Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

Sir Gardner speaks of difficulties and vexatious delays interposed between the traveller and his purpose by the Austrian authorities. These scrutineers of passports seem to grow worse; and with them bad has long been the best. We used to think that the palm of pettifogging was fairly due to the officials of his Hellenic majesty. It was bad enough, we always thought, to be kept waiting and watching for a license to move from the Piræus to Lutraki, by steam; but we confess that Sir Gardner makes out a case, or rather several cases, that beat our experience hollow. We should like to commit the passport system to the verdict to be pronounced by common-sense after perusal of the two or three pages he has written on this subject. But common-sense must be far from us, or the mob would not be raving for liberty while still tolerant of passports.

There is another point in respect of which a change for the worse appears to have taken place, and that is in the important point of bienveillance towards English travellers. We learn that, at present, Austrian officers are shy of English companionship; and that it is even enjoined on them authoritatively that they avoid intimacy with stragglers from Corfu. The reason assignable is found in the late sad and absurd conspiracy hatched in that island – a conspiracy which would have been utterly ridiculous, had it not in the event proved so melancholy. It will freely be admitted that the English would deserve to be sent, as they are, to Coventry, were it fact that the insane project of the young Bandieras had found English partisans, and that such partisanship had been winked at by the authorities. But the real state of the case is exactly contrary to this supposition. Humanity must needs have mourned over the cutting off of the young men, and the sorrow of their father, the gallant old admiral. But common-sense must have condemned the undertaking as utterly absurd and mischievous. It is a pity that any misunderstanding should be permitted to qualify the good feeling towards us, for which the Austrians have been remarkable. This good feeling has been observable eminently among their naval officers, who have got up a strong fellowship with us, ever since they were associated with our fleet in the operations on the coast of Syria. That particular service has done much towards the exalting of them in their own estimation; and, of course, the increase of friendship for us has been in the direct proportion of the lift given to them. The Austrian militaires, also, used to be a very good set of fellows, and only too happy to be civil to an Englishman. At their dull stations an arrival is an event, and any considerable accession of visitors occasions quite a jubilee. These gentlemen, however, cannot have among them much of the spirit of enterprise, or they would take more trouble than they do to learn something of the condition of their neighbours. They will complain freely of the dulness of the place of their location, but at the same time will evince little interest in the condition of the world beyond their immediate ken. Many of them who live almost within hail of the Montenegrini, have never been at the trouble of ascending the mountains. Nothing seems to astonish them more than the erratic disposition which leads men in quest of adventure; they cannot conceive such an idea as that of volunteering for a cruise. Yachts puzzle them: the owners must be sailors. Of any military officers who may chance to visit them in yachts, they cannot conceive otherwise than that they belong to the marine. Nevertheless they are, or used to be, kind and hospitable; and would treat you well, although they could not quite make you out.

That this country is a neglected portion of the Austrian empire is very evident. The officials sigh under the very endearments of office. The sanità man, who comes off to greet your arrival, will tell you how insufferably dull it is living in the Bocca, – and how he longs to be removed anywhither. Place, people, climate, all will be condemned. Yet, to a stranger, many of the localities seem exquisitely beautiful. The same cause seems to mar enjoyment here that spoils the beauty of our own Norfolk Island. The Austrian residents regard themselves as being in a state of banishment, and take up their abode only by constraint: the constraint, that is to say, of mammon. By the government, its possessions in this quarter have been neglected in a manner most impolitic. The value of this strip of coast to an empire almost entirely inland, yet wishing to foster trade, and to possess a navy, is obvious. Yet even the plainest use of it they seem, till lately, to have missed. Promiscuous conscriptions were the order of the day, and men born sailors were enrolled in the levies for the army. Of course they were miserable and discontented, and the public service suffered by the use of these unfit instruments. Recently it seems that a change has been made in this respect, and we doubt not that the navy has consequently been greatly improved. But many glaring instances of neglect in the administration of the affairs of the country continue to astonish beholders, and to prove that the paternal government is not awake to its own interests.

