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THE NEAR EAST
[Illustration: THE MOSQUE OF SULEIMAN AT CONSTANTINOPLE]
THE
NEAR EAST
DALMATIA, GREECE
AND CONSTANTINOPLE
BY
ROBERT HICHENS
ILLUSTRATED BY
JULES GUÉRIN
AND WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
[Illustration]
LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
1913
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES BY THE DE VINNE PRESS
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
PICTURESQUE DALMATIA 1
CHAPTER II
IN AND NEAR ATHENS 49
CHAPTER III
THE ENVIRONS OF ATHENS 95
CHAPTER IV
DELPHI AND OLYMPIA 137
CHAPTER V
IN CONSTANTINOPLE 181
CHAPTER VI
STAMBOUL, THE CITY OF MOSQUES 225
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The Mosque of Suleiman at Constantinople _Frontispiece_
From a painting by Jules Guérin
PAGE
The Roman Amphitheater at Pola 4
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Market-Place at Spalato 9
From a painting by Jules Guérin
Zara--Piazza delle Erbe 14
The Harbor of Mezzo 17
Spalato--Peristilio 24
Trau--Vestibule of the Cathedral 27
Ragusa 32
The Rector's Palace and the Public Square at Ragusa 37
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Jesuits' Church and the Military Hospital, Ragusa 45
The Parthenon at Athens 52
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Acropolis, with a View of the Areopagus and Mount
Hymettus, from the West 55
The Theater of Dionysus on the southern slope of the
Acropolis 62
The Temple of the Olympian Zeus at Athens 65
From a painting by Jules Guérin
In the Portico of the Parthenon 70
The Temple of Athene Nike at Athens 75
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Stadium, Athens 82
The Academy, Mount Lycabettus in the background 87
The Acropolis at Athens, early morning 92
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Temple of Poseidon and Athene at Sunium 98
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Temple of Athene, Island of Ægina 103
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Theater of Dionysus, Athens 108
The Plain of Marathon 113
A Monastery at the foot of Hymettus 120
Ruins of the Great Temple of the Mysteries at Eleusis 125
The Odeum of Herodes Atticus in Athens 133
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Site of Ancient Delphi 140
From a painting by Jules Guérin
Delphi--Gulf of Corinth in the distance 143
The Lion of Chæronea, the Acropolis and Mount Parnassus 150
Place of the famous Oracle, Delphi 154
View of Mount Parnassus 159
Ruins of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi 165
The Temple of Hera at Olympia 170
Olympia--Entrance to the Athletic Field 175
The Grand Bazaar in Constantinople 184
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Bosphorous--Constantinople in the distance 190
Galata Bridge, which connects Galata and Pera 193
The Water-front of Stamboul, with Pera in the distance 200
Looking down Step Street, Constantinople 203
Public Letter-writers in a Constantinople Street 208
The Courtyard of the "Pigeon's Mosque" 213
From a painting by Jules Guérin
Street Scene in Constantinople 221
The Mosque of the Yeni-Validé-Jamissi, Constantinople 228
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Royal Gate leading to the old Seraglio 231
From a painting by Jules Guérin
The Mosque of Santa Sophia 238
From a painting by Jules Guérin
In the Cemetery of Eyub, on the Golden Horn 241
From a painting by Jules Guérin
Interior of Santa Sophia 246
St. George's Greek Church, now a mosque, Constantinople 251
Street vista in Galata from end of bridge,
Constantinople 258
A view over Constantinople showing the Mosque of Santa
Sophia 263
PICTURESQUE DALMATIA
[Illustration: THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATER AT POLA]
THE NEAR EAST
CHAPTER I
PICTURESQUE DALMATIA
Miramar faded across the pale waters of the Adriatic, which lay like a
dream at the foot of the hills where Triest seemed sleeping, all its
activities stilled at the summons of peace. Beneath its tower the
orange-colored sail of a fishing-boat caught the sunlight, and gleamed
like some precious fabric, then faded, too, as the ship moved onward to
the forgotten region of rocks and islands, of long, gray mountains, of
little cities and ancient fortresses, of dim old churches, from whose
campanile the medieval voices of bells ring out the angelus to a people
still happily primitive, still unashamed to be picturesque. By the way
of the sea we journeyed to a capital where no carriages roll through the
narrow streets, where there is not a railway-station, where the citizens
are content to go on foot about their business, and where three quarters
of the blessings of civilization are blessedly unknown. We had still to
touch at Pola, in whose great harbor the dull-green war-ships of Austria
lay almost in the shadow of the vast Roman amphitheater, which has
lifted its white walls, touched here and there with gold, above the sea
for some sixteen hundred years, curiously graceful despite its gigantic
bulk, the home now of grasses and thistles, where twenty thousand
spectators used to assemble to take their pleasure.
