University of Virginia Library

25. LETTER XXV.

I entered Avignon after a delicious hour on the
Rhone, quite in the mood to do poetical homage to
its associations. My dreams of Petrarch and Vaucluse
were interrupted by a scene between my friend
the captain, and a stout boatman, who had brought
his baggage from the batteau. The result was an
appeal to the mayor, who took the captain aside
after the matter was argued, and told him in his ear
that he must compromise the matter, for he dared
not give a judgment in his favor! The man had
demanded twelve francs where the regulations allowed
him but one, and palpable as the imposition
was, the magistrate refused to interfere. The captain
curled his mustache and walked the room in a terrible
passion, and the boatman, an herculean fellow, eyed
him with a look of assurance which quite astonished
me. After the case was settled, I asked an explanation
of the mayor. He told me frankly, that the fellow
belonged to a powerful class of men of the lowest
description, who, having declared first for the
present government, were and would be supported by
it in almost any question where favor could be shown
— that all the other classes of inhabitants were malcontents,
and that between positive strength and royal
favor, the boatmen and their party had become too
powerful even for the ordinary enforcement of the law.

The following day was so sultry and warm, that I
gave up all idea of a visit to Vaucluse. We spent
the morning under the trees which stand before the
café, in the village square, and at noon we took the
steamboat upon the Rhone for Arles. An hour or
two brought us to this ancient town, where we were
compelled to wait till the next day, the larger boat
which goes hence by the mouths of the Rhone to
Marseilles, being out of order.

We left our baggage in the boat, and I walked up
with the captain to see the town. An officer whom
we addressed for information on the quay politely offered
to be our guide, and we passed three or four
hours rambling about, with great pleasure. Our first
object was the Roman ruins, for which the town is
celebrated. We traversed several streets, so narrow
that the old time-worn houses on either side seemed
to touch at the top, and in the midst of a desolate and
poverty-stricken neighborhood, we came suddenly upon
a noble Roman amphitheatre of gigantic dimensions,
and sufficiently preserved to be a picturesque
ruin. It was built on the terrace of a hill, overlooking
the Rhone. From the towers of the gateway, the
view across the river into the lovely province of Languedoc,
is very extensive. The arena is an excavation
of perhaps thirty feet in depth, and the rows of seats,
all built of vast blocks of stone, stretch round it in retreating
and rising platforms to the surface of the hill.
The lower story is surrounded with dens; and the
upper terrace is enclosed with a circle of small apartments,
like boxes in a theatre, opening by handsome
arches upon the scene. It is the ruin of a noble
strcture, and even without the help of the imagination,
exceedingly impressive. It seems to be at present
turned into a play-ground. The dens and cavities
were full of black-eyed and happy creatures, hiding
and hallooing with all the delightful spirit and gayety
of French children. Probably, it was never appropriated
to a better use.

We entered the cathedral in returning. It is an
antique, and considered a very fine one. The twilight
was just falling; and the candles burning upon the
altar, had a faint, dull glare, making the dimness of
the air more perceptible. I walked up the long aisle
to the side chapel, without observing that my companions
had left me, and quite tired with my walk,
seated myself against one of the gothic pillars, enjoying
the quiet of the place, and the momentary relief
from exciting objects. It struck me presently that
there was a dead silence in the church, and, as much
to hear the sound of English as for any better motive,
I approached the priest's missal, which lay open on a
stand near me, and commenced translating a familiar
psalm aloud. My voice echoed through the building
with a fulness which startled me, and looking over my
shoulder, I saw that a simple, poor old woman was
kneeling in the centre of the church, praying alone.
She had looked up at my interruption of the silence
of the place, but her beads still slipped slowly through
her fingers, and feeling that I was intruding possibly
between a sincere worshipper and her Maker, I withdrew
to the side aisle, and made my way softly out of
the cathedral.

Arles appears to have modernized less than any
town I have seen in France. The streets and the inhabitants
look as if they had not changed for a century.
The dress of the women is very peculiar; the
waist of the gown coming up to a point behind, between
the shoulder blades, and consequently very short
in front, and the high cap bound to the head with
broad velvet ribands, suffering nothing but the jet

black curls to escape over the forehead. As a class,
they are the handsomest women I have seen. Nothing
could be prettier than the small-featured lively
brunettes we saw sitting on the stone benches at every
door.