But of all objections to be made to the wisdom of the government, the strongest may be grounded on the condition of the agricultural population in various parts of Dalmatia. Nothing is done to improve their knowledge of the primary art of civilisation. Their implements of husbandry are described as being on a par with those used by the unenlightened inhabitants of Asia Minor. The waggons to be encountered in the neighbourhood of Knin are referable to the same date in the progress of invention, as are the conveniences in vogue in the plains about Mount Ida. The mode of tillage is like that followed in the remote provinces of Turkey; the ploughs of the rustic population are often inferior to those to be seen in the neighbouring Turkish provinces. Lastly – most incredible of all! – we learn that there is not to be found in the whole district of the Narenta such a thing as a mill, wherein to grind their corn. Will it be believed that the rustics have to send all the corn they grow into the neighbouring province of Herzegovina to be ground? The inconvenience of such an arrangement may easily be conceived. Their best of the bargain —i. e. the being obliged to seek from across the frontier all the flour they want – is bad enough, and must be sufficiently expensive; but their predicament is apt to be much worse than this. In that part of the world, people are subject to stoppages of intercommunication. The plague may break out in the Turkish province, and thus a strict quarantine be established, to the interdiction even of provisions that generally pass unsuspected; or the country may be flooded, and the ways impassable. What are the poor people to do then for flour? Why, the only thing they can do is, to send their corn to their nearest neighbours possessed of mills – that is to say, to Salona, or to Imoschi. As these places are distant, the one about thirty-five miles, and the other about seventy miles, we may fancy how serious must be the pressure of this necessity. The ordinary expense of grinding their corn is stated to be about 13 per cent. What it must be when the seventy miles' carriage of their produce is an item in the calculation, we are left to conjecture. Now these poor folks are not to be blamed – they have no funds to enable them to build mills; but that they are left to themselves in this inability is a reproach to the government under which they live. This inconvenience so intimately affects their social wellbeing, that we cannot put faith in the benevolence of the rulers who allow them to remain so destitute.

Despite, however, of the disadvantages under which the people of Dalmatia labour, it will be seen that pictures chiefly pleasurable are to be met by him who shall travel amongst them. Their honest nature seems to comprise within itself some compensating principle, which makes amends for the damage of circumstances. The Morlacci, especially, seem to be a simple, hardy set, of whom one cannot read without pleasure. These are the rustic inhabitants of the agricultural districts, who eschew the great towns. They made their entry into the roll of the peasantry of Dalmatia at a comparatively late date. The first notice of them, we are told, is about the middle of the fourteenth century. After that time they began to retire with their families from Bosnia, as the Turks made advances into the country. They are of the same Slavonic family as the Croatians; though their hardy manner of life, and the purity of the air in which they have dwelt, on the mountains, have co-operated to confer on them superiority of personal appearance, and of physical condition. On a general estimate of the people of the land, and of their mode of receiving strangers, we are disposed to rank highly their claims to the title of hospitable and honest.

Sir Gardner Wilkinson certainly travelled amongst them most effectually. North, south, east, and west, he intersected the country. One part of his travels possesses especial interest, because, so far as we know, no denizen of civilised Christendom has ever before been so completely over the ground. We refer to his expedition into, and through the territory of the Montenegrini. Others – some few only, but still some others – have been far enough to get a peep at these wild children of the mountains; and more than once of late years, Maga has given notices concerning them:16 but only scanty knowledge of their domestic condition has been attainable. Sir Gardner went right through their country to the Turkish border, and tarried amongst them long enough to form pretty accurate notions of their state.. In the account of our author's first journey, no serious stop is made till we come alongside of the island of Veglia: apropos to the passage by which, we have given to us, at some length, an interesting extract from the report of a Venetian commissioner sent to the island, in 1481, to inquire into its state. Of this document we will say no more than that it is exceedingly curious, and will well reward the pains of reading. A passing notice is given to Segna, situated on the mainland, near Veglia, for the memory's sake of those desperate villains the Uscocs, to whom it belonged of old. A good deal of their history is given in the last chapter of the second volume, which serves as a documentary appendix to the work. Everything necessary to beget interest in the islands scattered hereaway is told; but we pass them by, and are brought to Zara. What of antiquities is here discoverable is rooted out for our benefit, but not much remains. The most interesting relic in the place, to our mind, is the inscription recording the victory of Lepanto. As Zara is the capital of Dalmatia, occasion is taken, while speaking of the city, to give some account of the government of the province, and of the general condition of the people.

