Part 14

The islands of Cherso and Veglia divide the Quarrero into three channels: that between Istria and Cherso, the Canale di Farasina; between Cherso and Veglia, the Canale di Mezzo (becoming the Quarnerolo further south); and between Veglia and the Croatian mainland, the Canale di Maltempo or della Morlacca, in front of which the little island of S. Marco lies. The scenery of the last-named channel is much finer than the Quarnerolo, and its interest is enhanced because the steamer passes Segna or Zengg, the rocky nest of the Uscocs, the pirates who were so troublesome in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but its first name, the Canal of Evil Weather, is an accurate description of what may be expected, since here the "Bora" blows with the greatest fury, making it the most dangerous part of the whole coast. There is scarcely enough of interest in the town itself to make it worthy of a visit, since the picturesque and horrible exploits of its savage inhabitants (which are its chief title to fame) may be read in the histories of the Uscocs. They were refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, driven out by the Turks; the word "Scochi" in Slav meaning exiles or fugitives. Their first establishment was at Clissa, near Spalato, under Pietro Crussich, lord of Lupoglavo in Istria. From this place they made raids on the Turks, who at last collected an army and besieged the place for a year. The castellan was killed in a sortie, and the castle surrendered in 1537. They then retired to Segna, where they were received and paid by the Emperor. The original band numbered only five or six hundred, but they had with them many assistants, Dalmatians banished by the Venetians or escaped from the galleys, and brigands of other nations, as well as indigenous camp-followers. At first they only attacked the Turks, more or less straightforwardly, but gradually became mere pirates. The Venetians fought fruitlessly against them for some time, and finally became embroiled with Austria over the question. They were most daring in their enterprises. On January 19, 1599, eight hundred of them disembarked at Portolungo and assaulted Albona. They had entered the suburb, when the citizens rushed to arms, led by the valiant parish priest Don Priamo Luciani Cristoforo Negri, and succeeded in beating them off. They then retired on Fianona, which they took by surprise, established themselves there, hoisted the Austrian flag, and obliged the inhabitants to swear fealty to Austria. One man who refused, Gaspare Calovanich, they flayed alive! Many other outrages were committed, shipping was attacked, and sailors robbed. The war which followed only ended with the peace of Madrid, September 26, 1617, by the provisions of which the Uscocs were to be interned and scattered over the Austrian provinces, and their ships destroyed; whilst the Venetians were to restore conquered places to Austria. A few of the Uscocs who were left at Segna went on in their evil ways, and in February, 1619, took a Venetian ship with 4,000 zecchins-worth of cargo. The Republic made a claim, and Austria punished them with death and restored the booty. This was the last of their raids. Sir Gardner Wilkinson says that out of a number hanged in 1618 nine were Englishmen, of whom six were gentlemen.

They are described as being without discipline, but ready to follow their captains blindly. They feared no fatigue, climbed the rocks like cats, slept in the open air, preferred tactics of surprise, and cared for nothing but the satisfaction of their cupidity. Some were dressed gipsy-fashion, with arms and breast bare. The bulk, however, wore a dress resembling that of the Morlacchi--tight hose, shoes of cord or rawhide, a red-brown waistcoat without sleeves, and a red felt cap on the head. They wore their hair in long locks, with wild-looking moustaches, had earrings of iron or silver, and their weapons were semicircular axes, and knives which they carried in their girdles. Altogether a fearsome crew to have to do with!

Segna belonged to the Counts Frangipani, whose eyrie was fixed at Castel Muschio on the island of Veglia. It is near the northern end above a wide bay on the sea side of a broken plateau, partly crowned with fortress-walls, in front of which a few houses sparkle white in the sun. Only one tower remains, with doors on first and second-floor level and a S. Mark's lion in relief. The island was the ancient Curicta, near which there was a sea-fight between the ships of Cæsar and Pompey in 49 B.C., when the Istrians took the part of the latter. The Cæsarian fleet under Dolabella was destroyed, and Caius Antonius, Cæsar's general, was shut up in Veglia, where he was encamped with two legions. The soldiers constructed three rafts made of two rows of boats fastened together with chains, and with a platform of beams upon them, and a great tower at one end, by means of which the rowers were to be protected and the enemy attacked. Octavian, Pompey's admiral, retired behind Cherso, but left the channel fouled with ropes and chains fastened to the rocks. In the afternoon the rafts which had been launched reached the narrow part of the strait. The two smaller ones got through, but the largest stuck. Octavian then attacked. On the big raft were one thousand Opitergian colonists, under the captaincy of the tribune Vulteius. They fought till night, when, seeing that their case was hopeless, they determined to die rather than surrender. At dawn the struggle recommenced, the Istrians joining in the attack. The end was the suicide of Vulteius and his followers, and the surrender of the cohorts on the island.