We ran down the next morning, in a few hours to
Marseilles. It was a cloudy, misty day, and I did not
enjoy, as I expected, the first view of the Mediterranean
from the mouths of the Rhone. We put quite
out into the swell of the sea, and the passengers were
all strawn on the deck in the various gradations of
sickness. My friend the captain, and myself, had the
only constant stomachs on board. I was very happy
to distinguish Marseilles through the mist, and as we
approached nearer, the rocky harbor and the islands
of Chateau d' If and Pomègue, with the fortress at the
mouth of the harbor, came out gradually from the
mist, and the view opened to a noble amphitheatre of
rocky mountains, in whose bosom lies Marseilles at
the edge of the sea. We ran into the narrow cove
which forms the inner harbor, passing an American
ship, the “William Penn,” just arrived from Philadelphia,
and lying in quarantine. My blood started at
the slight of the starred flag; and as we passed closer
and I read the name upon her stern, a thousand recollections
of that delightful city sprang to my heart, and
I leaned over to her from the boat's side, with a feeling
of interest and pleasure to which the foreign tongue
that called me to bid adieu to newer friends, seemed
an unwelcome interruption.

I parted from my pleasant Parisian friend and his
family, however, with real regret. They were polite
and refined, and had given me their intimacy voluntarily
an I without reserve. I shook hands with them
on the quay, and wished the pale and quiet invalid better
health, with more of feeling than is common with
acquaintances of a day. I believe them kind and sincere,
and I have not found these qualities growing so
thickly in the world that I can thrust aside anything
that resembles them with a willing mistrust.

The quay of Marseilles is one of the most varied
scenes to be met with in Europe. Vessels of all nations
come trading to its port, and nearly every costume
in the world may be seen in its busy crowds. I
was surprised at the number of Greeks. Their picturesque
dresses and dark fine faces meet you at every
step, and it would be difficult, if it were not for the
shrinking eye, to believe them capable of an ignoble
thought. The mould of the race is one for heroes,
but if all that is said of them be true, the blood has
become impure. Of the two or three hundred I must
have seen at Marseilles, I searce remember one whose
countenance would not have been thought remarkable.

I have remained six days in Marseilles by the advice
of the Sardinian consul, who assured me that so
long a residence in the south of France, is necessary
to escape quarantine for the cholera, at the ports or on
the frontiers of Italy. I have obtained his certificate
to-day, and depart to-morrow for Nice. My forced
sejour here has been far from an amusing or a willing
one. The “mistral” has blown chilly and with suffocating
dryness, so that I have scarce breathed freely
since I entered the town, and the streets, though
handsomely laid out and built, are intolerable from the
dust. The sun scorches your skin to a blister, and
the wind chills your blood to the bone. There are
beautiful public walks, which, at the more moist seasons,
must be delightful, but at present the leaves on
the trees are all white, and you can not keep your eyes
open long enough to see from one end of the promenade
to the other. Within doors, it is true, I have
found everything which could compensate for such
evils; and I shall carry away pleasant recollections of
the hospitality of the Messrs. Fitch, and others of my
countrymen, living here — gentlemen whose courtesies
are well-remembered by every American traveller
through the south of France.

I sank into the corner of the coupé of the diligence
for Toulon, at nine o'clock in the evening, and awoke
with the gray of the dawn at the entrance of the pass
of Ollioules, one of the wildest defiles I ever saw.
The gorge is the bed of a winter torrent, and you
travel three miles or more between two mountains
seemingly cleft asunder, on a road cut out a little
above the stream, with naked rock to the height of
two or three hundred feet almost perpendicularly
above you. Nothing could be more bare and desolate
than the whole pass, and nothing could be richer or
more delightfully cultivated than the low valleys upon
which it opens. It is some four or five miles hence
to Toulon, and we traversed the road by sunrise, the
soft, gray light creeping through the olive and orange
trees with which the fields are laden, and the peasants
just coming out to their early labor. You see no
brute animal here except the mule; and every countryman
you meet is accompanied by one of these serviceable
little creatures, often quite hidden from sight
by the enormous load he carries, or pacing patiently
along with a master on his back, who is by far the
larger of the two.

