18 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
According to Professor Jire&k,1 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 (i 153). 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 Jireiek 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 earn aedifi-caverunt, 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.2 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
   1	Op. tit., p. 10.
 2	A deep inlet surrounded by high mountains at the extreme south of modern Dalmatia.