CARNIOLA, CROATIA, SLAVONIA. 69 



of the country as far as the German districts beyond the Drave, and the Italian ones 

 on the Isonzo. The only considerable foreign colony is that of Gottschee and its 

 environs, numbering about 24,000 Germans, whom Zeuss looks upon as remnants 

 of the Vandals, who in the sixth century inhabited Pannonia. 



Religion is the great element of discord amongst the Slavs of Austria- 

 Hungary. The Slovenes, who turned Protestants at the time of the Reformation, 

 were forced back into the Roman Church, which the Illyrian Slavs had never 

 abandoned. The Croats, in the west, are Roman Catholics, whilst most of the 

 Slavonians, Syrmians, and Servians remain faithful to the Greek Church. Reli- 

 gious animosities, however, are dying out. The dialects, too, are being developed 

 into a common literary language, Servian having been adopted both in Croatia 

 and in Slavonia. 



The Slavonians and the Croat peasants are probably the purest Slavs to be met 

 with on the southern confines of the empire. They are tall, strong, and of noble 

 presence, brave, honest, and good-natured. Their passions are, however, easily 

 roused when engaged in war, and the name of pandour was formerly dreaded. 

 The Slovenes, living in a country traversed by great natural high-roads, are far 

 more mixed. In their manners they assimilate more and more with their German 

 neighbours. 



In Croatia and the neighbouring countries most of the land is still held by 

 each family in common. The size of these family estates averages between 35 and 

 70 acres. Each zadruga, or " family community," numbers between ten and 

 twenty persons, and is governed by a domacin, or gonpodar, elected by its members. 

 Each household has its cottage. The house of the gospodar occupies the centre of 

 the settlement, and under its roof the members of the miniature republic meet at 

 meals and for conversation. When one of these associations grows too numerous, 

 a portion of its members separate and establish a new one. The zadrugas of the 

 same district most readily assist each other in their agricultural labours. The 

 social advantages of associations of this kind lie on the surface, but they are 

 evidently doomed to disappear before individual landowners, who already form a 

 majority in the neighbourhood of the towns. But though the agricultural 

 zadrugas cease to exist, so strong is the influence of custom that even in the 

 Italianised towns of Dalmatia we meet with trading associations formed on their 

 model. The members of these associations look upon each other as brethren. 

 There are three degrees of brotherhood, viz. the little fraternity, the fraternity of 

 misfortune, and the fraternity by association. The last is the most sacred of all, 

 and is blessed by a priest. Girls, too, form these bonds of affection either amongst 

 themselves or with young men. 



The military organization of the Austrian Frontier districts * has partly 

 ceased to exist since 1873, but most of them are still placed under a military 

 governor. Formerly every male, on attaining his twentieth year, was bound to 

 render military service, in return for which he received the usufruct of a plot of 



* The Military Frontier districts in 1869 had an area of 7,303 square miles, with 699,228 inhabitants, 

 and furnished an army of 100,000 men for foreign service. 



