town, as if he were guilty of some heinous crime. If his greatest interests are at stake, he cannot proceed, until his passport is signed; and if the Pretore is in bed, or at dinner, or taking his siesta, or out of the way, the most urgent business must be deferred, perhaps twelve or fourteen hours; on account of these stolid, and inquisitorial, regulations.

By the kind intervention of some man of the law, who happened to be at Trapano, a letter was written, enclosing my passport to the Pretore; with strong representations of the state of the weather, the ignorance of the stranger about their passport regulations, and the good order of the passport itself; in consideration of which, Signor Rossi returned it, with permission for my departure to the Narenta, and a dignified lecture on the necessity, for the future, of presenting myself to every Pretore, "the neglect of which duty could not be excused, under any circumstances."

Trapano* consists of about 100 houses, and contains 600 inhabitants †, who pay 800 florins a year in taxes to the government, in custom dues, and tithes on land; and though so small a place, it has a more extensive commerce than any other in the Peninsula of Sabioncello. The quantity of fish caught for salting is very great, and the village purchases annually 35,000 florins worth of salt for this trade; which is carried on with Venice, and

* Or Trappano.

†The whole commune 206 houses and 1218 inhabitants.

other places in the Adriatic; and which would be greatly increased, were it not for the heavy duties on that article. Salt, indeed, has always been subject to a rigid monopoly in Dalmatia; it often led to serious disputes with other neighbouring states; and the exclusive privilege of selling it, which was first established by Louis, King of Hungary, about 1376*, has been scrupulously maintained by the Austrians, to the present day.†

The principal fishery at Trapano is of Sardelle, which they catch in this manner. From the starboard bow, of their large open boats, a cradle of iron projects, in which they burn a quantity of wood; and as soon as the fish have collected under the light of this fire, they row the boat gently towards the shore, accompanied by the fish, which are then surrounded, and taken with nets.

The valley of Trapano produces abundance of olives, which are a source of great profit. I never saw trees so laden with fruit; and though of a large size, it is by no means of a coarse quality; and it yields an unusual quantity of oil. The greatest care is bestowed, by these people, on the cultivation of the olive; the earth is walled up with stone, wherever there is room for a single * See the History in Chapter IX.

† See above, Vol. I. p. 234. The salt duty was only repealed in England in 1824-5, (though salt used in fisheries was free of duty before); but it still continues in India. Governments seem always to be, or to have been, tyrannical about salt and tobacco.

B 4

tree; and such is the profit obtained from them, that olives are planted in all the small hollow spaces, between the rocks; where they thrive in this congenial soil.

The Trapanines export annually 15,000 barrels of oil. They not only use the produce of their own olives, but buy up the oil of other villages; which they either pay for in money, or take in exchange for cloth, and other manufactured goods imported by them; gaining thereby on both commodities. They even buy it from Gradatz, Zistrok, and other villages, on the opposite shore of the Narentine Gulf; and so profitably do they employ their money, that it repays them to borrow it, at 5 per cent., from the people of Orebich.

The only productions, of the gardens and fields of Trapano, are olives, vines, and vegetables; they have neither wheat, nor Indian corn; and all the grain, required for making bread, is imported from Venice and Trieste. The trade is carried on in trabaccoli, the large coasting craft of the Adriatic.

Manufactured goods are brought from the same ports; and while I was at Trapano, some large cargoes arrived from Trieste, among which were raw hides from Brazil. The unloading of the vessels was performed by men, but all the goods were carried from the port to Trapano, a distance of one-third of a mile, by women; who so frequently perform the duties of porters in Dalmatia; and

some women are said to bear, on their backs, burthens, weighing 250 funti.

To Trepano belong many of the pine trees we passed, in crossing the hills, about half a mile before we reached the village. An annual tax is levied on them by the government; and I was told, that any one, who plants them in a barren piece of land, is obliged to pay it, after a certain number of years. The wisdom, or the justice, of such a measure may be doubted; which is very similar to that adopted, respecting trees, in Egypt, and amounts almost to a prohibition to plant them; but another regulation, that forbids any one to fell timber, on the hills, without an order from the government, who restrict the quantity cut during the year, is a wise and prudent precaution; which, if taken in earlier times, would have prevented the indiscriminate felling of trees on the mountains, and might have saved the soil, that then covered a great portion of their now bare rocky sides.

The port of Trapano is small; but might, at a small expense, be made commodious and secure; by connecting the rocks that lie in front of it. This could only be done by the government; but as the Austrians are not in the habit of spending money, on improvements in Dalmatia, the Tra

* A funto is nearly 14 ounces, making about 218 pounds. 100 funti being equal to 56 French chilogrammes, the funto is of a chilogramme.

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panines are likely to look, for a long time, upon the unconnected rocks.

"Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis;" and the Trapanines will have to wait, probably with a similar chance of obtaining the wished-for benefit.

The water is from four, to five, fathoms deep. There is no village on the shore; the few buildings there being merely magazines, belonging to the people of Trapano; but, on the hill above, are the remains of an old walled town, called Gradina* and Citta Vecchia, the ruined houses of which may, here and there, be traced; and, on the side towards Trapano, is a dilapidated church, said to have belonged to it.

The costume of the Sabioncello peninsula is very singular, particularly on gala days, when the women appear in a straw hat, decked with ribands, roses, and feathers of all colours; which last are brought even from England, to complete this most important part of their dress. Another peculiarity of the costume is a blue skirt, with a double red, and yellow, border.

On the return of my passport, I left Trapano, in a four-oared boat, for the valley of the Narenta. We first coasted along the peninsula; and the weather being very stormy, we put into a small cove, below Tzerkvich; where we covered ourselves, as well as we could, from the deluge of rain, that poured down

* Properly "the little town," or "paesetto."