Curzola

“Five hours from Lesina is Curzola, the most beautiful of all the islands of Dalmatia; approached by a natural canal formed by the island on ine side and the peninsula of Sabioncello on the other, a sort of Bosphorus on a grander and ruder scale, with steep mountains on both sides, every creek and headland covered with waving woods and verdant shrubbery. As we approach the town of Curzola, each zone is marked by its appropriate colour: the warm brown of cultivation basks at the water’s edge; the wooded region rises above; and a waving line of grey bare rocks crests the whole. Turning the last headland, we saw the town of Curzola before us in the form of a triangle or pyramid, edged by some of those huge old round towers which the modern art of war rendered obsolete, the campanile of the ex-cathedral forming the appropriate apex. […]. The town of Curzola is regularly built; a street runs up to the Piazza, and down on the other side, all the other streets being at right angles. […]. Curzola was formerly the seat of a Bishop; but Dalmatia, which, under the Venetians, had thirteen episcopal sees, has now only six. Close by the ex-cathedral is the palace of a certain Signor Arnieri, the principal landed proprietor of Curzola, to which I was taken by a gentleman of the town to whom I was recommended. “[…] I am a Dalmatian. All the family used to serve in the fleets of the Republic; but the hero of our race was Arniero Perussich, whose statue you see there, who fought, bled, and died at the siege of Candia, whose surviving family was liberally pensioned; so his name became the name of our race”. I spoke of the knocker, as remarkable for its size as for its beauty; and observed, that it would be rather hazardous to put so tempting a piece of virtù on a London door; so, he lifted the head of one of the lions and he resumed: “I have been offered its weight in silver; but we have no fears of thieves in Curzola”. […]. The sobborgo, or suburb of Curzola without the walls, is kept alive by ship-building; the boats of Curzola are still renowned on the Adriatic; and all those of the Company of the Austrian Lloyds are built here. Timber and labour are both cheap, and vegetation is rapid; for no sooner is a wood thinned than it grows again with great rapidity (pp. 43-46).

Here I saw some of the Amazons of the opposite peninsula of Sabioncello selling produce, - tall, strong women, with masculine features, and a high head-dress of straw, with a brown flounce. All the husbands are absent at sea, and the women do most of the rustic work - plough, harrow, and thrash; and their villages are composed almost solely of women, old men, and boys. The women have consequently most robust bodies, and a resolute virile temperament. […]. Passing the suburb, I found my self in the country; and never did I see such luxuriant and variegated shrubbery. The fragrant myrtle perfumed the air; and the contrast in the colours of the vegetation, the beauty of the flowers, and the novelty of the fruits, made Curzola look like one great conservatory, with its blossoms uncovered to perpetual spring. I seemed to tread one of those isles unseen by human eye, where some fair benignant spirit dwelt in a secluded world of bloom and verdure. […]. Next day I took a ramble into the country, and found the population of the island exhibit, in their dresses, houses, and demeanour, a great superiority to what I had seen between Zara and Sabenico. Curzola might be called the Esmerald Isle of the Adriatic (pp. 47-49)”.