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In Istria
by Horatio Forbes Brown
[Source: Horatio F. Brown,
In and Around Venice, with illustrations. Charles
Scribner's Sons (New York, 1905), "In Istria", p. 264-283. H.F.
Brown is also the author of Venice: An Historical Sketch of
the Republic
and Life on the Lagoons, 1884, which also includes this
chapter.]
I. The Beppi
On a clear day in March the faint blue outline of the Istrian
coast, rather suggested than discerned from the campanile of
Saint Mark, looked tempting enough to waken the spirit of spring
wandering. Venice has always been intimately connected with the
Istrian peninsula; it was one of her earliest conquests. And
though the custom-house now excludes the famous Istrian wine,
Venice owes no small debt to Istria for the famous stone her
artists used so well. The question was how to get there. The
Austrian-Lloyd steamer, that lay off the point of the Dogana,
did not look tempting; and besides, that would take one to
Trieste and not to the Istrian coast proper. A sailing-boat was
clearly the right carriage. While revolving this point, an old
friend of my friend Antonio, Paron Piero, the captain of the
Beppi, offered us a berth — or, rather, half a berth apiece
— on board his boat, that trades between Venice and the Istrian
coast. We were to sail that same night at two o'clock with the
ebbing tide.
Paron Piero was as tough and hearty an old salt as
[265] you could meet with on the coast of Argyle. A
Pelestrinotto by birth; for hardly a single Venetian is engaged
in this coasting trade, and the masters and crews all hail from
Burano, Pelestrina, or Chioggia. Piero had served under Austria,
and loved the name of emperor; he insisted on announcing the
birthday of the King of Italy, which we kept at sea, as " la
nascita del nostro Imperador." He had fought, been wounded,
smuggled, and finally settled down to this trade of carrying
wood. A man with a quick temper, a warm heart, and a flow of
things to say that left him often high and dry for words, so
that most of his sentences ended in "diavolo," a compendious
symbol for whatever might be wanting. The Beppi had cost
him twenty-five thousand lire, and he had owned her fifteen
years, though she confessed to a greater age with a tell-tale
"1849," half worn out, upon her bows. The Beppi was a
boat of that build which, in these waters, is called a
trabaccolo — very similar to a Dutch galliot, with
round, blunt bows, round ribs, and a flat bottom. She was about
forty tons burthen; and carried two square sails on her main and
mizzen, and a jib. Her bulging prow had the two inevitable eyes
cut and painted on either side of her nose; for in Venice, as in
China, they ask you, how can a vessel see where she is going if
she has no eyes? Inside, the Beppi contained a large hold
in the centre for her cargo of firewood, and there an occasional
cask of wine might be hidden from custom-house inquisitiveness.
[266] In the bows was a cabin for the crew; and in
the stern another for the paron and his son, which we
were to share. The cabin of the Beppi was at most six
feet square and five feet high. All round it was panelled in
walnut-wood, roughly carved into arches and pilasters. At one
side, close to the ladder of the hatchway, hung hams and smoked
quarters of mutton, called castradina, and dried fish.
Under these, three tubs, the one containing yellow maize-flour
for polenta,
another "paste," and the third peas and dried beans for
soup. This, with a string of biscuits, formed the provision for
the voyage. Next the hams came an array of hats and coats of all
ages, to suit all weathers; then a little table and a stool;
over the table the "Madonna della Seggiola." The opposite wall
was entirely occupied by a large recess; in the middle of this
hung an engraving of a very Correggiesque Madonna, the patroness
of the boat, surrounded with a wreath of olive branches, maize,
and oranges. Before the picture a lamp in a glass globe was kept
constantly burning. The rest of this recess served as a store
for ship's lamps, oil cans, one bottle of rum, and a small keg
of wine. The two remaining sides of the cabin held two bunks,
broad enough for two people to lie heads and tails. It did not
take long to make one fond of the little cabin, in spite of its
strange variety of smells.
The weather was fine when we went on board about ten o'clock,
hoping to get some sleep before [267] starting.