The vineyards begin to look delightfully; for the
thick black stump which was visible over the fields
I have hitherto passed, is in these warm valleys covered
already with masses of luxuriant vine leaves, and
the hill-sides are lovely with the light and tender verdure.
I saw here for the first time, the olive and date
trees in perfection. They grow in vast orchards
planted regularly, and the olive resembles closely the
willow, and reaches about the same height and shape.
The leaves are as slender but not quite so long, and
the color is more dusky, like the bloom upon a grape.
Indeed, at a short distance, the whole tree looks like a
mass of untouched fruit.

I was agreeably disappointed in Toulon. It is a rural
town with a harbor — not the dirty seaport one naturally
expects to find it. The streets are the cleanest
I have seen in France, some of them lined with trees,
and the fountains all over it freshen the eye delightfully.
We had an hour to spare, and with Mr. D — e,
an Irish gentleman, who had been my travelling companion,
since I parted with my friend the Swiss, I
made the circuit of the quays. They were covered
with French naval officers and soldiers, promenading
and conversing in the lively manner of this gayest of
nations. A handsome child, of perhaps six years, was
selling roses at one of the corners, and for a sous, all
she demanded, I bought six of the most superb damask
buds just breaking into flower. They were the
first I had seen from the open air since I left America,
and I have not often purchased so much pleasure with
a copper coin.

Toulon was interesting to me as the place where
Napoleon's career began. The fortifications are very
imposing. We passed out of the town over the draw-bridge,
and were again in the midst of a lovely landscape,
with an air of bland and exhilarating softness, and everything
that could delight the eye. The road runs
along the shore of the Mediterranean, and the fields
are green to the water edge.

We arrived at Antibes to-day at noon, within fifteen
miles of the frontier of Sardinia. We have run
through most of the south of France, and have found
it all like a garden. The thing most like it in our
country is the neighborhood of Boston, particularly
the undulated country about Brookline and Dorchester.
Remove all the stone fences from that sweet
country, put here and there an old chateau on an eminence,
and change the pretty white mock cottages of
gentlemen, for the real stone cottages of peasantry,
and you have a fair picture of the scenery of this celebrated

shore. The Mediterranean should be added
as a distance, with its exquisite blue, equalled by
nothing but an American sky in a July noon — its
crowds of sail, of every shape and nation, and the
Alps in the horizon crested with snow, like clouds half
touched by the sun. It is really a delicious climate.
Out of the scorching sun the air is bracing and cool;
and though my ears have been blistered in walking up
the hills in a travelling cap, I have scarcely experienced
an uncomfortable sensation of heat, and this in my
winter dress, with flannels and a surtout, as I have
worn them for the six months past in Paris. The air
could not be tempered more accurately for enjoyment.
I regret to go in-doors. I regret to sleep it away.

Antibes was fortified by the celebrated Vauban, and
it looks impregnable enough to my unscientific eye.
If the portcullises were drawn up, I would not undertake
to get into the town with the full consent of the
inhabitants. We walked around the ramparts which
are washed by the Mediterranean, and got an appetite
in the sea-breeze, which we would willingly have dispensed
with. I dislike to abuse people, but I must
say that the cuisine of Madame Agarra, at the “Gold
Eagle,” is rather the worst I have fallen upon in my
travels. Her price, as is usual in France, was proportionably
exorbitant. My Irish friend, who is one
of the most religious gentlemen of his country I ever
met, came as near getting into a passion with his supper
and bill, as was possible for a temper so well disciplined.
For myself, having acquired only polite
French, I can but “look daggers” when I am abused.
We depart presently for Nice, in a ricketty barouche,
with post-horses, the courier, or post-coach, going no
farther. It is a roomy old affair, that has had pretensions
to style some time since Henri Quarte, but the
arms on its panels are illegible now, and the ambitious
driving-box is occupied by the humble materials
to remedy a probable break-down by the way. The
postillion is cracking his whip impatiently, my friend
has called me twice, and I must put up my pencil.