An incident mentioned by Sir Gardner displays, in a painful light, the kind of feeling entertained by the Austrian government towards these its subjects, and permitted by its officials to find expression before the natives. We cannot take it as a case of isolated insolence: because men in responsible situations, especially where the social system comprises an indefinite supply of spies, do not ostentatiously commit themselves, unless they have a foregone conviction, that what they say is according to the authorised tone. Men under inspection of the higher powers do not put themselves out of their way to make a display of bitterness, unless they think thereby to conciliate the good-will of their superiors. This is the incident in question: On a certain occasion, the conversation happened to turn on the subject of a then recent disturbance in a Dalmatian town. The soldiery and the people had quarrelled, and in the émeute two of the soldiers had been killed. On these data forth spake a Jack in office. He knew not, nor did he care to know, how many of the peasants had fallen, nor does he appear to have entered at all curiously into the question of the casus belli. He simply recommended, as the disturbance had taken place, and as the actual perpetrators of the violence were not forthcoming, that the whole population of the town should be "decimated and shot." "The butchery of any number of Dalmatians," says our author, "was thought a fit way of remedying the incapacity of the police." One would hardly imagine that this counsel could have been met by the applauses of persons holding official situations; but so, we are assured, it was in fact received. This manifestation of feeling is a sort of thing which, when emanating from a group of merely private individuals, may be disregarded. Idle people will talk, and their hard words will break no bones. But the hard words of the ministers of government do break bones; and such words must be accepted as serious indications of subsistent evil. Such receipts for keeping people in peace and quietness are consistent enough with the genius of their neighbours the Turks. Retrenchment of heads, and of causes of complaint, are to their apprehension one and the same thing – πολλων ὀνομάτων, μορφὴ μία. We know this, and expect it. It is not so very long ago since the Capitan Pasha gave the word to heave the officer of the watch overboard, because his ship missed stays in going about in the Black Sea. But the Austrians are civilised and Christian; we expect better things of them, and can but mourn over their misapprehension of the true principles of polity. The Englishman who stood by rebuked the promoters of these atrocious sentiments, and for this act of championship he was subsequently thanked by the Dalmatians who were present. They could not have ventured to undertake their own defence, but must have listened in silence to this outrageous language. Our author doubts not that this exhibition of simple humanity on his part, had the effect of causing him to be forthwith placed under the surveillance of the police; and that such a consequence should be so very likely to follow the honest expression of a common-sense opinion in society is a fact that shows clearly enough how unsound that state of things must be. Assuredly one of the best effects of intercourse with civilised nations is, that we thereby become enabled to institute a comparison between their social condition and our own. Even those unhappy Chartists, who lately have acquired the habit of addressing one another as "brother slaves," would learn to value British freedom, if they knew something of the social condition of their European brethren: they would see some difference between the security of their own hours of relaxation, and the degree in which a man's freedom in Austria is invaded by the espionage of the police.