But when Pola was left behind, the ship soon entered the watery
paradise. Miramar, Triest, were forgotten. Dalmatia is a land of
forgetting, seems happily far away, cut off by the sea from many
banalities, many active annoyances of modern life.
Places that are, or that seem to be, remote often hold a certain
melancholy, a tristesse of "old, unhappy, far-off things." But Dalmatia
has a serene atmosphere, a cheerful purity, a clean and a cozy gaiety
which reach out hands to the traveler, and take him at once into
intimacy and the breast of a home. Before entering it the ship coasts
along a naked region, in which pale, almost flesh-colored hills are
backed by mountains of a ghastly grayness. Flesh-color and steel are
almost cruelly blended. No habitations were visible. The sea, protected
on our right by lines of islands, was waveless. No birds flew above it;
no boats moved on it. We seemed to be creeping down into the ultimate
desolation.
But presently the waters widened out. At the foot of the hills appeared
here and there white groups of houses. A greater warmth, like a breath
of hope, stole into the air. White and yellow sails showed on the breast
of the sea. Two sturdy men, wearing red caps, and standing to ply their
oars, hailed us in the Slav dialect as they passed on their way to the
islands. The huge, gray Velebit Mountains still bore us company on our
voyage to the South, but they were losing their almost wicked look of
dreariness. In the golden light of afternoon romance was descending upon
them. And now a long spur of green land thrust itself far out, as if to
bar our way onward. The islands closed in upon us again. A white town
smiled on us far off at the edge of the happy, green land. It looked
full of promises, a little city not to be passed without regretting. It
was Zara, the capital without a railway-station of the forgotten
country.
Zara, Trau, Spalato, Ragusa, Castelnuovo, Cattaro, Sebenico--these, with
two or three other places, represent Dalmatia to the average traveler.
Ragusa is, perhaps, the most popular and interesting; Spalato the most
populous and energetic; Cattaro the most remarkable scenically. Trau
leaves a haunting memory in the mind of him who sees it. Castelnuovo is
a little paradise marred in some degree by the soldiers who infest it,
and who seem strangely out of place in its tiny ways and its
tree-shaded piazza on the hilltop. But Zara has a peculiar charm, half
gay, half brightly tender. And nowhere else in all Dalmatia are such
exquisite effects of light wedded to water to be seen as on Zara's
Canale.
Zara, like other sirens, is deceptive. The city has a face which gives
little indication of its soul. Along the shore lie tall and cheerful
houses,--almost palaces they are,--solid and big, modern, with windows
opening to the sea, and separated from it only by a broad walk, edged by
a strip of pavement, from which might be taken a dive into the limpid
water. And here, when the ship tied up, a well-dressed throng of joyous
citizens was taking the air. Children were playing and laughing. Two or
three row-boats slipped through the gold and silver which the sun, just
setting behind the island of Ugljan opposite, showered toward the city.
Music came from some place of entertainment. A simple liveliness
suggested prosperous homes, the well-being of a community apart, which
chose to live "out of the world," away from railroads, motor-cars, and
carriage traffic, but which knew how to be modern in its own quiet and
decorous way.
Yet Zara had a great soaring campanile--it had been visible far off at
sea--and tiny streets and old buildings, San Donato, the duomo, San
Simeone; and five fountains,--the _cinque pozzi_,--and a Venetian
tower,--the Torre di Buovo d'Antona,--and fortification gardens, and
lion gateways. Where were all these? A sound of bells came from behind
the palaces. And these bells seemed to be proclaiming the truth of Zara.
[Illustration: THE MARKET-PLACE AT SPALATO]
Bells ringing in hidden places behind the palaces; bells calling across
strange gardens lifted high on mighty walls; bells whispering among
pines and murmuring across green depths of glass-like water; bells
chiming above the yellowing vines on tiny islands! Who that remembers
Zara remembers not Zara's bells?
Walk a few steps from the sea, passing between the big houses which
front it into the Piazza delle Erbe, and you come at once into a busy
strangeness of Croatia girdled about by Italy. Dalmatia has been
possessed wholly or in part by Romans, Goths, Slavs, Hungarians, Turks,
Venetians. Now smart Austrian soldiers make themselves at home in Zara,
but Italy seems still to rule there, stretching hands out of the past.
Italian may be heard on all sides, but the peasants who throng the
_calle_ and the market-place and the harbor speak a Slavonic dialect,
and in the piazza on any morning, almost in the shadow of the Romanesque
cathedral, and watched over by a griffin perched on a high Corinthian
column hung with chains, which announce its old service as a pillory,
you may hear their chatter, and see the gay colors of costumes which to
the untraveled might perhaps suggest comic opera.
