IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 145 



ribs had been bent back and snapped off. This 

 finished our camping, for, owing to the great 

 strain put on these ribs, I had no confidence in 

 any local wood to replace the stout English ash. 

 When the tent was dry I struck it, and the Union 

 Jack waved no more that year in Dalmatia. 



I certainly should have contrived in some way 

 to patch up the damage but for a much more- 

 serious loss, of which this accident was the indirect, 

 cause. It happened thus. After the tent had 

 been taken in, I left the ground-sheet out till 

 the weather improved, and then spread it out to 

 dry. Next morning it was gone. Search, not 

 unnaturally, proved fruitless, for a piece of tar- 

 paulin thirteen feet in diameter is not easily 

 mislaid. My next step was to invoke the aid 

 of the gendarmerie, who promptly arrived on the 

 scene. So did Mr. Kado, the proprietor of the 

 fort, highly indignant that anybody should have 

 had the audacity to steal on his ground. I am 

 bound to say that they did their utmost, the 

 Wachtmeister officially, and the other privately. 

 Both, I believed, cross-examined every dweller 

 in Gradina, and the aid of the Syndic of Opuzen 

 was invoked. Nay, it did not end with the 

 temporal authorities, for after mass next Sunday 

 the priest, to whom I had said nothing at all, 

 announced the loss from the pulpit, and, pointing 

 out the disgrace to the place arising from strangers 



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