Our steamer landed the tobacco at Alexandria, and took on board other cargo, as well as overland, cabin, and other passengers. Amongst these were a troupe of French opera artistes, whom the Khedive had brought from France for his new opera, which we witnessed at Cairo, and they were now returning to Marseilles. They slept on the poop deck during the voyage, and even the ladies of their party seemed to make themselves comfortable and at home.
We sailed northward by the east of Sicily. Malta was too distant to be seen, but we had a fine view of the Sicilian coast, on which Mount Etna is a very prominent object. Our steamer called for a few busy hours off Messina—a large city, beautifully situated on the shore, overtopped by a semicircle of lofty hills. The bay is very large, and the harbour seemed commodious. We were boarded by numerous boats, full of dealers with their little wares and articles of vertu, which they spread out on the steamer’s deck for sale.
Here we parted with our American fellow-travellers with regret. Mr. Dickson had telegraphed to his Italian courier to meet him here, and here he was on deck to enter upon his duties. They intended crossing over to Naples for a tour through Italy, and thence to Paris and England. We had the pleasure of a call from them at home some months later. I am sorry to add that the weather on that occasion was so unusually cold and wet that they must have gone home with a very unfavourable impression of Old Scotland. We were subsequently glad to hear of their safe arrival in Pennsylvania—exactly twelve months after their setting out westward—they having followed the course of the sun round the world.
Passing through the narrow channel—on either side of which is supposed to be the famous Scylla and Charybdis, the terror of ancient navigators of Homer’s time and of our schoolboy days—we sailed along the coast of Italy, passing Capri during the night.
Civita Vecchia was too distant, but Monte Christo was visible, and the island of Elba barely so, while Corsica lay near on our left. Although we kept well north toward the French coast, Nice and Cannes were too distant to be distinctly seen, but we were close in shore off Toulon; and thence to Marseilles we sailed along miles of white barren rocks, which looked like a huge irregular wall, behind which La Belle France lay concealed. The harbour of Marseilles is hid and finely protected by one or two of such white rocks, but, once entered, it appeared an excellent harbour, with a fine city beyond it.
We arrived some two days overdue, the wind being generally unfavourable. Our steamer had brought as cargo several large wooden frames or cages, filled with quails from Syria. They were nicely arranged along the bulwarks, and each contained numerous shelves, which enabled the whole to be regularly fed and watered; latterly each day a good many of them had died. Those safely landed would, however, be nearly two thousand in number, and formed a daily subject of interest to our passengers. They were said to be for the Paris hotels. These birds are migratory, and easily caught with nets; they are very common all over the East, and form a considerable article of export from Syria, Palestine, the north coast of Africa, and the various islands in the Mediterranean. The quail is, in appearance and size, between a partridge and a lark.
Between Marseilles and Lyons the country is well cultivated, and vines are trained up to the hilltops. Lyons, where we stopped for a day, is a large and fine old city, beautifully situated over the west bank of the Rhone. The soil here gets richer, and altogether this locality seems very wealthy, both in agriculture and in the silk manufactures.
On the following day we arrived in Paris, where we remained for two days. Coming out of the Louvre Hotel, we met for a few minutes our commander of the French steamer. He was a Frenchman of polished manners, rather over middle age, of whom we heard a somewhat romantic story.
He had, several years before, been a commander in the French navy; but having an affair of honour (in which it was said his own wife was interested) with the surgeon of his ship, he was, by the French laws of marine, prevented giving a challenge, seeing the surgeon was his own subordinate officer. However, they left the vessel together; and, landing in a neighbouring country, the challenge was there formally given and accepted, a duel fought, and the surgeon left dead on the field. For this he was cashiered—not for murder, but for deserting his ship for a day without instruction! He subsequently got this mercantile appointment, through the influence, it was said, of the same Minister who cashiered him. He was occasionally infirm from gout, was of quiet manners, somewhat of the old school, and by no means like a fire-eater.