Immediately behind and above the Loggie rises Fort Spagnuolo, built by Charles V, connected with the town below by two long crenelated walls, enclosing in front a considerable space planted thick with colossal aloes (Agave Americana), which in case of assault would, in olden times, have offered a very considerable impediment to the advance of troops.
The island of Lesina is barren, and its commerce very insignificant; it grows, however, an immense quantity of rosemary, from which is distilled a celebrated essential oil Oleum Anthos, and the Aqua Regia, or rosemary water, which are both largely exported.
It was dark when we left; shaping our way for Curzola where we arrived about midnight. My friend, the Capuchin, who sat chatting with me till we arrived there, regretted I could not see it by daylight, as contrary to the other islands, which are conspicuous for their barrenness, Curzola is well wooded, and is celebrated for the size and magnificence of its pine trees.
We did not make any long delay here, and were soon threading our course again between the islands and the mainland in the direction of Ragusa, but I know nothing about them. The Monk wished me good-night and went to his cabin, when again I took my usual place on deck, and was soon as comfortably asleep on that oaken plank as if I had been in the most luxurious bed in England.
I was awakened from my night's sleep by my friend the Capuchin monk, who had been my travelling companion all the way from Trieste.
"Get up, my lazy friend," said he, touching me with his foot. "We shall soon be entering the port of Gravosa; and there," stretching, out his arm towards the Dalmatian coast, "is the island of Lachroma, once the property of the unfortunate Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, and in ancient times a harbour of refuge to your great King Richard, Cœur-de-Lion."
Hard though my bed had been, for nothing but my doubled up old rug had interposed between myself and the deck, I had slept profoundly, "à la belle étoile," and far more comfortably than if I had condescended to take my place in the dirty and stuffy camerino down below, where all the other passengers, including my friend the Capuchin and his lay-brother, fearing bad smells, fleas, and other small game much less than the delicious night-air of the balmy Adriatic, had carefully stowed themselves away the previous night. I was up in an instant, and I shall not easily forget the sight that greeted my eyes from the deck of the little 'San Carlo.'
We were about three miles from the shore; the sun, though high above the horizon, had not yet acquired sufficient force to destroy the freshness of the morning breeze which delicately rippled the surface of the sea, making it in the sunshine like a sheet of frosted gold, while in the shade it was like liquid sapphire. On my left rose the wild, rocky cliffs of Dalmatia, rendered still more desolate-looking by the almost total absence of vegetation; while in front and on my right, stretching away to the extreme verge of the horizon, were the sparkling waters of the Adriatic, thickly studded with countless islets, to the nearest of which, Lachroma, the Monk had drawn my attention.
"It is now many years," said the Capuchin, "since your great crusading King found a refuge in that island."
"I was not aware that King Richard was shipwrecked here," said I. "I knew that he met with a terrific storm in this sea on his return from Palestine, but I always imagined he had been wrecked near the top of the Adriatic, on the coast of Istria, in the neighbourhood of Aquileia."