There is a wildness of the near East in this medieval Italian town, a
wildness which blooms and fades between tall houses of stone, facing
each other so closely that friend might almost clasp hand with friend
leaning from window to opposite window. Against the somber grays and
browns of façades, set in the deep shadows of the paved alleys which are
Zara's streets, move brilliant colors, scarlet and silver, blue and
crimson and silver. Multitudes of coins and curious heavy ornaments
glitter on the caps and the dresses of women. Enormous boys and great,
striding men, brave in embroidered jackets, with bright-red caps too
small for the head, silver buttons, red sashes stuck full of weapons and
other impedimenta, gaiters, and pointed shoes, march hither and thither,
calmly intent on some business which has brought them in from the
outlying districts. It varies, of course, with the changing seasons. In
the latter part of October and beginning of November most of the male
peasants were selling very large hares. Live cocks and hens were being
disposed of by many of the women, and it is a common thing in Zara to
see well-dressed people bearing about with them bunches of puffed-out
and drearily blinking poultry, which they have bought casually at some
corner; by the great Venetian tower; or near the round, two-storied
church of San Donato, founded on the spot where once stood a Roman
forum, whose pavement still remains; or perhaps by San Simeone, close to
the palace of the governor, where under the black eagles of Austria the
sentry, in blue and bright yellow, stands drowsily in the sunshine
before his black and yellow box.
[Illustration: ZARA--PIAZZA DELLE ERBE]
Sometimes the peasants bring live stock to church. One morning, on a
week day, I went into San Simeone, to which Queen Elizabeth of Hungary
gave the superb arca of silver gilt which contains, it is said, the
remains of the saint. I found there a number of peasants, men and women,
all in characteristic costumes. Only peasants were there. Some were
quietly sitting, some kneeling, some standing, with their market-baskets
set down on the pavement beside them. In a hidden place behind the high
altar, above which is raised the great, carved sarcophagus, priests were
droning the office. A peasant in red, with a gesture, invited me to sit
beside him. I did so, and he whispered in my ear some words I could not
understand; but I gathered that something very important was about to
take place. Every face was expectant. All eyes were earnestly fixed upon
the sarcophagus. A woman came in, carrying in her arms a turkey, which
looked anxious-minded, crossed herself, and waited with us, gazing. The
droning voices ceased. A sort of carillon sounded brightly. We all
knelt, the woman with the turkey, too, as a priest in scarlet and white
mounted the steps which divide the altar from the area. There was a
moment of deep silence. Then the great, glittering, and sloping lid,
with its recumbent figure of the saint, slowly rose between the bronze
supporting figures. My peasant friend touched me, stood up, and led the
way toward the altar. I followed him with the rest of the congregation,
and we filed slowly up the steps, and one by one gazed down into the dim
coffin. There I saw a skull, and the vague brown remains of what had
once been a human being, lying in the midst of votive offerings. On the
fingers of one hand, which looked as if made of tobacco leaf, were
clusters of rings. The fat, bronze faces on each side seemed smiling.
But the peasants stood in awe. And presently the great lid sank down.
All made the sign of the cross. The market-baskets were picked up, and
the turkey was restored to the sunlight.
[Illustration: THE HARBOR OF MEZZO]
Close to San Simeone are the cinque pozzi--five fountains in a row, with
iron wheels above them. They are between four and five hundred years
old, and lie almost at the foot of the Venetian tower, near a Corinthian
column and the fragments of a Roman arch. Just behind them some steps
lead up to one of the delicious shady places of Zara. Mount them, and
you will have a happy surprise such as the little Dalmatian cities
are always ready to give you.
You have been walking away from the sea, with your back to the harbor,
and here is another, but minute, harbor nestling under a great fortress
wall above which, in a garden, some young soldiers are idly leaning and
laughing under trees with leaves of gold and red-brown. Brightly painted
vessels, closely packed together, lie on the blue-green water. Beyond
them are the trees of Blazekovic Park. And just beneath you, on your
right, is the great, yellow stone Porta di Terra Ferma, with its winged
lion of St. Mark. Beyond, over the narrow exit from the harbor, the
landlocked Canale di Zara, which sometimes, especially at evening,
reminded me of the Venice lagoons, lies glittering in the sun. And a
Venetian fort on the peak of Ugljan shows like a strange and determined
shadow against the blue of the sky.
