frought, in those days, with much peril. At this epoch Ragusa had
achieved a mercantile prosperity unequalled throughout Europe, but in
later years the greater part of the fleet joined and perished with the
Spanish Armada.

And this catastrophe was the precursor of a series of national
disasters. In 1667 the city was laid waste by an earthquake which
killed over twenty thousand people, and this was followed by a terrible
visitation of the plague, which further decimated the population.
Ragusa, however, was never a large city, and even at its zenith, in
the sixteenth century, it numbered under forty thousand souls, and now
contains only about a third of that number.

In 1814 the Vienna Congress finally deprived the republic of its
independence, and it became (with Dalmatia) an Austrian possession.
Trade has not increased here of recent years, as in Herzegovina and
Bosnia. The harbor, at one time one of the most important ports in
Europe, is too small and shallow for modern shipping, and the oil
industry, once the backbone of the place, has sadly dwindled of late
years.

Ragusa itself now having no harbor worthy of the name, the traveler by
sea must land at Gravosa about a mile north of the old city. Gravosa is
merely a suburb of warehouses, shipping, and sailor-men, as unattractive
as the London Docks, and the Hotel Petko swarmed with mosquitoes and
an animal which seems to thrive and flourish throughout the Balkan
States--the rat.

The old Custom House is perhaps the most beautiful building in Ragusa,
and is one of the few which survived the terrible earthquake of 1667.
The structure bears the letters "I.H.S." over the principal entrance in
commemoration of this fact. Its courtyard is a dream of beauty, and the
stone galleries around it are surrounded with inscriptions of great age.

Ragusa is a Slav town, but altho' the name of streets appear in Slavonic
characters, Italian is also spoken on every side and the "Stradone,"
with its arcades and narrow precipitous alleys at right angles, is not
unlike a street in Naples. The houses are built in small blocks, as
a protection against earthquakes--the terror of every Ragusan (only
mention the word and he will cross himself)--and here on a fine Sunday
morning you may see Dalmatians, Albanians, and Herzegovinians in their
gaudiest finery, while here and there a wild-eyed Montenegrin, armed to
the teeth, surveys the gay scene with a scowl, of shyness rather than
ill-humo