Antibes again! We have returned here after an
unsuccessful attempt to enter the Sardinian dominions.
We were on the road by ten in the morning,
and drove slowly along the shores of the Mediterranean,
enjoying to the utmost the heavenly weather and
the glorious scenery about us. The driver pointed
out to us a few miles from Antibes, the very spot on
which Napoleon landed on his return from Elba, and
the tree, a fine old olive, under which he slept three
hours, before commencing his march. We arrived at
the Pont de Var about one, and crossed the river, but
here we were met by a guard of Sardinian soldiers,
and our passports were demanded. The commissary
came from the guard-house with a long pair of tongs
and receiving them open, read them at the longest
possible distance. They were then handed back to
us in the same manner, and we were told we could not
pass. We then handed him our certificates of quarantine
at Marseilles; but were told it availed nothing,
a new order having arrived from Turin that very morning,
to admit no travellers from infected or suspected
places across the frontier. We asked if there were
no means by which we could pass; but the commissary
only shook his head, ordered us not to dismount
on the Sardinian side of the river, and shut his door.
We turned about and recrossed the bridge in some
perplexity. The French commissary at St. Laurent,
the opposite village, received us with a suppressed
smile, and informed us that several parties of travellers,
among others an English gentleman and his wife
and sister, were at the auberge, waiting for an answer
from the prefect of Nice, having been turned back in
the same manner since morning. We drove up, and
they advised us to send our passports by the postillion,
with a letter to the consuls of our respective nations,
requesting information, which we did immediately.

Nice is three miles from St. Laurent, and as we
could not expect an answer for several hours, we
amused ourselves with a stroll along the banks of the
Var to the Mediterranean. The Sardinian side is bold,
and wooded to the tops of the hills very richly. We
kept along a mile or more through the vineyards, and
returned in time to receive a letter from the American
consul, confirming the orders of the commissary, but
advising us to return to Antibes, and sail thence for
Villa Franca, a lazaretto in the neighborhood of Nice,
whence we could enter Italy, after seven days quarantine!
By this time several travelling-carriages had
collected, and all, profiting by our experience, turned
back together. We are now at the “Gold Eagle,”
deliberating. Some have determined to give up their
object altogether, but the rest of us sail to-morrow
morning in a fishing-boat for the lazaretto.

Lazaretto, Villa Franca. — There were but
eight of the twenty or thirty travellers stopped at the
bridge who thought it worth while to persevere. We
are all here in this pest-house, and a motley mixture
of nations it is. There are two young Sicilians returning
from college to Messina; a Belgian lad of
seventeen, just started on his travels; two aristocratic
young Frenchmen, very elegant and very ignorant of
the world, running down to Italy in their own carriage,
to avoid the cholera; a middle-aged surgeon in the
British navy, very cool and very gentlemanly; a vulgar
Marseilles trader, and myself.

We were from seven in the morning till two getting
away from Antibes. Our difficulties during the whole
day are such a practical comparison of the freedom
of European states and ours, that I may as well detail
them.

First of all, our passports were to be vised by the
police. We were compelled to stand an hour with
our hats off, in a close, dirty office, waiting our turn
for this favor. The next thing was to get the permission
of the prefect of the marine to embark; and this
occupied another hour. Thence we were taken to
the health-office, where a bill of health was made out
for eight persons going to a lazaretto! The padrone's
freight duties were then to be settled, and we went
back and forth between the Sardinian consul and the
French, disputing these for another hour or more.
Our baggage was piled upon the charrette at last, to
be taken to the boat. The quay is outside the gate,
and here are stationed the douanes, or custom-officers,
who ordered our trunks to be taken from the cart, and
searched them from top to bottom. After a half hour
spent in repacking our effects in the open street, amid
a crowd of idle spectators, we were suffered to proceed.
Almost all these various gentlemen expect a
fee, and some demand a heavy one; and all this trouble
and expense of time and money to make a voyage
of fifteen miles in a fishing-boat!

We hoisted the fisherman's lateen sail, and put out
of the little harbor in very bad temper. The wind
was fair, and we ran along the shore for a couple of
hours, till we came to Nice, where we were to stop for
permission to go to the lazaretto. We were hailed
off the mole with a trumpet, and suffered to pass.
Doubling a little point, half a mile farther on, we ran
into the bay of Villa Franca, a handful of houses at
the base of an amphitheatre of mountains. A little
round tower stood in the centre of the harbor, built
upon a rock, and connected with the town by a draw-bridge,
and we were landed at a staircase outside, by
which we mounted to show our papers to the health-officer.
The interior was a little circular yard, separated
from an office on the town side by an iron grating,
and looking out on the sea by two embrasures
for cannon. Two strips of water and the sky above

was our whole prospect for the hour that we waited
here. The cause of the delay was presently explained
by clouds of smoke issuing from the interior. The
tower filled, and a more nauseating odor I never inhaled.
We were near suffocating with the intolerable
smell, and the quantity of smoke deemed necessary to
secure his majesty's officers against contagion.

