G4 AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



the north of the Save, which with its forests and swamps forms a formidable 

 natural boundary, the country is open, hills rising in the midst of plains, which 

 the Magyars not unnaturally chose to look upon as natural dependencies of their 

 own country. The Germans, too, considered that they had a natural right to 

 the passes over the Alps which gave them access to the Gulf of Venice. These 

 are the reasons which account for the political division of the Southern Slavs. 



But though separated politically, these Slavs nevertheless possess a consider- 

 able amount of national cohesion. Austria, by " occupying" Bosnia and Herzego- 

 vina, may have precipitated the formation of a great Slav state in the south, so 

 much dreaded by some politicians. Austrian Croatia, owing to its superior 

 civilisation and the ardent patriotism of its citizens, would become the natural 

 nucleus of such a state. Every town and all the larger villages there have their 

 " reading clubs," or cifaonica, in which the discussion of national politics is 

 industriously carried on. Often the members of these clubs join their voices in 

 the warlike song of UboJ za navod svoj ! — " To arms for our people ! " Croatia is 

 a small country, and thinly populated, but its geographical position is excep- 

 tionally favourable. 



The High Alps terminate with the snowy pyramid of the Grintouz, to the 

 north of Laibach. The spurs which extend thence eastwards, between the Drave 

 and the Save, are of inferior height. The Slemje (3,395 feet), the Ivancica 

 (3,477 feet), and a few other mountains to the north of Agram, still exceed 3,000 

 feet, but farther east the hill ranges grow less and less, until near Diakova they 

 disappear below a deep bed of alluvial soil. Still more to the east an isolated range 

 rises in the midst of the plain, viz. the Yrdnik, or Fruska Gora (1,761 feet), the 

 slopes of which are covered with vines. Tertiary strata predominate in these 

 hills, eruptive rocks being confined to two mountain masses, those of the Slemje, 

 near Agram, and to the wooded domes of the Garic, or Moslavin (1,587 feet), 

 farther east. The mountains of Croatia, in the south-west, present most of the 

 features of the Carso, such as limestone ridges, parallel valleys, and sinks.* 

 But though quite as stony as the Carso, the eastern slopes of the plateau of 

 Croatia are densely wooded. Beeches and pines grow on the mountains, oaks on the 

 lower slopes and in the valley of the Save. It is these forests which furnish most 

 of the oaken staves exported from Trieste and Fiume. The oak of Croatia does 

 not yield in beauty to that of Germany or of England, but it will surely disappear, 

 unless a stop be put to the wholesale destruction of the forests. It is painful to 

 see magnificent trunks of oaks rotting in the swamps, even in the neighbourhood 

 of towns, and to look upon extensive tracts where only stumps of trees recall 

 the forests that have disappeared. 



In their hj^drographical features the countries of the Southern S^avs abound in 

 contrasts. Low half-drowned plains and arid mountain ridges, great rivers and 

 tracts ever thirsty, are met with in close proximity. 



The eastern extremity of Croatian Mesopotamia has hardly emerged from the 



* The highest summits arc the Bittoray, •4,543 feet ; the Great and the Little Kapella ; the PljeSivioa, 

 6.410 feet; and the VcUebid. 