From Zara the course of the narrative takes us to Sebenico, a town situated on the inner side of the lake or bay into which the waters of the Kerka debouch. It is one of the coaling stations of the steamer; and, when the time of arrival will allow such concession, the passengers are permitted to take a trip in a four-oared boat, to visit the falls of the Kerka. Here the costume of the women is noticed as being singularly graceful. In coasting along from Sebenico to Spalato, the headland of la Planca is remarkable. Near it is a little church which is famous in local chronicle for having once upon a time served as a trap, wherein an ass caught a wolf. How this marvellous feat was accomplished, we will not just now stop to tell, but must refer the curious to the book itself. This point is also remarkable, because here begins abruptly a change in the climate. Some plants unknown to the northward begin to appear; and henceforward, to one proceeding southward, the dreaded Scirocco will be a more frequent infliction. To the southward of la Planca, this objectionable wind is constantly blowing; and at Spalato, we are told, it assumes for its allowance 100 days out of the 365. Apropos to the Scirocco, we have an episode on anemology, and are taught how the old Greeks and Romans used to box the compass – at least how they would have done so, had they had compasses to box. In the distance, to the south of the promontory of la Planca, is the island of Lissa, famous in modern history for Sir William Hoste's action in 1811. "Such an action," says James, "stands unrivalled in the annals of the naval history of Great Britain, or that of any other country, from the great disproportion in numerical force, as well as the beauty and address of its manœuvres; it stands surpassed by none in the spirit and enterprise with which it was encountered, and carried through to a successful issue." There is not much risk in making this assertion, when we consider that on that occasion the French squadron consisted of four forty-gun frigates, two of a smaller class, a sixteen-gun corvette, a ten-gun schooner, one six-gun xebec, and two gunboats; and that the English squadron was of three frigates, and one twenty-two gunship. Lissa was also famous in the time of the Romans, being then called Issa. We have a notice of its history, and then pass on to Bua, and so to Spalato.

Concerning Spalato details are given, as might be expected, at some length. Much is told us of its past and present condition; in fact, there is presented to us a very sufficient assemblage of indicia concerning it. We recommend any one who wishes to enjoy a visit to Spalato to take with him this book, and chapter 13th of Gibbon. The extract from Porphyrogenitus, given by Gibbon, tells us what the palace of Diocletian was; and Sir Gardner Wilkinson tells us what it is now, and what has been its history. Besides verbal description, his pencil affords some apt illustrations of the actual condition of the buildings. We see by these, and by his account, that the treasures of Spalatine architecture have been obscured by the building up of modern edifices on their sites. "The stranger," he says, "is shocked to see windows of houses through the arches of the court, intercolumniations filled up with petty shops, and the peristyle of the great temple masked by modern houses." Doubtless, many a precious relic has been appropriated by modern barbarians to common uses, and so perished out of sight. But with joy we learn that the government has taken measures to prevent the continuance of such destruction, and that the remaining monuments are safe, however they may be mixed up with the houses and shops of the present generation. We are told that, under the care of the present director of antiquarian researches, there is good reason to hope that the collection at Spalato may become truly valuable. The high character of Professor Carrara is a sure warrant that all will be done which is within scope of the means afforded. But as the government allowance for excavations at Salona is only £80 yearly, we cannot think that the work is likely to proceed rapidly. While we condemn as barbarous this carelessness on the part of the Austrians, we must bear in mind that we are open to a retort of the censure. We neglect altogether the remains of Samos in Cephalonia, and nothing at all is allowed for the expense of operations there; yet these remains are very extensive, and there is every reason to believe that their actual condition would amply repay a diligent search.

We must stop here a moment to congratulate Sir Gardner, on his rencontre with the sphinx.

"A captive when he gazes on the light,A sailor when the prize has struck in fight,"

and so forth, are the only people who may venture to talk of Sir Gardner's delight at the sight of a sphinx, or a mummy. With great gusto he gives the description of the black granite sphinx, in the court of the palace, near the vestibule; and in the drawing which he has made of the same court, the sphinx is conspicuous.