From 1126 the islands of the Quarnero belonged to Venice, but the peace of Zara in 1358 ceded Dalmatia to Hungary and Veglia with it; and, when Ladislas sold Dalmatia to Venice in 1409, Veglia was excluded, being formally ceded by the last Count Giovanni in 1480. Nicholas Frangipani, who was count in 1409, had nine sons, and left his property equally divided among them, so that there were nine counts of Veglia at the same time. Giovanni, the eldest, to make himself secure against his brothers, put himself under the protection of Venice in 1452, married a daughter of Paolo Morosini, and published his will in 1453, by which he left the island to the Republic if he died without issue, thus making it clear to his brothers that he was determined that they should never have the island, and that if they tried to take it by force he would be protected by Venice. At the same time he swore to the inhabitants to preserve their ancient laws and customs. He had no intention of keeping his word in any particular, and played off Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, against Venice in the most unblushing manner, making traitorous suggestions to both sides alike, and attacking the towns of either party alternately. His subjects, being much oppressed, invited the Hungarian general, Magiar Blas, to invade the island in 1480, saying that he would be received as a Messiah. He came and attacked Castel Muschio; but the count invoked the protection of Venice. A few days later Veglia was bombarded by the Hungarians, the Venetian galleys not being able to render much assistance. The people refused to fight, saying that they preferred to have even Turks as rulers rather than their count. After consultation with the Venetian officers they were summoned to the Palazzo Pubblico; and the count told them that he was the servant of Venice, and that they must swear fealty to the Republic and would be protected. Accordingly the oath was taken by all, and the Hungarians were obliged to make terms. They were allowed to return safely to the mainland. The count then began to threaten those of his subjects who had been in favour of the Hungarians, and many fled in fear. The captain-general of the Venetians, as corrective, published an order authorising the inhabitants to kill any of the count's people who molested them. Count Giovanni bit his lips, determining to be revenged when the captain-general had gone, but never had the chance, as he was carried off to Venice, at which the Veglians rang the bells for joy. The Venetians set matters in order; but the count wrote letters saying that he would soon return to Veglia and punish all traitors; in consequence of which the Veglians assured the governor that, should he do so, they would either call in the Turks or leave the island waste and uninhabited. To solve the difficulty the Venetians pensioned him off. He became, however, soon dissatisfied with the amount and fled from Venice, his disappearance being regretted by no one. He was an abominable character, and among the evil deeds of which he was guilty was the making of false seals to enable him to forge documents.

A considerable portion of the walls built by the Venetians round the town still remains, overgrown with ivy, and the city is still entered by the old gate-openings, the Porta di Su and the Porta Pisani, though the actual gateways have disappeared. On one of the towers guarding the latter is a rather fine relief of the Venetian lion. Close to the cathedral is the castle of the Frangipani, two of the towers being within the bishop's garden. The sea washes the rocks on which they are built, and in time of storm the spray flies over the curtain wall.

Our prowlings around the walls attracted the attention of two guards, who, after following us for some time, stopped us to question our proceedings. The production of the Statthalter's letter which I carried with me satisfied them that we had no nefarious designs, and it was returned to me with the remark (made rather regretfully, I thought) that it was all "in order." Travellers will find it advantageous to obtain some kind of "permit" if their tastes are likely to lead to the exhibition of unusual curiosity in relation to buildings and their surroundings.

The cathedral, erected in 1133 in thanksgiving for a great victory over Corsairs gained with the assistance of Venice, was therefore dedicated to S. Mark. It consists of nave and aisles with an apse of five sides of an octagon, which bears the date of 1688. The nave arcade is semicircular, the arches varying in height, some being stilted, and rests upon sixteen columns of granite, Istrian stone, red marble of the island, and pavonazzetto. Several are in more than one piece, one or two are made up to the requisite height with another stone, and two are octagonal. Most of them have but the slightest projection for base, the level of the pavement having apparently been raised. Most of the caps have Byzantine thistly acanthus worked with great use of the drill, one has quaint gambolling beasts and birds within arched forms in place of foliage, which show imitation of Oriental ornamental forms, and one, which has hollows for inlays of squares and diamonds, bounded by the leaf shapes, is exactly like one in the pergola of the director's house at Salona, which came from the campanile, Spalato. There is a fine early Renaissance choir-screen with an ambo at each side, made of the red variegated marble of the island; an angel of white marble supports the book-rest. To the north of this screen is a rather late Gothic chapel with apse of three sides and lierne vaulting. It has octagonal wall shafts and shields as bosses, with devices upon them, and the arms of the Frangipani. The place of the altar still shows on the pavement, and it has been suggested that the silver pala belonged to this chapel. Two more chapels open from the south aisle through Venetian slightly ogee arches, with saints at the top emergent from leaves, and a cable moulding within and dentils without. In one, the columns have been replaced by Renaissance half-columns; in the other, the fourteenth-century shafts still remain. In the choir are two fine Gothic tomb slabs, commemorating a fourteenth-century bishop and an arch-priest (1494), and other slabs with coats of arms in high relief.

