A Most Agreeable Contrast To The Arid Rocks Of The
General Scenery Was The Garden At The Governor's Country-House;
With The Orange-Trees And Water, Its Beautiful Golden Grapes,
Luxuriant Flowers, And Thick Cool Shrubberies.
The eye longs for
this sort of refreshment, after being seared with the hot glare of
the general country; and St. Antonio was as pleasant after Malta as
Malta was after the sea.
We paid the island a subsequent visit in November, passing
seventeen days at an establishment called Fort Manuel there, and by
punsters the Manuel des Voyageurs; where Government accommodates
you with quarters; where the authorities are so attentive as to
scent your letters with aromatic vinegar before you receive them,
and so careful of your health as to lock you up in your room every
night lest you should walk in your sleep, and so over the
battlements into the sea - if you escaped drowning in the sea, the
sentries on the opposite shore would fire at you, hence the nature
of the precaution. To drop, however, this satirical strain: those
who know what quarantine is, may fancy that the place somehow
becomes unbearable in which it has been endured. And though the
November climate of Malta is like the most delicious May in
England, and though there is every gaiety and amusement in the
town, a comfortable little opera, a good old library filled full of
good old books (none of your works of modern science, travel, and
history, but good old USELESS books of the last two centuries), and
nobody to trouble you in reading them, and though the society of
Valetta is most hospitable, varied, and agreeable, yet somehow one
did not feel SAFE in the island, with perpetual glimpses of Fort
Manuel from the opposite shore; and, lest the quarantine
authorities should have a fancy to fetch one back again, on a
pretext of posthumous plague, we made our way to Naples by the very
first opportunity - those who remained, that is, of the little
Eastern Expedition. They were not all there. The Giver of life
and death had removed two of our company: one was left behind to
die in Egypt, with a mother to bewail his loss, another we buried
in the dismal lazaretto cemetery.
* * *
One is bound to look at this, too, as a part of our journey.
Disease and death are knocking perhaps at your next cabin door.
Your kind and cheery companion has ridden his last ride and emptied
his last glass beside you. And while fond hearts are yearning for
him far away, and his own mind, if conscious, is turning eagerly
towards the spot of the world whither affection or interest calls
it - the Great Father summons the anxious spirit from earth to
himself, and ordains that the nearest and dearest shall meet here
no more.
Such an occurrence as a death in a lazaretto, mere selfishness
renders striking. We were walking with him but two days ago on
deck.
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