Sebenico is the usual starting-point for the excursion to the Kerka falls; and, on the arrival of the boat, tourists make arrangements to share carriages. It is a drive of about twelve miles, through a barren, stony land, till one reaches the park-like country along the banks of the river. The falls can also easily be reached from Scardona, to which a little steamboat runs in the morning; but there is none back in the afternoon, so those who are pressed for time generally drive. Scardona is an ancient city mentioned by Pliny as a principal market-town of Liburnia. The ruins which remain are late Roman. In the Middle Ages, Venice, Hungary, and Turkey all coveted it, and it suffered accordingly. In 1411 it became Venetian, in 1522 was sacked by the Turks, and retaken by the Venetians in 1537. The fortifications were destroyed, and the town abandoned and afterwards burnt; but the Turks held it till 1684, when they finally evacuated it. The falls are about three-quarters of an hour's walk away up the river, which was the ancient boundary between Liburnia and Dalmatia. They form its final plunge to sea level, for two tributaries join it, one on each side of Scardona, where it virtually becomes an estuary. The water precipitates itself over five terraces some 300 ft. wide, a magnified artificial cascade with a fall of 150 ft. The main fall occupies the centre of the stream, and is slightly horseshoe in shape; to the right and left are numerous smaller cascades with a little island between. Many partly artificial channels conduct the water to flour and fulling mills on both sides of the stream, of which there are some fifty, the sound of the mill-wheels and the fulling-hammers mingling with the rush of the waters. On the Sebenico side are a mill for insect-powder made from the pyrethrum, and the pumping-house for the water-supply of the city, the power for the electric lighting being also generated here. The mills are not so busy as they used to be, for the Hungarian and Russian flour is driving the home product out of the market. The spray from the falls rises high in the air, and bathes the overhanging trees and reeds, keeping the neighbouring rocks clothed with ferns.
After dinner we strolled along the quay to the south of Sebenico. There was no moon, and the stars were not as brilliant as they sometimes are in these southerly latitudes, making it rather difficult to pick one's way among the mysterious darknesses, which meant obstacles of one kind or another. As we rounded a corner a lamp or two flashed in our eyes from the other side of a little cove, and sparkled in broken lights upon the uneasy wavelets which splashed and tinkled against the sides of several coasting-vessels moored near at hand. The semi-silence of the night was broken by musical sounds, scarcely melody, but an uneven kind of chant, commencing in unison, and dying away in a prolonged melancholy, wailing chord, swelling and falling, almost like the notes produced by an Æolian harp as the wind sweeps over its strings. The glow of light which showed the door of a wine-shop across the water marked where the singers were enjoying their melancholy music, which, in its formlessness and dying cadences, was in strange harmony with the shapeless undulating dark masses, which by day were rocky islands sparsely clad with trees, now only relieved by the glimmer of the paler water, whose lapping formed an undertone to the stronger notes of the voices.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Mgr. Fosco states that Giorgio submitted a plan of his proposed work, with cupola, apses, and transepts, with the little choirs—possibly a model, such as we know he prepared at the time the contract for the sacristy was signed.
XX
TRAÙ AND THE RIVIERA DEI SETTE CASTELLI
From Sebenico, Spalato can be reached either by boat or by rail. On our first visit we chose the train, since it gave us greater choice of times for making the journey. The railway stations are generally far away from the piers; we had observed this at Pola and Parenzo, and the same thing occurs at Sebenico. The hotel porters are not allowed to carry baggage to and from the steamers or the station; we were told there was a law against it, which a man sitting by said was just enough, for the odd-job men must live! The retrospect from the railway is fine. The southern end of the inlet is in the foreground, with a training-ship upon it; the city on its hill lies to the right, crowned by Fort S. Anna, and higher still the Fort S. Giovanni; while to the left is the other portion of the inlet which stretches towards Scardona and to the entrance, dotted with islands and terminated by low hills. A bright sun illumined the whole scene, increasing the lustre of the rocks and buildings, which contrasted sharply with the colour of the sea, blue as the luminous over-arching sky it reflected.
The line climbs slowly up the slopes of Monte Dinara, towards Perkovic-Slivno, the junction for Knin through a rather stony landscape above rich and well-cultivated valleys. The hills in the middle-distance look barren, but the foreground is interesting on account of the variety of broken forms caused by projecting rocks and stones. It is starred with green humps, and there are trees in places. The humps are stunted growths of juniper, sloe, bramble, hawthorn, or a trifoliate plant, with grass growing in the shadow. The trees are hawthorns, ilex, olive, fig, almond, chestnut, mountain ash, hornbeam, or elm, and I thought I saw oak, though it is said that it does not grow in Dalmatia. Colour was added by many flowers, orchids, iris, yellow daisies, asphodel, and fields of pink pyrethrum; while the dresses of groups of peasants on their way to or from Mass gave brilliant patches of reds and blues. Vines grew in pockets of earth among the rocks from which loose stones had been collected to build rough terrace walls.
At Perkovic-Slivno, the song ol nightingales beguiled the tedium of waiting, shut within a barrier, for the train from Knin, for one is not allowed to stray about until the train arrives. After a little further climbing, the summit of the range was pierced, and the lovely Riviera of the Castelli lay spread before us far below. The long island of Bua stretched towards the strait, by which the ancient port of Salona was approached; a land-locked bay, from the other side of which above the peninsula of Monte Marjan rose the campanile of the cathedral of Spalato, swathed in the scaffolding of its long-continuing restoration; beyond was the sea, with the southern islands in the distance, and the littoral chain growing pale in aerial perspective. It formed an enchanting whole, equalling views which have a world-wide reputation, opalescent in the morning sunlight, with pale purples, blues, and greens thrown like a veil over the rich soil and the grey limestone of the mountains. The line descends rapidly, too rapidly for one's desires, and approaches the shore near the fourth of the castelli, rounds the bay in which Vranjic lies, passing beneath Salona, and, crossing the Jader, arrives at the Spalato station through cuttings which prevent one from seeing anything of the palace wall.