But for those who do not care for travel through Bosnia and the Herzegovina there is a vastly more convenient route, possibly one that makes a more perfect pleasure trip, by which to reach this Balkan Riviera, for Trieste, just across the gulf from Venice, and Fiume, on the eastern shores of the Istrian Peninsula, are also gateways to this land of types and flowers. If you take steamer from either of these towns you will be whisked down along the Dalmatian coast, through the fjord-like passages between the thousands of islands which form the tassels to the fringe of country beyond, and by and by you will come within sight of that little old town of many vicissitudes—Ragusa. It seems almost an enchanted spot and you will call it “The Fairy City of the Adriatic.” CHAPTER XIII RAGUSA As She Is—The First Colony—The Fire of 1292—The Black Death—Hungary Acquires the Place—Ragusa Establishes Her Independence—Plague—Earthquake—Napoleon Takes Ragusa—The City Ceded to Austria. As does Venice in the north, so Ragusa in the south surpasses in lustre all of those pearl-cities which dot the Dalmatian shores. But you must be content, if you come by steamer, with merely a long-distance glimpse of your “Enchanted City” for the time being, because the steamer will put into Gravosa, a short two knots to the north, where the waters of its magnificent harbour are of sufficient depth for safe navigation, and where the docking facilities are of a more recent vintage. The noisy little freighters of light draft which ply up and down this Adriatic coast still make Ragusa a port of call, however, and the _molo_ there is by no means a scene of inactivity. The larger passenger steamers, however, after leaving Gravosa, do not deign even to hesitate at Ragusa, but puff by indifferently as if such a city never occupied space on the map, bound for Corfu and the Levant. So here, at Gravosa, you will take a carriage and drive out through the time-honoured sea-gate of the town, the blue Adriatic murmuring below you on one side, and a continuous arbour of beauty bowing a floral welcome to you on the other, the short distance to this dream-city of Ragusa. Immense cacti grow in luxuriance from out the very walls of stone that border the road; fig and olive trees clothe the neighbouring hills in blankets of green velvet; rows of palmettos rear their scaly trunks by the roadside and curl their broad leaves to hold the moisture of the fallen dew.