Studio: international art (5.1895)

Dalmatia as a Sketching Ground

" sebenico." a sketch from nature by joseph pennell

ING GROUND. BY JOSEPH
PENNELL.

ALMATIA AS A SKETCH se^' however, w^ a maP °^ Austro-Hungary, to

follow me, and Joanne's Guide in French—there is
no English one.

From Trieste, unless you can get a pass, you may

It always seems so far off, so re- take a ticket to Pola; only that far, however, for if

mote, so ungetatable—the land beyond the Adriatic you take a through ticket, or a round trip, you

—Dalmatia. Even the name is unfamiliar, and must always travel by the same line of steamers,

when one talks of Istria, Croatia, Herzegovina, and you will find that there are three or four

Montenegro, Albania, and the countries dotted up rival lines, and you take the first that turns up.

and down the coast, where are they ? There is no other mode of travelling in the greater

When—it is ten years ago—I was in Venice, one part of Dalmatia. Pola has an amphitheatre and

man went to Dalmatia, and another came from other remains, and from photographs I've seen

Montenegro ; they were discoverers, heroes. looks well. Thence come on to Fiume, but it is not

Six years later, when in Buda-Pesth, I was told worth stopping at, nor is Abazzia. These are the

of the wonders of the land; I was shown the only least interesting places on the coast, and fortu-

book about it in English, and finally, without nately, for Royalty has marked them for its own.

knowing it, I took up my abode under the same Portrait-painters, therefore, might find Abazzia a

roof with the author. After that, I couldn't help good and useful pitch.

it; I went. I bought a ticket by the Hook of But sail away from Fiume or Trieste on any of

Holland route to Vienna—it costs, first class, about the numerous lines ; there is a ship almost every

—and unless one is specially anxious to see the day, for Zara ; you may stop at Arbi, if you like,

whole of middle Europe, without meaning to, I a Venice on a hill, lovely, with perfect walls and

would not recommend it. I think I missed every towers, and a beastly inn ; better come back there,

connection I should have made, and spent more however, when you are more used to the country,

money in hotel bills than I saved in railway fares. At Zara I stopped at the Hotel Vapore, which was

Once in Vienna, you may go thence to Trieste good and clean, and dined in all the others,

straight by rail, and in this city you commence Rooms cost about eighty kreutzers (two shillings,

your Dalmatian journey. Or you may come from more or less, probably less). Dalmatian or Austro-

Venice over in the Trieste boat, which I think Hungarian landlords don't mind one's feeding out,

leaves every night. Or you may wish to go down and there is no table d'hote, and you go to a cafe in

the Danube to Buda-Pesth—the spring is the time the morning for your first breakfast. Your whole

—and thence on to Fiume by train. Or you may day's expenses should not average more than three

cross from Ancona or Brindisi in Italy to Fiume, gulden (say six shillings) all over the country. I

Zara, Ragusa ; or, finally, you may come north shall not refer to this matter again—extortion and

from Greece to Cattaro. These names convey swindling are almost unknown—though, of course,

nothing, I know, so let me start at Trieste, which, it is as well to inquire prices beforehand,

by the way, I never saw ; you must provide your- The cooking all through the country is a mixture

V. No. 27.—June, 1895. 81