My Friend the Chauffeur
automobile which before had not had room to breathe.
"Misfire, that's all," said Mr. Barrymore, laughing and showing his nice
white teeth in a comforting way he has when anything alarming has
happened. Next instant the motor was docile as a lamb; the engine began
to purr; the Chauffeulier jumped to his seat, and, followed by a vast
sigh from the crowd, we darted away at thirty miles an hour.
The rest of the day was a changing dream of strange impressions, which
made Aunt Kathryn feel as if Denver were at least a million miles away.
We climbed once more up to the heights of the Velebit, seeing from among
the dark, giant pines which draped it in mourning, the great forests of
Croatia, Lika, and Krabava, with their conical mountains, and far off
the chains of Bosnia. Then, at a bound, we leaped into sight of the
Adriatic again and sped down innumerable _lacets_ overlooking the
beautiful land-locked sea of Novigrad, to tumble at last upon the little
town of Obrovazzo. Thence we flew on, over an undulating road, towards
Dalmatia's capital, Zara.
Just as anachronistic electric lights had shown us the way through
curiously Italian streets, with beautifully ornamented windows, past a
noble Corinthian column and out onto a broad space by the sea, without a
warning sigh the automobile stopped.
"Our last drop of petrol!" exclaimed Mr. Barrymore. "Lucky it didn't
give out before, as I began to be afraid it might, owing to the hills."
"By Jove! this doesn't look the sort of town to buy food and drink for
motors!" remarked Sir Ralph ruefully.
The Chauffeulier laughed. "Ours won't starve," said he. "I thought you
knew I'd ordered tins of petrol to meet us at every big town, for fear
of trouble. It will come down by boat, and I shall find the Zara lot
waiting for me at the Austrian Lloyd's storehouse. You'd have remembered
that arrangement if your wits hadn't been wool-gathering a bit lately."
"I wonder if they have?" soliloquized Sir Ralph. "Well, here we are
within three yards of a hotel which, if I've any brains left, is the
very one you selected from Baedeker."
We all got out as if we had stopped on purpose, and the hotel which Fate
and our Chauffeulier had chosen proved very fair, though too modern to
be in the picture.
If the automobile had flashed us to Mars things could hardly have been
more unfamiliar to our eyes than when we walked out next morning to find
ourselves in the midst of a great fete.
Flags were everywhere: in arched windows, rich with sculptured stone;
flying over the great gates of the city; festooned in the charming
little houses with fountain courts surrounded by columns. The peasants
of the country round had flocked to town for the holiday. Dark,
velvet-eyed girls in short dresses of bright-coloured silk heavy with
gold embroidery, their hair hidden by white head-dresses flashing with
sequins, and tall men in long frock coats of dark crimson or yellow,
were exactly like a stage crowd in some wonderful theatre; while
handsome Austrian officers wearing graceful blue cloaks draped over one
shoulder, might have been operatic heroes.
There was strange music in the streets, and a religious procession,
which we followed for some time on our way to the maraschino factory
which Mr. Barrymore said we must see. Of course, some monks had invented
the liqueur, as they always do, but perhaps the cherries which grow only
among those mountains, and can't be exported, had as much to do with
the original success of the liqueur as the existence of the recipe.
If Aunt Kathryn had listened to Mr. Barrymore and me we would have gone
from Zara inland to a place called Knin, to visit the cataract of Krka,
described as a combination of Niagara and the Rhine Falls. But she said
that the very sound of the names would make a cat want to sneeze, and
she was sure she would take her death of cold there. So the proposal
fell to the ground, and we kept to the coast route, the shortest way of
getting to Ragusa and Cattaro.
When we had climbed out of Zara by the old post road, begun by Venice
and finished by Austria, our way lay among the famous cherry-trees which
have made Zara rich. There were miles of undulating country and fields
of wheat, interspersed with vines and almond trees which mingled with
the cherries. The pastures where sheep and goats grazed were blue and
pink with violets and anemones; here and there was an old watch-tower,
put up against the Turks; and the rich peasants drove in quaint flat
chaises, which looked as if the occupants were sitting in large
pancakes.
With a motor it was not far to Sebenico, which called itself modestly a
"little Genoa;" and it was so pretty, lying by the sea, with its
narrowest streets climbing up a hill to an ancient fortress, that I
should have loved to linger, but Aunt Kathryn was for pushing on; and,
of course, it is her trip, so her wishes must be obeyed when they can't
be directed into other channels. We stopped only long enough for an
omelette, and passed on after a mere glimpse of close-huddled houses
(with three heads for every window, staring at the motor) and a
cathedral with an exquisite doorway. Then we were out of the town,
spinning on through the wild, unreal-looking country towards Spalato.
"What new ground for honeymooners!" exclaimed Sir Ralph, enchanted with
everything, in his half-boyish, half-cynical way. "I shall recommend it
in _The Riviera Sun_ for a wedding trip _en automobile_. Shouldn't you
like to do it, Miss Beechy--dawdling, not scorching?"
"I think when I get married," Beechy replied judicially, "I shan't want
to _go_ anywhere. I shall just _stay_ somewhere for a change."
"It's early to decide," remarked Sir Ralph.
