Dalmatia. By Maude M. Holbaoh. (John Lane. 5s.)—The story of
the Dalmatian coast is a long and stirring one, from the time of the Caesars down to our own. One has only to look at its situation, its breakwater of islands, to understand this. Next -to Italy, no Mediterranean shore holds so many and such splendid -memorials of Roman and Venetian, more especially of the finest period of Venetian Gothic, the fifteenth century. Such towns as Ragusa, Spoleto, Zara, Salons, have not long been rediscovered, so -that the life of these places almost under the sun of the East is -still mediaeval in many respects. A bulwark for years against the invading Turk, these famous cities have a past and a present that .must appeal to the traveller and the student. The authoress -writes with an enthusiasm that is infectious, and sure to tempt -the tourist in Italy to cross the Adriatic. The book is illustrated -with good photographs, enough to give her readers a notion of -the pleasures in store for them. The architectural glutton has an almost unending feast prepared for him, we may be sure, and the painter of types and customs will find rich material for his -canvas. The same may be said of all the Mediterranean littoral ; but the unique position of this rich coast peopled by a brave race and the home of successive civilisations but little changed by modern conquests must of necessity spell the survival of -much that is picturesque and local to the artist.
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