In Eastern Seas. J. J. Smith
With the dawn of August 15th we were rounding Europa Point, and leaving Gibraltar far away astern. On our starboard hand three or four luminous points in the atmosphere indicate the position of the snow peaks of Atlas, the range itself being lost in the distance.
We chanced on a favoring breeze, so all sail was spread to help us against the strong five knot current always setting out from this sea. I cannot tell with what feelings you entered upon this, the greatest highway of commerce in the world. For all of us it possesses a certain interest, but to some more so than to others. I refer to those who love to wander in imagination amidst the departed glories of Greece and Rome—empires which lived, moved, and had their being when our forefathers were but tattooed savages.
As we advance, the sea begins to widen, the mountainous outline of the Spanish coast trends boldly to the northward; whilst the African shore grows indistinct and flatter, save where here and there some mighty peak rears its head from out of cloudland. Since leaving "Gib." we have been under the escort of shoals of porpoises, who ever and anon shoot ahead to compare rate of speed; or, by way of change in the programme, to exhibit their fishy feats under the ship's bows. Whether there be any truth in the mariners' yarn, that the presence of porpoises generally indicates a change in the wind, I will leave for you to form your own opinion; but certain it was, that on the present occasion, the wind did change, and to a "muzzler" illustrating in the most practical manner that our ship could be just as lively on occasion as other pieces of naval architecture. The stomachs of some of our younger hands, too, seemed to have suddenly acquired a sympathetic feeling with the movements of the ship, which, strangely enough, impressed them with a desire to reveal what they had had for dinner. The ship, though, dashed onward like a mad thing, regardless of the agony she was inflicting on some of her human parasites.
This was but the commencement of our sufferings for now the heat was beginning to annoy us. To us who could go on deck when we wished it was bad enough, but to those poor fellows who had to swelter and toil in the stokehole it must have been very trying, though compared with what was yet to come this was a mere bagatelle. We had encountered that blasting wind known as the "sirocco"—the scourge of the Mediterranean—which after gathering force and heat in the African deserts comes with its fiery and sand-laden breath to sap the moisture from all who have not the natures of salamanders. Fortunately we soon passed beyond its sphere of action.
Darkness rapidly sets in in these regions of eternal summer. The sunny shores and genial climes of the Mediterranean, where the very touch of the air seems a perfumed caress, lack only one thing to make them a paradise. Those pleasant hours which obtain in our less favoured land after the sun has set, and which we call twilight, are entirely unknown here, hours which England's youths and maidens generally appropriate to themselves, and which, in after years, recall some of the sweetest memories of their lives. Fancy a day deprived of such hours! No sooner has Phœbus veiled his glorious beams than there is a general demand for candles, and we find our liberal supply of two 'dips' a very inadequate apology for about four hours' illuminating purposes on a draughty deck.
But we must haste on our way past the Tunisian Coast, past Galita, onward through fleets of lateen rigged piratical looking crafts, with snowy sails and bird-like movements, dashing their white wings in the surge. We must not dwell too long on this peaceful and pleasant shore, for Pantellaria—an island of more interest in one sense—begins to rise ahead. This, in all probability, is the "Calypso's Isle" of the classics, but now the less poetical "Botany Bay" of the Italians. I should think that a few years' compulsory residence here is a thing to be desired rather than not, for it is a delightful spot enough, a sort of embryo continent, and nature seems to have achieved here some of her grandest works in the smallest possible space and with the least possible amount of material. As we near its shore we catch a glimpse of a pure white town, gracefully reclining on the slopes of a hill at the head of a perfect miniature of a bay. Artistically the effect is very pleasing, the glistening white houses seem as if embowered in the darkest of green foliage, each roof, each angle standing out most distinctly. Much as we regret it we see charming Pantellaria vanishing astern, for our engines will not cease their everlasting plunges to satisfy any weaknesses of ours.
How wonderfully strange and new everything seems to us; the sea, the land, its peoples, all so different to England; even the very heavens shed milder lights, have purer depths of colour. At night the stars shine out larger and with greater brilliance than we are wont to see them. Our old friend, the Great Bear, still remains true to us, though he keeps shorter watches in our southward way, others less loyal, forsake us altogether, yet in exchange if we get new forms they are not less beautiful.
Brilliant as are the skies the sea is equally so, for there seem as many gems beneath as above us; we appear to be cleaving our way through a yielding mass of liquid gold. Every dash the ship makes she seems to set the sea on fire, throwing starry sprays far over our heads on to the deck where the drops still retain their light.
At early morning on August 22nd, a great jabbering outside the ship, as though a colony of monkeys had encountered another babel, announced that we were at Malta. Boats by the hundred swarm around us, and never was seen such a gesticulating, swearing crowd, as their occupants, nor such pushing and hauling, such splashing and wrangling, and even fighting to maintain their stations alongside. One's eyes cannot fail to be arrested by these boats, but the colouring of them is what attracts particular attention. We get here our first idea of the criental love for colour, though at Malta the idea is exaggerated, because the colours do not blend harmoniously. For instance, the same boat will be painted with emerald green, vermillion, cobalt, and chrome yellow, put on without the slightest regard to effect or harmony. The eye on the bow is universal, no waterman would dare venture from the shore without such a pilot.
These little crafts, in addition to their legitimate use, have a secondary, though very important one, that of advertising mediums, not unworthy the genius of our American cousins. To select an example here and there. One boat bearing the characteristic and truly Catholic legend "Nostra Senora di Lordes," also sets forth another legend to the effect that "Every ting ver cheap here Jack," though what is cheap and where is not so clearly indicated; on another this extraordinary piece of English, "Spose you cum my housee, have got plenty." Of these same "housees" numerous tales are told; of one in particular, where you can obtain "ebery ting" except the right. You ask for beef steak, or ham and eggs, and the master of the house, in the blandest manner and with much shrugging of the shoulders, will answer you, "Me ver sorry, hab got ebery ting but that," and ditto to your next order, he has also the sang froid to tell you on your complaining of the toughness of that succulent, that his cabbage must be tender because it has been boiling ever since the "Caledonia" went home. If you don't enjoy it after that, all that I can say is you are over fastidious.
But to return to the busy and noisy throng alongside. Its composition differs very little from that usually encountered by ships of war in all parts of call. The washerwomen are the undoubted masters of the situation, and carry all before them. The alacrity with which they scramble up the perpendicular side of the ship is simply astonishing. It struck me that we could not do it with greater ease, notwithstanding that we possess the advantage of unfettered extremities. In the twinkling of an eye they are below, and besieging us in our messes, holding out for our inspection greasy looking rolls of paper, purporting to set forth in English, French, Italian and Spanish, and even in Greek and Turkish, the bearers' exploits amidst the soap suds. To read the English certificates while at breakfast is highly amusing and provocative of much merriment. Here is one. The writer is one "Bill Pumpkin," H.M.S. "Ugly Mug," who states that the holder, Mary Brown (who does not know Mary the ubiquitous Mary), "has a strange knack of forgetting the gender of a shirt, for it not unfrequently happens that you may find her with that article of male apparel on her own 'proper person,' otherwise, he says, she is all that can be desired." The said Mary B being unable to read English—or for that matter any other language—holds up her paper in triumph. Happy, ignorant Mary!
Having squared yards with the black-eyed nymphs (all the shady side of thirty), we are next assailed with the milkmen, who not only bring their cans, but also their goats on board. When the can is run out "nanny" is milked, and sent about to look for a feed under the mess-tables, a locality she is thoroughly acquainted with from frequent experience.