laden with the products of the hot lands, French and English frigates with brass cannon peering from their rows of ports, the grim, gray monsters of the Hapsburg navy.  And then I suddenly awoke, for, coming up from the southward at full speed, their slanting funnels vomiting great clouds of smoke, were four long, low, lean, incredibly swift craft, ostrich-plumes of snowy foam curling from their bows, which sped past us like wolfhounds running with their noses to the ground.  As they passed I could see quite plainly, flaunting from each taffrail, a flag of stripes and stars.

The sun was sinking behind Italy when, threading our way amid the maze of islands and islets which border the Dalmatian shore, we saw beyond our bows, silhouetted against the rose-coral of the evening sky, the slender campaniles and the crenellated ramparts of Zara.  It was so still and calm and beautiful that I felt as though I were looking at a scene upon a stage and that the curtain would descend at any moment and destroy the illusion.  The little group of white-clad naval officers who greeted us upon the quay informed us that the governor-general, Admiral Count Millo, had placed at our disposal the yacht Zara, formerly the property of the Austrian Emperor, on which we were to live during our stay in the Dalmatian capital.  It was a peculiarly thoughtful thing to do, for the summers are hot in Zara, the city’s few hotels leave much to be desired, and a stay at a palace, even that of a provincial governor, is hedged about by a certain amount of formality and restrictions.  But the Zara, while we were aboard her, was as much ours as the Mayflower is Mr. Wilson’s.  We occupied the spacious after-cabins, exquisitely paneled in white mahogany, which had been used by the Austrian archduchesses and whose furnishings still bore the imperial crown, and our breakfasts were served under the white awnings stretched over the after-deck, where, lounging in the grateful shade, we could look out across the harbor, dotted with the gaudy sails of fishing craft and bordered by the walls and gardens of the quaint old city, to the islands of Arbe and Pago, rising, like huge, uncut emeralds, from the lazy southern sea.  At noon we usually lunched with a score or more of staff-officers in the large, cool dining-room of the officers’ mess, and at night we dined with the governor-general and his family at the palace, formerly the residence of the Austrian viceroys.  Dinner over, we lounged in cane chairs on the terrace, served by white-clad, silent-footed servants with coffee, cigarettes, and the maraschino for which this coast is famous.  Those were never-to-be-forgotten evenings, for the gently heaving breast of the Adriatic glowed with a phosphorescent luminousness, the air was heavy with the fragrance of orange, almond, and oleander, the sky was like purple velvet, and the stars seemed very near.