After some customary formalities, during which I feasted my eyes on the picturesque groups that crowded on the quay, permission was finally given to go ashore; when crossing as quickly as could be the narrow intervening space, I plunged through the Porta Ferrea into the vaulted passage which on this side gives entrance to the city of Spalato; and now commence the real difficulties of description, but having undertaken it I must only try, trusting to the kind forbearance of my readers.
This vaulted entrance is narrow, perhaps not twelve feet wide, but very lofty and formed of immense blocks of stone put together with wonderful accuracy. After following it a little way, it opens out into a spacious round hall rising up to a considerable height, this portion being unroofed; from it open out several streets, all running about here and there, crossing and recrossing each other as if in search of light and air. The dwellings in these streets are full of quaint artistic beauty; at one point one meets a massive wall of square-cut blocks dating from the days of Diocletian, against which, perhaps, is built up a modern house with wrought-iron balconies of the most delicate workmanship; further on, an outside staircase of rude stone steps, partly covered with a roof of russet tiles, leads to a door some thirty feet above our heads, from which a flying buttress crosses over to an opening in an ancient wall beyond, where a modern habitation has been constructed in some mediæval donjon.
Each turn brings a new surprise, and so one passes on till one comes to the piazza, and this day being a festival, it swarmed with natives from all the surrounding _campagne_. The reader must now come with me to the _café_, where under a thick awning and surrounded by a screen of oleanders and orange-trees in full bloom, we shall take a _granita di caffé_ (a water-ice flavoured with coffee), and study the moving panorama before us, whilst we slowly puff away a cigarette made with the ambrosial tobacco of Trebigna—a kind still unknown in London and in Paris!
A TYPE OF SHYLOCK—SCENE IN THE STREET—VARIED COSTUMES—MORLACCHI—TURKS FROM THE HERZEGOVINA—WOMEN OF SPALATO—INSPECTION OF THE CITY—THE PORTA AUREA—COURT OF THE VESTIBULE OF THE PALACE—INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL—ILLUSTRIOUS MEN OF SPALATO—MARK ANTONY DE DOMINIS—ST. JEROME—THE MORLACCHI.