This abrupt departure in the darkness disappointed
some of us, who had promised ourselves the pleasure of seeing his
Grandeur depart in state in the morning, shaved, clean, and in full
pontificals, the tripping little secretary swinging an incense-pot
before him, and the greasy chaplain bearing his crosier.
Next day we had another bishop, who occupied the very same berth
his Grace of Beyrouth had quitted - was sick in the very same way -
so much so that this cabin of the "Lady Mary Wood" is to be
christened "the bishop's berth" henceforth; and a handsome mitre is
to be painted on the basin.
Bishop No. 2 was a very stout, soft, kind-looking old gentleman, in
a square cap, with a handsome tassel of green and gold round his
portly breast and back. He was dressed in black robes and tight
purple stockings: and we carried him from Lisbon to the little
flat coast of Faro, of which the meek old gentleman was the chief
pastor.
We had not been half-an-hour from our anchorage in the Tagus, when
his Lordship dived down into the episcopal berth. All that night
there was a good smart breeze; it blew fresh all the next day, as
we went jumping over the blue bright sea; and there was no sign of
his Lordship the bishop until we were opposite the purple hills of
Algarve, which lay some ten miles distant, - a yellow sunny shore
stretching flat before them, whose long sandy flats and villages we
could see with our telescope from the steamer.