But March is the very month for the stormy lord of Hadria to
play some trick; and we felt, as an old Italian poet had sung,
that "di doman' non c'è certezza."
II. Two Idle Days
Next morning the rain was dripping steadily on the deck.
"That son of a dog, the
scirocco," as the paron called it, had played us the
trick we dreaded, and the weather was fairly broken. The regular
patter of the reefs against the sails showed that the Beppi
was anchored off Fort Alberoni, just at the mouth of the
Malamocco port, only nine miles from Venice; that was all the
way we had made. And it seemed probable that we should have to
remain where we were throughout the day, for the Adriatic was
thundering on the sea walls that keep the lagoon and Venice
itself from being swept away. From the deck nothing could be
seen, nothing but dense banks of sea fog, through which the roar
of the sea sounded strange and unreal, for inside the shelter of
the walls all the lagoon was grey and still. After breakfast was
despatched, there was nothing to be done but to set about
cooking the dinner. Our kitchen was a portable stove lashed to
the bulwarks; with two holes for the fire and places for two
pots. The paron was proud of his iron kitchen; hitherto
he had carried a wooden one only; and it was always taking fire.
Fourteen times had it set his cargo of wood in [268]
a blaze; "but," he added contentedly, "I never lost it all."
"Polenta, castradina," said Antonio, announcing our bill of
fare; and he was to cook it, for among his other accomplishments
he numbered a skilled hand at
polenta.
The castradina
(smoked mutton ham) was brought up and chopped into huge hunks;
these were set to boil for two hours in the larger pot, to
flavour the water. Then they were taken out and set aside to
keep warm, while the yellow maize-flour aild the salt were
poured, slowly by handfuls, into the boiling water, and stirred
round and round, as we make porridge. When the
polenta
had reached the proper consistency, the whole yellow mass was
turned out on to a slab of wood, and the paron came with
a piece of string and sliced it into the proper portions. Then
the crew were summoned to dinner, from their cabin in the bows,
to the cry of "polenta!
polenta! figlioli;
polenta! cari tosi."
And up scrambled the "dear boys" through their hatchway and
settled around the
polenta
board — four wrinkled, weather-stained old men, all
of them natives of Pelestrina. They had spent their whole lives
in making voyages up and down the Adriatic, and knew every
corner of the intricate Dalmatian coast. One of them, the
oldest, Doro by name, was a character, and a constant source of
amusement to the others. His face was like nothing human, so
full was it of wrinkles; arid an irresistibly humorous twinkle
lurked in the [269] corners of his old eyes. He
was seventy years of age, and had married three wives, a
Chiozzotta, a Pelestrinotta, and a Veneziana; he was meditating
a fourth, a Buranella, but had been advised that she was likely
to make an end of him. And in this advice the others agreed at
large. Doro possessed a wonderful repertory of adjurations; but
his favourite was certainly "corpo di Diana di Dio." The crew
were a little curious as to the presence of a stranger; after
some discussion, however, he was summed up and settled to
everybody's satisfaction, as "uno di quei che vanno contemplando
il mondo" ("one of those who go about contemplating the world").
These Pelestrinotti are passionately fond of their home; and
the mere sight of it, when they cannot reach it, is enough to
send them into a frenzy. Yet here lay the Beppi, idle and
in sight of Pelestrina. "A cà, a cà!" ("Home, home!") they kept
on grumbling and muttering between their mouthfuls of
polenta.
And Paron Piero saw that he would have to let them
go. Yet when they do get home they have no occupation. They lie
in Homeric idleness before the fire, drinking coffee and
smoking, while each one rambles along upon the lines of his own
endless yarn, to which none of the others pays the smallest
heed. " A cà, a cà!" they all shouted when dinner was
done; and home they went, and left us to look after the Beppi
by ourselves. On board, the afternoon [270]
went lazily by. Antonio squatted in front of the fire that was
cooking our supper, blew at it through a long cane pipe, like an
Indian charming snakes. Then towards evening the wind changed.
The
scirocco still thundered on the outside walls. The Breeze
freshened; the mists lifted and drove away from the sunset,
leaving the Euganean Hills purple and distinct across the green
expanses of the windy lagoon. To seaward the heavy clouds lay
piled, and warmed to rose in the sunset; while, far away, Venice
sprang up clear and coldly grey upon the water.
