Cattaro

“It was night when we dropt anchor off Cattaro […]; a hubbub of boats was at our larboard; and the deck crowded, with boats disembarking, made a scene of rather dismal novelty. On landing, the customs’ officers searched my baggage minutely, as I had come from the islands; the facility which their coasts afford to the smuggler being a pretext for an unavailing rigour at the ports of the mainland, a topic to which we will recur in the course of our survey of the mistaken policy which presides at the financial legislation of Dalmatia. Conducted to the only hotel of the town, I found it to be miserable; for Cattaro is the ultima Thule of the Austrian empire. The few travellers that ascend to Montenegro are insufficient to mantain a comfortable inn, and I was fortunate in getting a room, for the crowding of troops had made quarters very scarce. Next morning after breakfast, a man of jobs and commissions presented himself and asked me if I was an Englishman, and I admitted that I was (pp. 54-55). […]. “Ah, sir, you belong to the first nation of the world; a free nation, sir. […] And people said, These English are originals, but their Christianity comes from the wrong side of the blanket. A wonderful nation! Now, when a Dalmatian has no money, he stays at home; when an Englishman wants to save money, he goes abroad. I know your Excellence is not one of that sort; but economy is not a bad thing; and let me advise you to be on your guard against all those plausible impostors and cheats that are on the out-look for travellers, and prey upon their credulity. You will pay double for every thing in Montenegro, if you have not some honest man who knows the country […]” (pp. 57-58).

At the extremity of the basin of Cattaro is situated the town, regularly fortified. A quay fronts the basin, and a plantation of poplars, rising with the masts of vessels, under which the Bocchese, in their almost Turkish costume, prosecuted their business, produced a novelty of effect which one seldom sees on the beaten tracks of the tourist; and looking down the basin which I had traversed yesterday evening, a cluster of villas with their red roofs are seen shining among the thickly planted gardens that cover the promontory stretching into the water. […]. In the interior of the town I was agreeably disappointed in finding it to be a very different place from what I had anticipated. So close to Montenegro, where a row of Turkish skulls, on spikes, formed until lately a conspicuous ornament of the capital of the most insubordinate population of the Ottoman empire, I had a notion of its being a miserable place; but here was still in every street and edifice the same Italian stamp. […]. The dress of the coast-towns of Dalmatia is entirely European; that of Cattaro, as I have already stated, has more of the Oriental than of the European, black Hessian boots being added to a Turkish costume, with a very small fez. In summer, the high mountains, excluding the north-west breeze, render Cattaro a place of stifling heat; and in winter, the clouds, breaking against the mountains, make it very rainy. […]. The Bocchese, instead of carrying umbrellas, go about with black woollen-hooded cloacks, which are as thick as a blanket, and hard and heavy like felt (pp. 59-60).

Cattaro and its district has been since the last Austrian occupation one of the four circles of Dalmatia, the smallest in extent and population, but the most difficult to manage of all the four, from the neighbourhood of Montenegro; and was on that account sought after by the present occupant, a Bohemian of great talent and energy, who was previously at Spalato, as a means of meritorious advancement. The population of the town is 4000, and there is a great deal of capital in the place; for the Bocchese are excellent sailors, and although there is nothing behind Cattaro but the rocks of Montenegro, this hardy and industrious people possess upwards of one hundred and fifty vessels of long course. The products and profits of the Antilles and Brazils have built these neat villas, […] for the Bocchese, like the Turk, must see his property in the solid - a ship, a house, or the clinking cash - and would not trust the paper of the Bank of England. […]. Twice during the three or four days of my stay at Cattaro nightly bands attempted to rob houses on the Bocca; but the alarm being suddenly given to the detachments of Rifles, they drew off, though not without an exchange of shots. These marauders were not Montenegrines, but a mixed band of Herzegovinians from Grahovo, who shared their plunder with the Aga there; for on these three frontiers order is kept with difficulty, passage from one to the other being easy, and the authority of the Porta in Herzegovina quite nominal. The Government of Montenegro, in the absence of the Vladika, co-operated with the Austrian Government of Cattaro to repress the depredations; but when hunger has a share in stimulating outrage, Governments can do very little in a wild mountainous country like this (pp. 62-64).

Learning that a Dalmatian Dugald Dalgetty, in the employ of the Vladika, was in Cattaro, I was advised to take advantage of his return to Cetigne, as I should gain in security. […]. My rendezvous was at the hour of eight, at the Montenegrine Bazaar, outside the gate of Cattaro. Here a rude roof, supported on pilasters of rubble-work, and an avenueof trees, just at the foot of one of those tremendous precipices around Cattaro, was the place where the Montenegrines gave their eels from the Lake of Scutari, their skins, and their other products, for the salt, the oil, and the few coarse manufactures and colonials which they need (p. 66)”.