148 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



by Eismondo steamer. Our voyage (of half an 

 hour) was performed in the dark, but iu any 

 case I imagine that I have already given the 

 reader a pretty good idea of the lower Narenta 

 and its marshes. The only building — other than 

 village huts — which we passed is a Martello tower, 

 probably modern ; at any rate, modernized to the 

 latest date at which such defences were of any 

 use, and now transformed into a windmill. 



Metkovic is probably the most uninteresting 

 place in Dalmatia. Only it seemed odd to us to 

 find ourselves the next morning (All Saints' Day) 

 in a land of picturesque costume again, whereas 

 at Fort Opus we had had practically nothing of 

 the sort. The streets were gay with peasants 

 come in for the festa. The women here wear 

 a quaint white costume, often handsomely em- 

 broidered. By the men the fez is almost uni- 

 versally worn — the first symptom of the vicinity 

 of Turkey. 



That morning we met an old friend again in 

 the shape of the bora, which blew both hard and 

 keenly, and made the crossing of the river 

 decidedly unpleasant. Although Metkovic, as the 

 terminus of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian State 

 Railway, has become a place of some importance, 

 it has not yet got a bridge to connect it with 

 its railway station on the northern bank of the 

 Narenta. But what is still more extraordinary 



