4*2 
MORLACCIII. 
thing from the bridegroom by way of price. The bride carries wafer 
every morning to wash the hands of her guests, as long as the feast- 
ing lasts ; and every one throws a small piece of money into the 
bason after washing. The brides are also permitted to raise other 
little contributions among the svati, by hiding their shoes, caps, 
knives, or some other necessary part of their equipage, which they 
are obliged to ransom by a piece of money, according as the company 
rates it. And, besides all these voluntary and extorted contributions, 
each guest must give some present to the new-married wife at taking 
leave the last day of the sdravize, and then she also distributes some 
trifles in return, such as shirts, caps, handkerchiefs, and the like. 
The nuptials are almost precisely the same throughout all the vast 
country inhabited by the Morlacchi ; and those in use among the 
peasants of Dalmatia, Istria, and the islands, differ but little from 
them. 
Yet among these particular varieties, there is one, of the island 
Zarine, near Sebenico, remarkable enough ; for there the starisvat, 
whether drunk or sober, must, with his naked broad-sword, strike 
the bride’s crown of flowers off her head, when she is ready to go to 
bed. And in the land of Pago, in the village of Novbglia, there is a 
custom more comical, and less dangerous, but equally savage. After 
the marriage contract is settled, and the bridegroom comes to con- 
duct his bride to church, her father or mother, in delivering her over 
to him, makes an exaggeration of her ill qualities : “ Know, since 
thou wilt have her, that she is good for nothing, ill-natured, obsti- 
nate, &c.” On which the bridegroom, affecting an angry look, turns 
to the young woman, exclaiming, “Ah! since it is so, I will teach 
you to behave better and at the same time regales her with a blow 
or a kick, or some similar piece of gallantry, which is by no means 
figurative. And it seems in general, that the Morlach women, the 
inhabitants of the cities excepted, do not much dislike a beating 
either from their husbands or lovers. 
Our author gives a most disgusting picture of the nastiness of the 
Morlacchi women after marriage ; and says, that the mortifying man- 
ner in which they are treated by their husbands, is both the cause and 
effect of this neglect of their persons. He often lodged in Morlach 
houses, but observed that the female sex is universally treated with 
contempt. The pregnancy and births of those women would be 
thought very extraordinary among us, where the ladies suffer so 
much, notwithstanding all the care and circumspection used before 
and after labour. But a Morlach woman neither changes her food 
nor interrupts her daily fatigue on account of her pregnancy; and is 
often delivered in the fields, or on the road, by herself; and takes 
the infant, washes it in the first water she finds, carries it home, and 
returns the day after to her usual labour, or to feed her flock. The 
infants, thus carelessly treated in their tenderest moments, are after- 
W'ards wrapped in miserable rags, where they remain three or four 
months under the same ungentle management ; after which they are 
set at liberty, and left to crawl about the cottage till they are able to 
walk upright by themselves ; and at the same time acquire that sin- 
gular degree of strength and health, with which the Morlacchi are 
