We made delightful excursions both in Marocco and about Gibraltar. We saw a great deal of Sir John and Lady Drummond-Hay, who was a very sweet woman, and their charming daughter, Miss Alice Drummond-Hay. We thought the Embassy a miserable little house, after the Palazzone at Trieste. The streets were muddy and dirty, all uphill, all horribly stony, like Khaifa. I thought the people in Tangier itself, looked poor, miserable, dirty, diseased, and trodden down, and you must go out very far to find anything like a fine race. After Damascus, and all the other Eastern places I had seen, I thought it horrid, and was sorely disappointed—I had heard it so raved about; but I would willingly have lived there, and put out all my best capabilities, if my husband could have got the place that he wanted, and for which I had employed every bit of interest we had on his side or mine to obtain, but in vain. I sometimes now think that it was better so, and that he would not have lived so long, had he had it, for he was decidedly breaking up. The climate did not appear to be the one that suited him, and the anxiety and responsibilities of the post might have hurried on the catastrophe that happened in the following year, 1887. It was for the honour of the thing, and we saw for ourselves how uneasy a crown it would be.
He remarks in his journal—
"My wife and I left the foul harbour-town, the 'Home of Dulness,' and passed a pleasant week at the 'Rock,' enjoying the hospitable society of our fellow-countrymen. I failed in certain pour-parlers concerning the treasure-ship sunk in Vigo Bay. The officer who claimed to know the true position was unduly cautious, and the right was his, more than mine. I endeavoured, but again in vain, to excite some local interest in the ruins of Karteia, the Biblical Tarshish, famed for ships. A local antiquary had made a charming collection of statuettes, and other works of Greek art, by scraping the tumuli which line the two banks of the Guadarrangua, alias First River, and which now represent the magnificent docks described by Strabo. He could not but remark the utter inadequacy of the defences, so famed throughout the civilized world. Fifty years ago they might have been sufficient, but now they have fallen long behind the age, and could not defend themselves against a single ironclad. The fact is now generally recognized.
"We embarked in ugly weather on board the Cunarder s.s. Saragossa; she was a staunch old craft, but heavily top-laden with timber and iron works for a dock at Puzzuoli: the beams lashed and clamped to the bulwarks, and the metal loosely stowed away below. A rapidly falling barometer, a wind changing to every quarter, and a fearfully stormy sky, warned us that a full gale was raging in the Gulf of Lyons; it should be called the 'Lion's Gulf.' The sailors explain this in their own way. As in the Suez sea-jinns have been jailed, so here evil spirits have been laid by the priests, who, however, cannot boast of success in preventing their doing terrible damage. Huge seas washed over the deck, the galley was swamped, and there was a whisper that the boats were being prepared. However, in thirty hours the squall blew itself out, and the Saragossa, with a nasty cant to starboard, steamed into the fine new port of Genoa, self-styled the Serpent. After two days' rest, the cargo being reorganized, the good ship resumed her way, and passing by Ischia, where the ruins of the earthquake were dreadful to look upon, landed us at Naples.
"The old saying, 'Vedi Napoli e poi morir,' has now assumed a new and fatal significance; bad drainage has bred typhus fever, which has made the Grand Hotels along the shore the homes of death. We had time to pay a visit to Pompeii, which since my time is utterly cockneyfied. In olden days you engaged a carriage and a guide, and passed in and out of the ruins just as you pleased. Now there are barriers and tolls, and taxes, licenced ciceroni, and Cockney inn crowded with ruffianly drivers. Inside the enceinte, prudishness reigned supreme, and wooden doors are closed in the face of all feminines, before certain frescoes. My wife found an object in a church in which she had for many years interested herself, Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, a rich basilica erected on the site of a pagan temple.
"At Naples, my wife, having had a bad fall through the washing away of the ladder between the upper and lower decks, had hurt herself terribly. She was already not well enough to risk any shaking, when, to my horror, I saw something which I took to be a large feather pillow roll lightly into the timbers below. I saw several people rush to pick it up, and, to my horror, found it was my wife. She seemed stunned for a minute, and then she was so frightened that I should be uneasy, that she just shook herself and said she was all right; but at Naples it was evident that she had damaged herself, so that when our time was up I made her continue her journey by land, whilst I, who thoroughly enjoyed the sea, rejoined the ship."
Whilst we were there, the Italian Minister came in in proper style in an Italian frigate, with eighteen guns salute from the ship, and the fortress answering. We received a great deal of hospitality in Tangier, which we enjoyed very much. The Grappler, Captain Cochrane, came over, and Colonel (now General) Buckle, commanding the Royal Artillery at Gibraltar. All good things come to an end, and the day came round to recross to Gib., but this time in a Trans-atlantique, and Captain Baker again kindly sent a Government launch to meet us, as it was very rough. We immediately called on Sir John and Lady Adye, Lord and Lady Gifford, and Colonel Buckle. We made acquaintance with a quantity of nice people, found Sir Allen Young there, and enjoyed a very charming week. On departure, Captain Baker kindly took us in his launch to our ship, the Cunard (for Mediterranean) Saragossa, Captain Tutt.
We did not like the cabin, nor the ship, nor the food; it was regularly roughing it for invalids. There was no doctor, a disobliging stewardess, no baths, very little water to wash with, one towel. No resort for bad weather; you had either to lie in your berth, or sit bolt upright in the saloon. No room to walk because of the cargo, as we were laden with iron and wood for a pier at Puzzuoli, near Naples; and besides the hold being full, the deck was also full, and it was even lashed to the sides. There was no ventilation below, because it was bad weather.
We had a first-rate captain and nice officers, and they and the boy-stewards did all they could to make us comfortable. As our cabin was over the screw, three gentlemen good-naturedly changed with us. Now, there was a new moon and an eclipse, and bad weather sprung up in the night. There was a tremendous nor'-wester in the Gulf of Lyons; the galley was swamped, heavy seas swept over us every minute, the iron cargo got loose in the hold and was rolling about, and we had an ugly slant to starboard—in fact, one's cabin was all uphill.
Richard was knocked down twice, and had a very heavy fall on head and forehead and shins. The coal-bunks caught fire, we shipped seas into the saloon, and it seemed at one time as if the boat on the port side would come into the saloon skylight. I shall never forget his kindness and tenderness to me in that gale.
If the cargo of timber lashed to the sides had behaved ill, it would have torn away the bulwarks, and bumped a hole in the ship. The captain was thirty hours on the bridge, and I never saw a man look so used-up as he did next day; and how relieved he was—and we all were—when we came into Genoa, looking in an awful plight! We knew that they would stay there a bit, and we bolted at once for the hotel. One never forgets the good bath and bed and the clean food that greets one on these occasions. Sailors always say that some priest, in exorcising a devil, has laid him in the Gulf of Lyons, and from that time forth I have believed it.
We had a delightful forty-eight hours at Genoa, excepting that I went to call on a very dear old friend, and found that she had died, and that I had never heard of it; and, to my great surprise, who should I see mooning about but Miss Alice Bird (Dr. Bird's sister, of 49, Welbeck Street, our great friends), and I carried her off at once to the hotel, and thence to the ship to see us depart, as we had to continue our journey. It was blowing very hard when we arrived at Leghorn. Richard had caught cold, so we did not go ashore, but amused ourselves with buying the pretty alabaster rubbish that peddlers bring on board. Half of the companion ladder between the upper and lower deck had been washed away, and I, being unaware of it, got a heavy fall amongst the timber and hurt myself.