Zara

"Zara - the Zadera of the ancients - is the portal by which you enter Dalmatia, after sailing many hours along a barren shore! This is no more Europe, no matter what the map may tell you! It is a terra incognita where, if you are not too luxurious a traveller, if you care sufficiently for that which is old-world and curious as well as often beautiful, to put up with some little inconvenience for the sake of seeing a strange world, you will find much that will be familiar if you have travelled in Italy and in the East, and much that will delight you because you have met it nowhere else before (pp. 29-30).

Among the traveller's impressions there are always some that stand out vividly; the first is my first sight of the market at Zara and of the Morlacchi, the peasants of Northern Dalmatia, who, seated on the ground in the fashion of the East, offered their eggs and vegetables for sale in the strangest tongue that ever assailed my ears. At the first glance they seemed to me more like North American Indians than any European race. Swarthy faces met my gaze, framed in white linen handkerchiefs, gold earrings sometimes visible beneath, sandaled feet (so I called them then, but later I learnt to use the native name opanka, for their home-made shoes, formed of a single piece of leather turned up to form a pointed toe and laced across with string), abbreviated skirts, curiously worked aprons of many colours, gaily embroidered leggings, worn alike by men and women, made up a costume picturesque and strange! The dark and often grimy hands held out to offer me their wares were plentifully bedecked with rings of gold filigree. The men folk, too, were not behind in lending colour to the scene! No dull drab tones for the Dalmatian, he leaves that to those who have made greater advances in civilization, and attires himself in scarlet for his head covering, blue for his nether garments, and silver galore according to his wealth in the beautiful buttons which fasten his embroidered waistcoat. [...]. I have another memory of the market at Zara! It was cherry-time (in the last days of May). Such cherries in such profusion I had never seen before. Picturesquely shaped baskets of very large proportions were everywhere heaped with the lovely fruit: accustomed objects of the market, were swamped by the mass of colour and faded into insignificance (pp. 31-32).

Nowhere in all Zara did I love to linger better than by the Porta Marina, where the quaint boats of the islanders land their fish and vegetables for the morning market. Sometimes you see a procession of boats bringing all the able-bodied inhabitants of an entire island on a pilgrimage; and with banners flying, preceded by their priests, they oass in under the Venetian lion to pray at the shrine of St. Grisogono. Such scenes are not infrequent in this primitive land, for when rain falls overmuch or is altogether lacking (p. 41)".