Jugoslovenski Rotar

coast of the Adriatic under the level of the sea were these mountain chains separated from the mainland and formed into islands. From the coast the Dinaric Alps rise in steep Karst gradients to the height of roughly 1.700 meters (5.500 ft) and from this mountain plateau rise single peaks. The unbroken chain of the highest mountains forms the backbone of whole system and also the watershed of the Adriatic and

the Pannonian basin into which the mountains on the north gradually descend.

It is only when we pass the first maritime chain, when we master the rampart of the white mountains along the coast, that we discover the real mountainous region vhere the mountain chains over-reach one another and an unbroken series of peaks forms a serrated-line.

By wide gradients we climb the mountainous region from the coast. Limestone and rock build these terraces which are covered by scanty vegetation. Only here and there one discovers green groves or carefully cultivated enclosures. The peasant houses are few and far between, and ag they are built of the same material as the surrounding mountains they are almost invisible. These are low and poor homes of the inhabitants of the hinterland of Dalmatia and of Herzegovina. Even the larger settlements do not stand aut against the greyish landscape. A newer house here and there with its roof of bright red tiles breaks the uniform whiteness. As far as the eye can reach it is all limestone and rock. The grey Mediterranean vegetation makes the landscape still more monotonous. Sage, cud-weed, wormwood, broom and the remaining low shrubs and herbs bloom early in the spring, when all is covered with flowers. But all through summer these plants are dry and grey, because from May to the rains of autumn this continental flora is inactive. There is very little soil in this region. Such earth as is available is collected in troughs and deposited on insignificant fields which the peasant guards and cultivates, because it represents all his arable land. Only the wider Karst fields offer better agricultural conditions. The thinness of this layer, summer draughts and sudden torrents as well as other whimsical phenomena of the continental climate are the cause of eternally poor harvests. That is the reason why the population in this region is engaged to-day as in the past in the semi-nomadic cattle-breeding. Since times immemorial the Dinaric Alps were the home of nomadic herdsmen. The shepherds with their large herds of sheep, goats, small Balkan oxen, and mountain horses spent the greater part of the year the spring and the autumn in the central region between the mountains and the sea. In winter they descended to hibernate in the warm coastal region while in summer they gradually moved to the highest mountains in order to avoid the unbearable heat guarding their floks on the greeny slopes of the snow-clad mountains. Thus the shifting of the herdsmen in three stages between the coast and the highest mountains served to exploit in the rational way the scant vegetation, which at that time covered the whole region down to the sea, and which was regularly renewed in the time syhen the herd moved on. With the development of the medieval city communities on the coast, especially with the powerful development of ће replublic of Dubrovnik, as well as under the ever increasing

20