The great white campanile which dominates Zara, and which from the sea
looks light and graceful, is the campanile of the duomo, Sant'
Anastasia, and was partly built by the Venetians, and completed not many
years ago. From the narrow street which skirts the duomo this campanile,
though majestic, looks heavy and almost overwhelming, too huge, too
tremendously solid, for the little town in which it is set. And, its
blanched hue, beautiful from the sea, has a rather unpleasant effect
against the deep, time-worn color of the church, the façade of which,
with its two rose windows, one large, one small, its three beautiful,
mellow-toned doorways, and its curious and somehow touching, though
stolid, statues, is very fine. The interior, not specially interesting,
contains some glorious Gothic stalls dating from the fifteenth century.
They are of black wood, relieved with bosses and tiny statuettes of
bright gold, and above each one is the half-length of a gilded and
painted man, wearing a beard and holding a scroll. The Porta Marina,
through which the chief harbor is gained, is remarkable for its carved,
dark-gray lion, companioned by two white cherubs of stone brilliantly
full of life despite their almost terrifying obesity. One of the most
beautiful things in Zara is the delicate and lovely campanile of Santa
Maria, over six hundred years old. St. Grisogono, the church of the
city's patron saint, was in the hands of workmen and could not be
visited when I was in Dalmatia.
Almost the whole of Zara is surrounded by water. On the great walls of
the ancient fortifications are gardens, and from these gardens you look
down on quiet inlets of the sea. Old buildings, old walls and gardens,
tiny, medieval streets through which no carriage ever passes, fountains,
lion gateways, painted boats lying on clear and apparently motionless
waters shut in from the open sea by long lines of mountainous islands,
pine-trees and olives and golden vineyards, and over all an ancient
music of bells. It is difficult to say good-by to Zara, even though
Spalato sends out a summons from the _riviera_ of red and of gold, even
though Ragusa calls from its leafy groves under the Fort Imperiale.
Bora, the wind of the dead, blew when our ship rounded the lighthouse of
Spalato long after darkness had fallen. And the following day was the
"_giorno dei morti_." The strange cathedral, octagonal without, circular
within, once the mausoleum of the Emperor Diocletian, was crowded with
citizens and peasants devoutly praying. Incense rose between the dark,
hoary walls, the columns of granite and porphyry, to the dome of brick.
Outside in the wind the black hornblende sphinx kept watch on those who
came and went, mourning for their departed. The sky was a heavy gray,
and the temple was dark, and looked wrinkled and seared with age, and
sad despite its pagan frieze showing the wild joys of the chase, despite
the loveliness of its thirteenth-century pulpit of limestone and marble,
raised high on wonderfully graceful columns with elaborately carved
capitals.
Spalato is the biggest, most bustling town of Dalmatia. Much of it is
built into the great palace of Diocletian, which lies over against the
sea, huge, massive, powerful, once probably noble, but now disfigured
by the paltry windows and the green shutters of modern dwellings, by a
triviality of common commercial life, sparrows where eagles should be.
When nature takes a ruin, she usually glorifies it, or touches it with a
tenderness of romance. But when people in the wine trade lay hold upon
it, hang out their washing in it, and establish their cafés and their
bakeries and their butchers' shops in the midst of its rugged walls, its
arches, and its columns, the ruin suffers, and the people in the wine
trade seem to lose in value instead of gaining in importance.
[Illustration: SPALATO--PERISTILIO]
Spalato is a strange confusion of old and new. It lacks the delicacy of
Zara, the harmonious beauty of Ragusa. One era seems to fight with
another within it. Here is a noble twelfth-century campanile, nearly a
hundred and eighty feet high, there a common row of little shops full of
cheap and uninviting articles. Turning a corner, one comes unexpectedly
upon a Corinthian temple. It is the Battistero di San Giovanni, once
perhaps the private temple of Diocletian. For the moment no one is near
it, and despite the icy breath of Bora raging through the city and
crying, "This is the day of the dead!" a calm of dead years infolds you
as you enter the massive doorway and pass into the shadow beneath the
stone wagon-roof. A few steps, and the smell of fish assails you,
hundreds of strings of onions greet your eyes, and the heavy rolling
of enormous barrels of wine over stone pavements breaks through the
noise of the wind. You have come unexpectedly out through a gateway of
the palace on to the quay to the south, and are in the midst of
commercial activities. The contrasts are picturesque, but they are
rough, and, when complicated by Bora, are confusing, almost distressing.
