From Komi[vz]a, the next morning, we steamed over on the destroyer to
the wonderful blue grotto of Bi[vs]evo (or Busi), which surpasses Capri.
An Austrian Archduke, we were told, had once waited a week at Komi[vz]a,
but had been compelled to leave without seeing the cave. We were more
fortunate--the wind, the water and the sun were kind to us; we entered
in a rowing-boat the little pearl-grey Gothic chapel which Nature has
constructed underneath a hill, and as we gazed into the blue-green
waters, through which from the rocks below a fountain of most brilliant
blue was rising, every time an oar was dipped the waters painted it a
silvery white. The population of Bi[vs]evo consists of about 150 people,
who mostly live around the little church of Saint Sylvester, two hundred
feet above the sea. They occupy themselves with sheep and fruit and bees
and fish, and with the vines that are even more famous than those of
Vis. A good part of the population had assembled on a grassy platform
high above the entrance to the cave, and as we climbed out of the
rowing-boat on to the destroyer a much larger rowing-boat came round a
promontory. Sixteen women formed the crew. They sang their national
Croatian songs, and when they approached us some of them stood up and,
while the wind played with their straw-coloured and golden hair, they
laughingly threw flowers at us. As we left Bi[vs]evo the men and women
high above us and the women in the boat were waving their hands; some of
them were singing, others were shouting a farewell. Here and there on
the sunlit waters, rising and falling, were the flowers which had woven
on the sea a gorgeous carpet. "Well," said the lieutenant-commander, "I
admit that this is a Yugoslav island."
I forget whether Signor Buonfiglio made any remark, but a few hours
later at Velaluka he was most incensed. As our boat--we had returned to
the old _Porer_ at Komi[vz]a--sailed into the harbour a huge Yugoslav
flag was flying from the summit of a hill, with French, British and
American flags around it. The destroyer had arrived before us and the
burly journalist was striding up and down the quay. "I protest," he
exclaimed, as he saw us, "and not as a journalist but as an Italian
citizen! I protest!" Between us and the front row of houses, which
included the town-major's office, there was a large empty space--the
inhabitants could be descried up the side-streets and behind the
windows. De Michaelis, the town-major, was evidently a superior young
man; as he poured out the champagne he told us with perfect frankness
that the educated people at Velaluka were Yugoslavs. Suddenly there was
a terrific noise just underneath us. We hurried downstairs and found
that the soldiers in their excitement had fired off a machine gun into
the wall. Half an hour later the firing could be heard from the top of
the hill, but we never ascertained whether anyone was wounded. In this
place the Italianist party sent to us an ex-publican who had now joined
the police, a small trader and a municipal clerk who had recently been
imported from Zadar. The Yugoslavs were a large landowner, a doctor and
a priest, who told us that the people for the most part were refusing to
accept gratuitous food from the Italians.