t a leather belt, in which is placed a yataghan and a
smaller knife, and exhibiting usually the handsome pommels of silver
or brass-mounted pistols. Over all is a long brown cloak, open in
front, and fastening over the chest, forming a dress which, with their
free and martial bearing, gives them the appearance of ready-made
soldiers. The women are, comparatively, inferior to the men; but their
countenances are cheerful, and a white napkin gracefully put on the
head, had a very classical appearance. For the rest, they wore a
coarse shirt--over that a coarser, without arms, neither coming much
below the knee--a party-coloured apron and stockings, with opunkas,
like the men. Near Zara is a small colony of Albanians, who still
retain their national manners and dress, though settled time out of
mind.

Ragusa--of old a republic, with its doge and senate--is a city whose
glory has departed. This little state--consisting of the town, the
promontory of Sabioncello, the island of Melida, with a few smaller
ones--numbering about forty thousand inhabitants, had never been
subject by Venice, and was governed on the most aristocratic
principles. At the time of the late war, the inhabitants of the city
owned about four hundred large vessels--and observing the profiting by
neutrality, they traded every where, and acquired great wealth. But
they were not destined to escape the storm which overthrew so many
mightier states. In 1809 they became compulsory allies of the French.
Their nominal independence lasted about two years longer. During the
time the French occupied it, the city was attacked by the combined
forces of the Russians and Montenegrians; the former by sea, while the
latter conducted the operations on land. Luckily they failed to take
it; but they burned and destroyed, without exception, every one of the
numerous villas by which it was surrounded. Since the loss of her
independence, the trade of Ragusa has ceased, and her wealth has
departed; while many of her once haughty nobility have no other
subsistence than a scanty pension, which the bounty of the government
affords them. The town is interesting, and some of its buildings
ancient and peculiar, though hardly to be called handsome--the scale
being small. Of the country houses desolated by the Montenegrians, not
one in twenty has been repaired; and they remain roofless and
blackened, a lasting memorial of the ferocity of that people. The
neighbourhood is beautiful, and ap