A Peep at Dalmatia

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 913, 5 March 1930, Page 8

A Peep at Dalmatia

TINY ADRIATIC COUNTRY MIGRATING from their parent State of Yugoslavia, 1,414 Dalmatians came to New Zealand in the live years ended in 1928. Let us take a glance at the homeland of this hardtoiling people.

Bounded on the west by the Adriatic Sea, and on the east by the Velebit mountains and the Dinarie Alps, Dalmatia consists of many islands on the eastern side of the Adriatic, a comparatively narrow coastal strip populated by hardy Hsherfolk, and a wider mountainous area of karst formation. Its rude climate renders this last unfit to support a numerous population, and moreover it is difficult to cross owing to its lack of easily-followed natural ways from the coast to the valleys of the Danubian river system. The bora, a bitterly cold wind from the north, makes the upland climate severe, and interferes with the otherwise genial climate of the north coasts, only the south littoral being free from its ranges. Formerly the higher areas were forest-clad, but the oaks and beeches have disappeared. Dalmatia today has an area of 4,916 square miles. The industries supporting her 650,000 people are cattlebreeding, viticulture, cereal raising, and, of course, fishing. Her nets are tended by 10,000 fishermen, who haul up annually some 4,000 tons of finny wealth, three-fourths of which consists of sardines. The boats with their great coloured sails form one of

the most noteworthy attractions of the coast. The bora, “demon of the Adriatic,” sometimes takes heavy toll of the fishing fleet. COVETED SEABOARD Dalmatia’s seaports of Zara, Sebenico and Spaiato for long made her envied by her inland neighbours, and she has had a changeful history. Once she was disputed by Rome’s eastern and western empires; Islam’s armies were here confronted by Christianity’s outposts; here has been the meetingground of the Latin and the Slav. In mediaeval times her protectress was the republic of Venice; Italy, France and Austria have since claimed her for their own; today she is a province of Yugoslavia (the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), and her people own allegiance to King Alexander I„ son of King Peter I. of Serbia, Britain’s ally during the Great War. Now that the united kingdom of Yugoslavia has come into being, Dalmatia and her partners in this kingdom look forward with great confidence to the future of their nation, and on Saturday a band of patriots attended the wedding in Auckland of a countryman of theirs, and strongly demonstrated their disapproval of his reference to Yugoslavia as a land impoverished and plagued by bandits.