CHAPTER I.
Departure from England—Danger of Shipwreck—Gibraltar—Malta—City of La Valetta—Public Edifices—General aspect of the Island—Commerce—Character of the Inhabitants—Island of Goza—Mansion of the Governor at San Antonio occupied by Lady Hester Stanhope—English Visitors—Lady Hester resolves on an Eastern Tour.
Departure from England—Danger of Shipwreck—Gibraltar—Malta—City of La Valetta—Public Edifices—General aspect of the Island—Commerce—Character of the Inhabitants—Island of Goza—Mansion of the Governor at San Antonio occupied by Lady Hester Stanhope—English Visitors—Lady Hester resolves on an Eastern Tour.
The writer of this narrative had just completed his studies in medicine, when he was engaged, through the recommendation of an eminent anatomist and surgeon, to attend Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, in the capacity of her physician, on a voyage to Sicily; in which island it was her intention to reside two or three years, for the benefit of her health, that hadsuffered greatly from family afflictions.[1]Her ladyship was accompanied by her half-brother, the Honourable James Hamilton Stanhope, and his friend, Mr. Nassau Sutton.
On the 10th of February, 1810, we embarked at Portsmouth, on board the Jason frigate, commanded by the Hon. James King, having under convoy a fleet of transports and merchant vessels bound for Gibraltar. Our voyage was an alternation of calms and gales. We were seven days in reaching the Land’s End; then, having passed Cape Finisterre and Cape St. Vincent, we were overtaken, on the 6th of March, by a violent gale of wind, which dispersed the convoy, and drove us so far to leeward that we found ourselves on the shoals of Trafalgar.
It was for some hours uncertain whether we should not have to encounter the horrors of shipwreck, on that very shore where so many brave sailors perished after the battle which derives its name from these shoals: but, on the following morning, by dint of beating to windward, under a pressure of sail, in a most tremendous sea, we weathered the land, and gained the Straits of Gibraltar, through which we ran.
We anchored in the Bay of Tetuan, at the back of the promontory of Ceuta, facing Gibraltar, on theAfrican coast. Mount Atlas, the scene of so many of the fables of antiquity, was visible from this point; but its form was far from corresponding with the shape pictured by my imagination, presenting rather the appearance of a chain of mountains than of one single mount.
The wind abated the next day, when we weighed anchor, and entered the Bay of Gibraltar. As we approached the rock, we were struck with the grandeur and singularity of its appearance. Lady Hester and her brother were received at the Convent, the residence of the lieutenant-governor, Lieut. Gen. Campbell. Mr. Sutton and myself had apartments assigned to us in a house adjoining the Convent, where we occasionally partook of the hospitality of Colonel M’Coomb, of the Corsican Rangers, although we dined and lived principally at the Governor’s palace.
I visited the fortifications in company with the Lieutenant-Governor and Captain Stanhope.
As I had never before sailed to a latitude so southern as Gibraltar, I was much struck with the difference of temperature into which we were now transported. There were flowers in bloom, shrubs in leaf, and other appearances of an early spring; and I hastened, the morning after our arrival, to enjoy the luxury of bathing in the sea. These feelings of pleasure at the change of climate were, however, greatly abated by the attacks to which we were daily and nightly exposed from the musquitoes, which entirely destroyed our rest.How impartial has Nature been in all her dealings! Go where you will, if you sum up the amount of good and evil, every country will be found to have about an equal portion of both; and, in many cases, where Providence has seemed to be more beneficent than was equitable, a little fly will strike the balance.
The French, about this time, had overrun almost the whole of Spain, and parties of their cavalry had approached within three miles of the fortifications of Gibraltar. Our excursions, therefore, beyond the isthmus were exceedingly limited, and the only neighbouring places I saw were St. Roque and Algeziras. Numbers of Spanish fugitives flocked in every day. Those who bore arms were sent to Cadiz, and the rest remained in security at Ceuta, a possession of the Spanish on the African side of the Straits, ceded about this time to the English.
The Marquis of Sligo and Mr. Bruce,[2]both of whom afterwards joined Lady Hester’s party, were also at Gibraltar. These gentlemen, with several other Englishmen and many Spanish noblemen and officers, who, with their families, had taken refuge here, constituted the society at the Lieutenant-Governor’s house.
Gibraltar seemed to me to be a place where no onewould live but from necessity. Provisions and the necessaries of life of all kinds were exceedingly dear. The meat was poor and lean; vegetables were scarce; and servants, from the plenty of bad wine, were always drunk. Out-door amusements on a rock, where half the accessible places are to be reached by steps only, or where a start of a horse would plunge his rider over a precipice, must be, of course, but few; although, to horsemen, the neutral ground, which is an isthmus of sand joining the rock to Spain, affords an agreeable level for equestrian exercise.
