Sebenico

“At first, on looking towards the shore for Sebeniko, no houses appeared: nothing but the eternal grey rocks. All at once, a town seemed to spring up from the earth, and what we had taken for stones, &c., grew into churches, houses, quays, streets; doors and windows instinct with life. […] There is nothing in it worth seeing, except the Cathedral, a work of the renaissance, and about four hundred years old. (p. 65) […] Though we arrived off Sebenik at half after two, it was four before we were set on shore, had passed the polizia and dogana, and threaded our way through a narrow street – five minutes’ walk - to the inn (p.67). […] As I was reflecting on the aggravated mishap of losing Kerka Falls, and having to spend the whole afternoon and evening with nothing to do at Sebenik, which had a remarkably umpromising look about it, […] At once, I communicate my thought to the innkeeper, and he, with ready wit, to a Dalmatian youth standing hard-by, whose middle height and brawny limbs were concealed or adorned with red cap, brown hussar jacket slunga cross his shoulders, with blue trousers, laced with yellow down his legs, and terminating somewhat short of the usual opankè. He was quite the man for a walk, and, of course, knew the shortest way across the hills. (p.69) […] Over rough banks, covered with low firs and junipers, with here and there a little cultivation, chiefly vines and the maraska-i.e., a kind of cherry of which the liqueuer maraschino is made in Zara. The last rays of the sun were falling horizontally upon us, as its “golden corse”, sank beneath the blue waters of the Adriatic, when, at the bottom of a steep path, leading through a rugged and narrow gully, we found ourselves on the shore of an island sea-water lake, or rather embouchure of the river Kerka, and sat down to wait for the ferry (p.71). […] The sound of the Angelus bell came “soft and silvery” across the water, and the deepending shadows of evening advanced apace as we seated ourselves, somewhat less fresh than we left Sebenik, upon some great stones by the water’s edge, awaiting the advent of the ferry-boat; of which at present there were no traces visible on the opposite side – about a mile distant. A gropu of girls and women, in their pretty characteristic dresses, had come up and were waiting, like ourselves, to get across; while, close to the shore on our left, a man in a boat with a shoulder-of-mutton sail, was filling a hogshead from skins of wine, which three or four asses had brought to this, their place of embarkation for Skardona, he offered us a cup, which we accepted with gratitude, after a walk of ten miles under a broiling sun, and found it an excellent sort of red “Maraschina”, which bore witness to the fact that a rocky soil does not injure the quality of wine. Thus the stony Carst about Trieste produces the fame “Prosecco”; the rocks around Sebenik and Spalato, Maraschina; Ragusa is the habitat of Malmsey, &c. (p. 73) […] Now, I should premise that, after leaving Sebenik, no one was to be met with who could speak any language but Dalmatian, that is, Slave.” (p. 76)