Our sailors came on board again at midnight, and by dawn we
were under way. The great blunt prows of the Beppi began
to surge through the swell. Though the wind was fair there was
still a considerable sea; and the fog had settled down over
everything once more; so that two minutes after passing the end
of the mole there was nothing to be seen, from the moist decks
of the trabaccolo but a hand's breadth of cold grey
rolling sea. A feeling of desolation began to lay its hand on
one; a sense of having bidden adieu to everything. And now, out
of the grey cloud in front of us came the first note of a
fog-horn; melancholy and weird it sounded, and seemed to pervade
the mist, nor was the ear sure of the quarter whence it came.
Then another; and this time clearly on our weather bow. We
answer from an old tin trumpet There is a pause. Then suddenly,
and with awful rapidity, a huge black mass looms out of the mist
and [271] seems to tower towards us, the prow of a
steamer lost in the fog and seeking the port. There is an
instant of confusion and contradictory shouts, and, above all,
the paron's louder and authoritative voice; then
the huge mass fades silently away, blotted out as rapidly as it
emerged, and the mournful note of its steam siren dies slowly
down the wind. A faint gleam of watery sunshine glitters for an
instant on the oily rollers; then the gloom and the mist settle
over us once more. Even the breeze fails, and the Beppi
begins to sway uneasily from side to side. We commend ourselves
to the powers of patience, while the sailors begin a long
expostulation with the wind.
"Supia, boja!" ("Blow, you hangman") says one, addressing the
fog, throwing his words languidly overboard. "Fiol d'un can!"
cries another. "Xè porca xè sta bava" ("It's a pig is this
breeze"), cries the steersman, with a curious air of conviction;
and all the others answer in ghostly chorus from the bows, "Sì,
xè porca." This commination service being ended, with no
good results, one old sailor suggests that they have been on the
wrong tack; and naturally the wind does not like being sworn at.
So he begins, "Ah! he is a noble is the
maestro" (the wind they wanted); "he is a count and very
noble indeed, if it would only please him to come; and he will
come if you give him time." And when once started blessings flow
as readily as curses. "Dai, dai cara bava, cara, cara" ("Blow,
blow, dear breeze, you dear, [272] you dear"). But
as little came of the one as of the other. The winds were deaf,
and all day long there was nothing to be heard or seen but the
roll and swell of the
scirocco, the desolate chorus of the
sailors, and the ceaseless patter of the reefs upon the empty
sails.
III. The Istrian Coast
Midnight brought a breeze, and by sunrise the Istrian coast
was in sight. The fog had cleared away; the Beppi
ploughed a noble furrow in the sea, dipping almost to the eyes
in the sapphire flood. To the north the Alps were clear, from
Antelao past Monte Cavallo to the peaks of Carniola beyond
Trieste; rosy snow against a pale blue sky; a splendid close to
the great water avenue of the Adriatic. In front lay the Istrian
shore; cloven by the small gulf of Quieto, whither we were
making. The whole coast was visible, from the point of
Salvore,
with its
lighthouse column, to
Rovigno; line upon
line of hills, each rising a little higher till they climbed to
the crest of
Monte Maggiore in the far background above
Fiume. The scene
recalled the coast of Greece. There was the same beauty of
long-drawn lines and delicate declensions, unobtrusive in curve,
yet delicious to the eye that follows them. The prevailing tones
along the coast were the grey-green of the olive groves; the
colder grey of the limestone rock; russet of the oak brakes that
had not shed their last year's leaves; and every [273]
now and then a flood of clearer colour from a cluster of
fruit trees that were coming into bloom. As the Beppi
drew nearer, the little villages that cap each height grew more
and more distinct, began to take shape, and their campanili shot
up from their midst. Highest and clearest of all stood
Buje; called "the
spy of Istria," for it overlooks the whole land.
