Forte Opuseo

“At length, within an our of sunset, we found ourselves at the mouth of the left branch of the Narenta, with the landscape just like that of the Po below Ferrara; and leaving the sea-green water of the Gulf, we now steered right up into the river, which was red, turbid, and charged with soil, and we found ourselves between low flat banks overgrown with reeds, over the tops of which we saw a wide amphitheatre of grey distant rocks. […]. After an hour’s rowing, the reeds ceased, the ground became more solid, and an artificial bank on our left not only restrained the river, but formed a road; so we all disembarked, and getting up on it, I saw Fort Opus, the chief place of the district, about three or four miles off, and some of the land of the Delta laid out in vines and meadows, but, like the Dutch Polders, much under water. […]. It was black night before we arrived at Fort Opis, having got into the boat again for fear we should, in the dark, fall into a quagmire. The gun-shots had entirely ceased, but such a chorus of frogs resounded through the air as I never heard before. At length we landed, and our Narentan led the way through a short street to his own house, which had solid foundations, and uninhabited lower rooms, as the whole town is from time to time under water, with boats sailing through the streets, or lying under the first-floor windows. Here his family was brought in, - his wife, his brother and brother’s wife, and the aged grandmother, all full of curiosity and kindness, for Fort Opus is not much troubled with strangers. His brother kept a universal store, supplying the whole country, and spoke Italian, but the females of the establishment knew only Illyrian (pp. 206-208).

I found that the severe distress and hunger of the other districts of Dalmatia were here unknown; they didi not depend upon the potatoe crops; and if a man has only cash enough for a single musket-charge, he has only to shoot a duck or a pair of francalins and he fares sumptuously. In Ragusa, elegant town-life, here, roughing it in the country; yonder, polished poverty; here, patriarchal plenty. […]. Next morning I went out with the Narentan to take a view of the place; which proved to be a straggling village of 800 inhabitants, its position, at the diffluence of the Narenta, recommended it to the Venetians. The fortifications no longer exist; and a row of enormous mulberries, some with trunks fifteen feet in circumference, shew the great depth and excellence of the soil. We then went and paid a visit to the Praetor of the district, who has been of great service to the people. The water used to be very bad, but he has constructed a curious cistern; it spreads out on the top, so as to catch the rain-water, and has Roman statues and funereal monuments inserted in the walls. There were no mills in the Narenta before his arrival, and, strange to say, the inhabitants got their corn ground within the Turkish frontier until he erected mills. In the immediate environs of the town was a large mulberry-nursery which he had planted, and in which the prisoners of the praetorship were working; the principal purchaser of these mulberry-shoots being the Pasha of Herzegovina, who has planted many thousands on his lands. […]. Fort Opus, with its gardens, vineyards, and mulberry-nurseries, looked like a civilised spot; nearer the sea, sheets of water were mingled with patches of cultivated land, but lower down all was abandoned to wild fowl (pp. 209-211)”.