Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

by Various

At this fair is to be seen the picturesque collo dance of the Morlacchi, of which our author affords a capital pencil-sketch, as well as the following description:—

"It sometimes begins before dinner, but is kept up with greater spirit afterwards. They call it collo, from being, like most of their national dances, in a circle. A man generally has one partner, sometimes two, but always at his right side. In dancing, he takes her right hand with his, while she supports herself by holding his girdle with her left; and when he has two partners, the one nearest him holds in her right hand that of her companion, who, with her left, takes the right hand of the man; and each set dances forward in a line round the circle. The step is rude, as in most of the Slavonic dances, including the polka and the radovatschka; and the music, which is primitive, is confined to a three-stringed violin."

Dancing for dancing's sake, is what enters into no Englishman's category of the enjoyable, nor into many an Englishwoman's either, we should think, after the passage out of her teens; but that it is, in sober earnest, an enjoyment to many people under the sun, there is no doubt. Surely there is something wonderful in the faculty of finding pleasure in the elephantine manœuvres of the romaika, or in the still more clumsy gyrations of a palicari's performance. The collo we readily believe to be a picturesque dance: but such qualification is not the general condition on which the people of a nation accept dances as national. Most of these exhibitions in Greece and Eastern Europe must be condemned as graceless and unmeaning: as an exhibition of earnest tomfoolery, they may be accepted as wonderful; and, at all events, may safely be pronounced co-excellent with the music that inspires them.

In passing from Salona to Traü, a distance of about thirteen miles and a half to the westward, the traveller passes by several of the villages called Castelli. The name has been given them from the circumstance of their having been built near to, and under the protection of, the castles which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, were constructed here by some of the nobles.

"The land was granted to them by the Venetians, on condition of their erecting places of refuge for the peasants during the wars with the Turks. A body of armed men lived within them, and, on the approach of danger, the flocks and herds were protected beneath the walls; and, at harvest time, the peasantry had a place of security for their crops within range of the castle guns."

The rights of lordship over the villages, which used to be exercised by the nobles in virtue of the protection afforded, have nearly all fallen into disuse. The only relic of feudalism that seems to survive is found at Castel Cambio, over which two nobles still possess certain rights. One of these was the hospitable host of Sir Gardner, and his friend Professor Carrara, on their passage to and from Traü.

A fact connected with the peculiarity of the position of this town is, we think, well worthy of notice, and deservedly recorded by our author. The town stands partly on a peninsula, and partly on the island of Bua. A fosse, cut across the narrow neck of the peninsula, has completed its isolation. This ditch has proved, on occasion, the most effectual of fortifications to the Traürines. They were, in 1241, besieged by the Tartars in pursuit of King Bela IV., who had fled hither before them. These impetuous assailants were unable to pass the ditch; and, having waited on the other side till food and forage were exhausted, they were obliged to retire. One cannot read this story without thinking of the account that Sir Francis Head gives of the La Plata Indians, whose habits of warfare are in many respects so exactly akin to those of the Tartars. These terrific horsemen would be scarcely resistible by their less robust enemies, save for their inability to cross anything in the shape of a ditch. Out of the saddle they can do nothing, and their horses will not leap; so that, if you wish to be safe from their inroads, you have but to surround your dwellings with a moderate trench. And very striking is the story that Sir Francis Head tells of the handful of men who, under such protection, held out successfully against a host of Indians. Traü, however, has been elaborately fortified in European fashion, though now the works are neglected, as being a useless precaution against dangers no longer existent. It has also a fine old cathedral, and some pictures of pretension.

After a brief notice of the islands of Brazza and Solta—a notice, however, sufficient for all useful purposes—we pass on to the picturesque neighbourhood of the falls of the Kerka. Sir Gardner speaks of the delay to which the passage by boat from Sebenico to Scardona is subject, but does not exactly complain of it. In fact, we can easily understand that, for the sake of the passenger, it is expedient that some authoritative note should be taken of his departure under charge of the particular boatmen who undertake his convoy. We never did ascend to Kerka, but from what we have seen of the class of men under whose guidance the expedition has to be performed, we are disposed to vote the caution of the police to be anything but superfluous. Every now and then one hears dreadful stories of the atrocities of boatmen in convenient parts of the Mediterranean; and there is good reason to be thankful that the Austrians think it worth while to be so careful of strangers.

The people about Sebenico, through whose lands the course of the lake leads, are spoken of as not paying much attention to agriculture or to their fisheries; but it seems that they are sedulously bent on raising grapes, and neglect no patch of ground at all likely to be available for this purpose. The lake of Scardona is considerably larger than that of Sebenico. On the shore here the Romans had a settlement, of which scarcely any remains are perceptible. They are, however, remarkable as affording a manifest proof of the rise of the level of the lake, for some of them are under water.

Scardona, we are told, does not occupy the site of the old Scardon, which was a place of considerable importance under the empire. Some have even imagined that the old city stood on the opposite bank of the river. The town at present is small, but well furnished for the convenience of strangers. It boasts an inn, at which Sir Gardner put up for one night. He then proceeded to the falls, which are distant from the inn a three-quarters-of-an-hour journey. As he intended to ascend the river above the falls, he had to send to the monks of Vissovaz to ask for a boat, and they readily complied with his request. The falls do not seem to have been full on the occasion of this visit—but, when full, the effect must be striking. They are divided into two parts, and their picturesque effect is greatly enhanced by the surrounding scenery.