BOCCHE DI CATTARO.
Page 48.
More than 4000 feet above, on the ridge, is the frontier of Montenegro—a country by the sea, looking down on the blue water, yet shut out from it by its big neighbours.
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Page 49.
A bold bluff of rock, a thousand feet or more in height, slightly projects from the main mass, perpendicular, bare, cleft into profound chasms. This extraordinary site has been chosen for the most wonderful fortress in Europe. Below, on the narrow margin between rock and sea, is built the town. Along the water's edge is a quay, to which are moored the beautiful craft of the country. This has been converted into a pleasant walk, fringed with trees. Behind this is the old Venetian wall of the city, with its fine solid towers and broad battlements; the time-darkened stones in places luxuriantly overgrown with the lovely flowers and creepers of the sunny South. Passing through the portcullised gate, one enters into a strange, quaint city. The streets are narrow, the houses lofty, and covered with grotesque carvings. No carts, carriages, or horses, are permitted to enter the town. This, by-the-bye, is the case in most Dalmatian cities. The whole is paved with large flags. Cattaro is of some length, but very narrow, for it is shut in by the steep cliff which rises immediately from behind it.
Now the walls of the town, after bounding it on the sea front, zigzag up either side of the bluff I mentioned, till they meet on its crowning point, a thousand feet above the sea, where stands a formidable-looking castle.
On observing how they rise and dip, adapting themselves to the little ravines and irregularities of the rock, one is irresistibly reminded of the pictures of the great wall of China one was so much impressed with in the spelling-books of childhood.
Very old the town and fortifications are. No improving Goth has yet taken aught away from their grotesque grandeur.