The traditional origin of the name Ragusa is connected with the situation of the town on a precipitous ridge. According to Porphyrogenitus, it is derived from λαῦ, a precipice, and was originally _Lausa_. The L changed to R, and it became Rausa or Rhausion. According to Professor Jireček,[18] this derivation is quite inaccurate. The rocky seaward ridge, even in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, were called _Labe_ or _Laue_, from the Latin word _labes_, a downfall or precipice. The form _Ragusa_ is found in William of Tyre, and in the Arabic writer Edrisi (1153). Later we find the form _Rausa_, and in the fifteenth century _Raugia_, and occasionally _Ragusium_. The Slavonic name _Dubrovnik_ is said to be derived from _dubrava_, a wood. This etymology does not sound unlikely, as there is a wood in close proximity to the town, a rarity in this part of the world. But Professor Jireček says that from _Dubrava_ the original form should have been _Dubravnik_, and this appears nowhere. The Presbyter Diocleas writes: “Dubrounich, id est silvester sive silvestris, quoniam quando eam aedificaverunt, de silva venerunt.” Whatever may be the philological value of these traditions, they indicate the double character (_i.e._ Latin and Slavonic) of Ragusa in the early, if not in the earliest times. Ragusa is situated on the coast of Southern Dalmatia, about forty kilometres to the north-west of the Bocche di Cattaro.[19] It is built partly on a precipitous rocky ridge jutting out into the Adriatic, and partly on the mainland, ascending the steep slopes of the Monte Sergio. The original town was limited to the seaward ridge, which was formerly an island divided from the mainland by a marshy channel where the Stradone now runs. There was also a settlement of Bosnians or Vlachs on the Monte Sergio opposite. The ridge slopes gradually up from the channel, but drops sheer down on the side towards the sea. In an old drawing preserved in the library of the Franciscan monastery at Ragusa we see the town as it was when it only occupied the ridge. It is surrounded by a wall, and divided into two parts by another wall. Three extensions of the walls are recorded previous to the beginning of the twelfth century, rendered necessary by the number of fugitives who took refuge within its walls in ever-increasing numbers. “The original city,” writes Professor Gelcich, “was limited to the centre of the northern slope of the ridge now called Santa Maria, which, separating from the Monte Sergio, stretches forth in an opposite direction to that of the neighbouring peninsula of Lapad; it comprised the quarter of the town between the diocesan seminary and the street leading from the Chiesa del Domino to the summit of the ridge.”[20] The earliest extensions were the suburbs of Garište and Pustijerna, the former on the western side, the latter to the east, reaching as far as the harbour. Thus the whole rock was occupied and surrounded by a wall. The