THE KARST
 the Livenza (Liquentia of the Romans, from its limpid waters) rises a full-fledged stream, then on to Monfalcone, then over the Carso or Karst district par excellence,—a desolate, wind-swept plateau, the home of that terrible north-eastern blast, the bora, which rages all down the Dalmatia coast,—and is continued through the Velebit range, the Dinaric Alps, the plateau of Dalmatia and up into Herzegovina and Montenegro. The formation takes its name from the word “ Krast ”, a hoe or mattock, and the appearance of a Karst plateau is that of a hoed, or rather of a ploughed field, with ridges and furrows of very hard and sharp edge, which soon reduce ordinary boots to shreds, and has taught the dwellers in these regions to adopt that characteristic shoeing, the opanka, a sort of sandal of pliant thongs. A Karst plateau may at first sight present the , appearance of a fairly level surface, but as a matter of fact the whole is pock-pitted, as it were, by hollows and depressions of various sizes and depths, funnel-shaped or cauldron-shaped, with rugged j white limestone sides which, in some cases, deserve | the name of cliffs. These depressions are known as ; Doline, or valleys, though that is too grand a name | for them. Some are quite small, with rough scrub-vegetation growing in the cracks and crannies of
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