From Spalato to Salona, is a distance of some three miles and a half, by a good carriage-road. This road crosses the Jader, or Il Giadro – a stream so famous for its trout, that it has been thought necessary seriously to prove that it was not for the sake of these – not in order that of them he might eat his soûl in peace and quietness – that Diocletian retired from the command of the world.

Salona is rich in antiquarian remains, though nothing is extant to redeem from improbability the testimony of Porphyrogenitus, that Salona was half the size of Constantinople. Of its origin no record exists, nor is much known of its history till the time of Julius Cæsar. Subsequently to that era it was subject to various fortunes, and bore various titles. At last, in Christian times it became a Bishop's see, and was occupied by 61 bishops in succession. Diocletian was its great embellisher and almost rebuilder. Later in the day, we find that it was from Salona that Belisarius set out in 544, when recalled to the command of the army of Justinian, and intrusted with the conduct of the war against Totila. The town remained populous and fortified, till destroyed by the Avars in 639. These ferocious barbarians having established themselves in Clissa, the terror of their propinquity scared away the Salonitans. The terrified inhabitants, after a short and ineffectual resistance, fled to the islands. The town was pillaged and burnt, and from that time Salona has been deserted and in ruins.

"With these historical facts before us, it is interesting to observe the present state of the place, which affords many illustrations of past events. The positions of its defences, repaired at various times, may be traced: an inscription lately discovered by Professor Carrara, shows that its walls and towers were repaired by Valentinian II., and Theodosius; and the ditch of Constantianus is distinctly seen on the north side. Here and there, it has been filled up with earth and cultivated; but its position cannot be mistaken, and in places its original breadth may be ascertained. A very small portion of the wall remains on the east side, and nearly all traces of it are lost towards the river: but the northern portion is well preserved, and the triangular front, or salient angle of many of its towers, may be traced.

"In the western part of the town are the theatre, and what is called the amphitheatre. Of the former, some portion of the proscenium remains, as well as the solid tiers of arches, built of square stone, with bevelled edges, about 6¼ feet diameter, and 10 feet apart."

We have a good description of the annual fair of Salona. The description will be suggestive of picturesque recollections to those who have seen the open air festivities celebrated by the orthodox —i. e. by the children of the Greek Church, about Easter time. We can take it upon ourselves to recommend highly the lambs, wont to be roasted whole on these occasions. The culinary apparatus is rude – consisting merely of a few sticks for a fire, and another stick to be used as a spit – but the result of their operations is most satisfactory.

"All Spalato is of course at the fair; and the road to Salona is thronged with carriages of every description, horsemen, and pedestrians. The mixture of the men's hats, red caps, and turbans, and the bonnets and Frank dresses of the Spalatine ladies, contrasted with the costume of the country women, presents one of the most singular sights to be soon in Europe, and to a stranger the language adds in no small degree to the novelty. Some business is done as well as pleasure; and a great number of cattle, sheep, and pigs are bought and sold – as well as various stuffs, trinkets, and the usual goods exhibited at fairs. Long before mid-day, the groups of peasants have thronged the road, not to say street, of Salona; some attend the small church, picturesquely placed upon a green, surrounded by the small streams of the Giadro, and shaded with trees; while others rove about, seeking their friends, looking at, and looked at by strangers, as they pass; and all are intent on the amusements of the day, and the prospect of a feast.

"Eating and drinking soon begin. On all sides sheep are seen roasting whole on wooden spits, in the open air; and an entire flock is speedily converted into mutton. Small knots of hungry friends are formed in every direction: some seated on a bank beneath the trees, others in as many houses as will hold them; some on grass by the road-side, regardless of sun and dust – and a few quiet families have boats prepared for their reception.

"In the mean time, the hat-wearing townspeople from Spalato and other places, as they pace up and down, bowing to an occasional acquaintance, view with complacent pity the primitive recreations of the simple peasantry; and arm-in-arm, civilisation, with its propriety and affectation, is here strangely contrasted with the hearty laugh of the unrefined Morlacchi."