The kindness of Signor Adamović enabled me to see the Reliquiario of the Dominican monastery here. Chief amongst the relics was the silver cross of another Serbian monarch, Stephen Uroš, son of his greater namesake and father of Czar Dūshan, with remains of angular ornamentation, and the following inscription:—[368]
‘Isus Hristos Nika.’
‘This venerable cross was made by the Lord King Stephen Uroš, for the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul: that it may be unto him for a safeguard and for remission of sins. And the bishop of Rascia, Gregory II., made this venerable cross in like manner as that widow who gave her two mites. Whosoever shall presume to carry off this cross, let him be accursed of the holy Apostles and of the venerable wood. Of this Cross am I defended; I oppose myself to demons, fearing neither their toils nor their deceits, even as the proud was made foolish and crushed beneath the force of Christ crucified.’
Such is superstition!
There were also many early specimens of filigree work with floral tendencies, and a head—I dare not call it unique—of St. Stephen of Hungary. There was one arm the attribution of which was unknown to the monks, but having succeeded in deciphering a mediæval inscription at the base, I was pleased to be able to inform them that they were the happy possessors of St. Luke’s arm! In the Dominican church and adjoining chapels are many interesting monument of Ragusan citizens, amongst others the tomb of Ghetaldi. There are many family vaults of the Ragusan nobles with Jure hereditario inscribed on them; but one slab inscribed in Italian as ‘the Common Sepulchre of the Confraternity of the Carpenters,’ was peculiarly interesting as a memorial of the guild-brotherhoods of the old Artigiani, which formed such a prominent feature in the early history of the commonwealth.
One may spend days in wandering about Ragusa—exploring her streets, her churches and monasteries, her palaces, and the private houses of her citizens—and always lighting on some interesting memorial of the past. In the meanest houses, in the old walls, in the pavement beneath your feet, you stumble against fragments of sculptured marble—waifs from the wreck of Ragusa as she existed before the earthquake. Of the clean sweep wrought by that terrible calamity, the streets themselves, laid out at right angles, are an eloquent witness; and yet it is surprising how many vestiges of the mediæval city are still to be traced. Not one of the narrow side streets but has its sculptured doorways and mouldings—its ogee window-arches, and luxuriant, half classical, half Gothic foliage. Here and there you pass one of the palaces of the old nobility—the Case Signorili, as they are called—with the family scutcheon carved over the portal, and dignified projecting balconies. So marvellous is this climate that the most beautiful garden and hothouse flowers grow wherever there is a chink in an old wall. In the narrowest alleys the stately shadows of bygone magnificence are lighted up by hanging gardens of scarlet geraniums, golden zinnias, balsams, and fragrant carnations clinging to the crevices of ancient palaces and houses, while here and there a vine-spray joins the opposite sides of the street.
On the landside of the Stradone or high-street the city extends in terraces on the lower flank of the limestone mountain which dominates it. The streets here are prolonged flights of steps, of the usual slippery marble, up which we made our way with difficulty, to obtain a bird’s-eye view of the city from the upper wall. The view was well worth the pains. The whole of Ragusa lay below us, circled on three sides by a sapphire ring of sea. To the north was the fine rock of Fort Lorenzo, whose very foundations saved the infant Commonwealth from the Venetians, and, beneath it, the narrow cove of sea which almost threatens to cut off the land gate of the city. To the south opened the old port of Ragusa, the haven of the Argosies; beyond, rose the gardens and convent of the isle of Lacroma, where Cœur-de-Lion landed, and from whose western precipices malefactors were cast headlong into the sea in the days of the Republic. The colours were simply marvellous—the roofs, the walls, the domes, the campaniles, of the city below, took the rose and orange hues of a ripe apricot; the sea beyond was of the most wondrous ultramarine—and Ragusa with her lofty Oriental walls, rose from its now tranquil bosom like Jerusalem the golden from some crystal sea above. But it is the smallness of Ragusa that strikes one almost more than anything. It seems almost impossible to realize that this little town below should have maintained its independence for centuries amidst surrounding empires; that the wealth of what is now Turkey-in-Europe was once hoarded beneath these closely huddled roofs; that the mightiest carracks of the Spanish navy sailed forth from this petty haven. Ragusa looks the mere plaything of the ocean; and indeed they say that in storms the sea surges up these narrow gorges, and flings its spray right over the cliff-set walls on to the house-tops within, frosting roofs and windows with crystalline brine.
Ragusa is still, as ever, a city of asylum. At the present moment a number of houseless Christian refugees from the Herzegovina have sought shelter here. A colony of these is domiciled outside the Porta Plocce, or sea-gate, in some stable-like buildings which once served as the Lazaretto. On our way there we passed the Turkish market, where a number of Turks were purchasing salt, corn, and fodder for the starving troops of the Sultan in the revolted districts.
The condition in which we found the refugees did great credit to the hospitality of the Ragusans.[369] We had expected to find a set of half-starved miserable wretches, clad in rags and worn with anxiety for absent fathers, husbands, sons. Quite the contrary! They were well fed; they did not seem at all forlorn, and with their light white kerchiefs and chemises they presented a picture of cleanliness which would have put to shame the squalor of many an Italian-Dalmatian. Among the Bosnian refugees of the Save-lands were to be seen many able-bodied men. Here it was far otherwise. The Herzegovinians are made of sterner stuff, and we noticed among the refugees no boys over thirteen, and no men, except one cripple, under seventy, and there were few enough even of these. The women, too, showed something of the spirit of the matrons of old. They had sold their silver trinkets to buy arms for their husbands. Most of them were already stripped of the coins with which they love to bespangle their fez—of the silver brooches of their belt, shaped like two convolvulus leaves—of the broad girdle studded like an ephod with rudely cut carnelians, agates, amethysts, and roots-of-emerald, set like the mediæval gems in the neighbouring Reliquiario. One woman who still possessed this superb ceinture offered it me for twenty gulden—rather less than two pounds. The gems came, she told us, from the Herzegovinian valleys about Nevešinje—she did not know that the agates and carnelians of these prolific sites were exported of old to the sea-ports of Roman Dalmatia, there to be set, as now, in rings and trinkets, and carved with classical devices![370] Attire so neat and graceful needed not, however, the embellishment of barbaric jewellery; the bright crimson fez, the light white kerchief drawn over it and falling about the shoulders in artistic folds, the dark indigo jacket harmonising with the deep reds and oranges of the apron—these were amply sufficient to make the little groups highly picturesque as they sat or leant before their new homes, plying their spindles most industriously. Little children were playing before the women—such frank pleasant faces!—many with hair as fair as ever that of young Angles.