I have a dim recollection of the captain tapping me on the shoulder and telling me something about Ragusa Vecchia and Epidaurus as we were steaming down the coast; but I was in too dreamy a state to pay much attention to him at the time, and as I knew the coast was uninteresting, I told him to call me as soon as we should come in sight of the Bocche and Castelnuovo, and dozed away again.
I afterwards learnt that this Epidaurus, about which I was rather fretting for having refused to stir from my siesta to look at it, was really not worth seeing, though an ancient city, having been founded by a Greek colony somewhere about 700 years B.C., more or less; but all its antiquities had been removed long ago.
It was between three and four in the afternoon when I awoke of my own accord, thus anticipating the captain, who was just coming to tell me that we were about entering the canal of Cattaro, as it is called, but which to our ear is far better described by the name of Fjord of Cattaro. It is to all intents and purposes a Fjord, being an arm of the sea running up for eighteen miles into land, between high precipitous cliffs; and if there is not a glacier at the end of it, but only a quaint Dalmatian town with the most picturesque fort and fortifications in the world, it does not alter the character of the inlet.
The entrance to this Fjord, called "le Bocche di Cattaro," is guarded on the right by the Fort of Castelnuovo, and on the left is bounded by a narrow strip of Turkish territory, a portion of Herzegovina, which here comes down to the Adriatic, separating the Circolo of Ragusa from that of Cattaro. By some strange political arrangement, or oversight more probably, another narrow strip of Turkish territory comes down to the Adriatic on the north of Ragusa, completely isolating that ancient Republic which finds itself thus entirely surrounded by Ottoman territory on three sides, while on the fourth it is bounded by the Adriatic.
The country about the entrance of the Bocche di Cattaro is fine, well wooded and planted with olive trees, through which can be seen numerous habitations, while many of the rugged heights are crowned with semi-fortified churches, which served as places of refuge to the women and children in troublous times.