Soon after our arrival at Gibraltar, Captain Stanhope, Lady Hester’s brother, received an order to join his regiment, the 1st Foot Guards, at Cadiz; and Mr. Sutton departed for Minorca, whither his affairs led him. Her ladyship, for whom a garrison town had no charms, was anxious to pursue her voyage. Her state of health rendered the civilities, with which she was overwhelmed, irksome to her; so that she readily availed herself of an offer made by Captain Whitby,[3]of the Cerberus frigate, to take her passage with him to Malta: and, on the 7th of April, we sailed out of the bay, after a double risk, first of the boat’s being swamped in getting on board, and then of the frigate’s falling on a rock, by missing stays, in going out. We put into Port Mahon on our way,and arrived at Malta on the 21st of April, after a passage of fifteen days.
Few cities are more striking at first sight than La Valetta, the capital of Malta. It happened to be Easter day; and the ringing of bells and firing of crackers and guns, as we entered the harbour, about ten in the morning, together with the varied appearance of English, Moorish, and Greek ships, with their different flags mingled in a most agreeable confusion, and reflected from a green water, transparent to the bottom, at the foot of stupendous fortifications, altogether rendered it one of the most cheerful and animating sights we had ever beheld.
Lady Hester was expected at Malta, and the Governor and some other persons of note invited her to take up her residence at their houses. She accepted the invitation of Mr. Fernandez, the Deputy Commissary-General. We landed in the afternoon. In walking through the streets, I found myself surrounded by buildings, different in style from any that I had yet seen, and jostled by a race of people, sufficiently strange to attract my attention strongly. I now felt that I was fairly out of England; which, while in Gibraltar, where the population is so largely made up of English, and where the English language is so generally spoken, I never could persuade myself to be the case.
The residence of Mr. Fernandez was a large house, formerly the inn[4]or hotel of the French knights: eachnation, as it would appear, having had a separate palace to lodge in. The sleeping rooms were old-fashioned and gloomy, with windows like embrasures, almost twenty feet apart.
Malta contains two principal cities and twenty-two villages, orcasals, as they are called. The old city, Civita Vecchia, was the only one at the time the knights took possession of the island. It is still called by the natives El Medina (the Arabic word for thecity.). It has no edifices worthy of notice but the palace of the grand-master and the cathedral, in which are some paintings by Matthias Preti. Its greatest curiosity is the catacombs. They are very extensive, and contain what may be called excavated streets in all directions. From these branch off corridors, wherein are formed apartments containing tombs or sepulchres without number. These catacombs have likewise served as asylums for individuals who fled from religious persecution, and for the inhabitants generally, whenever piratical descents were made on the island.
The modern city, Valetta, was founded in 1566; and, by the enthusiasm of the islanders, who voluntarily aided in the works, it was finished in 1571. It is entirely built of the calcareous stone of the rock on which it stands. A piece of ground was given to each of the nations (orlanguages, as it was usual to style them) for their respective habitations or inns. The streets are built at right angles, and paved withflat square stones, and the houses are spacious, lofty, and with regular fronts, most of them having a balcony projecting over the street. The object of the architect seems to have been, besides beauty and strength, to gain shade and coolness. Hence the walls of the houses are generally from six to twelve feet thick, and the floors always of stone:[5]the doors are folding, and the windows down to the ground. In every house of the principal inhabitants, in the summer, there is a suite of rooms thrown open. Thus, by having five or six rooms in a line, great coolness, and, if required, a current of air is obtained, the value of which can be sufficiently appreciated by those only who live in very hot countries. In most of the dwellings, the ground floor is used for warehouses and shops; and the family resides on the first floor, the bed-rooms and sitting-rooms being all on the same level. Every house has a cistern, into which rain-water runs from the roof. These roofs, formed of an excellent cement, are flat. Besides the privatecisterns, there are public reservoirs, and also a fountain, the source of which is at the village of Diar Chandal, twelve or thirteen miles from La Valetta whither the water is conveyed by a subterranean aqueduct.
The public edifices most worthy of notice are the Palace of the Grand Master, the Hotels or Inns of the differentlanguages, the Conservatory, the Treasury, the University, the Town Hall, the Palace of Justice, the Hospital, and the Barracks, all built with great simplicity. Indeed, La Valetta is much more striking from the arrangement of the general mass of buildings than from the details of any particular one.