"I don't know. It's always well to be prepared," said Beechy, with the
enigmatical look she sometimes puts on, which (in spite of her
ankle-short dresses and knee-long tails of hair) makes her appear at
least sixteen.
Beyond Sebenico the Dalmatian landscape frowned upon us, but we liked
its savage mood. The road, winding inland, was walled with mountains
which might have struck a chill to the heart of Childe Roland on his way
to find the Dark Tower. On a rocky shoulder here and there crouched a
sinister little hamlet, like a black cat huddling into the neck of a
witch. Sometimes, among the stony pastures where discouraged goats
browsed discontentedly, we would spy a human inhabitant of one of those
savage haunts--a shepherd in a costume more strange than picturesque,
with a plait of hair almost as long as Beechy's, hanging down his
back--a sullen, Mongolian-faced being, who stared or scowled as we flew
by, his ragged dog too startled by the rush of the motor even to bark,
frozen into an attitude of angry amazement at his master's feet. One
evidence only of modern civilization did we see--the railway from
Sebenico to Spalato, the first we had come near in Dalmatia; and we
congratulated ourselves that we were travelling by automobile instead.
No tunnels to shut out some wonderful view, just as our eyes had
focussed on it, no black smoke, no stuffy air, no need to think of time
tables!
When at last we sighted the Adriatic again, a surprise awaited us. The
land of desolation lay behind; beyond, a land of beauty and full summer.
We ran beside an azure sea, transparent as gauze, fringing a tropical
strand; and so came into the little town of Trau, which might have been
under a spell of sleep since mediaeval days. Its walls and gates, its
ornate houses, its fort and Sanmicheli tower, all set like a mosaic of
jewels in a ring of myrtles, oleanders, and laurels, delighted our
eyes; and the farther we went on the way to Spalato, keeping always by
the glittering sea, the more beautiful grew the scene. The walls along
our road were well-nigh hidden with agaves and rosemary. Cacti leered
impudently at us; palms and pomegranates made the breeze on our faces
whisper of the south and the east. Not a place we passed that I would
not have loved to spend a month in, studying in the carved stones of
churches and ruined castles the history of Venetian rule, or the wild
romance of Turkish raids.
Spalato we reached at sunset, as the little waves which creamed against
the pink rocks were splashed with crimson; and Spalato was by far the
most imposing place Dalmatia had shown us yet. As in Italy, the ancient
and modern towns held themselves apart from one another, as if there
could be no sympathy between the two, though the new houses were pushing
and would have encroached now and then if they could. We stayed all
night; and by getting up at sunrise Beechy and I, with Mr. Barrymore and
Sir Ralph, had time for a glimpse of Diocletian's palace, grand in
ruinous desolation.
Still we went on beside the sea, and from Spalato to Almissa--sheltered
under high rocks at the mouth of a river, was a splendid run leading us
by the territory of an ancient peasant republic--Poljica; one of those
odd little self-governing communities, like San Marino, which have
flourished through troubled centuries under the very noses of great
powers. Poljica had had its Jeanne d'Arc, who performed wondrous feats
of valour in wars against the Turks, and I bought a charming little
statuette of her.
At Almissa we bade good-bye to the blue water for a while to run by the
banks of the Cetina, a big and beautiful river; for the range of the
Biokovo Hills had got between us and the sea; but we threaded our way
out to it again, after switchbacking up and down an undulating road
close to the frontier of Herzegovina; and at the end of a wonderful day
descended upon a harbour in an almost land-locked basin of water. It was
Gravosa, the port of Ragusa, still hidden by an intervening tongue of
land. It was a gay scene by the quay, where native coasting ships were
unloading their queer cargoes. Dark-faced porters in rags carried on
their shoulders enormous burdens; men in loose knickerbockers,
embroidered shirts, and funny little turbans lounged about, and stared
at us as if they were every-day people and we extraordinary. And the
setting for the lively picture was the deeply-indented bay, surrounded
with quaintly pretty houses among vineyards and olive groves, which
climbed terrace after terrace to a mountainous horse-shoe, hemming in
the port.
All this we saw in the moment or two that we halted by the quay, before
turning up the road to Ragusa. It was a mile-long road, and like a
pleasure garden all the way, with the whiteness of wild lilies flung
like snow drifts against dark cedars, and trails of marvellous roses,
strangely tinted with all shades of red and yellow from the palest to
the deepest, clambering among the branches of umbrella pines. There were
villas, too, with pergolas, and two or three dignified old houses of
curious architecture, of which we had a flashing glimpse through
doorways in enormous walls.
We bounded up the saddle of a hill, then down again, and so came to a
charming hotel, white, with green verandahs, set in a park that was half
a garden. We were to spend the night and go on next day, after seeing
the town; but the Chauffeulier said that we should not see it to the
same advantage by morning light as in this poetic flush of sunset. So
after greeting Signore Bari and his sister, who were painting in the
park, we drove on, through a crowded _place_ where music played, crossed
a moat, and were swallowed by the long shadow of the city gate, black
with a twisted draping of ancient ivy.
A throng of loungers, theatrically picturesque, fell back in
astonishment to give us passage, and a moment later we were caught in a
double row of fortifications with a sharp and difficult turn through a
second gate. It was almost like a trap for a motor-car, but we got out,
and sprang at the same instant into the main street of a town that