Nevertheless, Spalato is well worth a visit. It contains a small, but
remarkable, museum, specially interesting for its sarcophagi found at
Salona and its collection of inscriptions. The sarcophagus showing the
passage of the Red Sea is very curious. Apart from the now disfigured
palace, the Battistero, the very interesting and peculiar cathedral,
with its vestibule, its rotunda, and its Piazza of the Sphinx, like
nothing else I have seen, the town is full of picturesque nooks and
corners; and its fruit market at the foot of the massive octagonal
Hrvoja Tower, which dates from 1481, is perhaps even more animated, more
full of strangeness and color, than Zara's Piazza delle Erbe. Here may
be seen turbans of crimson on the handsome heads of men, elaborately
embroidered crimson jackets covering immense shoulders and chests, women
dressed in blue and red, white and silver, or with heads and busts
draped in the most brilliant shade of orange color. When Bora blows, the
men look like monks or Mephistopheles; for some--the greater
number--wrap themselves from head to foot in long cloaks and hoods of
brown, while others of a more lively temperament shroud themselves in
red. They are a handsome people, rustic-looking, yet often noble, with
kind yet bold faces, steady eyes, and a magnificent physique. Their gait
is large and loose. There are giants in Dalmatia in our days. And many
of the women are not only pretty, but have delightful expressions, open,
pure, and gay. There seems to be nothing to fear in Dalmatia. I have
driven through the wilds, and over the flanks of the mountains, both in
Dalmatia and Herzegovina, in the dead of the night, and had no
unpleasant experience. The peasants have a high reputation for honesty
and general probity as well as for courage. And beggars are scarce, if
they exist at all, in Dalmatia.
Trau has a unique charm. The riviera of the Sette Castelli stretches
between it and Spalato, along the shore of an inlet of the sea which is
exactly like a blue lake. And what a marvelous blue it is on a cloudless
autumn day! Every one knows what is meant by a rapture of spring. Those
who traverse that riviera at the end of October, or even in the opening
days of November, will know what a rapture of autumn can be.
[Illustration: TRAU--VESTIBULE OF THE CATHEDRAL]
Miles upon miles of bright-golden and rose-red vineyards edge the
startling blue of the sea. And the vines are not stunted and ugly,
but large, leafy, growing with a rank luxuriance. Among them, with
trunks caught as it were in the warm embraces of these troops of
bacchantes, are thousands of silver-green olive-trees. And peasants in
red, peasants in orange-color, move waist-deep, sometimes shoulder-deep,
through the glory, under the glory of the sun. Here and there in a
grass-grown clearing, like a small islet in the ocean of vines, appears
a hut of brushwood and woven grasses, and under the trees before it sit
peasants eating the grapes they have just picked warm from the plants.
Now and then a sportsman may be seen, in peasant costume, smoking a
cigarette, his gun over his shoulder, passing slowly with his red-brown
dog among the red-gold vines. Now and then a distant report rings out
among the olives. Then the warm silence falls again over this rapture of
autumn. And so, you come to Trau.
Trau is a tiny town set on a tiny island approached by bridges,
medieval, sleepy, yet happy, almost drowsily joyous, in appearance, with
that air of half-gentle, half-blithe satisfaction with self which makes
so many Dalmatian places characteristic and almost touching. How odd to
live in Trau! Yet might it not be a delicious experience to live in dear
little Trau with the right person, separated from the world by the
shining water,--for who comes over the bridges, when all is
said?--guarded by the lion and the statue which crown the gateway,
cradled in peace and mellow fruitfulness?
The gateway passed, a narrow alley or two threaded, a corner turned,
and, lo! a piazza, a loggia with fine old columns, a tiled roof and a
clock-tower, a campanile and a cathedral with a great porch, and
underneath the porch a marvel of a doorway! Can tiny Trau on its tiny
island really possess all this?
The lion doorway of the duomo at Trau is certainly one of the finest
things in Dalmatia. The duomo dates from the thirteenth century, but has
been twice enlarged. It is not large now, but small and high, dim, full
of the smell of stale incense, blackened by age, almost strangely
silent, almost strangely secluded. In the choir is a deep well with an
old well-head. There are many tombs in the pavement. The finely carved
pulpit, with its little lion, and the fifteenth-century choir-stalls are
well worth seeing, and the roof of the chapel of St. Giovanni Orsini,
which contains a great marble tomb, has been made wonderful by age, like
an old face made wonderful by wrinkles. But Radovan's doorway is
certainly the marvel of Trau. In color it is a rich, deep, dusty brown,
and it is elaborately and splendidly carved with two big lions, with
Adam on a lion and with Eve on a lioness. The lioness is grasping a
lamb. There is a multiplicity of other detail. The two big lions,
which stick out on each side of the round-arched doorway, as if about to
step forth into the alleys of Trau, have a fine air of life, though they
both look tame. Their mouths are open, but almost smiling.