The palace, once the residence of the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, is a magnificent edifice, in its general appearance somewhat like Somerset House. It contains many splendid rooms and saloons, hung with tapestry and damask; and there is a spacious hall, the walls of which are curiously painted in commemoration of the naval victories of the Christian knights over the Moslems. The grand staircase is of remarkably easy ascent. In one part of the Conservatory is the Library: in 1790, it had 60,000 volumes, although founded so lately as 1760: its rapid increase was owing to a law, whereby the books of every knight, at his decease, wherever he might be, were to be sent to Malta. Adjoining to the library is a museum, which contains many interesting objects.
The Hospital is a spacious edifice, open for thesick and wounded of all countries. The knights were formerly bound to attend them, and the utensils employed were almost all of silver, but of quite plain workmanship; so that it might be seen that cleanliness, not ostentation, was the purpose for which they were made.
The Church of St. John is a building, the imposing grandeur of which, when I first saw it, made a strong impression upon me. It consists of an immense nave, from which branch off, right and left, small chapels, each adorned with richly sculptured altars, beautified with everything that superstition can collect. The roof is arched, and painted in fresco by Matthias Preti, the Calabrian. The walls are also decorated with paintings by him and other masters: and the pavement is one uninterrupted piece of mosaic of coloured marbles. Some idea of its effect may be formed by imagining the pictures in the gallery of the Louvre at Paris to be taken from their frames, sewed together, and the spectator to be walking on them. The subjects are less lively, certainly; because, in St. John’s church, each mosaic picture covers the tomb of some Maltese knight, and consequently death and his emblems form the principal features in it; but they are not the less beautiful. The church of St. John was built by the Grand-Master, La Cassière: its riches were, before their spoliation by the French, immense, from the donations made every five years by the master and priors of the order, and by the piety of individuals.The carved ornaments were all gilt with sequin gold by the liberality of the Grand-Master, Coloner.
There is a pleasure garden, called the Boschetto, nearly south-west of La Valetta, which is the only place in the island that has trees of any size: they are arranged in symmetrical forms; and there are several avenues and arbours of orange-trees, interspersed with cedars. This garden is situate in a deep valley, where springs communicate a refreshing coolness to the atmosphere.
The general appearance of the island of Malta is the most unpromising for agriculture that can be conceived. Nowhere is the face of nature so uninviting. A surface of stone has, however, by the effect of industry, been powdered over with a soil, the general depth of which is said to be from six inches to a foot: yet, on this scanty bed, grow lemon, orange, pomegranate, fig, and other fruit-trees, besides corn, cotton, lichen, kali, &c., in the greatest luxuriance. The vines spread wherever they are trained, and the oranges acquire the richest flavour.
Cotton is much cultivated in Malta. That which I saw most frequently was of a cinnamon colour when raw, and not like the white common cotton. Corn is said to yield from 16 to 60 for 1. The fruits are of exquisite flavour. Flowers are very fine, and I could not help fancying the roses more fragrant than in my own country. Malta honey is highly esteemed; but always remains in a liquid state.
The commerce of Malta consists in the exportation of oranges and lemons, potash, lichen, orange-flower water, preserved apricots, pomegranates, honey, seeds of vegetables, and Maltese stone. The Maltese likewise export fillagree-work, in which the native artists excel; also clocks and boilers. They import corn, cloth, fuel, wine, brandy, &c. Ice brought from Sicily is likewise an article of great consumption. The profits of their exports would not have been sufficient to defray even the cost of the quantity of corn imported: but, to meet this, they had, during the existence of the Order, the prizes made at sea, whereas now they have the consumption of provisions for victualling ships and a flourishing commerce.
The Maltese are very expert and daring seamen. In their speronaras, which are boats without a deck, about thirty feet long, they are to be seen in all parts of the Mediterranean; and, like the sailors of the Kentish and Sussex coast, as their principal occupation is smuggling, they cannot always wait to choose their weather to put to sea in.
Since the English had been in possession of the island, commerce had flourished to a prodigious extent, as was demonstrated by the fleets of merchantmen constantly floating in the spacious harbours, and by the splendid equipages and sumptuous entertainments of the merchants, who were living in a style of luxury suitable to princes.
