CHAPTER XV.

HOME!

My fellow-passenger, the Sportsman.––Passage from Tunis to Malta in a Sailing Vessel.––Disagreeables of the Passage.––Home, Overland.––Conclusion.

On the steamer Meludiah, for Malta, I found a sporting Frenchman on deck. He had been my fellow-passenger from Bona to Tunis, and carried a revolver and a gun; the first for porpoises, the second for gulls, &c. He recounted to me, with great glee, how he had shot a grosbeak, and some other small birds, near Tunis, and given them to the cook on board for our dinner. It was a Mussulman steamer, and, being Rhamazan, they did not serve dinner till after sunset. I was nearly famished. The first course was salad served with rancid oil, which immediately brought me and the Frenchman on deck. During the rest of the passage I made Angelo serve my repasts. The Frenchman was a character. “Je viens de perdre ma femme,” he said; “il y a des femmes mechantes vous savez, Monsieur, et des femmes bonnes; la mienne était bonne! mais bonne! Tenez, je l’ai mis dans le cercueil moi même, et maintenant je suis 84 ici pour me distraire, car je n’en trouverai pas une comme celle-là, allez. Je ferai le voyage, j’irai en Alexandrie––n’importe où, travailler j’irai à l’Isthme de Suez.” At last we arrived in Malta. It is a pity for officers and others there is no regular communication by steam between Malta and Tunis; for the désagrémens of a sailing-vessel are by no means despicable. Witness a friend of mine’s report thereon:––

“25th.––Came on board the Gemo at seven A.M.; went on shore again at nine, and stopped all day. Dined and slept on board; rough living here, but no cattle, which is a great thing.––26th. Set sail at eleven A.M.; fair wind; fine day, and very hot.––27th. Rain all night; wind light and variable, and one made but little progress. Cape Bona still close to us this morning. We are only going at three and three-quarter knots per hour. A fine breeze got up at twelve, and at seven we passed Panteleria Isle, going at seven knots.––28th. Wind fell away early this morning, and about eleven blew strong from the east: the worst quarter it could for us.––29th. This accursed wind has lasted all night, and blows harder this morning; the sea, too, is very high. It is intensely miserable; rough sea, bad grub, no one to talk to, no books, and no idea when we shall reach Malta.––30th. East wind still; an almighty swell on; one can neither sit, lie, nor stand with comfort. The coast of Sicily is very plain this morning. We are about forty-five miles from Malta, but no one can say when we shall reach 85 it. Fresh provisions have nearly come to an end. Let any one ever catch me on board a sailing-ship again, unless I am forced.––1st. Half a gale, and a heavy sea last night; got no sleep, as the ship jumped so; and the mattress––fancy now!––is stuffed with sticks, and is so cursedly hard, that, after five days of it, one’s bones ache all over. A very fine day; but this awful wind still east. At eleven A.M. we were off Gozo, only twenty miles from our destination; but it was impossible to get there. The diet and food on board are awful; I am nearly starved. There was only one thing amusing. A Maltese, who slept in the other berth near me, sneezed nine times in as many minutes; and, after each sternutation, he went through a short formula of prayer, beginning ‘Santo Something,’ to keep the devil to leeward, I suppose; and, egad, I think he must have been on board in propriâ personâ, under some disguise, to have caused us so bad a passage. This afternoon, to vary the programme pleasantly, we had a dead calm. Our miseries seem to have no end. I begin to think I shall rival the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ and never make my port, but sail on for ever.––2nd. A north-west wind sprang up at five P.M., and we reached Malta at seven.”

Thus, the sailing-vessel took seven days to do what I did in thirty hours on the steamer. After the usual amount of driving, dining, &c., at Malta, in the words of the poet I bid

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Adieu to joys of La Valette,
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat;
Adieu, ye females without graces,
Adieu, red coats and redder faces;
Adieu, the supercilious air
Of those that strut en militaire.

And now the word is “homeward;” and across a track well known to the English tourist, we journey onward, till

The mountains of Trieste afar are seen,
And farther yet, the Alps, whose highest peak
Now glitters with a gay and snowy sheen
In the bright sun; as quick our sailors seek
An anchorage in the port, where Turk and Greek,
Swede and Levantine, and full many more,
The haughty Spaniard, and the German sleek,
All races, from the Nile unto the Nore,
Into Trieste, in many a varied costume pour.
Along thy silent streets I wander now,
Venice, once queen, aye, empress of the sea!
Fairest in art as clime, yet sunk so low
Beneath the despot Teuton’s rule, I see
Thy halls deserted, fallen, yet in thee
Much splendour to admire there still exists.
Well could I quit my native land, and flee
The rugged northern clime, the vapid mists,
With thee to dwell, did I that only what me lists.
The fiery car speeds on her iron way,
Through hill, o’er valley quickly do we fly.
There lies the grot of Adelberg, and day
Sees us past Gratze’s fortress hasten by
Like lightning’s flash, nor stop until we spy
St. Stephen’s dome from out the darkness peer.
Like bas reliefs her turrets in the sky
O’ertop Vienna, great the pious fear
Of holy men, who such vast beauteous structures rear.
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There Cœur de Lion lived and almost died,
In yonder ruin gray o’erbent by time,
But that a troubadour, a servant tried,
His well-loved master sought through every clime;
Nor sought in vain, for by a simple rhyme,
A soft tuned sonnet, in a dungeon cold,
Imprisoned here he found him for no crime,
And saved. The ruins past, I now behold
Prague’s lofty palaces arise, and turrets old.
The scene is changed by many a lovely vale:
Upon the Elbe my rapid way I went,
Where Nature reigns supreme, nor aught avail
’Gainst her the charms a Raphael’s touch can lend
To Art’s supremest works; these all depend
On light, on colour, on the master’s hand;
Nature’s own work, so thought I, as I bend
My steps through Dresden’s galleries, and stand
Before Art’s fairest deeds in this fair Saxon land!
Swift be my verse, and swifter still my pace
(Oh, pardon me, for I’ll be sworn I bore)
By Berlin’s quays, past oft a plain, I race
To Hamburg’s crowded port, until the roar
Of ocean’s wave is heard again once more.
Once more upon the deck I stand and view
Behind that cloud arise old Albion’s shore––
Shore that I love, roast beef, plum-pudding too,
Pale ale, the Times, and scandal, like a Briton true.