A cautious-looking old gentleman, with gray hair,
emerged at last from the smoke, with a long cane-pole
in his hand, and, coughing at every syllable, requested
us to insert our passports in the split at the extremity,
which he thrust through the gate. This being done,
we asked him for bread. We had breakfasted at seven,
and it was now sundown — near twelve hours' fast.
Several of my companions had been seasick with the
swell of the Mediterranean, in coming from Antibes,
and all were faint with hunger and exhaustion. For
myself, the villanous smell of our purification had
made me sick, and I had no appetite; but the rest ate
very voraciously of a loaf of coarse bread, which was
extended to us with a tongs and two pieces of paper.

After reading our passports, the magistrate informed
us that he had no orders to admit us to the lazaretto,
and we must lie in our boat till he could send a messenger
to Nice with our passports and obtain permission.
We opened upon him, however, with such a
flood of remonstrance, and with such an emphasis
from hunger and fatigue, that he consented to admit
us temporarily on his own responsibility, and gave the
boatmen orders to row back to a long, low stone building,
we had observed at the foot of a precipice at the
entrance to the harbor.

He was there before us, and as we mounted the
stone ladder he pointed through the bars of a large
inner gate to a single chamber, separated from the
rest of the building, and promising to send us something
to eat in the course of the evening, left us to
take possession. Our position was desolate enough.
The building was new, and the plaster still soft and
wet. There was not an article of furniture in the
chamber, and but a single window; the floor was of
brick, and the air as damp within as a cellar. The
alternative was to remain out of doors, in the small
yard, walled up thirty feet on three sides, and washed
by the sea on the other; and here, on a long block of
granite, the softest thing I could find, I determined to
make an al fresco night of it.

Bread, cheese, wine, and cold meat, seethed, Italian
fashion, in nauseous oil, arrived about nine o'clock;
and, by the light of a candle standing in a boot, we
sat around on the brick floor, and supped very merrily.
Hunger had brought even our two French exquisites
to their fare, and they ate well. The navy surgeon
had seen service, and had no qualms; the Sicilians
were from a German university, and were not delicate;
the Marseilles trader knew no better; and we should
have been less contented with a better meal. It was
superfluous to abuse it.

A steep precipice hangs immediately over the lazaretto,
and the horn of the half moon was just dipping
below it, as I stretched myself to sleep. With a folded
coat under me, and a carpet-bag for a pillow, I soon fell
asleep, and slept soundly till sunrise. My companions
had chosen shelter, but all were happy to be early
risers. We mounted our wall upon the sea, and
promenaded till the sun was broadly up, and the breeze
from the Mediterranean sharpened our appetites, and
then finishing the relics of our supper, we waited with
what patience we might the appearance of our breakfast.

The magistrate arrived at twelve, yesterday, with a
commissary from Villa Franca, who is to be our victualler
during the quarantine. He has enlarged our
limits, by a stone staircase and an immense chamber,
on condition that we pay for an extra guard, in the
shape of a Sardinian soldier, who is to sleep in our
room, and eat at our table. By the way, we have a
table, and four rough benches, and these, with three
single mattresses, are all the furniture we can procure.
We are compelled to sleep across the latter, of course,
to give every one his share.

We have come down very contentedly to our situation,
and I have been exceedingly amused at the
facility with which eight such different tempers can
amalgamate upon compulsion. Our small quarters
bring us in contact continually, and we harmonize
like schoolboys. At this moment the Marseilles trader
and the two Frenchmen are throwing stones at something
that is floating out with the tide; the surgeon
has dropped his Italian grammar to decide upon the
best shot; the Belgian is fishing off the wall, with a
pin hook and a bit of cheese; and the two Sicilians
are talking lingua franca, at the top of their voices, to
Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands coquetting
on the pier just outside the limits. I have got
out my books and portfolio, and taken possession of
the broad stair, depending on the courtesy of my companions
to jump over me and my papers when they go
up and down. I sit here most of the day laughing
at the fun below, and writing or reading alternately.
The climate is too delicious for discontent. Every
breath is a pleasure. The hills of the amphitheatre
opposite to us are covered with olive, lemon, and
orange trees; and in the evening, from the time the
land breeze commences to blow off shore, until ten or
eleven, the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume
of the orange-blossom, than which nothing could
be more grateful. Nice is called the hospital of
Europe; and truly, under this divine sky, and with
the inspiriting vitality and softness of the air, and all
that nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon
the hills, it is the place, if there is one in the world,
where the drooping spirit of the invalid must revive
and renew. At this moment the sun has crept from
the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, and
we shall scent presently the spicy wind from the shore.
I close my book to go upon the wall, which I see the
surgeon has mounted already with the same object,
to catch the first breath that blows seaward.