The silver pala is preserved just within the west door upon the south wall, behind glass in tolerably large sheets, so that it can be easily studied. The present _parroco_ replaced the old heavy wooden framing by one of lighter construction. It is thought to have been a triptych originally. Each of the wings has ten figures in two rows of five, one above the other--twenty in all. On the right S. Peter occupies the middle of the top row with S. John the Baptist below; on the left are S. Paul and S. Nicholas in the corresponding places. All the figures stand on brackets. The upper centre is occupied by the Madonna and Child standing on the crescent moon; below is the Coronation of the Virgin; the other four niches have figures of angels, three half-lengths in each, one above the other. SS. Jerome and George are recognisable among the other saints. The heads are much too large, and the figure-work is coarse. The niches are trefoiled and ogee-headed, with crockets and finials and octagonal colonnettes between, springing from corbels, and crowned with imbricated pinnacles; they have piercings resembling window tracery, with rosettes between each repetition. The bar which divides the two ranges of figures, and the frame have very beautiful triple rows of vine-scrolling in exceedingly low relief, which is quite lost at a little distance. An inscription gives the name of Peter Grimani and the date of 1742; but this must refer to a restoration, as the style suggests the fifteenth century, and would agree quite well with the date 1405, when one of the Frangipani is recorded to have established the chapel of S. Vito in the cathedral. The treasury now contains nothing of importance--at least, inquiries only produced a showy processional cross of the seventeenth century.

The cathedral is entered from an archway beneath the campanile; on the other side of the arch is the church of S. Quirinus, a Romanesque building in two stories. The lower portion is now a wine-store; the upper, reached by steps, is vaulted like a crypt, nine spans resting on four low columns. It has been modernised, but the three apses are untouched externally, crowned with a corbelled arcuated cornice, the centre one being the largest. The cathedral has a doorway on the south side not now used; the round arch has a torus moulding, pilaster strips, and caps beneath a gabled hood, made of the local marble and bleached by the sun to a delightful varied yellow.

Close to the Porta di Su is another Romanesque church--S. Maria. The interior has been modernised, though a few caps resembling those in the cathedral remain; but the tower (at the west end) has two stories, with two circular-headed windows with buttress between unspoilt. At the other side of the road is S. Francesco, which has a tower of five stories near the east end, and long trefoil-headed windows. The high-altar-piece in this church (a Madonna with saints) is ascribed to Pordenone (1531), and there is an interesting pulpit with five marquetry panels, S. Francis receiving the stigmata in the centre, and personifications of four Christian graces in the others, good work of the seventeenth century.

The Venetian clock-tower, now a café, bears the date 1493 on a panel of the winged lion above the pointed arch, but must be earlier than that date, as it also bears the Frangipani escutcheon. The loggia was behind it. In this piazza are carved panels from a Venetian well or fountain, with an inscription of 1558 ascribing its erection to Antonio Gradenigo, swags of flowers and fruit, a S. Mark's lion with a tower by the sea, &c.; and in the walls here and there are encrusted a few antique inscriptions.

A walk of about forty minutes brings one to the shore of Val Cassione, a nearly semicircular bay with only a narrow entrance from the Quarnerolo. The water is generally smooth like a pond, the mountain of Treskavac, which rises to the north-east, sheltering it. The island of Zoccolante, girdled with ilex and maples, lies opposite the village of Ponte, and on it is the Franciscan monastery of Cassione. A pergola shelters the path from the boat-house to the porch, and the cloister is full of flowers and bushes. The church has an altar-piece by Girolamo da S. Croce, signed and dated 1535, and a Raffaellesque Virgin and sleeping Child. The library contains a few early printed books. Throughout the island, except in this convent and in the town of Veglia, the Slav liturgy, granted by Pope John VIII. (872-882), is in use.

The usual route to Castel Muschio and Veglia is from Fiume, but one of our visits was made from Arbe to Besca Nova, a most picturesque and equally evil-smelling port, sheltered by widely stretching rocky points (one of which bears the appropriate name of Punta Scoglia), which rise to mountainous masses behind the little town, with a modern cemetery chapel on one of the lower spurs. The houses straggle round the curve of the shore, with groups of trees here and there, and little creeks running up into the land, crossed by narrow bridges; the streets, mere alleys often, scarcely permitting two persons to pass each other, rise to a church round which they cluster more thickly. At this end of the town the houses cling to the side of the hill above and below the street, and are approached by steps which descend to the front, though there are also doors on the street level convenient for elopements, and wonderful great chimneys of great originality and variety. There were a good many boats in the harbour, and we had an excellent opportunity of seeing it from all points of view, for the pier at which the steamer stops is at one horn of the bay, and it is a walk of a quarter of an hour to the indifferent inn. We asked a couple of gentlemen who were coming out if we could get anything to eat there, and they replied: "Oh yes, if you go at once." We found, however, that we must order what we wanted and wait until it was cooked, so we left the civil _padrona_ to her labours, and immediately were mobbed by a crowd of children to whom strangers were a godsend. A gendarme approached and asked for our credentials, but, being satisfied that we were not dangerous, offered to assist us in any way he could, and we found that the children disappeared for a time. I made inquiries of him as to a couple of pictures ascribed to Vivarini and Basaiti, which I understood were in the town, but he knew nothing about them. The Vivarini is a Madonna enthroned with two child angels at her feet, with three saints on either side of her and angels holding the baldacchino.

