, a stone-laden boat goes from Perasto to
the rock. There are two festivals celebrated here, of which the more
important is that of the Assumption, August 15. The other, the Birth of
the Virgin, on September 8, is less so. There is a proverb "Entre le due
Madonne cade la pioggia," the greatest rainfall occurring between the
two festivals. On festival days the picture is decked with rings,
chains, &c., kept locked up at Perasto during the rest of the year. The
property of the church is over L30,000. For five hundred years it has
been a centre of interest in the Bocche. According to the legend, a
luminous figure of the Madonna was seen by a sailor on the rock on July
22, 1452, and on that spot a chapel was erected. The present church was
built in 1628. Inside are a good many late seventeenth-century pictures,
and in two rooms close by are votive pictures of the usual kind. There
is a cafe on the island for the benefit of pilgrims. The island of S.
Giorgio is gradually wasting away. The monastery is said to have been
the most ancient in the district, and a list of the abbots "in
commendam" from 1166 exists, with notices of the church and monastery,
going back to the tenth century. There was a long contest for its
possession between Cattaro and Perasto, ending in the assassination of
the abbot by the Perastines, who took the property by force. Venice gave
the commune of Cattaro an annual subvention as _solatium_. The abbey,
destroyed in 1571, w