I had been warned by archaeological friends, before I went to Dalmatia, that the ruins of Salona, which once was the capital of Roman Dalmatia and the site of the summer palace of Diocletian, would probably disappoint me.  They date from the period of Roman decadence, so my learned friends explained, and, though following Roman traditions, frequently show traces of negligence, a fact which is accounted for by the haste with which the ailing and hypochondriac Emperor sought to build himself a retreat from the world.  Still, the little excursion—­for Salona is only five miles from Spalato—­provided much that was worth the seeing:  a partially excavated amphitheater, a long row of stone sarcophagi lying in a trench, one or two fine gates, and some beautifully preserved mosaics.  I must confess, however, that I was more interested in the modern aspects of this region than in its glorious past, for, standing upon the massive walls of the Roman city, I looked down upon a panorama of power such as Diocletian had never pictured in his wildest dreams, for, moored in a long and impressive row, their stern-lines made fast to the Molo, was a line of war-ships flying the flags of England, France, Italy, and the United States.  On the right of the line, as befitted the fact that its commander was the senior naval officer and in charge of all this portion of the coast, was Admiral Andrews’s flag-ship, the Olympia, but little changed, at least to the casual glance, since that day, more than twoscore years ago, when she blazed her way into Manila Bay and won for us a colonial empire.  On her bridge, outlined in brass tacks, I was shown Admiral Dewey’s footprints, just as he stood at the beginning of the battle when he gave the order “You may fire when you are ready, Gridley.”

Of the 18,000 inhabitants of Spalato, less than a tenth are Italian, the general character of the town and the sympathies of its inhabitants being strongly pro-Slav.  In fact, its streets were filled with Jugoslav soldiers, many of them still wearing the uniforms of the Austrian regiments in which they had served but with Serbian kepis, while others looked strangely familiar in khaki uniforms furnished them by the United States.  It being warm weather, most of the men wore their coats unbuttoned, thereby displaying a considerable expanse of hairy chest or violently colored underwear and producing a somewhat negligee effect.  Because of the presence in the town of the Jugoslav soldiery, the crews of the Italian war-ships were not permitted to go ashore with the sailors of the other nations, as Admiral Andrews feared that their presence might provoke unpleasant incidents.  Hence their “shore leave” had, for nearly six months, been confined to the narrow concrete Molo, where they were permitted to stroll in the evenings and where the Italian girls of the town came to see them.  For a Jugoslav girl to have been seen in company with an Italian sailor would have meant her social ostracism, if nothing worse.