66 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



what the Irish call a lough, as the water is salt, 

 and the tide ebhs and flows here. Then we enter 

 the real river at Zatton. 



Scardona lies a little way up the Krka. It is 

 the oldest town in Dalmatia, though now little 

 better than a village. Beginning by being a 

 Liburnian colony, it was afterwards an important 

 Roman naval station. Like most Dalmatian 

 towns, it played its part in the Turkish wars, 

 and took hard knocks. The Venetians, indeed, 

 once levelled it to the ground, which, however, 

 did not prevent the Turks from returning and 

 remaining here till nearly the end of the seven- 

 teenth century. We were sorry not to have time 

 to visit it or the old Eoman ruin on the hill 

 above. 



Before we had gone much further up the 

 stream we began to hear the distant sound of 

 the falls, and ere long they appeared in sight. 

 An irreverent observer has likened the falls of 

 the Krka to rocks covered with linen hung out 

 to dry, and it cannot be denied that there is 

 something in the simile. The river makes five small 

 leaps, a ridge of rock showing above the foaming 

 water at each leap, but each of the five falls is 

 divided horizontally also by rocks, so as to form 

 scores of tiny cascades, As elsewhere in Dalmatia, 

 the vicinity of the water is the cause of luxuriant 

 vegetation, and it is this I think that gives 



