chapter 1

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A Week in Libson

I spent a pleasant week at Lisbon, and had a fair opportunity of measuring what progress she has made during the last sixteen years. We have no longer to wander up and down disconsolate Mid many things unsightly to strange ee. If the beggars remain, the excessive dirt and the vagrant dogs have disappeared. The Tagus has a fine embankment; but the land side is occupied by mean warehouses. The sewers, like those of Trieste, still want a cloaca maxama, a general conduit of masonry running along the quay down-stream. The Rocio has been planted with mean trees, greatly to the disgust of the average Lusitanian, who hates such sun-excluding vegetation like a backwoodsman; yet the Quintella squarelet shows what fine use may be made of cactus and pandanus, aloes and palms, not to mention the ugly and useful eucalyptus. The thoroughfares are far cleaner than they were; and Lisbon...

Posted on May 30, 2007 1:12 PM

Tagus, Portugal

Next morning broke upon a lovely view: no wonder that the Tagus is the pride of Portuguese bards. The Rosicler, or rosy dawn-light, was that of a May morning–the May of poetry, not of meteorology–and the upper windows of distant Lisbon were all ablaze with the unrisen sun. It was a picture for the loveliest colours, not for ’word-painting;’ and the whole scene was classical as picturesque. We may justly say of it, ’Nullum sine nomine saxum.’ Far over the rising hills of the north bank rose shaggy Cintra, ’the most blessed spot in the habitable globe,’ with its memorious convent and its Moorish castle. The nearer heights were studded with the oldest-fashioned windmills, when the newest are found even in the Canaries; a single crest bore its baker’s dozen, mostly decapitated by steam. Advancing we remarked the glorious Belem monastery, defiled by its ignoble modern ruin to the west;...

Posted on May 30, 2007 1:10 PM

Leaving Gibraltar

We left Gibraltar at 5 P.M. on Saturday (December 10), giving a wide berth to the hated Pearl Rock, which skippers would remove by force of arms. Seen from east or west Gib has an outline of its own. The Britisher, whose pride it is, sees the ’lion of England who has laid his paw upon the key of the Mediterranean,’ and compares it with the king of beasts, sejant, the tail being Europa Point. The Spaniards, to whom it is an eyesore, liken it to a shrouded corpse, the outlined head lying to the north, and declare, truly enough, that to them it is a dead body. The norther presently changed to the rainy south-wester, the builder of the Moroccan ’bars’ and the scourge of the coast fringing North-west Africa, Rolling set in with the usual liveliness. Events were not eventful. The first midnight found us off Cape Trafalgar,...

Posted on May 30, 2007 1:09 PM

Coins from Carteia

The few hours’ halt allowed me time to call upon my old friend, M. Dautez, a Belgian artist. Apparently he is the only person in the place who cares for science. He has made extensive collections. He owns twenty-four coins from Carteia, whereas Florez (Medallas, Madrid, 1773) shows a total of only thirty-three. Amongst his antiquities there is a charming statuette of Minerva, a bronze miniature admirably finished. He has collected the rock fauna, especially the molluscs, fossil and modern. He is preparing an album of the Flora Calpensis. His birds’ nests were lately sold to an Englishman. All these objects, of immense local interest, were offered by him at the lowest possible rate to the Military Library, but who is there to understand their value? I wonder how many Englishmen on the Rock know that they are within easy ride of the harbour which named the ’Ships of Tarshish’?...

Posted on May 30, 2007 1:07 PM

Cone of Maritimo

Next morning showed us to port the Cone of Maritimo: it outlies Marsala, whose wine caused the blinding of Polyphemus, and since that time has brought on many an attack of liver. The world then became to us pontus et aer. Days and nights were equally uneventful; the diary tells only of quiet seas under the lee of Sardinia and of the Balearics, ghostly glimpses of the North African coast and the steady setting in of the normal wester, the indraught of ’the Straits.’ On Friday (November 9) the weather broke and deluged us with rain. At Gibraltar the downpour lasted twenty-four hours. We found ourselves at anchor before midnight with a very low barometer, which suggested unpleasantries. Next morning we sighted the deep blue waters of the Bay, and the shallow brown waters of the Bayside crested with foam by a furious norther, that had powdered the far Ronda...

