There was a time on board when the bitter
ale was decidedly muddy; and the cook of the ship deserting at
Constantinople, it must be confessed his successor was for some
time before he got his hand in. These sorrows have passed away
with the soothing influence of time: the pleasures of the voyage
remain, let us hope, as long as life will endure. It was but for a
couple of days that those shining columns of the Parthenon glowed
under the blue sky there; but the experience of a life could
scarcely impress them more vividly. We saw Cadiz only for an hour;
but the white buildings, and the glorious blue sea, how clear they
are to the memory! - with the tang of that gipsy's guitar dancing in
the market-place, in the midst of the fruit, and the beggars, and
the sunshine. Who can forget the Bosphorus, the brightest and
fairest scene in all the world; or the towering lines of Gibraltar;
or the great piles of Mafra, as we rode into the Tagus? As I write
this, and think, back comes Rhodes, with its old towers and
artillery, and that wonderful atmosphere, and that astonishing blue
sea which environs the island. The Arab riders go pacing over the
plains of Sharon, in the rosy twilight, just before sunrise; and I
can see the ghastly Moab mountains, with the Dead Sea gleaming
before them, from the mosque on the way towards Bethany.
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