Writing or thinking impossible:
so read 'Letters from the AEgean.'" These brief words give, I
think, a complete idea of wretchedness, despair, remorse, and
prostration of soul and body.
Two days previously we passed the
forts and moles and yellow buildings of Algiers, rising very
stately from the sea, and skirted by gloomy purple lines of African
shore, with fires smoking in the mountains, and lonely settlements
here and there.
On the 5th, to the inexpressible joy of all, we reached Valetta,
the entrance to the harbour of which is one of the most stately and
agreeable scenes ever admired by sea-sick traveller. The small
basin was busy with a hundred ships, from the huge guard-ship,
which lies there a city in itself; - merchantmen loading and crews
cheering, under all the flags of the world flaunting in the
sunshine; a half-score of busy black steamers perpetually coming
and going, coaling and painting, and puffing and hissing in and out
of harbour; slim men-of-war's barges shooting to and fro, with long
shining oars flashing like wings over the water; hundreds of
painted town-boats, with high heads and white awnings, - down to the
little tubs in which some naked, tawny young beggars came paddling
up to the steamer, entreating us to let them dive for halfpence.
Round this busy blue water rise rocks, blazing in sunshine, and
covered with every imaginable device of fortification; to the
right, St. Elmo, with flag and lighthouse; and opposite, the
Military Hospital, looking like a palace; and all round, the houses
of the city, for its size the handsomest and most stately in the
world.
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