Posted on May 30, 2007 1:04 PM

Italian Tabacco and the Tower of Pelorus

As we made fast to the Marina our tobacco was temporarily sealed after the usual mean Italian fashion. Next morning an absurd old person, in a broad red baldrick, came on board and counted noses, to ascertain that we had not brought the dreaded small-pox from the Ionian Islands. After being graciously and liberally allowed to land, we were visited by the local chapmen, whose goods appeared rather mixed–polished cowhorns and mildewed figs, dolls in costume and corrosive oranges; by the normal musical barber, who imitates at a humble distance bird and beast; and by the vendor of binoculars, who asks forty francs and who takes ten. The captain noted his protest at the Consulate, and claimed by way of sauvetage 200l. The owners offered 200 lire–punds Scots. Briefly, noon had struck before we passed out of the noise and the smells of Messina. Our good deed had cost us...

Posted on May 30, 2007 1:01 PM

Sailing the Messina Straits

We fondly expected to pass the Messina Straits by daylight, and to cast another glance upon old Etna, Scylla and Charybdis, the Liparis and Stromboli. And all looked well, as about noon we were abreast of Cape Spartivento, the ’Split-wind’ which divides the mild northers and southers of the Straits from the raw Boras and rotting Sciroccos of the Adriatic. But presently a signal for succour was hoisted by a marvellous old tub, a sailer-made-steamer, sans boats, sans gunwales; a something whose dirt and general dilapidation suggested the Flying Dutchman. I almost expected to see her drop out of form and crumble into dust as our boys boarded her. The America, of Barletta, bound from Brindisi to Genoa, had hurt her boilers. We hauled in her cable–these gentry must never be trusted with a chance of slipping loose–and tugged her into Messina, thereby losing a valuable day. The famous Straits...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:59 PM

Cephalonia

Not without regret I saw the last of the memorious old castle and of Skopo the picturesque. We ran along the western shore of Cephalonia, the isle of three hundred villages: anyone passing this coast at once understands how Greece produced so many and such excellent seamen. The island was a charming spectacle, with its two culminations, Maraviglia (3,311 ft.) and Elato (5,246 ft.), both capped by purple cloud; its fertile slopes and its fissured bight, Argostoli Bay, running deep into the land....

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:57 PM

Nazionale Hotel

Zante appears to me an excellent home for a large family with a small income. A single man lives at the best hotel (Nazionale) for forty-five francs per week. A country-house with nine bedrooms, cellarage, stabling, dog-house, orangery, and large garden, is to be had for 25l. a year. Fowls cost less than a franc; turkeys, if you do not buy them from a shipchandler, two francs and a half. The strong and sherry-flavoured white wine of Zante rarely exceeds three shillings the gallon, sixpence a bottle. And other necessaries in the same proportion. But, oh that St. Dionysius, patron saint of Zante, would teach his protégés a little of that old Persian wisdom which abhorred a lie and its concomitants, cheating and mean trickery! The Esmeralda, after two days and one night at Zante, was charged 15l., for pilotage, when the captain piloted himself; for church, where there is...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:55 PM

Zante and Strada Larga

We returned, viâ the landward flank of the hog’s-back, along the fine plain (’O Kampos’) bounded west by the range called after Mount Meriy, the apex, rising 3,274 feet. Anglo-Zantiots fondly compare its outline with the Jura’s. The look of the rich lowlands, ’the vale,’ as our charts call it, suggested a river-valley, but river there is none. Every nook and corner was under cultivation, and each country-house had its chapel and its drying-ground for ’fruit,’ level yards now hidden under large-leaved daisies and wild flowers. We passed through the Graetani village, whose tenants bear a bad name, and saw none of the pretty faces for which Zante is famed. The sex was dressed in dark jackets and petticoats à l’italienne; and the elders were apparently employed in gathering ’bitter herbs,’ dandelion and the wild endive. Verily this is a frugal race. The drive ended with passing up the Strada...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:53 PM

Patras Roses and Orange Blossoms

Mr. E. Barff kindly accompanied us in the usual drive ’round the Wrekin,’ for which we may here read the ’wreck.’ We set out along the sea-flank of the Castle hill. This formation, once a regular hog’s-back, has been split by weather about the middle; and its southern end has been shaken down by earthquakes, and carved by wind and rain into precipices and pinnacles of crumbling sandstone, which form the ’Grey Cliffs.’ Having heard at Patras the worst accounts of Zante since it passed under Greek rule, I was not a little surprised by the excellent condition of the roads and the general look of prosperity. Turning to the right we entered Mr. Barff’s garden-house, where the grounds were bright and beautiful with balsam and mignonette, dahlias and cyclamens, chrysanthemums and oleanders, jasmine and double-violets, orange-blossoms, and a perfect Gulistan of roses, roses of York and Lancaster, white, pink,...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:45 PM

