He Had Previously Made Twelve Voyages
To India; But Now Availed Himself Of The Shorter Route, And Proposed
To Join His Vessel At Bombay, Dispose Of The Cargo, And, After Taking
In A New Freight, Return Through Egypt.
The only coasts in sight,
during our voyage from Marseilles to Malta, were those of Sardinia
and Africa, Sicily being too far off to be visible.
We were not near
enough to Sardinia to see more than a long succession of irregular
hills, which looked very beautiful under the lights and shades of a
lovely summer sky. The weather was warm, without being sultry, and
nothing was wanting excepting a few books. Mr. Goldsmith regretted the
absence of a library on board, but expressed his intention of making a
collection as speedily as possible.
The excessive and continual motion of the vessel caused me to suffer
very severely from seasickness; the exertion of dressing in the
morning always brought on a paroxysm, but I determined to struggle
against it as much as possible, and was only one day so completely
overpowered as to be unable to rise from the sofa. This sickness
was the more provoking, since there was no swell to occasion it, the
inconvenience entirely arising from Sir Somebody Symonds' (I believe
that is the name) method of building. What the Megara would be in a
heavy sea, there is no saying, and I should be very sorry to make the
experiment.
We found ourselves at Malta at an early hour of the morning of
the 25th, having been only five nights and four days on board.
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