At Quieto the Beppi was to lie four days, to ship her
cargo of faggots; and this was the time at our disposal for
seeing the Istrian coast. So, after packing a knapsack and to a
chorus of "Buon divertimentos" from the crew, we set out to
"contemplate the world."
Parenzo is the
nearest town to Quieto. And the walk there was most delicious in
the spring. The way lies over rolling downs covered with
brushwood almost as thick and as odoriferous as the Corsican
macquis. A guide is absolutely necessary to avoid being lost in
the bush. The whole of this limestone country was breathing
after a bounteous rain. The flowers seemed to burst their buds
as we looked at them — violet, crocus, hellebore, aromatic
shrubs, and fruits-tree blossom, all the chorus of a southern
spring. The air was laden with intoxicating perfume: the
lizards
rustled through the undergrowth. The
olive trees, hoary and
arrowy as always, waved and shimmered across a glittering sea.
The climate of Istria is much warmer than that of the
corresponding shores of Italy: and
Cassiodorus made no mistake
when he praised its voluptuous and delicious airs, and compared
it to [274] Baiae with no Avernus near at hand.
The laughing sea, the olives, the lentisk, and the limestone
down, recalled the setting of some Theocritean idyll. And most
fittingly, the ancient ensign of Istria is the
goat.
The country is Greek in character, but the towns remember
another and more recent master. At the entrance to
Parenzo, St. Mark's
Lion meets you face to face; grimly regardant from a round
Venetian tower. And the narrow streets of the town are full of
Venetian balconies and windows. The splendid basilica of Bishop
Eufrasius is a monument of an earlier period still, the time of
the Byzantine dominion; while the ruins of the great temple to
Neptune and Mars remind us that
Parenzo was at one
time the Roman "Municipium" Parentium, chief city in the colony
Julia. This temple as it once stood, in all the perfection of
its columned portico, crowning the promontory that overhangs the
northern of the two bays on which the city is built, must have
made a noble landmark for sailors out at sea. Nothing remains of
the temple now but the stylobate and a ruined capital or two.
The buildings of
Parenzo recall the history of the city step
by step. And the history of
Parenzo is that of
most of the Istrian coast towns. They were Roman colonies first;
then governed by the Emperors of the East. After the
disturbances wrought by the Franks, Istria passed under the
authority of elective governors, who soon made [275]
themselves hereditary marquises. From the marquises it came to
the hands of the Patriarch of
Aquileia, and finally fell to the possession of Venice.
IV. Pola
Pola, at the extreme end of the peninsula, has always been
the chief town of Istria. Its position confers this
pre-eminence; it lies in the recess of a deep gulf, a
land-locked sea, secure from storms; while behind, the country
is barren and broken into gorges with abrupt sides, cloven
through the limestone rock. Tradition says that in this bay the
people of the Colchian king found a resting-place after their
wanderings, when the pursuit of
Jason and his
stolen fleece had grown a hopeless quest. But the real history
of Pola begins when
it became a Roman colony in B.C. 181; and its connection with
Rome is the feature most clearly stamped upon the town even to
this day, in spite of Austrian barracks and arsenal and "Franz
Josef" in gold letters everywhere. Augustus dismantled the town
as its punishment for taking the republican side in the wars
that followed on the death of Julius Caesar. But he rebuilt it
again under the name of Pietas Julia; and dedicated the
exquisite little temple to Rome and to Augustus, which still
stands perfect upon the piazza.
The most curious fact in Polan history is that this place
witnessed the close of so many tragedies. Here [276]
Constantine the Great ordered the execution of his own son
Crispus, that "chaste, too chaste Bellerophon" of Roman story,
on the false accusation of the Empress Fausta. And here, too,
Gallus, the brother of Julian, died at the bidding of
Constantius. Under Justinian,
Pola was the capital
of Istria and the seat of the governor, the master of the
soldiery; and Belisarius used its harbour as a roadstead for his
fleet Later still, in A.D. 932, when Istria made a temporary
submission to Venice, the Bishop of
Pola signed the treaty after the Marquis of Istria, proving
that Pola still
ranked highest among Istrian sees. This early treaty was a
warning of the fate which lay in store for
Pola. Her great rival on the other side of the Adriatic
awakened her jealousy; and in the wars between Genoa and Venice,
Pola sided with the Genoese. This brought upon her the
vengeance of the Venetians, and she passed into their power in
1331.
