Volume I Part 12 (1/2)

_Confirave in the Second Chapter of these Meer which I ran_

I related in the second chapter of this book that I once owed htone of our cavalcades with the Provveditore Generale

At the hour appointed for riding out, all the officers of the Court sent their saddles and bridles to the General's stables, and each of us mounted the aniear Now the Bashaw of Bosnia had presented the governor with a certain Turkish stallion, finely made, but so vicious that no one liked to back the brute One day I noticed that the grooms had saddled this untamable Turk for me Who knohat motives determine the acts of stable-boys? I am not accustoerous horses in my time, and this was not the minute to show the white feather before a crowd of soldiers I leapt upon the ani to see whether the bit and trappings were in order Our troops started; but my Bucephalus reared, whirled round in the air, and bolted toward his stable, which lay below the ra at the reins had no effect upon the brute; and when I bent down to discover the cause, I found that the bit had not been fastened, either through the negligence or theat the h the narrow streets and low doors of the city, I began to reflect that I was not likely to reach the stables with my head upon my shoulders Then I re in ers into the two eyes of the stallion Suddenly deprived of sight, and not knohither he was going, he dashed furiously up against a wall, and fell all of a heap beneath ility of a practised rider, andlike a leaf, while I with shaky fingers fastened the bit fir the shouts of applause which always greet dare-devil escapades of this kind The ainst the wall I still bear the scar of this glorious wound

IX

_Little incidents, trifling observations, ossip which is sure to make the reader yawn_

Our forces had little to occupy them in those provinces, so thatincidents, and several journeys which I undertook, furnished me, however, with abundantdown a few observations which occur to arrison the fortresses of Dalmatia had been recalled to Italy, in order to defend the neutrality of Venice during the hich then prevailed ahbours In these circumstances the Senate commissioned our Provveditore Generale to levy new forces fro thea large number of Morlacchi[121] into Italy It was a arrisons for the Illyrian fortresses; but the exportation of the Morlacchi cost his Excellency the greatest trouble These ruffianly wild beasts, wholly destitute of education, are aware that they are subjects of Venice; yet their fire lawless instincts for robbery and s which do not suit their inclinations To reason with the in a whisper to the deaf They simply resisted the command to form themselves into a troop and leave their lairs for Italy

Their chiefs, ere educated men, brave and loyal to their prince, strained every nerve to carry out these orders It was found needful to recall the bandits, arions, outlawed for every sort of crime--robberies, homicides, arson, and such-like acts of heroism Bribes too were offered of bounties and advanced pay, in order to induce the wild and stubborn peasants to cross the seas I was present at the review of these Anthropophagi; for indeed they hardly merited a more civilised title It took place on the beach of Zara under the eyes of the Provveditore, with shi+ps under sail, ready for the embarkation of the conscripts Pair by pair, they came up and received their stipend; upon which they expressed their joy by howling out soambols to the transport shi+ps I revered God's handiwork in these savages while deploring their bad education, and felt a passing wish to explore the Eden of eternal beatitude in which the Morlacchi dwell

It is certain that the Italian cities under our benign governuarded by these brutal creatures At Verona, in particular, they indulged their appetite for thieving,discipline, without the least regard for orders

At the close of a few months, they had to be sent back to their caves, in order to deliver the Veneto from an unbearable incubus Even at the outset, their spirit of insubordination let itself be felt Scarcely had the transports sailed, when the sight of the Illyrian mountains made them burn to leap on shore The sea that they ran a risk of being cut in pieces, they finally unbarred the pens before this indo may seem to have little to do with the narrative of h I wished to calumniate the natives of Dalmatia The rulers of those territories will, however, bearremarks I have visited all the fortresses, es of the two provinces In some of the cities I found well-educated people, trustworthy, cordial, and liberal in sentiment In places far removed from the Provveditore Generale's Court the h All the peasants may be described as cruel, superstitious, and irrational wild beasts In their a Hoives a perfect conception of the Morlacchi They hire a troop of women to lament over their dead These professionalone another when voice and throat have been exhausted by diss tuned to a music which inspires terror One of their pastimes is to balance a heavy piece of ht hand, and hurl it after taking a running juht line to the greatest distance, wins One is reminded of the enormous boulders hurled by Diomede and Turnus

