Christmas Upon Adriatic's Shores

As Recalled by Nikola Tesla.

Nikola Tesla does not often speak at length about himself or his wonderful electrical inventions, but he sat and talked for an hour or two the other day with a friend about Christmas in the province of Lika, which is a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and lies close to the Adriatic Sea, near Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Bosnia. Tesla passed much of his boyhood in Smiljan, a town of Lika, where his father was pastor of a Greek church, but went from there while yet a boy.

"Christmas festivities in my country," said Mr. Tesla, "differ much from Christmas festivities here, yet there are many similarities, too. We begin the celebration on the day before Christmas by fasting. We do not altogether abstain, being privileged to eat freely of fish and all vegetable foods, but we may partake of no flesh meats, nor milk, nor eggs, This day is devoted largely to reflection, and its observance lasts until late on Christmas Eve.

"We rise very early in my country on Christmas morning — as early as three o'clock at the latest — to go to church and hear mass. All the morning until eleven o'clock is given over to religious services of one sort or another, and but little if any food is taken until that hour. By that time, however, every one is hungry, and a liberal luncheon is eaten, no discrimination being made against the heartiest food.

"Every one in my country is fond of coffee, which is generally drunk in large cups, with cream or milk. We may drink coffee on the day before Christmas, but without milk only, and as we are allowed to resume the use of milk in coffee on the day itself, you may be sure we then indulge freely in the delicious drink. After this breakfast, the gentlemen are served with liquors and little cakes.

The Christmas Dinner. 

"The Christmas dinner comes later in the day, and I assure you it is always a meal to remember. No, we do not serve turkey there as the chief dish, and I am not sure that I can name any dish that may properly be said to take the turkey's place, unless it be roasted pig.

"I do not remember a Christmas dinner without a roasted pig in my country. The plg selected is always very young and small, and is roasted entire after dressing, the cooking being attended to with great care and prolonged until the skin is crisp and crackling. Besides the Christmas pig there are many other dishes served on the great Christmas festival — all the good things, in fact, that can be devised, the same as in America; and every one eats as heartily as possible, another point in which the people of my country and Americans are alike.

"There is always a Christmas tree wherever there are children in my country, and the good house mothers and fathers prepare and decorate them with much loving care, to the great delight of the little ones. There are always present a-plenty on the trees, of course, but, even so, gift giving is not so much a feature of the holiday time here as there.

"The stockings are not hung up on Christmas eve, as here, in my country, but on St. Nicholas Day, which falls some days earlier than Christmas. In America the festival of St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus, and Christmas seem to be combined, but there they are kept separate, and the children have two days of holiday rejoicing and frolic in place of one.

"As a matter of fact, they have more than that, since the observance of Christmas itself lasts two or three days after the day itself, during all which time the greatest jollity prevails, and family reunions are held. There is much visiting back and forth, and seasonable greetings fill the air.

"But sometimes," continued the electrician musingly, as if thinking of other days, "the reunions are not held, and the visiting exists in the wishes of the people only. That is when the deep snows come.

A Land of Mighty Snows.

"For you must know," he went on, "that my country is not only cold in the winter, but subject at times to great snowfalls, the like of which I have never seen in the New World — snowfalls so deep that a man's head would be far below the level of the light and feathery substance in many places; snowfalls that are often accompanied by wild, fierce winds, piling the flakes up into enormous drifts in some places and sweeping the rock bound soil clean in others; snowfalls that it is not well to encounter unless shelter is near, and that have buried many a human victim beneath a milk white death mantle.

"Not all these terrible storms come in the winter season, either, as I have excellent cause to remember. My country is high above the sea level, my home was two thousand feet and more straight up from the tide, and many there be who live one, two, almost three thousand feet higher."