Parnassus Mountain

The last evening at Patras showed us a beautiful view of what is here called Parnassus (Parnassó), the tall bluff mountain up the Gulf, whose snows at sunset glowed like a balass ruby. We left the Morea at 2 A.M. (December 2), and covered the fifty-two miles to Zante before breakfast. There is, and ever has been, something peculiarly sympathetic to me in the ’flower of the Levant.’ ’Eh! ’tis a bonny, bonny place,’ repeatedly ejaculated our demoiselle. The city lies at the foot of the grey cliffs, whose northern prolongation extends to the Akroteri, or Lighthouse Point. A fine quay, the Strada Marina, has been opened during the last six years along the northern sea-front, where the arcades suggest those of Chester. It is being prolonged southwards to the old quarantine-ground and the modern prison, which rests upon the skirts of the remarkable Skopo, the Prospect Mountain, 1,489 feet...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:43 PM

Patras Culture

Being at Patras on St. Andrew’s Day, with a Scotch demoiselle on board, we could hardly but pilgrimage to the place of the Apostle’s martyrdom. Mrs. Wood kindly sent her daughters to do the honours. Aghyos Andreas lies at the extreme south of the town on the system of ruts, called a road, which conducts down-coast. The church is a long yellow barn, fronting a cypress-grown cemetery, whose contents are being transferred to the new extramural. A little finger of the holy man reposes under a dwarf canopy in the south-eastern angle: his left arm is preserved at Mount Athos in a silver reliquary, set with gems. Outside, near the south-western corner, is the old well of Demeter (Ceres), which has not lost its curative virtues by being baptised. You descend a dwarf flight of brick steps to a mean shrine and portrait of the saint, and remark the solid...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:42 PM

Patras Currants

Patras also has greatly improved since I last saw her in 1872. The malaria-swamps to the north and south of the town have been drained and are being warped up: the ’never-failing succession of aguish fevers’ will presently fade out of the guide-books. A macadamised boulevard has been built, and a breakwater is building. The once desert square, ’Georgios A’,’ has been planted with trees, which should be Eucalyptus; and adorned with two French statues of bronze which harmonise admirably with the surroundings. The thoroughfares are still Sloughs of Despond after rain, and gridirons of St. Laurence in dusty summer; but there are incipient symptoms of trottoirs. And throughout there is a disappearance of the hovels which resembled Port Sa’id in her younger day, and a notable substitution of tall solid houses. All this has been brought about by ’fruit,’ which in Patras means currants; that is, ’Corinthian grapes.’ The...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:41 PM

Cruise to Gold Coast

Thus it happened that on November 18,1881, after many adieux and au revoirs, I found myself on board the Cunard s.s. Demerara (Captain C. Jones), bound for ’Gib.’ My wife was to accompany me as far as Hungarian Fiume. The Cunard route to ’Gib’ is decidedly roundabout. We began with a run to Venice, usually six hours from the Vice-Queen of the Adriatic: it was prolonged to double by the thick and clinging mist-fog. The sea-city was enjoying her usual lethargy of repose after the excitement of the ’geographical Carnival,’ as we called the farcical Congress of last September. She is essentially a summering place. Her winter is miserable, neither city nor houses being built for any but the finest of fine weather; her ’society’-season lasts only four months from St. Stephen’s Day; her traveller-seasons are spring and autumn. We found all our friends either in bed with bad colds,...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:37 PM

Exploration of the Golden Land

PRELIMINARY: TRIESTE TO LISBON. The glory of an explorer, I need hardly say, results not so much from the extent, or the marvels of his explorations, as from the consequences to which they lead. Judged by this test, my little list of discoveries has not been unfavoured of fortune. Where two purblind fever-stricken men plodded painfully through fetid swamp and fiery thorn-bush over the Zanzibar-Tanganyika track, mission-houses and schools may now be numbered by the dozen. Missionaries bring consuls, and consuls bring commerce and colonisation. On the Gold Coast of Western Africa, whence came the good old ’guinea,’ not a washing-cradle, not a pound of quicksilver was to be found in 1862; in 1882 five mining companies are at work; and in 1892 there will be as many score. I had long and curiously watched from afar the movement of the Golden Land, our long-neglected El Dorado, before the opportunity...

Posted on May 30, 2007 12:35 PM