It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do
not think my eyes ever woke upon so lovely a day. The
long, lazy swell comes in from the Mediterranean as
smooth as glass; the sails of a beautiful yacht, belonging
to an English nobleman at Nice, and lying becalmed
just now in the bay, are hanging motionless
about the masts; the sky is without a speck, the air just
seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of the
frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then in
America I have felt a June morning that approached
it, but never the degree, the fulness, the sunny softness
of this exquisite clime. It tranquillizes the mind
as well as the body. You can not resist feeling contented
and genial. We are all out of doors, and my
companions have brought down their mattresses, and
are lying along the shade of the east wall, talking
quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen
on the quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard
lies asleep in his boat, the yellow flag of the
lazaretto clings to the staff, everything about us
breathes tranquility. Prisoner as I am, I would not
stir willingly to-day.

We have had two new arrivals this morning — a boat
from Antibes, with a company of players bound for the
theatre at Milan; and two French deserters from the
regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat, and
have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy.
They knew nothing of the quarantine, and were very
much surprised at their arrest. They will, probably,
be delivered up to the French consul. The new
comers are all put together in the large chamber next

us, and we have been talking with them through the
grate. His majesty of Sardinia is not spared in their
voluble denunciations.

Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious.
We lengthen our breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep
early and get up late, but a lazaretto is a dull place after
all. We have no books except dictionaries and grammars,
and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I shall
do the two remaining days, I can not divine. Our meals
were amusing for a while. We have but three knives
and four glasses; and the Belgian, having cut his plate
in two on the first day, has eaten since from the mash-bowl.
The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in a
shell; and the meats, to be kept warm during their
passage by water, are brought in the black utensils in
which they are cooked. Our tablecloth appeared to-day
of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat down to
breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with
youth and good spirits, we manage to be more contented
than one would expect; and our lively discussions
of the spot on the quay where the table shall be laid
and the noise of our dinners en plein air, would convince
a spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently
happy company.

I like my companions, on the whole, very much.
The surgeon has been in Canada and the west of New
York, and we have travelled the same routes, and
made, in several instances, the same acquaintances.
He has been in almost every part of the world also,
and his descriptions are very graphic and sensible.
The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold, the
Sicilians of the German universities; and, when I
have exhausted all they can tell me, I turn to our
Parisians, whom I find I have met all last winter without
noticing them at the parties; and we discuss the
belles, and the different members of the beau monde,
with all the touching air and tone of exiles from paradise.
In a case of desperate ennui, wearied with
studying and talking, the sea-wall is a delightful lounge,
and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the indolent
fancy, and begniles it well. I have never seen
such a beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly
rich and clear, like an intensely blue sky, heaving
into waves. I do not find the often-repeated description
of its loveliness exaggerated.

Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing
to eat our last dinner in the lazaretto with great
glee. A temporary table is already laid upon the
quay, and two strips of board raised upon some ingenious
contrivance, I can not well say what, and covered
with all the private and public napkins that retained
any portion of their maiden whiteness. Our
knives are reduced to two, one having disappeared unaccountably;
but the deficiency is partially remedied.
The surgeon has “whittled” a pine knot, which floated
in upon the tide, into a distant imitation; and one of
the company has produced a delicate dagger, that
looks very like a keepsake from a lady; and, by the reluctant
manner in which it was put to service, the profanation
cost his sentiment an effort. Its white handle
and silver sheath lie across a plate, abridged of its
proportions by a very formidable segment. There
was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that
contained the salt. It was too necessary to be made
an “aside,” and lies plump in the middle of the table.
I fear there has been more fun in the preparation than
we shall feel in eating the dinner when it arrives. The
Belgian stands on the wall, watching all the boats
from town; but they pass off down the harbor, one
after another, and we are destined to keep our appetites
to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs the
“sauce of hunger.”

The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's
boat must be in sight. As we get off at six
o'clock to-morrow morning, my portfolio shuts till I
find another resting place, probably Genoa.