It is a sleepy and dull little town, with small streets and dark forbidding-looking houses. There are hardly any shops, but in one quaint sort of jeweller's stall the fashionable ornaments of Istria were pointed out to me. These are ear-rings—little crowned negroes' heads in black and white enamel, and the height of fashion among the fishermen is to wear both in one ear.
One sees very few people in the streets. Here and there a dark-eyed girl strolling along with the peculiar shuffling gait caused by the "zoccoli"—the wooden slippers of the Venetian women.
DOOR-KNOCKER
Everywhere are relics of Venice—the carved cisterns on the piazzas, the winged lions on the houses, where you find inscriptions bearing some of the most illustrious names of the Republic, but everywhere, too, silence, abandonment, and decay. There are some fine old palaces, but the windows are shut, and they seem deserted. On one we admired a wonderful old bronze knocker of most refined workmanship, and as the house with its arched windows and marble balconies looked particularly nice, we explored the interior. There, too, we found the large Venetian entrance-hall and an imposing-looking staircase, but no soul appeared.
Then we repaired to a café on the piazza. It was formerly an open "loggia," but between the stately marble columns some mean commercial soul has put glass windows, and the interior is dishonoured by the usual little marble tables and black leather seats. The ladies ordered coffee and sponge-cakes, I drank beer, and the "Gentle Lunatic" asked for a cup of hot water—his favourite drink.
CAFÉ AT CAPODISTRIA
One of the "G. L.'s" passions is his liking for low acquaintances. Hardly had we finished our repast and gone out, before he formed a new friendship of this kind. An old beggar with a long gray beard approached, and the two immediately fraternised. They sat down on a stone bench together, and discussed politics and literature. In the meantime another beggar came up, whom the first beggar introduced as "the greatest poet of Capodistria." The poet was proud, however, and evidently averse to becoming intimate with strangers; at any rate, after having received with lofty condescension the "tip" diffidently offered to him by the "G. L.," he went majestically off. It was with the greatest difficulty that we finally separated the two friends, who parted with mutual expressions of everlasting esteem.
We then once more mounted our chariot, and betook ourselves to the steamer.