[Illustration: RAGUSA]
When you leave the duomo, wander through the Venetian streets of this
wonderful little island city, where Gothic windows and beautifully
carved balconies look out to, lean forth to, the calm, blue waters,
edged by the red and the gold of the vines. For this place is unique and
has an unique charm. Peace dwells here, and beauty has found a quiet
abiding-place, where it lingers, and will linger, I hope, for many
centuries yet, girdled by olive-groves, by vineyards, by sun-kissed
waters, guarded by the lions of Venice.
From Spalato I visited the white ruins of Salona, where the Emperor
Diocletian was born, and near which, in his palace at Spalato, he spent
the last eight years of his life, cultivating his garden, seeking after
philosophy, and, let us hope, repenting of his bitter persecution of the
Christians. From the hill, on the site of the Basilica Urbana, I saw one
of those frigid and almost terrible lemon sunsets which come with the
wind of the dead. I stayed till night despite the intense cold, till the
fragments of the city, scattered far over the sloping ground above the
riviera of the Sette Castelli, and creeping up to the solitary
dwelling-house built by Professor Bulic of old Roman stones, took on sad
and unnatural pallors in the darkness, till lonely columns stood up like
watching specters, and fragments of wall were like specters crouching.
For a long while the lemon hue persisted in the western sky, and the
voice of the wind rose with the night, crying among the burial-places.
A few hours' voyage on a splendid ship, and you step ashore at Gravosa,
the port for Ragusa, the most popular place in Dalmatia, and in many
ways the most attractive. For it is embowered in woods and gardens;
contains remarkable old buildings; is girdled about by tremendous
fortress walls, and by forts perched on bastions of rock overlooking the
sea and the isle of Lacroma, where Richard Coeur de Lion touched land
and founded a monastery; is thoroughly and deliciously medieval, yet
full of Slav and Austrian life; possesses a railway-station, many
well-built villas, and a good hotel, and is surrounded by delightful
country. Perhaps in all Dalmatia Ragusa is the best center from which to
take long walks and make expeditions. It is cheery, cozy, and wonderful
at the same time. The terrific walls of the fortresses do not appal or
overwhelm, for all about them cluster the gardens. Ivy climbs over the
archways. In what was once a moat the grass grows thickly, the flowers
bloom, and many trees give shade. This is a medieval paradise, and its
inhabitants have reason to rejoice in it and to say there is no place
like it.
Though small, it is intricate. At every moment one is surprised by some
unexpected view, by some marvel of masonry, militant or ecclesiastical;
by a fountain or a statue, an old doorway, a courtyard, a campanile, an
exquisite façade, with arches and lovely columns, balconies and carved
window-frames; by cloisters, a strange alley ending in flights of steps,
which lead to a mountain from which a fort looks down; by a secret
harbor, or a secret garden, or a little magical grove nestling beneath a
protecting wall which dates from the Middle Ages, when Ragusa was a
proud republic.
Was Burne-Jones ever in Ragusa? It is like one of the little enchanted
towns he loved to paint in the backgrounds of his pictures. Was William
Morris ever there? It is like a city in one of his poems. It is full of
churches, and their towers are full of bells. Monks and priests pass
perpetually through the narrow streets with smartly dressed Austrian
soldiers. And military music, the triumph of bugles and trumpets, the
beat and rattle of drums, joins with the drowsy sound of church organs,
and the old voices of clocks chiming the hours, to make the symphony of
Ragusa. Men and women from the Breno Valley, from Canali the golden,
where oaks grow among the rocks, and the autumn vineyards are a wonder
forever to haunt the memory, from Melada and the Stag Islands, from the
Ombla and Herzegovina, pass all day down "the Stradone," stroll in the
Brsalje, a piazza with mulberry-trees overlooking the sea, talk by the
Amerling fountain, or sit on the wall by Porta Pille under the statue of
San Biagio, the patron saint of the town. And each one is in a
picturesque, perhaps even a brilliant, costume. The men often wear long
chains, and carry handsomely chased weapons and long, elaborate pipes.
Some have sheepskins flung jauntily over their shoulders, and bright-red
caps. The women wear golden ornaments, embroidered jackets, and
marvelous aprons almost like prayer-rugs, handsome pins, pleated
head-dresses, bright-colored handkerchiefs or tiny caps, coins hanging
on chains over their thickly growing hair.
The chief hotels, the villas, and the railway-station, where a row of
victorias is drawn up,--for this is no Zara, but a city which believes
that it "moves with the times,"--lie among roses, oleanders, single
rhododendrons, trees, and masses of luxuriant vegetation outside Porta
Pille. As soon as you have passed beneath San Biagio and descended the
hill, you are in a bright, medieval world, in the heart of one of the
most original and fascinating little cities that exists in Europe.
