When at last we sighted the Adriatic again, a surprise awaited us. The land of desolation lay behind; beyond, a land of beauty and full summer. We ran beside an azure sea, transparent as gauze, fringing a tropical strand; and so came into the little town of Trau, which might have been under a spell of sleep since mediæval days. Its walls and gates, its ornate houses, its fort and Sanmicheli tower, all set like a mosaic of jewels in a ring of myrtles, oleanders, and laurels, delighted our eyes; and the farther we went on the way to Spalato, keeping always by the glittering sea, the more beautiful grew the scene. The walls along our road were well-nigh hidden with agaves and rosemary. Cacti leered impudently at us; palms and pomegranates made the breeze on our faces whisper of the south and the east. Not a place we passed that I would not have loved to spend a month in, studying in the carved stones of churches and ruined castles the history of Venetian rule, or the wild romance of Turkish raids.
Spalato we reached at sunset, as the little waves which creamed against the pink rocks were splashed with crimson; and Spalato was by far the most imposing place Dalmatia had shown us yet. As in Italy, the ancient and modern towns held themselves apart from one another, as if there could be no sympathy between the two, though the new houses were pushing and would have encroached now and then if they could. We stayed all night; and by getting up at sunrise Beechy and I, with Mr. Barrymore and Sir Ralph, had time for a glimpse of Diocletian's palace, grand in ruinous desolation.
Still we went on beside the sea, and from Spalato to Almissa—sheltered under high rocks at the mouth of a river, was a splendid run leading us by the territory of an ancient peasant republic—Poljica; one of those odd little self-governing communities, like San Marino, which have flourished through troubled centuries under the very noses of great powers. Poljica had had its Jeanne d'Arc, who performed wondrous feats of valour in wars against the Turks, and I bought a charming little statuette of her.
At Almissa we bade good-bye to the blue water for a while to run by the banks of the Cetina, a big and beautiful river; for the range of the Biokovo Hills had got between us and the sea; but we threaded our way out to it again, after switchbacking up and down an undulating road close to the frontier of Herzegovina; and at the end of a wonderful day descended upon a harbour in an almost land-locked basin of water. It was Gravosa, the port of Ragusa, still hidden by an intervening tongue of land. It was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting ships were unloading their queer cargoes. Dark-faced porters in rags carried on their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers, embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. And the setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive groves, which climbed terrace after terrace to a mountainous horse-shoe, hemming in the port.
All this we saw in the moment or two that we halted by the quay, before turning up the road to Ragusa. It was a mile-long road, and like a pleasure garden all the way, with the whiteness of wild lilies flung like snow drifts against dark cedars, and trails of marvellous roses, strangely tinted with all shades of red and yellow from the palest to the deepest, clambering among the branches of umbrella pines. There were villas, too, with pergolas, and two or three dignified old houses of curious architecture, of which we had a flashing glimpse through doorways in enormous walls.
We bounded up the saddle of a hill, then down again, and so came to a charming hotel, white, with green verandahs, set in a park that was half a garden. We were to spend the night and go on next day, after seeing the town; but the Chauffeulier said that we should not see it to the same advantage by morning light as in this poetic flush of sunset. So after greeting Signore Bari and his sister, who were painting in the park, we drove on, through a crowded place where music played, crossed a moat, and were swallowed by the long shadow of the city gate, black with a twisted draping of ancient ivy.
A throng of loungers, theatrically picturesque, fell back in astonishment to give us passage, and a moment later we were caught in a double row of fortifications with a sharp and difficult turn through a second gate. It was almost like a trap for a motor-car, but we got out, and sprang at the same instant into the main street of a town that might have been built to please the fancy of some artist-tyrant.
"It's a delicious mixture of Carcassonne and Verona set down by the sea, with something of Venice thrown in, isn't it?" said Mr. Barrymore: and I thought that part of the description fitted, though I had to be told about splendid, fortified Carcassonne with its towering walls and bastions, before I fully understood the simile.
"Yes, a Verona and Venice certainly," I answered, "with a sunny coast like that of the French Riviera, and inhabited by people of the Far East."
I think one might search the world over in vain to find just such another fascinating street as that broad street of Ragusa, with its exquisitely proportioned buildings that gave one a sense of gladness, the extraordinary great fountain, the miniature palace of the Doges, the noble churches and the colourful shops brilliant with strange, embroidered costumes exposed for sale, Eastern jewelry, and quaint, ferocious-looking weapons. And then, the queer signs over the shops, how they added to the bewildering effect of unreality! Many of the letters were more like hooks and eyes, buckles and bent pins, than respectable members of an alphabet, even a foreign one. And the people who sold, and the people who bought, were more wonderful than the shops themselves.