How soon after this base transaction the travellers separated, I have no means of ascertaining; but it is certain they did not leave Bourdeaux together; for, about three weeks afterwards, W. returned to England, and his unfortunate pupil embarked for Marseilles, where he arrived with satisfaction after a short voyage. His time at this place appears to have been spent more rationally and usefully than it had hitherto been in France. His remarks on the state of literature and science, together with the “empty-headed, would-be philosophers,” as he terms them, of Marseilles, are strikingly demonstrative of the force of his mind when directed to any worthy pursuit. After a stay of about three weeks, (he is seldom minute in dates,) he embarked for Toulon, where he staid ten days, and made a drawing of the harbour and fortifications, unobserved by any of the officers or soldiers by whom he was always attended.
An English ship about to sail for Naples accommodated him with a passage, for which, he observes, the Master would not accept of any recompense. His own words are significantly expressive on this occasion: “This rude but worthy son of Neptune possessed the inestimable treasure of a truly honest English heart; insensible of personal danger even to hardihood, but feelingly alive to another’s woe; often bestowing a generous tear, the tribute of his manly heart, on affliction’s monument. In the breast of this unlettered man there was moral virtue enough to outweigh all I ever met in France put together.”
His voyage to Naples was tedious, and fraught with disaster. He says, “We had a fine view of Genoa and Leghorn, the weather being beautifully fine; the sky serene and cloudless, water perfectly smooth, and scarcely any wind. The prospect at midnight was inexpressibly sublime. The majesty of the moon slowly emerging from the deep, its diameter to appearance immensely increased; the peculiar brilliancy of the stars, together with awful flashes of lightning, and meteors shooting in every direction, exhibited a scene exquisitely grand.” The day following he has this remark, “The face of nature is changed, and the hand of God is now stretched out to punish my guilt.”
His fears of an approaching storm must have been unfounded; for the next day he gives an animated description of the appearance of Genoa, and the people who crowded to the beach to see the ship as she passed slowly within a league of the shore. The calms and westerly currents, which for many months in the year prevail on that coast, prevented them from making any progress for some days longer, when a storm visited them in reality. His fearful conscience represents every adversity as the finger of Providence pointed against him.
On the 9th day after leaving Toulon he says, “My evil destiny still pursues me. The enchanting beauty in which nature smiled so lately, is now changed to the alarming appearance of offended Heaven. Lowering clouds gathering from every point threaten an awful crisis to both fear and hope.
“The wind increasing to a hurricane, drives the ship with impetuosity irresistible; and the dreadful heaving of the sea, as the watery mountains recede from their convulsed pursuers, leaves a tremendous chasm resembling the abrupt valleys interposed between highest alpine summits, which speedily meeting in all the agitation of confused conflict portend immediate destruction.
“The mariners, dismayed, can no longer exert themselves for the safety of the crazy vessel; a wave has just broken over her and washed away two of them, who, but a moment before, were blaspheming the sacred name of their Maker. Alas! alas! who dares stand in his dread presence!
“An awful crash, accompanied by faint cries ‘She is sinking’, has just reached my ear, and thundered on my soul. O God! how badly prepared!—A few minutes explained the disaster. A body of electric fluid struck the foremast, and shattered it into pieces, at the same moment depriving one of the sailors of life, and bruising two others most deplorably. The flash of lightning was so painfully vivid as to deprive most of us of vision for several seconds: but, to a man stationed on the bowsprit to look out ahead, it disclosed an object quite appalling—a rock towards which the ship was driving with fatal rapidity. A frantic shriek communicated the terrific fact.
“Despair seized on every heart, for the helm had ceased to produce its wonted power in directing the ship’s course. The Master, mistaking our situation, could not be persuaded of the danger until another immense sheet of lightning again exposed the dreadful evil. The helm was moved, and endeavours made to turn a remnant of sail which had not been blown away. A ray of hope appeared for a moment to illumine the drooping hearts of the seamen by the cry ‘She goes off’, which was eagerly caught and repeated by all.
“The lightning now becoming more vivid and frequent, contrasted with the intense darkness of the night,—the roaring of the wind,—the foamy rushing of the sea,—the noise of the ropes, and the indistinct cries of the despairing mariners, together with reiterated peals of thunder rolling over our heads for an amazing length of time and ending in a tremendous crash, gave existence to the most frightful picture that human imagination is capable of painting, or perhaps that human nature could sustain.