[Illustration: THE RECTOR'S PALACE AND THE PUBLIC SQUARE AT RAGUSA]
On the left of the Stradone, the chief street and the newest, between
two and three hundred years old, at right angles to it, shadowed by tall
and ancient houses, tiny alleys, ending in steep flights of steps, lead
up toward the mountain. On the flat to its right is a happy maze of
alleys, clean, strange, old, yet never sad. A delicious cheerfulness
reigns in Ragusa. From the dimness of venerable doorways smiling faces
look forth. They lean down from carved stone balconies. Gay voices
chatter at the foot of frowning walls, huge bastions, mighty
watch-towers; before the statue of Roland, near the Dogana which has a
loggia and Gothic windows; by the fine and massive Onofrio fountain,
which for over four hundred and seventy years has given water to the
inhabitants; among the doves by Porta Place, which leads to the harbor.
The wide, but intimate, Stradone toward noon and evening is thronged
with cheerful and neatly dressed citizens, strolling to and fro in the
soft air between the delicious little shops full of fine rugs, weapons,
chains, and filigree ornaments.
Opposite the fountain of Onofrio are the church, monastery, and
cloisters of the Franciscans, with a courtyard and an old pharmacy
containing some wonderful vases. At the east end of the Stradone, away
to the right, are the church of San Biagio, the cathedral, and the
Palazzo dei Rettori. On the other side of the street are the military
hospital and the church of the Jesuits. Not far away is the Dominican
monastery.
Of these the most remarkable is the rector's palace. But the cloisters
of the Franciscans are beautiful and hold an extraordinary charm and
peace. The rector's palace is a noble Renaissance building, with a
courtyard containing a very handsome staircase, and with a really
splendid fifteenth-century colonnade fronting the piazza. The carving of
the capitals of the columns is wonderfully effective. Three are said to
be inferior to the remaining four, which were the work of an architect
of Naples, Onofrio. But all are remarkable. The little winged boys have
a tenderness and liveliness, a softness and activity, which are quite
exquisite. The windows of Venetian Gothic are beautiful; and the whole
effect of this façade, with its carved doorway, the round arches, richly
dark, with notes of white, the two tiers of stone seats raised one above
the other, and the double rows of windows, square and arched, in the
shadow of the colonnade, is absolutely noble.
The cathedral is not very interesting, and the "Assumption" over the
high altar, though attributed to Titian, cannot be by him. Much more
attractive is a copy of the Madonna della Sedia of Raphael. The treasury
contains some remarkable jewels and silver and many relics.
In the Dominican church there is a genuine Titian, and there are some
very curious and interesting pictures by Nicolo Ragusano, a painter of
Ragusa who lived in the fifteenth century. The cloisters contain a white
well-head, guarded by graceful columns, orange-trees, and flowers, above
which peer the small windows of the monks. But if one had to be a monk
in Ragusa, surely it would be wise to cast in your lot with the
Franciscans at the other end of the street, whose Romanesque
fourteenth-century cloisters with octagonal columns are quite beautiful
and in excellent preservation. The capitals of the columns are carved
with animals. Palms flourish there, and roses. Above, a terrace, with a
wonderful balustrade--a series of tiny arches resting on tiny columns, a
sort of stone echo of the arches and columns below,--runs all round the
court. The peace is profound, but not sad. As one lingers there one can
understand, indeed one can scarcely help understanding, the very
peculiar charm which must often attach to the monkish life.
Ragusa contains some nine thousand inhabitants. One of them remarked
that eight hundred of these were ecclesiastics. And he was unsympathetic
enough to add, "E molto troppo!" Perhaps his statement was untrue. But
certainly the ways of Ragusa swarm with religious. Nevertheless,--one
thinks of Rome, with its crowds of priests and its crowds of
free-thinkers,--the inhabitants of Ragusa seem to be very devout. In
almost all of the many churches, at all times of the day, people may be
found praying, meditating, telling their beads, worshiping at shrines of
the saints.
Around Ragusa there are many beautiful walks, on Lacroma, on Lapad by
Gravosa, on Monte Sergio, on Monte Petka. A really superb drive is the
expedition to Castelnuovo in the Bocche di Cattaro, along the Dalmatian
riviera, which is as fine as almost any part of the French riviera, and
which is still wild and natural, not yet turned into a vanity-box. Those
who take this glorious drive will cross the frontier into Herzegovina,
and, best of all, they will pass by the wonderful vineyards of Canali,
which roll in waves of gold to the very feet of a chain of naked and
savage mountains.
The voyage from Ragusa to Cattaro is one of the finest in Europe. The
entrance into the bocche, the journey through them, and the arrival at
Cattaro, hidden away like some precious thing that must not be revealed
to the dull gaze of the ordinary world, almost, but mercifully not
quite, under the giant shadow of the Black Mountain, make for the
voyager what comes to seem at length a deliberately planned, and
triumphantly carried out, scenic crescendo, which closes in sheer magic.