On our return to the inn the question of a carriage to Veglia engaged our attention. There was an officer of some kind in the room, who had taken one of the three carriages which appear to compose the transport of Besca Nova and declined to share it. The second was under repair, one of its wheels being in the hands of the wheelwright on the ground in front of the inn. The third had been engaged by two Italian gentlemen, father and son, and its appearance suggested doubts as to whether it would take five persons and our luggage over the backbone of the island. There was a diligence, but it started at 2 a.m., and the drivers tried to persuade us to sleep at Besca, saying they could take us on at 6 a.m. The _déjeuner_ we had had, however, inspired so little confidence that we determined to get on to Veglia that night, sharing the third carriage with the Italians, though in the end we did not benefit very much by the arrangement. As the shadows began to lengthen, the horses were put to, the harness being supplemented with bits of rope in some places, and we packed ourselves and our belongings into the carriage, finding our fellow-travellers very pleasant companions. The narrow road runs up a rocky valley, at first with a considerable space of cultivated land on each side, vineyards and grain occupying the greater part; and before long Besca Valle came in sight, a barbarous-looking village, with curious reed-thatched huts for styes and cart-hovels, and with whitewashed walls to the houses which stood upon unparapeted terraces supported on great arches used for storage of different kinds. In the church of S. Lucia, some distance away, is the earliest Glagolitic inscription known. Our driver appeared to be on familiar terms with most of the population, and was continually calling out greetings to people some distance from the road.

The valley narrowed and the rocks rose higher, the clear bright green Fiumera foamed and tumbled in its rocky bed, and we passed a picturesque mill astride of it, backed up with trees. Soon the driver called our attention to a great rock hanging from the cliff which seemed as if its fall from the height was merely a matter of moments, but which had looked so, he said, for years. The continuous climb was interrupted by a wooded depression through which the road wound; it then crossed the stream and commenced a long ascent continuing for more than a mile, which we negotiated on foot. As we rose higher the view expanded, and we found it pleasant to turn and gaze at it, warm in the sunset-glow. The Velebit Mountains, with their summits hidden in the clouds, blushed a beautiful warm rose colour, while Arbe and the nearer island of Pervicchio which shelters the harbour, rather more orange in colour, contrasted with the pale sapphire of the sea, each increasing the brilliancy of the other. The shadowed valley at our feet, with mill, stream, and dark trees, enhanced the brightness of the distance and of the final glow upon Besca Nova, where the curve of its houses embraced the bay with chains of orange and cream colour.

A solitary horseman passed us while we were surmounting the stony waste through which the higher portion of the road winds, a greyish and reddish variegated marble used in buildings in the island, and just at the summit we met the diligence on its way to Besca. The sunset was superb, the glow of the sky reflected in the sea, with Cherso dark against it and the shores of Veglia laid out below us, showing Ponte and the Convent of Cassione, and Veglia beyond almost hidden in trees. As we descended the long slope the colour faded from the sky, and long before we reached the town of Veglia nothing could be discerned but the silhouettes of branch and leaf against the sky.

XV

OSSERO AND CHERSO

On one of our journeys we went by boat from Trieste to Lussin Piccolo, stopping only at Pola. It was just before Easter, and many sailors from the fleet were going home for a holiday. The quay was crowded with passengers, and a queerly shaped engine, belching forth thick smoke, with train attached, was drawn up behind them. This we thought a fair subject for a snap-shot, but the production of the camera attracted the attention of a policeman who would not be satisfied until it was put away, though the arsenal was behind us. The sailors swarmed on board and filled the whole fore part of the boat--fine-looking fellows for the most part, and very good-humoured. Their kits were done up in handkerchiefs with the map of Europe printed on them in red, blue, or buff. They were full of jokes, and were, in fact, just like a lot of big schoolboys. Some of them gathered in a ring and sang in parts for some time; the music sounded better a little way off than near. There were also Montenegrins on board who had been working on some railway in course of construction. One of them had two pairs of corduroy trousers on, the upper whitish, the under the usual brown-green.