Few approaches are finer than the sea approach to
Pola. The mouth of
the bay is hidden by a promontory, crowned, as are all the
neighbouring heights, by Austrian forts; and it is only as the
vessel rounds the point that the bay opens up, with
Pola lying at its
further end. The attention is instantly caught by the great
amphitheatre which stands at one side of the town; its arches,
tier upon tier, spring up in perfect symmetry from the level of
the shore.
No monument of ancient Rome, not the aqueducts [277]
of the Campagna, nor the baths of Caracalla, conveys a
more impressive sense of the solid splendour of Roman
architecture than does this arena at
Pola; beside it the
amphitheatre of Verona seems a dwarf, while the Colosseum is
broken and ruined; but here the whole outer circle is complete;
and the Istrian stone looks as clean as the day it was cut.
Inside, it is true, the galleries have disappeared. But one does
not feel their absence on first seeing the arena from the water.
With the evening sunlight glowing over the creamy whiteness of
the stone, the whole pile looked like the work of some magician,
not fashioned by the hand of man; and it is easy to sympathise
with the pride which the people of
Pola feel in their
treasure, and with their legend that it was built by the fairies
in a single night. The Venetians at one time proposed to remove
the amphitheatre bodily to the Lido at Venice. But the
undertaking proved too costly, and both
Pola and the Lido
were spared the misfortune.
Pola is rich in
Roman remains. But after the Temple of Augustus and the arena,
only one other is especially worthy of being named. That is the
little arch, miscalled the Porta Aurata. It was raised by the
great Polan family of the Sergii in A.D. 99, and is an exquisite
piece of Roman work, with delicate traceries finely cut and
keen, thanks to the qualities of the Istrian stone. Indeed, at
Pola the traveller finds the two things in which the country
excels — [278] the creamy Istrian stone and the
ruby Istrian wine, Francesco Redi sent his Bacchus wandering
through Tuscany. But had he been a Venetian and not a Tuscan, he
might have changed the scene to the Istrian coast; and there,
rioting along the olive-shaded shores of some Istrian bay, the
god of wine might well have found another Ariadne to translate
to heaven.
After dinner and a due tribute to the Istrian wine, it is
pleasant to stroll along the quay and look down the long and
winding estuary, ruffled into tiny waves by the land breeze. The
Austrian navy lies drawn up in one long line of ships, their
sterns close against the quay. There were troopships coming and
going; and the song of the soldiers, borne over the water, sent
us to sleep that night.
V. Pola to Trieste
In Istria nothing is worse than the
railway, the solitary
railway which it possesses. It was built for the convenience of
the arsenal at Pola;
and some doubt hangs over the hour at which a train will start,
while no one knows at what hour it may arrive. One fact alone is
certain, that the journey from
Pola to
Trieste by
rail
will not take less than thirteen hours. The traveller will
probably choose to give up the railway for the little steamer
which performs the journey to
Trieste in eight hours. And the
coast [279] is so interesting that he will not
regret his choice. Each of the little Istrian towns has a
character of its own; and a history, if one cares to study it.
But one feature they all have in common: they are built upon
promontories, boldly looking out to sea; their campanili serve
as landmarks for miles around.
Immediately after leaving the harbour of
Pola the steamer
passes the
Brionian Islands, where Genoa defeated Venice at the opening
of the war of Chioggia.
Then on to Rovigno,
a flourishing and active little place, with a tobacco factory
and a good trade in wine. It sends both cigars and wine to
Manchester, where they find a ready market; but, we may be sure,
under other names than that of
Rovigno. After
Rovigno comes the little hill city of Orsera with its square
castle, once the palace of the Bishop of
Parenzo in the days when he rivalled his brother of
Pola in power. Then
Città Nova
stands out on its headland, a picturesque town with its old
Venetian battlements and ivy-draped walls. The women of
Città Nova wear
a striking costume; quantities of pure white linen are wrapped
about the bust and throat, and the same is thrown over the head;
but there it is starched and stands out stiff like an
exaggerated Normandy cap. For the antiquarian there are the
Roman inscriptions built into the walls of the Basilica of
Città Nova, and
for the architect there is the basilica itself.
