Sunday Morning Came, And I Was On Board The Steamer By Six O'clock.
As I Ascended The Side, The Harsh Sound Of The Catalan Dialect
Assailed My Ears.
In fact, the vessel was Catalan built, and the
captain and crew were of that nation; the greater part of the
passengers already on board, or who subsequently arrived, appeared
to be Catalans, and seemed to vie with each other in producing
disagreeable sounds.
A burly merchant, however, with a red face,
peaked chin, sharp eyes, and hooked nose, clearly bore off the
palm; he conversed with astonishing eagerness on seemingly the most
indifferent subjects, or rather on no subject at all; his voice
would have sounded exactly like a coffee-mill but for a vile nasal
twang: he poured forth his Catalan incessantly till we arrived at
Gibraltar. Such people are never sea-sick, though they frequently
produce or aggravate the malady in others. We did not get under
way until past eight o'clock, for we waited for the Governor of
Algeciras, and started instantly on his coming on board. He was a
tall, thin, rigid figure of about seventy, with a long, grave,
wrinkled countenance; in a word, the very image of an old Spanish
grandee. We stood out of the bay, rounding the lofty lighthouse,
which stands on a ledge of rocks, and then bent our course to the
south, in the direction of the straits. It was a glorious morning,
a blue sunny sky and blue sunny ocean; or, rather, as my friend
Oehlenschlaeger has observed on a similar occasion, there appeared
two skies and two suns, one above and one below.
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