Nor can I refrain from saying a few words on the almost regal entertainments which the governor atthis time gave. His palace, well fitted for the display of a court, with its spacious halls and vast saloons, was often the scene of banquets and festivities, which I scarcely can hope to see again. The English, shut out from the continent, resorted principally to the Mediterranean. Malta, when we arrived there, was full of English and Neapolitan nobility, and the officers of the fleet and of the garrison, vying in their showy dresses with the foreign costumes intermixed with them, formed a striking picture. Dinners of fifty or sixty covers were of every day’s occurrence at the Governor’s palace, and the singular usage of a high table, as in college-halls at the Universities, was not uncommon at suppers after balls. On one occasion, it fell to my lot to hand a lady of rank into the supper-room, and, taking a seat by her side, I found myself directly opposite to the governor, separated by the breadth and not the length of the table, with the Duchess of Pienne on his right hand, Lady Hester on his left, and a string of Lords and Ladies and Counts and Countesses on either hand. But Lady Hester had then recently quitted England, and she had not yet begun her tirades against “doctors and tutors,” nor possibly would have dared openly to intimate the aristocratic superiority of rank over professional claims, as she did afterwards: so she was delighted to see me enjoy myself, and pleased at the attentions which the General showed me, in common with his other guests.
The Maltese have never mixed with the nations which have held them in subjection. Their original character, therefore, remains unchanged, and their physiognomy indicates an African origin. Their hair is curly; they have flattish noses, and turned-up lips, and their colour and language are nearly the same as those of the people of the Barbary States. It is a lingo of Italian grafted on Arabic. They are said to be active, faithful, economical, courageous, and good sailors; but they are Africans for passion, jealousy, vindictiveness, and thieving, being likewise very mercenary. Their superstition in religious matters is proverbial. By many English, however, who had resided among them for some time, the Maltese were pronounced to be ferocious, ignorant, lazy, passionate, revengeful, and, if married, jealous beyond conception.
Of their superstition an example occurred just before our arrival, in the brutal manner in which they treated a British officer of the 14th regiment of foot, who, whether purposely or unintentionally, offended them by passing through the line of a procession on horseback, for which supposed insult to their religion they dragged him from his horse, and nearly tore him in pieces. I cannot, however, forbear to observe that the lower orders did not appear to deserve the charge of laziness; for the men were slim in their persons, quick in their intellects, and of inconceivable activity. They are remarkably sober in theirdiet: an onion or an anchovy, with dry bread, will serve them for a meal. No people are more attached to their country than the Maltese to their barren rock.
The upper classes of the inhabitants dress like the French: but the common people wear a dress resembling that which is given to Figaro in the opera, with this difference, that they have trousers instead of tight breeches.
The women are small, and have beautiful hands and feet. When they go out, they wear a black silk shawl, which covers their head and half the face, and is very gracefully wrapped about their bodies; beneath this is a coloured upper petticoat, and a corset or stomacher. They are fond to excess of gold ornaments, which they estimate by value more than taste: and their ears, necks, and arms are set off with rings, chains, and bracelets. They wear shoe-buckles of gold or silver. Although very brown, they are often handsome—I think generally so: and when I say that they are in figure like English maid-servants, I do not mean to disparage them by such a comparison, but rather to mark the plumpness of their flesh and the roundness of their limbs. Children, until they are six or seven years old, are seen rolling naked in the filth of the streets.
The repasts of the Maltese are plentiful: they dine at twelve and sup in the evening. When an entertainment is given, it is common to have three complete courses, and from five to ten different sorts of wine.They rise from table after dinner, taking coffee and liqueurs, like the French. Both rich and poor indulge themselves with a siesta after dinner, generally until half-past two or three o’clock. During this time, the shops are shut; and, to judge by the stillness which reigns in town and country from twelve to three o’clock, one would suppose that the island was deserted. About half-past two the shops are re-opened; as evening comes on, the population appears out of doors, and all is gaiety and life.
There are some antient remains on the island, as the ruins of Ghorghenti; of Hagior Khan; of a Greek house at Casal Zorrick; and of a supposed temple of Hercules.
Goza, a smaller island, separated by a channel, four miles broad, from Malta, has some tracts of pasture land on it, and supplies Malta with cattle and fruit. There are some Cyclopean remains on this island worthy of inspection. It has also an alabaster quarry near the village of Zeberg, and a convent of Capuchin friars, about half a mile from which is a grotto of neat workmanship hollowed out of the rock.
I was told that, in sailing round this small island, several remarkable appearances are presented by its cliffs, which have some curious caves in their sides. For two or three miles, they rise quite perpendicular to the height of from 130 to 160 feet: yet so daring are the inhabitants, that, for the sake of birds’ eggs or of fishing, they will venture down their sides, steppingfrom crag to crag, where, to an inexperienced eye, it would appear utterly impossible to find footing.
