116
KNIN
vast work of military engineering and architecture crowning the hill and towering above the town. It is easily reached by a road of gentle gradient which enters the fort through a gateway still guarded by the Lion of S. Marco, though his book has been chipped away. From the esplanade in front of the church the view is superb. To the left front rises Dinara and the first of the great series of waterfalls which render the Kerka famous. It had been pouring for days, and the Topolje cascade, a column of snow-white waters against the dark mountain-side, came tumbling over the mouth of the grotto where the true river Kerka takes its rise in true Dalmatian fashion at the foot of limestone cliffs. The river, swiftly swirling down from its “mountain cradle” in Dinara, encircles the village and fortress of Knin, and disappears, to the right, in the mouth of the gorge that leads down, by many a rapid and cascade, past S. Arcangelo and Visovac, to the great fiord of Scardona, which is its mouth.