[280] After
Città Nova the
coast is flatter; and there are only two small villages, Daila
and
Umago, to be seen.
But in the spring the monotony of line and of colour is relieved
by perfect fountains of living pink and white, thrown up by the
orchard trees. When once the headland of Salvore and the waters
where Venice achieved one of her most memorable victories by
defeating Otho, son of Frederick Barbarossa, have been reached,
the prow turns towards
Trieste, and the character of the coast
changes. The bays become deeper and wider; the shores more
precipitous; the hills behind rise higher and more abruptly.
There is
Pirano,
with its ancient walls, perched high above the sea upon a tongue
of land so thin that it must some day be eaten away by the waves
that wash it on either side. Then comes
Capo d'Istria, once
Justinopolis, the see of
Peter
Paul Vergerius, the Italian martyr for Protestantism; and
also the earliest home of the great Venetian family of
Giustiniani. Then
Trieste itself; its houses climbing high up the steep
hillside. And further to the left the white and solitary castle
of
Miramar; a paradise of gardens, but saddened always by the
memory of its unhappy owner, Maximilian of Mexico. Further away
still, and high over all, the towering pinnacles of the
Dolomitic Alps. [281]
VI. Home Again
Our leave of absence was up, and we had to seek our paron
once more in the harbour of Quieto. The Beppi lay
deep in the water, with as much of her cargo above decks as
below. The bundles of wood were all stowed with wonderful
neatness, and reached a quarter of the way up the masts. They
were planked over the top, forming what is called a camito,
a sort of raised deck on which one could walk, and from
which the business of the ship was conducted. With such a
camito as we had on board — fifty thousand faggots of oak —
a reef had to be taken in either sail. The breeze would not
serve till evening, and there was nothing to be done but to turn
into the little wine-shop overlooking the harbour and to drink
through a series of parting glasses. The room was full of men
who had been working at the loading of the Beppi; for
this traffic in wood is the principal occupation of the natives
of Quieto — wild and handsome-looking fellows playing and
quarrelling over "Mora."
The ethnography of the Istrians is so mixed and obscure, so
many strains have had a share in making them, that it would be
rash to say to what race these men belonged. They spoke Italian,
for the most part, reverting to Sclavonic only when they took to
their ferocious-looking knives, which each one carried in his
belt "Brutta gente, popolo selvatico," [282]
Paron Piero called them. But whether savage in nature or no,
they certainly possessed the savages' picturesqueness of gesture
and speech. "Long life to you; and I hope to see you again; but
that may hardly be," said one, raising a glass of wine. "And why
not?" "No, no! the mountains stay, but man must pass," he
answered, with an indescribable movement that embraced the
distant hills and the parting strangers.
But we were not to get off without doing justice to the rival
inn and to each variety of wine which the place possessed. This
little wine-shop stood something very like a sack at the hands
of its guests; and how the padrone kept an account is a
miracle. Eggs were seized and set to roast in their shells among
the logs upon the square and open hearth-stone; a barrel of
sardines was forced and half emptied in a trice; everything that
came to hand was devoured. Then came the bill and, at last,
"Addio."
We walked along the shore while the Beppi was towed
silently and slowly out to sea. By the waterside some women were
working late, binding faggots with withs of green
ginestra: the clever ones can finish as many as a thousand
in a day. At the furthest point of the shore we had to wait for
the Beppi. Out to sea the wide surface was all pure and
liquid grey, while the moonlight made a broad and silvery path
that seemed to lead to Venice, on the other shore. The Beppi
stole stealthily nearer and nearer; her sails [283]
and masts loomed black and large as she came abreast of
us; the paron's voice hailed us from the bows and
a boat was sent to take us on board. Late into the balmy night
we stood upon the poop, looking back to the Istrian shore, while
the coast-line faded slowly away into the darkness. |
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