In the city of Fiume there are many types—Croatians, Austrian army and navy officers, Italians, Dalmatians, Germans, Englishmen—and all work hard accumulating fortunes, large or small as the case may be; but those who seem to be amassing the largest private estates in proportion to their labours, if one may judge from their daily net receipts, are the piratical porters of the town, who swoop down from all points of the compass upon the unsuspecting traveller. It is safe to say that these are the lineal descendants of the Uscocs of old, having only adopted more modern methods of piracy than those employed by their ancestors,—for from whom else might they have inherited their predatory proclivities? These _must_ have been handed down from father to son, for they are too well developed to admit of mere accidental discovery. Every time one of these porters looks at your luggage he commits petty larceny, in thought, if not in deed. The charge for carrying a small grip from the dock to the hotel, a distance of a hundred feet, may be any amount from the equivalent of twenty-five cents up, and the wise traveller is gulled but once. Some one tried to explain to me why the Fiume porters were allowed to charge any amount they pleased, but it seemed a very unsatisfactory excuse. Suffice it to say that the price demanded for carrying one grip is one _krone_, with one, two or three _kronen_ added, according to the nationality of the patron. For example: to carry one grip for an Austrian, one _krone_; for a German, two _kronen_; for an Englishman, three _kronen_; for an American, four _kronen_. It seems that the farther away one lives the more it costs one to have one’s baggage transferred in Fiume. A Chinaman with two grips would go bankrupt in this town in no time. With a farewell salute to Fiume and her activity, manufacturing, shipping and piratical, we sailed out across the waters of the harbour of this, the western sea-gate to the Balkan Peninsula, homeward bound. After having wandered over this virgin touring territory, a territory with a future as well as with an eventful past, a territory of big things in war and in peace; after having revelled in its type-pictures and its remarkable scenery, mingled with its unsophisticated peoples and marvelled at its history and its struggles for mere existence, we were struck with thoughts, as we came suddenly from the land of simplicity upon the preying porters of Fiume, at once akin to and conflicting with those of a certain author, who, in an early book of travel, concludes the narration of an experience as follows: “After having walked eleven hours without having traced the print of a human foot, to my great comfort and delight, I saw a man hanging upon a gibbet; my pleasure at the cheering prospect was inexpressible, for it convinced me that I was in a civilized country.” THE END. INDEX Abbazia, 284. Alexander, King. _See_ Obrenovitch. Alexander, Prince, of Bulgaria, 121.