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lands. And this misfortune coincided with the world-wide convulsion in commercial history produced by the discovery of America and the opening of the Cape route to the Indies, which eventually destroyed the commercial importance of the Mediterranean, throwing the main lines of world traffic out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, and the profits into the pockets of the Portuguese, Dutch and British. Finally, in the seventeenth century, on the 6th of April 1667, a terrible earthquake destroyed the larger part of the city and killed upwards of 4000 inhabitants. Ragusa never recovered. In 1806 the French, under General Lauriston, were in possession, and Marmont, who was holding Dalmatia for Napoleon, was created by him Duke of Ragusa. The city is now part of the Triune kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.
  From Gravosa, where we left our ship, to Ragusa town is a distance of three and a half kilometres, about two miles. A beautiful road mounts gently from the harbour to the crest of the ridge that connects the peninsula of Lapad with the mainland. On our left rises Monte Sergio with the villas of wealthy Ragusans at its foot. The vegetation on either side of the road is