After a drive of an hour or so we came to the stud-farm, a collection of large buildings, consisting of several dwelling-houses, a spacious riding-house for exercising the horses in severe weather, three large stables intended to accommodate three hundred mares, and one lofty vaulted stable fitted with nice large loose boxes in which were kept the sires. The mares were all out at grass together with their foals, so that I did not see them, as I should have had to drive some miles in a different direction, and turn my back on Trieste in order to visit them. The sires I did see, but as they were not led out I could not form as accurate an opinion of them as I should have wished. They seemed, however, small, and not exactly the style of horse we would select in this country with a view to supplying our cavalry. The loose-boxes were commodious and the stable was well-ventilated; the weather being extremely hot the windows were closed with tatties, which served the double purpose of keeping away the flies, which always seek the light, and keeping the stable cool. The stable was fairly clean, but the grooming did not come up to our ideas. On the whole I was disappointed, and as for the produce, I should think that nothing but the very lightest of light cavalry horses could be expected from them.
We returned to Trieste by nine o'clock, coming by the old post-road from Vienna, and passing by that wonderful quarry of limestone slabs, perhaps the largest in the world.
CHAPTER V.
THE "SAN CARLO" AND HER PASSENGERS—A DALMATIAN'S REMARKS ON THE PRESERVATION OF HEALTH IN INDIA—DALMATIAN DIGGERS FROM AUSTRALIA—COAST OF ISTRIA—PIRANO—CATHEDRAL OF PARENZO—ROVIGNO—POLA—THE AMPHITHEATRE—PICTURESQUE SIGHT—GIOVANNI ASTONISHED—MONTENEGRIN COSTUME—ZARA—EXTREME HEAT.
On the 2nd of July I was up betimes. I had taken my place for Zara on board the 'San Carlo,' a small coasting steamer which trades down the Dalmatian side of the Adriatic, going in and out among that archipelago of islands which fringe the coast of Dalmatia from the mouth of the Guarnero to the entrance of the Gulf of Cattaro. It was a small, slow, and dirty little steamer, but it stopped everywhere going on its way, and that was just what I wanted.
Small as the vessel was, we had plenty of passengers, and a strange lot they were. We had two Capuchin monks going to Ragusa, one of them a most interesting man of whom I shall have more to say by and by; his lay brother, a simple, ignorant monk, and no more. We had a tall, handsome Dalmatian from Spalato, returning home to end his days in opulence and comfort after spending twenty years in India, where he had accumulated an independence which in Dalmatia will be considered a large fortune. He spoke English remarkably well. Being struck by his hale and robust looks, I asked him how he had managed to preserve his health so well after residing for twenty years in India. "Many of them," added he, "in unhealthy localities." "Simply by not drinking," he answered. "I don't mean to say that I was a water-drinker—not at all, for I believe that water-drinking is nearly as bad as spirit-drinking, and indeed I think I have observed that those who were 'teatotallers' died even sooner than drunkards. But I never drank anything before breakfast, I drank nothing but good, full-bodied claret, and I never took more than two bottles of it a day, and seldom so much; I smoked, but always in moderation, and I never had a day's illness during those twenty years. India is not a bad climate, it is the reckless habits of Europeans that make it apparently so."
We had two other Dalmatians from Sebenico, who also were returning home after residing many years abroad. These two had been in Australia; one had been a digger, and seemed the reverse of well-off; the other had kept a store at some gold-diggings, and had apparently made plenty of money. Both spoke English well, and the last one brought with him from Australia an Irish wife, who had emigrated to the Antipodes all the way from Lurgan. She was a fine comely young woman of about twenty-six, and was overjoyed at finding I knew her native place. In the afternoon I made some tea in my portable kitchen, and gave her a cup of it with some preserved milk, which she declared the most delicious thing she had tasted for many a long day.
The rest of our passengers consisted of country people returning to their homes along the coast of Istria and Dalmatia, after having been to Trieste to dispose of the produce of their lands.