The Cruise of the Branwen

RAGUSA AND SPALATO The suggestion that Diocletian's tomb was its real origin has also been made for the Temple of Esculapius, now the baptistery, a small rectangu– lar building on a lofty podium near the Duomo. The interior must be almost unaltered save for the font; and the semi-cylindrical roof, finishing in a triangular pediment at each end, is built up of the same curved and massive stones as may be seen in the Temple of Diana at Nimes. Beneath it was preserved the magnificent sarcophagus of Meleager hunting the Wild Boar, which is now in the little museum. But the most interesting possession of this museum to an Englishman is the copy it cherishes of the noble volume published by Robert Adam, the English architect, who visited Spalato in 1757, and produced his admirable reconstruction of the palace, with engravings by Bartolozzi, in 1764. Another fine thing in the museum is the sphinx of black granite, which is a pair to that now in the Piazza del Duomo. Both were made in the eighteenth dynasty of t~e Pharaohs and originally came from Thebes. We had one more look at the crowd in the Piazza before going on board again that evening, and it was curious to see the vivid contrast with the Roman Palace made by the later Town Hall, :with its deliberately Venetian ornament and con– struction. vVe were soon to see its great originals. We left Spalato at seven o'clock on the morning of May 8 and made a sloping north-west course, straight towards Venice, through a gorgeous sea as smooth and sparkling as a mirror. In almost 165