Among our friends and acquaintances at Gibraltar many changes and alterations had taken place. The former Governor, Sir James Ferguson, had in the interim been replaced by Sir W. Codrington. The Austrian Consul, the estimable Mr. Longlands Cowell, was dead, and in his stead Mr. Frembly attended provisionally to the duties of the office.
The heads of the community, the Governor, the staff, Mr. Creswell, Postmaster-General, Mr. Frembly, &c., paid us marked attention on our present visit. Singular to say, no one here seemed to be aware of our having been declared neutral by most of the European powers, thanks to the far-sighted circumspection of the projector of the voyage, and consequently some apprehension had been felt lest some warships of the enemy might have encountered the Novara in American waters. But albeit of late years we have been pretty well accustomed to see even written treaties trodden underfoot, yet, in the present instance, the capture of the Novara had been stringently prohibited to all French cruisers. For even in the Tuileries the consequences of such an abuse of power had been well foreseen; it was felt moreover even there, that in our time the most powerful can no longer dispense with science or disregard its interests, that any violence
offered to her votaries is an outrage upon mankind and civilization. So great, indeed, was the anxiety felt at Paris to avoid any possible collision with the Novara, that in addition to the existing declaration of neutrality, special orders were dispatched by the French Government, and from amid the din of battle and the thunder of artillery, the word went forth: "The Novara may proceed unmolested, for she is freighted with scientific treasures, and science is the common benefit of all nations!"
On 7th of August, a telegraphic dispatch was received in the course of the morning from the Lord High Admiral, with instructions for the Novara to proceed under sail to Messina, where a war-steamer would be in waiting to take us in tow. The same afternoon we weighed anchor on our way up the Mediterranean.
On 15th August we sighted the northern shores of Sicily, and the same evening could plainly perceive the brilliant red lights of the newly erected lighthouse on Cape San Vito, the extreme N.W. point of the island. Diversified by frequent calms, and but occasionally favoured with gentle breezes, our progress was necessarily very slow. On the 16th we passed the island of Ustica, and the following day the Lipari Islands, and at last, about 7 A.M. of the 18th, we reached the Straits of Messina. A pilot who came on board informed us that an Austrian war-steamer was lying off Messina. Orders were now given to fire a few blank shot, to advise her commander of our arrival in the Straits, after which we resumed our
course. A few hours more and we were in tow of the steamer, which proved to be the Lucia, the same vessel which upwards of two years before had brought us as far as Messina on our outward voyage. We now received letters from friends and relatives at home, as also the customary and inevitable poetical effusion, which some sailor poet had written on "The Return of the Novara."
On the night of the 19th August we were off Cape Santa Maria di Leuca, which marks the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf, and in the afternoon of the following day passed Caste Nuovo near Cattaro, and the same night anchored in the harbour of Gravosa in Dalmatia. The captain of the Lucia had been dispatched to bring us hither, there to wait further orders.
The following morning, Sunday, 21st August, the naturalists and superior officers made an excursion to the highly interesting city of Ragusa, only a few miles distant, which communicates with Gravosa by a beautiful wide well-kept road. For the first time in 28 months our feet once more trod our native soil.
Next morning, about nine, the imperial steam yacht Fantasie came into port, with H.I.H. the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian on board, accompanied by the Archduchess. The Lord High Admiral stood on the paddle-box, and saluted us most heartily, repeatedly waving his cap, to which the crew of the Novara replied by a shout that made the welkin
ring. The screw-corvette Dandolo shortly after anchored near us.