In their mountain homes the Morlacchi are fine fellows, useful to the State of Venice on occasions of ith the Turks, their neighbours, whom they cordially detest The inhabitants of the coaston the waters Toward Montenegro the tribes becoes Faenerations to die peaceably in their beds or kennels, and cannot boast of a fair number of murdered ancestors, are looked down upon by the rest On the beach outside the city walls of Budua, for which these men and brothers leave their hills in summer-time to taste the coolness of sea-breezes, I have witnessed their exploits with the musket and have seen three corpses stretched upon the sands Ataunted by some comrade, burned to wipe out the shalorious chapter in their annals by slaughtering and being slaughtered Fierce battles and arh in those parts The e, have no peace unless they pay a hundred sequins or discharge their debt by the death of one of their own folk Such is the current tariff, fixed without consulting their sovereign, aard brutality as justice I learned e priest of Montenegro, who conversed with me nearly every day upon the beach at Budua He talked a strange Italian jargon, narrated the homicides of his flock with coun was better suited to his handling than the vessels of the sanctuary

The thirst for vengeance is never slaked there It passes fro the Morlacchi, who are less bloodthirsty than the Montenegrins, I once sao herself at the feet of the Provveditore Generale, extract a round before hi aloud for pity and justice For thirty years she had preserved this skull, the skull of her o been brought to justice, but their punishment was insufficient to lay the dely, she presented herself indefatigably through a course of thirty years before each of the successive Provveditori Generali, with the sa, with the same shrieks and tears and cries for justice

I liked seeing the Montenegrin women They clothe themselves in black woollen stuffs after a fashi+on which was certainly not invented by coquetry Their hair is parted, and falls over their cheeks on either shoulder, thickly plastered with butter, so as to fore shi+ny bonnet They bear the burden of the hard work of the field and household The wives are little better than slaves of the men They kneel and kiss the men's hands whenever they meet; and yet they seem to be contented with their lot Perhaps it would not be aed our fashi+ons with regard to women; for ours are somewhat too marked in the contrary direction

Climate renders both the men and woislators, recognising the i lawless lust here, have fixed the fine for seduction of a girl with violence at a trifle above the sum which a libertine in Venice bestows on the purveyor of his venal pleasures At the period ofof antique austerity This did not, however, prevent the fair sex froues by stealth It is possible that, since those days, enlightened and philosophical Italians, co the courts of successive Provveditori Generali, ave a spice of danger to love- for thethe Morlacchi of the villages, a Pygmalion who chose to expend so the fair sex up, would obtain fine breathing statues for his pains These women of Illyria are less constant in their love than those of Italy; but merit less blame for their infidelity than the latter The Illyrian is blinded and constrained by her fervent temperament, by the clih ambition, avarice, and caprice

I considerwith decision on these points, as will appear from the chapter I intend to write upon the love-adventures of reat measure e districts of plain which ht be extreions are under cultivation, but rearlic constitute the favourite delicacies of the Morlacchi The annual consuetables is enore supply of both at hona; and when one takes the peasants to task for this sluggish indifference to their own interests, they reply that their ancestors never planted onions, and that they have no e their custoions upon the indolence and sloth which prevail in rural Dalmatia

The answer I received was that nobody, without exposing his life to peril, could make the Morlacchi do more than they chose to do, or introduce the least reforht always import Italian labour and turn those fertile plains into a second Apulia This rehter; and when I asked the reason, ht Italian peasants over, but that a few days after their arrival, they were foundever been detected I perceived that my project was i rather than shedding tears, when they gaveanswers

It is a pity that Illyria and Dalmatia cannot be rendered fertile and profitable to the State As it is, they cost our treasury h the expenses incidental to their forainst Turkey But I never made it my business to ood reasons why these provinces should be left to their sterility The opinion I have continually in by cultivating heads and hearts, has raised a swarainstsatires, if they detect the least shadow of opposition to their views regarding personal interest, personal ambition, or particular prejudice Yet the real miseries which I noticed in Dalmatia, the wretched pittance which proprietors draw from their estates, and the dishonesty of the peasants, suffice to demonstrate my principles of moral education beyond the possibility of contradiction

During nificent fish for a ainst my inclination, and only because the opportunity could not be neglected When you are in want of so, you rarely find it there The fishermen, who live upon the rocky islands,[122] ply their trade when it pleases theht for fasts, and sell fish for the ht to market stuffed into sacks I could multiply these observations; but let what I have already said suffice It is my firm opinion that the economists of our century are at fault when they propose ain, without considering ent with eyes of envy and the passions of a pirate; rich people act as though they knew not what it was to possess wealth, and make a shameless abuse of it in practice The one class need to learn teht to be trained to reason and subordination The sages of the present day entertain very different views fro butbad lory in them

X

_I am enrolled in the Cavalry of the Republic--What my military services amounted to_