APRIL 83 



the most part ; in the soft valley of Rjeka the frequency 

 of malaria makes summer loitering unwise. Well may 

 Mr. T. J. Jackson exclaim in his admirable work on 

 the Eastern Adriatic : ' A more bleak, inhospitable 

 fatherland has never inspired its sons to shed their 

 blood in its defence.' 1 



And what sons they are ! It would not surprise me 

 to learn that the average height of adult males was 

 six feet. A nation of soldiers a realisation of Lord 

 Roberts's dream for England ; every man of them 

 making the most of frame and features by his noble 

 bearing; yet without a trace of swagger, kindly to 

 strangers, courteous among themselves. Here and 

 there may be seen grizzled veterans, short of a leg or an 

 arm lost in the wars of 1862 or 1877, objects of great 

 veneration to the rising generation. One marvels how 

 so hungry an upland can nourish such a race of giants. 

 Their agriculture, except in the infrequent plains, is 

 confined to little patches of red soil decomposed lime- 

 stone lodged in pots and on ledges among the all- 

 prevailing grey and white rock. It looks like toy 

 farming, but it is terribly in earnest, and there is no 

 limit to the industry they bestow upon terraced plots, 

 varying in size from the dimensions of a billiard- table 

 to those of a putting-green. Yet the maize, rye, and 

 potatoes reared under these Alpine conditions must be 

 of rare quality, for there is no trace of short commons 

 in the handsome men, the comely maidens, and the 



1 Dcdmatia, the Quarnero and Istria, by T. J. Jackson (Oxford 

 Clarendon Press, 1887), vol. iii. p, 87. Nobody should visit these 

 countries without careful perusal of this excellent book. 



