This palace is a large irregular edifice, with a beggarly exterior, rendered more ugly by a quadrangular steeple, which looks like a belfry. It is constructed of the soft stone of the island, with stone floors, and with ceilings and walls painted in fresco. The walls were hung with some tolerable pictures. The entrance to it is by an avenue of orange trees, the appearance of which, though richer, is much less imposing than the lofty oaks and elms forming the avenues of our own country. About half way down the avenue, which is two hundred and fifty yards long, the road turns abruptly on the left into the courtyard of the palace: this is spacious, and covered with vines to the right and left. At the end of it two doors lead, one into the house and the other into the garden.
The house contains some handsome and spacious rooms, but the absence of carpeting and matting, rendered necessary by the heat of the climate, gave an air of nakedness displeasing to the eye of an Englishman. I always felt as if sitting in a stone kitchen. It was in the garden that a proper estimate might be formed of the magnificence of the mansion, which might vie, in horticultural beauties, with many of the first gardens in Europe. In its plan it was not unlike the orangerie at Versailles; but at Versailles, no care could ever give to the orange, pomegranate, and lemon trees, half the vigour they showed here. The walks were lined with myrtle hedges, ten feet high; and there was a terrace with a colonnade, where the vines twined their branches in wonderful profusion in every direction in which they were trained. There were five hedges also of double oleander; and, as a proof of the luxuriance of the growth of plants, the marshmallow, if left in the soil, grew to the height of a filbert-tree.
The Governor, General Oakes, strove, in every way in his power, to render Lady Hester’s stay at Malta agreeable to her. He visited her daily at the palace of St. Antonio, and we were his constant guests at the dinners and parties at his own residence.
At the beginning of July, in this year, an earthquake was felt by several inhabitants of Malta. I should presume that habit renders persons quicker at feeling these slight shocks; for, during many years that I was up the Mediterranean, I was present when shocks were felt, but never perceived them myself.
On the 29th of July, Mr. Adair and Mr. Hobhouse, returning from Constantinople, landed at Malta, and, after performing a short quarantine, were entertained at the Governor’s. Many British travellers had visited Malta in the course of this year: for, besides those of whom mention has already been made, there were several noblemen, as also Mr. Thomas Sheridan, whose brilliant vivacity was not yet diminished by the incipient malady under which he finally sunk, Mr. Drummond, Mr. Fiott,[7] and Mr. B.; the last of whom, when he learned that Lady Hester’s brother had been called away by his duties as a soldier, undertook to escort her in the perilous journey which she had resolved to make through European and Asiatic Turkey.
Lady H. Stanhope had begun to grow tired of Malta. The thermometer generally stood as high as 85° Fahrenheit in the afternoon, and the excessive heat had produced some disagreeable effects on her constitution, so that she often complained of sickness of stomach, feverish thirst, and loss of appetite; and was tormented with many other painful sensations which the summer months commonly produce in those, who, for the first time, visit hot countries.
Sicily was at that time threatened with a descent from the coast of Calabria; where Murat, the new King of Naples, was in person urging on the necessary preparations. Several English and Sicilian families had hastily quitted the island to take refuge in Malta, and many fears were entertained as to the probable issue of the enterprise. At all events, the impending storm presented no temptations to Lady Hester to go thither, and she accordingly changed her destination for the only part of Europe which was now open to the English, namely, Turkey.
I have said that Mr. B. had undertaken to escort Lady Hester into Greece. Her ladyship had brought out with her an English maid, named Ann Fry, and a valet, named François, a native of Coblentz.
Lady Hester had been fortunate enough, on two former occasions, to obtain a king’s ship to convey her from place to place: but it was vain to hope that one could now be spared, when every vessel on the station was so much needed to scour the Straits of Messina, and to prevent the threatened landing in Sicily. Accordingly, she resolved on hiring a merchant-vessel; and an American brig, bound for Smyrna, was almost engaged, when it happened that the Belle Poule frigate of 38 guns, commanded by Captain C. Brisbane, came into Malta from Corfu, to which island she was to return; and the captain very politely offered to convey her ladyship and her party to one of the Ionian Islands.
On the second of August, we embarked in the Belle Poule, and arrived at the cruizing station, off Corfu, on the third day. We passed Corfu, Little and Great Cephalonia, and Fano, and on the 8th anchored in the bay of Zante.