The women of this race are treated in true Eastern fashion; that is, not much better than the beasts of burden.
As in the East, those of the higher class rarely leave their houses, but sit lazily in their chamber acquiring a becoming pallor of countenance and fatness of limb. A Sclav will not allude to his wife in conversation without an apology for mentioning so low a thing. "My wife, excuse me, sir," is the common way of bringing her into a sentence. As in the East, too, the unchaste woman is regarded with great abhorrence. What vice there may be has to conceal itself in dark places, for the old punishment of the stoning is by no means unknown here. In the towns of Albania, this outward show of morality—for that is all it really is, just as in the old days, when the virtuous man to throw the first stone was not to be found—is still more ferociously demonstrative, cases of guilty parties of both sexes having been torn to pieces by the mob being of not unfrequent occurrence there.
The following incident happened shortly before our arrival at Scutari. A Turkish officer of police, who had carried on a flirtation with the German servant of a foreign consul, was discovered, seized by several men, and beaten till he fainted with his wounds, and was left by them for dead.
The next day was Sunday. Hiring a trap, we drove, with our two friends, along a good road, across a wine-producing country, commanding pleasant views of sea and mountain, to Salona—the old Roman city—the birthplace of Diocletian. It is but four miles from Spalato. As we approached it we saw, some miles off inland, on a precipitous buttress of the mountain, the ancient and impregnable fortress of Clissa, commanding the approach to Spalato from the Herzegovina.
Salona is situated on the sloping ground at the head of the deep and beautiful inlet of the sea, which bears the same name. The ruins have been excavated, and there are no important remains to be seen, for the town was thoroughly sacked and destroyed by the Gothic hordes. It was from Salona, in 544, that Belisarius set out to rescue Italy from Totila and his Goths. The town had withstood several sieges. Attila himself is reported to have once captured it. Having for years enjoyed peace, lulled into a false and fatal sense of security, the Salonites, the historian tells us, gradually fell into a state of incredible luxury and sensuality. This was the Sybaris of the East. At last the day of trial came, and the effete citizens were found to be incapable of defending their homes against the hardier foe.
The Avars overran Dalmatia in the year 639.
Salona easily fell into the hands of the Barbarians. The sinful city was plundered and burnt to the ground; and where stood its stately theatres and temples, there is now but an uninhabited wilderness.
Its site commands a splendid view over the blue gulf, and dark, far mountains. This day, at this season of the year, when a brown tint was on the tangled groves, and a purple bloom on the grapes, while a fresh sea wind sighed through the desolate ruins, the general effect was very impressive.
Here we wandered a couple of hours or so through vines and brushwood, the fallen walls of houses, tombs, shattered friezes and columns meeting us at every turn. Nearly everywhere, on raking off the thin layer of overlying rubbish, beautiful tessalated pavements are disclosed to view. The Morlak peasantry crowded round us and sold to us, at ridiculously low prices, coins of the Diocletian era, vases and beautiful lacrymals, irridescent and scaling off with age. Several were melted out of shape by the fires of that fierce sacking more than a thousand years ago.
The Roman aqueduct which supplied the palace of Diocletian, at Spalato, with water, is still in very fair repair.
The modern city suffers much from want of water. This necessary has to be carted in from a long distance.
The restoration of the old aqueduct has been decided on; and to have come to a decision will suffice the Dalmatians for some years to come. It is to be hoped that the plan will ultimately be carried out. "The Spalatans will then have no excuse left for not washing themselves;" so I said to Mr. Vigneau, innocently. "Oh, you don't know them," said he; "they will discover that washing opens the pores, and renders them more susceptible to the trebesine (the fever)."
The source of the Gindro, where commences the aqueduct, is well worthy of a visit. About a mile from Salona—at the head of a wild and beautiful well-wooded gorge down which this torrent flows—the further progress of the traveller is barred by a precipitous wall of rock. At the foot of this wall an enormous volume of ice-cold water rushes out upwards from an orifice in the rock, filling up a deep, broad pool, which foams and whirls as the spring spouts up from underneath with incredible force, forming a dome of water on the surface. There is something horrible in the Titanic forces and furious whirl, that makes one dizzy; one cannot look down long. The water overflowing from the pool partly feeds the aqueduct, which is carried along the slope of the hill, and partly rushes down the gorge, turning on its way the huge wheel of a flour-mill.
This mill we visited with M. Vigneau. The enterprising individual who had started it seemed very disheartened. The latest machinery had been brought hither at great cost. But this was too great a novelty for the conservative Morlak peasantry, who resented and fought shy of the innovation, preferring to grind their corn between two flat stones picked up in the river bed, as their fathers did before them.
We drove home before sunset, as there was much fever about. There was not a cottage near here that had not some of its occupants prostrated by the trebesine.
Tuesday, September the 30th, was a great Dalmatian holiday. On foot, on mule-back, in the rough waggons drawn by diminutive oxen, the peasantry trooped in. The Morlaks are very fond of feasts. Every other day seems to be dedicated to some saint or other, who would avenge himself were he neglected. The working days are few, as M. Vigneau bitterly complained.
I believe this peasantry still observes several feasts whose origin dates back to Pagan times.
The holiday gave us a good opportunity of viewing the various costumes of this country at their best.
Not least quaint were the Jews of Spalato. Some were long-bearded, solemn-looking old fellows, dressed in the same sombre garb the Jews of Venice wore when Shylock drove sharp bargains on the Rialto.
The groups that filled the narrow streets were very Eastern in appearance. The pig-tailed Morlak, clad in his Sunday jacket; the savage-looking Bosnian Turk, with turban, broad sash, and gay slippers; the Greek sailors; all had an outlandish appearance, that told us we were far from home—"from home and beauty" too, for of the latter there was little to be seen at Spalato. I honestly saw no women who could, with the grossest flattery, be called pretty, between Trieste and Montenegro. And what can make one feel so alone in a strange land, as the absence of fair women.
The Dalmatian Sclavs are unfortunately very fond of raising their voices in song. A gang of youths would-walk down a street arm-in-arm, shouting some native ballad. The music and singing of the East is always of a melancholy character; but never have I heard anything so dismal as the barbaric dirges of the Morlaks. The song is a sort of monotonous chant, which has a peculiar querulous complaining spirit in it; and yet a suppressed and timorous complaining, as of slaves that had not for centuries known what independence and freedom was.
How different is the song of the free Montenegrin (of the same race as the Morlak). It is of the same monotonous character, but has a go and energy in it, inspired as it is with the warlike feats of their heroes in the present as well as in the past—not a song of regret for some by-gone greatness, but an exultation in the brave and illustrious now.
Each verse of a Morlak song dies away in a long and sad howl, followed by a silence, before the next verse is taken up. This produces a peculiarly depressing effect.
Our arrival was pretty well known
