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He had landed upon the marble quay
of Pola and visited its deserted amphitheatre, he had seen a weak
provincial life going about ignoble ends under the walls of the
great Venetian fortress and the still more magnificent cathedral of
Zara; he had visited Spalato, clustered in sweltering grime within
the ample compass of the walls of Diocletian's villa, and a few
troublesome sellers of coins and iridescent glass and fragments of
tessellated pavement and such-like loot was all the population he
had found amidst the fallen walls and broken friezes and columns of
Salona. Down this coast there ebbed and flowed a mean residual
life, a life of violence and dishonesty, peddling trades, vendettas
and war. For a while the unstable Austrian ruled this land and made
a sort of order that the incalculable chances of international
politics might at any time shatter. Benham was drawing near now to
the utmost limit of that extended peace. Ahead beyond the mountain
capes was Montenegro and, further, Albania and Macedonia, lands of
lawlessness and confusion.


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