Very short time at Malta

Although I had rested but a very short time at Malta, I left it with as much regret as though it had been a second home. For after a troublesome journey through Baden, Lombardy, the Homan States, and Naples, at an especially troublesome epoch, subjected besides to every annoyance and imposition that police, passports, and political quarantines could inflict on a traveller, the feeling was one of great comfort to catch the first sight of an English soldier on guard; to walk under a gateway with the familiar lion and unicorn—fighting for the crown as of old—boldly carved above it; to see well known names over the shops in every direction ; and to take halfcrowns and halfpence in change, in as matter of fact a manner as though the shops had been in Oxford Street. Above all, it was pleasant to hear “God save the Queen” played by English drums and fifes, calling up the echoes from the glowing rocks of our far off Mediterranean island.

There was enough to interest one, before the steamer started, in the coati docile of the harbour—the noble ships of the line, and steam frigates, lying lazily at anchor; the impregnable fortifications; the clean stone houses, dazzling in sharp outlines in the clear bright air; and the odd mixture of all sorts of costumes from every corner of the Mediterranean, between Gibraltar and Beyrout. Besides this, there were two or three parties of dirty urchins-—cousins Maltese of the boys who seek for halfpence in the mud of Greenwich and Blackwell—who came up in singularly fragile boats, and petitioned for pieces of money to be thrown into the harbor, that they might dive after them. One of these little fellows was sufficiently clever to attract general attention bulgaria tour. His head was shaved all but a comical tuft over his forehead, giving him the appearance, in his parti-colored Caledonia, of a small unpainted clown.

When the piece of money was thrown into the water, and had sunk for a few seconds, he leapt in feet first after it, and he was never long in reappearing at the surface, holding it up in his hand, always overtaking it before it had reached the bottom. These lads were succeeded by a floating band of music, the members of which played the Marseillaise and the Girondins’ Hymn, out of compliment to the “French steamer. But a shelling brought them round in an instant to our National Anthem, and Bouie Britannia; and as we left the port we heard the last chords, inappropriately enough, of “ Home, sweet home.” They had evidently got up the latter to excite the people on their way home from India, in the quarantine harbor, but had immature notions of its application.

For the last month the Mediterranean had been as calm as a lake—much more so, indeed, than that of Geneva under certain winds—and the fine weather promised to continue. This was fortunate for several reasons; the chief one being that the Scamandre was a very old boat, not calculated to encounter heavy seas; and in fact was said to be making her last voyage before condemnation to short coasting or river service. With great exertion she could be propelled at the rate of something under eight knots an hour; but the engineer respected the age of her machinery, and did not tax its powers. She was also very dirty, and the crew did their best to keep her in countenance; at the same time, there were few places on deck to sit down upon, except such accommodation as the coils of rope, water-barrels, and chicken coops afforded.

Scunandre

It is far from my intention, however, in thus speaking of the old Scunandre, to run down the admirable service of French mail steamers plying between Marseilles and the Levant generally. On the contrary, their extreme punctuality, their moderate fares, and their excellent arrangements, entitle them to the attention of all tourists to whom time and money are objects. There is as little distinction observable between the appointments of their first and second class passengers, as on the foreign railways; and as there is, on the other hand, a great difference in the price, and no servants, nor persons considered by the administration to be in any way unfit society for educated and well-bred people, are admitted into the cabin, this part of the boat is the most extensively patronized. We mustered about twenty passengers, and the first class cabin had not above four or five, who looked so dull and lonely, that we quite commiserated them.

Indeed, one of them—a good-tempered American— preferred now and then coming to dine with us, “ to know what was going on,” as he said. There were two other classes still. The third, who had a species of cabin, still fore, to retire to at night; and the fourth, who bivouacked upon deck. And very pleasant was even this last way of travelling. I had come down a deck- passenger from Genoa to Leghorn ; from Leghorn to Civita Yecchia; and from Naples to Malta, with a knapsack (which comprised all my luggage, and which I had carried many times across the Alps) for my pillow; and I had learned to sleep as soundly upon planks as upon feathers. In the mild, warm nights, no bed-clothes were required; and in the finest palace in the world there was no such ceiling to a sleeping chamber as the deep blue heaven afforded, spangled with its myriads of golden stars, which gleamed and twinkled with a luster unknown to us in northern England.