The coast of Dalmatia is guarded by chains of islands and is pierced by
many long and narrow inlets. During the voyage from Triest or Fiume to
the extreme south of the country, the ship, often for many hours, seems
to be traveling over a series of lakes. Rarely does she emerge into open
water. But between Gravosa and the bocche there is open sea. Nature has
not neglected to make her preparations. She gives you the stretch of
open sea as a contrast to what is coming. And just when you are
beginning to feel its monotony, the prow of the vessel veers to the
left, seems to be sensitively searching for some unseen opening in the
rugged coast. She finds that opening between Punta d'Ostro and Punta
d'Arza, leaving the little isle of Rondoni, with its round, yellow fort,
on the right and the open sea behind.
The mountains which guard the bocche are nearly six thousand feet high,
bare, cruelly precipitous, in color a peculiar, almost ashy, gray. When
you are at a long distance from them they seem to descend sheer into the
water; but as you draw nearer over the waveless sea, you find that along
their bases runs a strip of beautiful fertile country, green, thickly
wooded in many places, with gay little villages set among radiant
gardens, with a white highroad, along which peasants are passing. There
is Castelnuovo on its hill among leafy groves, with its old, narrow
fortress on the rock fought for by Turks and Venetians; near by is
Zelenika; and there another large fortress, with the Austrian flag
above it. The sensitive prow of the ship veers again, this time to the
southeast, where the ash-gray precipices surely hold the sea forever in
check. But the ship knows better. The Canale di Kumbur shows itself,
leading to the splendid Bay of Teodo surreptitiously observed from afar
by the mountains of Montenegro. If you held your breath and listened,
might you not hear the boom of guns by the lake of Scutari? All sense of
being at sea fades from you as the ship penetrates ever more deeply into
the secret recesses of the mountains. This is like superb lake scenery,
austere, grand, almost terrible, and yet radiant. Nature is even
coquettish on this perfect morning of autumn, for in these remoter
regions she has cast a swathe of the lightest and whitest possible mist,
like one of those scarfs of Tunis, over the cultivated land which edges
the precipices. As the ship draws near, the mist seems to disperse in a
sparkle of gold, revealing intimate beauties, full of charming detail: a
little Byzantine church with a pale-green cupola, a priest in a sunny
garden leaning over a creeper-covered wall, white horses trotting
briskly along a curly, white road, soldiers marching through a village
with a faint beat of drums, children perhaps going to school through a
riot of green. But the mist is ever there in the distance, part of the
spirit of autumn.
[Illustration: THE JESUITS' CHURCH AND THE MILITARY HOSPITAL, RAGUSA]
Do not miss the tiny twin islands with their two little churches. One of
them, Santa Maria dello Scalpello, is a place of pilgrimage. Old, gray,
minute yet dignified, with its few tall cypresses about it, it so
completely covers the island that you see only a church with cypresses
apparently floating upon the water. Now there is a scatter of
ivory-white birds on the steel-colored surface, a glint of powder-blue
on the ridges made by the ship. Marvelous harmonies of pearl color,
gray, and blue, with here and there faint dashes of primrose-yellow,
make magic in the distance before you. This is really an enchanted
place, home of a peace that seems touched with eternity. And the ship
creeps on, as if fearing perhaps to disturb it, farther and farther into
places more secret still, and of a peace even more profound, till the
pearl color and the gray, with their hints of yellow and blue, begin to
give way to another dominion. The last bay has been gained. The secret
of Cattaro is to be at length revealed. Through the wondrous delicacies
of the now rather suggested than actually seen mist, and above them,
dawns a marvelous pageant of autumn, which bears a curiously exact
resemblance to one of Turner's superb visions.
It is like a dream, but a dream of ardor and power, in which browns,
reds, russets, greens, and many shades of gold and of yellow march
together from the circle of the waters through climbing valleys to the
mountains, which here at last give pause to the sea. And bells are
ringing in this great, this triumphant dream. And now surely faint
outlines are becoming visible, as of turrets and cupolas striving to
break in glory through the mist. The fires of autumn glow more fiercely,
like a furnace fanned. Trails of smoke show here and there. Mist, smoke,
and fire--it is like a grand conflagration. The turrets reveal
themselves as great groups of trees. But the smoke rises from household
fires; the cupolas are cupolas of churches; and the bells are the bells
of Cattaro, calling from this vale of enchantment to the cannon which
are thundering before Scutari beyond the mountains of Montenegro.
IN AND NEAR ATHENS
[Illustration: THE PARTHENON AT ATHENS]