About five miles from La Valetta there was a country residence of the Governor’s, called the palace of St. Antonio, in a village of the same name. On our first arrival in the island, it was occupied by Lord and Lady Bute: but, on their departure for England, on the 28th of May, General Oakes,[6]who showed on all occasions great attention to Lady Hester, politely offered it for her residence; we therefore quitted the hospitable roof of Mr. Fernandez, and betook ourselves thither on the 1st of June.
This palace is a large irregular edifice, with a beggarly exterior, rendered more ugly by a quadrangular steeple, which looks like a belfry. It is constructed of the soft stone of the island, with stone floors, and with ceilings and walls painted in fresco. The walls were hung with some tolerable pictures. The entrance to it is by an avenue of orange trees, the appearance of which, though richer, is much less imposing than the lofty oaks and elms forming the avenues of our own country. About half way down the avenue, which is two hundred and fifty yards long, the road turns abruptly on the left into the courtyard of the palace: this is spacious, and covered with vines to the right and left. At the end of it two doors lead, one into the house and the other into the garden.
The house contains some handsome and spacious rooms, but the absence of carpeting and matting, rendered necessary by the heat of the climate, gave an air of nakedness displeasing to the eye of an Englishman. I always felt as if sitting in a stone kitchen. It was in the garden that a proper estimate might be formed of the magnificence of the mansion, which might vie, in horticultural beauties, with many of the first gardens in Europe. In its plan it was not unlike theorangerieat Versailles; but at Versailles, no care could ever give to the orange, pomegranate, and lemon trees, half the vigour they showed here. The walks were lined with myrtle hedges, ten feet high; and there was a terrace with a colonnade, where the vines twined their branches in wonderful profusion in every direction in which they were trained. There were five hedges also of double oleander; and, as a proof of the luxuriance of the growth of plants, the marshmallow, if left in the soil, grew to the height of a filbert-tree.
The Governor, General Oakes, strove, in every way in his power, to render Lady Hester’s stay at Malta agreeable to her. He visited her daily at the palace of St. Antonio, and we were his constant guests at the dinners and parties at his own residence.
At the beginning of July, in this year, an earthquake was felt by several inhabitants of Malta. I should presume that habit renders persons quicker at feeling these slight shocks; for, during many yearsthat I was up the Mediterranean, I was present when shocks were felt, but never perceived them myself.
On the 29th of July, Mr. Adair and Mr. Hobhouse, returning from Constantinople, landed at Malta, and, after performing a short quarantine, were entertained at the Governor’s. Many British travellers had visited Malta in the course of this year: for, besides those of whom mention has already been made, there were several noblemen, as also Mr. Thomas Sheridan, whose brilliant vivacity was not yet diminished by the incipient malady under which he finally sunk, Mr. Drummond, Mr. Fiott,[7]and Mr. B.; the last of whom, when he learned that Lady Hester’s brother had been called away by his duties as a soldier, undertook to escort her in the perilous journey which she had resolved to make through European and Asiatic Turkey.
Lady H. Stanhope had begun to grow tired of Malta. The thermometer generally stood as high as 85° Fahrenheit in the afternoon, and the excessive heat had produced some disagreeable effects on her constitution, so that she often complained of sickness of stomach, feverish thirst, and loss of appetite; and was tormented with many other painful sensations which the summer months commonly produce in those, who, for the first time, visit hot countries.
Sicily was at that time threatened with a descentfrom the coast of Calabria; where Murat, the new King of Naples, was in person urging on the necessary preparations. Several English and Sicilian families had hastily quitted the island to take refuge in Malta, and many fears were entertained as to the probable issue of the enterprise. At all events, the impending storm presented no temptations to Lady Hester to go thither, and she accordingly changed her destination for the only part of Europe which was now open to the English, namely, Turkey.
I have said that Mr. B. had undertaken to escort Lady Hester into Greece. Her ladyship had brought out with her an English maid, named Ann Fry, and a valet, named François, a native of Coblentz.
Lady Hester had been fortunate enough, on two former occasions, to obtain a king’s ship to convey her from place to place: but it was vain to hope that one could now be spared, when every vessel on the station was so much needed to scour the Straits of Messina, and to prevent the threatened landing in Sicily. Accordingly, she resolved on hiring a merchant-vessel; and an American brig, bound for Smyrna, was almost engaged, when it happened that the Belle Poule frigate of 38 guns, commanded by Captain C. Brisbane, came into Malta from Corfu, to which island she was to return; and the captain very politely offered to convey her ladyship and her party to one of the Ionian Islands.
On the second of August, we embarked in the BellePoule, and arrived at the cruizing station, off Corfu, on the third day. We passed Corfu, Little and Great Cephalonia, and Fano, and on the 8th anchored in the bay of Zante.