It was a glorious morning in May when the Graf Wurmbrand, the Austrian-Lloyd’s fast steamer, left Trieste, bearing us to Cattaro.  The Gulf of Trieste is very beautiful, for the green hills, all dotted with villas, the busy harbour life, the Julian Alps rising up majestically far away on the starboard, and directly behind the town, gaunt and grey, the naked Karst, of which we were to see so much in Montenegro; all made a picture that it would be difficult to forget.

At midday we arrived at Pola.  The entrance to the harbour is well covered by islands, and on each of these frowns a great fort, some of which, however, are so carefully hidden that their locality is only betrayed by a flagstaff.  A narrow channel leads to the inner harbour, Austria’s naval dockyard and arsenal.  Here are the warships and building yards, and away to the left, as a strange and unfitting contrast, the Arena, one of the best-preserved specimens of Roman work, rises seemingly from amongst the houses.  Pola is full of Roman remains.  All is so green and peaceful, in spite of the countless fortifications which render the harbour well-nigh, if not quite, impregnable, that Nature and War seem for once to go hand-in-hand.

[Illustration:  THE GRAF WURMBRAND IN THE BOCCHE DI CATTARO]

At twilight Zara looms up into view, and another short stay is made.  The town turns out en masse for the coming of the Wurmbrand or the Pannonia—­the fast boats from Trieste or Fiume are the events of the week.  There is no railway here.  Unluckily Dalmatia’s finest scenery is passed in the night.  Trau, with its splendid loggias and churches; Spalato, with the grandeur of Diocletian’s palace, are denied to the traveller; Lesina, proudly calling itself the Nice of Austria; Curzola, whose mighty Venetian bastions stand out into the sea, and many another delightful little town and island, only show a twinkling light or two in the darkness as the steamer ploughs by.  At daybreak we are nearing Gravosa, Ragusa’s modern port.  As we leave again, and round the peninsula of Lapad, glorious in a mass of semi-tropical vegetation, Ragusa bursts upon our view.  Seen on a sunny morning it is a sight for the gods.  Built well into the sea on inaccessible cliffs, surrounded by lofty walls, with a great hill as a background, it has well been called the prettiest bit of Dalmatia.  It possesses a magnificent winter climate and a good hotel, so that people are forsaking the Riviera for this comparatively unknown paradise.

Far too soon Ragusa fades away, and now the approaching mountains grow higher and wilder.  Those lofty peaks, towering above the others, black and forbidding, are Nature’s bulwarks of the land which we are visiting.  It is from a distance that the name “Black Mountain” seems so aptly given to this fierce little state, though some historians wish to explain the derivation otherwise.

The Bocche (or mouths) di Cattaro, three in number, are a consummate blending of the Norwegian fjords and the Swiss lakes, and so lofty and steep are the surrounding mountains that the sun can only reach the bottom for a few hours at midday.