As we rounded the point after leaving Val Cassione the wind shifted again and the weather improved as if by magic. The clouds gradually melted away, and the blue of the sky palpitated through the grey; the sun shone warm upon the barren, featureless coast, adding colour to the dispiriting grey of the limestone spotted with the dark green of shrubs, a characteristic of most of the Dalmatian islands, and the Velebit Mountains became clear, in some places to the summits, though the greater part of the chain was still cloud-capped and barred with heavy purple shadows.
The party at lunch consisted of the captain, the engineer, and a priest who was now the one passenger beside ourselves. We comfortably filled the table in the little cabin. The captain said that since the phylloxera damaged the vines two-thirds of the Dalmatians (the country people) had emigrated. He seemed to hold them in slight estimation, perhaps because he was a sailor, which he said none of them are in that part of the country (a statement we had an opportunity of verifying, for we noticed that a very slight motion of the boat makes them sick), and so ignorant "that it would require 2,000 years of teaching to civilise them!" The captain himself belonged to one of the outlying islands, where his wife and family lived and where he spent two nights in each week; and he took a gloomy view of the prospects of the "Dalmati," as the Italian-speaking Dalmatians call themselves. He said when he was a boy the language used in the schools generally was Italian, then it was changed to German for a time, but Croat is now universal, so that in twenty years Italian will no longer be understood along the eastern littoral; which will be bad for the culture of the country, almost the whole of which is Italian, and has been so for centuries.
Our priest left us at a little convent with a chapel and two houses standing close to the water's edge; and at Novaglia we took on board a party of emigrants, some of whom were quite boys, while one was grey-headed. Most of them wore the picturesque costume of the Morlacchi; but the next day we saw them again, clad in the characterless, sack-like slop-suit which seems to be thought a mark of civilisation, having lost much of their individuality without gaining anything in exchange. A number of friends lingered on the shore to see them off; but there was no such singing as we heard next day at Loparo beyond Arbe, the birthplace of the founder of the Republic of S. Marino, where some twenty or more were waiting for us on a barge in the pretty bay, singing a farewell song which wailed over the water as we approached. As they boarded the steamboat they kissed their friends on both cheeks, and crowded to the side as we got under way again, repeating their melancholy song and waving adieus; while all along the tops of the hills which flank both sides of the harbour figures silhouetted against the sky, waved in response, and stood watching the boat as long as we could distinguish them.
ARBE FROM THE SHORE
When we reached Arbe, cresting its rocky point with a picturesque confusion of walls, campanili, and house-roofs that seemed to grow out of the rocks, so well do they harmonise with them, the afternoon was sunny and delightful, though the roads showed signs of the rain which had recently fallen. At sunset we climbed again to the public garden and enjoyed the well-remembered view of towers and walls grey against the glowing sky, the most beautiful grouping of one of the most picturesque places that I know, intensified by the charm of the changing colours as the glow gradually faded, and the opalescent sea by slow degrees took its place in the quiet harmonies of twilight.
ASCENT TO THE RAMPARTS, ZARA