I have to-day got hold of a whole week’s file of the Times, down to the 25th, which has posted me up in political matters. I think the Government are earning a rather second-rate kind of succès d’estime, but I fancy I detect signs of feebleness and inefficiency, which will become obvious when real difficulty arises. I own W. H. Smith has done better than I expected, for I expected a complete breakdown; but, having made that admission, his speeches read to me most commonplace, and I think before long the House and the party will get much bored with him. I am amused at the Government surrender about my Army and Navy Estimates Committee in reply to a question from George C.[62] I expect the Burnley election quickened their sluggish economic impulses. The election I look upon as very significant, and as bearing out what I wrote to A. Douglas. They may plod on in Parliament, but they are losing their hold on the imagination and enthusiasm of the country generally. However, all this is speculation. In any case, I am in no hurry to come home—and am, too, thankful I went away. Really I have had a nice time hitherto....

To his Mother.

Messina: March 9.

Here we are, caught like rats in a trap. Just as we were packing up yesterday to leave for Naples it was announced that on account of cholera at Catania quarantine had been imposed in Sicily, and that we could not leave. This is a great blow, for we do not know how long we may be detained here. There is nothing to see or do, and the hotel is dirty and uncomfortable. We are in despair....

To his Wife.

Naples: March 12, 1887.

I send you the enclosed under what the Foreign Office calls ‘Flying Seal,’ which means you are to read it and send it on; it will tell you of our proceedings. At last we have got here, but without either servants or luggage; goodness knows when they will come. Harry T. and I made up our minds we would not stand being detained prisoners indefinitely at Messina. We made a fruitless application to the Ambassador at Rome to be exempted from quarantine; all regular steamboats had been taken off, and even if we had got a passage we should have had to do five days’ quarantine at Gaeta—a horrible prospect. So we went to the Consul—a character he is! He introduced us to a man who knew a man who knew some Sicilian fishermen who for a consideration would put us across the Straits. Nous n’avons fait ni un ni deux, but pursued the project. We embarked in an open boat at eight o’clock on Wednesday evening in Messina harbour, with nothing but a tiny bag and a rug, with a dissolute sort of half-bred Englishman and Sicilian, to act as interpreter and guide, and six wild, singing, chattering Sicilian fishermen. We reached the Calabrian coast about 9.30; but the difficulty was to find a landing-place where there were no gendarmes or coastguards or inhabitants awake. The last danger was the greatest, for the peasantry are awfully superstitious about cholera, and are a wild, savage people; and we might have had rough treatment if any number of them happened to see us.

At last we found a little fishing village where all was quiet. In we ran, out we jumped, and off went the boat like lightning. After clambering up some precipitous rocks, fortunately without waking anyone or breaking our necks, we found temporary shelter in a miserable inn, where we represented ourselves as having come by boat from Reggio, and being unable to get back on account of the strong Sirocco wind which was blowing. We had to wait about an hour here all alone, with two wild men and a wild woman, while our guide was quietly endeavouring to find a conveyance. At last he got a common cart, and about eleven o’clock we started for the house of an Englishman at San Giovanni who has a silk mill, and to whom we had a letter from the Consul. The innkeeper and his companions asked a lot of tiresome questions and seemed very suspicious, but in the end let us go quietly. Just after starting we met two gendarmes, and afterwards two coastguards, but fortunately, they asked no questions; so everything went well for some four or five miles, except for the awful jolting of the cart, which exceeded anything in the way of shaking you ever dreamt of. All of a sudden the peasant who was driving the mule ran the cart against a great stone, and sent us all flying into the road. I never saw such a sprawling spill. Fortunately we were only shaken and dirty, but the driver was much hurt, which served him right, and he groaned and moaned terribly for the remainder of the journey; being a big fat man, he had fallen heavily, and I should not be surprised if he had since died.

At last, at one in the morning, we reached the house we were looking for, and had a great business to awaken the people; nor did we know how we should be received, arriving in so strange a manner. The Englishman, however, was very good, took us in, gave us supper, and we lay quiet until the evening of the following day, when we slipped into the direct train for this place, which we reached without further trouble. But what a thing it is to have an evil conscience! I kept thinking that every station-master and gendarme on the road scrutinised us unnecessarily; and what a trouble and scandal it would have made if we had been arrested and put in prison! However, all is well that ends well, and I had the delight of finding an immense bundle of letters from you and others at the post here. We had to buy shirts and socks and everything, for we were without change of any kind; and what the hotel people here thought of us I cannot imagine. But they were civil and made no remark. Our quarters are very comfortable after the filth of Messina, and I think that our journey was adventurous enough to have taken place a hundred years ago.

I can quite understand the political situation, having read all you and Curzon and Jennings wrote. For me it is not unsatisfactory; but for the general Tory prospects it is most gloomy. What a fool Lord S. was to let me go so easily!