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The
Cruise ofthe Fleur-de-Lys

in

The Mediterranean

LEWIS A. STIMSON

Privately printed

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TBew Boris
1904

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The cruise of which the following is an account was
made in the spring and summer of 1904. To it is
added an account of a portion of a similar cruise made
in 1 90 1. In the earlier cruise the yacht sailed from
New York about March 15th, was joined by the party
at Gibraltar a month later, and sailed thence directly
to Palermo; then Malta was visited, Greece, the
Mgeaxi islands, the Gulf of Corinth, and the Adriatic.
On the return the west coast of Italy was skirted as
far as Leghorn, and we sailed for home from Gibral
tar July 20th, taking the long southerly route by
Madeira, and reaching home August 17th.
On the second cruise the yacht sailed from New
York early in April, was joined at Gibraltar May 5th,
and then cruised along the north coast of Africa,
nearly all the coast of Sicily, and the Dalmatian coast
to Venice. Returning, we visited Naples, Elba, and
Nice, and sailed from Gibraltar for home August
4th, by way of the Azores, arriving September 3d.
If the west coast of Italy and Nice had been omitted,
it would probably not have been difficult to include
Greece and the JEgean in the latter trip in the same
time, or at least at the cost of not more than a fort
night. As such a variation might appeal to some,
that portion of the first trip has been included in this
account of the second. The only heavy weather en
countered in the Mediterranean was a week's gale in

April, a short one in the upper Adriatic in June, and
another at Leghorn in July — all in the first trip. It
was never uncomfortably warm on the boat, the
warmest weather being in the neighborhood of Nice
in July, and even in the excursions on shore the heat
was less felt than in summer journeyings near New
York. In both of the outward voyages there was a good
deal of heavy weather; one consumed twenty -eight,
the other thirty, days. The return voyages, exclud
ing the stops at Madeira and St. Michaels, occupied
exactly four weeks. In the first we went as far south
as latitude 240 and had delightful weather through
out, never reefing or even stowing the topsails. In
the second the winds were light, but generaUy favor
able, except for one day's encounter with a circular
storm. The distance traversed in the first was 4300
miles ; in the second, 3400.
The average day's sailing in the Mediterranean in
the first trip was eighty miles; in the second, until
July, a little above one hundred, but during that
month it fell below sixty.
The navigation of the Mediterranean in this season
is easy and safe. Thunderstorms arising among the
mountains are occasionally met, but we always had
sufficient warning of their approach.
The harbors are numerous, and most of them have
been made commodious and well-sheltered by exten
sive moles and breakwaters. Pilots habitually come
out in small boats to take the ships to moorings ; their
employment is not compulsory, and their charges,
fixed by ordinance, are moderate. The highest we
paid was thirty francs, at Palermo.

Charts. — The U. S. Hydrographic Office publishes
a large chart of the Mediterranean in three sheets —
eastern, middle, and western, — one of the approach
to it, including the Azores and Madeira, and one of the
Straits of Gibraltar. Excellent detail charts, pub
lished by the British Admiralty, can be had at mod
erate cost. Ours were obtained through John Bliss
& Co., 128 Front Street, New York City. The U. S.
Hydrographic Office has prepared for the officers of
the Navy a list of its own and the British charts of the
world, arranged in geographical sequence, by the aid
of which a selection can be conveniently made.
The Mediterranean Pilot, in four volumes, contains
valuable and interesting information, but is unduly
alarming in its account of the dangers and perils that
may be encountered.
No pilot was employed, except for entering some
ports, the charts being so full and detailed that we
could find our way without difficulty, even among the
islands of the Dalmatian coast ; but one day we took
a tow from Spalato to Zara, with a stop at Sebenico,
because time pressed and we feared to be delayed at
the long, narrow passage ten miles south of Zara.
Tugs are to be had at all the larger ports, but we
used them only at Gibraltar, Algiers, Venice, and the
Peiraeus: at the first because of failing wind, at the
others because the port was crowded or the channel
tortuous. We went into Naples and Venice once
under the tow of our own launch.
Supplies. — At Gibraltar supplies of all kinds are
abundant, and at Algiers we found well-stocked stores,
although we had occasion to purchase but little there.
In Italy canned foods are scarce and very dear, and
3

nowhere in the Mediterranean could we find ham or
bacon except in small quantities and at very high
prices. If there is sufficient room in the yacht it is
advisable to carry all the canned food that may be
required, except perhaps milk, which can be had
nearly everywhere. Ground coffee spoils very quickly
on exposure tb the air ; if carried it should be in her
metically closed packages only large enough for two
or three days' use. We found it easy to get good
roasted coffee, and ground it as needed. Kerosene
also is very dear in Italy, but was cheap in Austria.
We used a good deal of it in the launch. Coal is poor
and smoky, and we found it much better to use coke
or charcoal for cooking. Coke can be had in most
places and charcoal everywhere; their rise kept the
deck free from smoke, and the galley was cooler. The
cook at first viewed charcoal askance, but soon showed
for it all the enthusiasm of a proselyte.
Water at Gibraltar, Algeria, Spalato, Naples, and
Villefranche was apparently wholesome and well pro
tected against infection. At Gibraltar it is rain
water collected from areas on the side of the rock
arranged for the purpose ; at the other places it was
drawn from distant springs on sparsely settled hiU-
sides. We carried a Pasteur filter of seven bougies,
which proved large enough for the galley ; but in the
cabin we exclusively used bottled water, getting
Mattoni-Gieshiibler in Austria, Nocera in Italy, and
St. Galmier and Evian in France.
The Fleur-de-Lys is a schooner of 86 tons, 87 feet
water-line, 108 feet over all, and nearly 14 feet
draught. Primarily a cruising yacht, she is yet suf
ficiently sparred to make good progress in light
4

weather. The rig was not shortened for the ocean
passages, and she has often proved herself able to
carry it with comfort and safety in heavy weather.
The prevalent light winds in the Mediterranean in
summer are a great temptation to carry the large
light sails so freely used on our own coast, but I have
come to the opinion that a square foresail would prob
ably be an advantageous substitute for the spinnaker.
We met several yachts so rigged. With a raphe it
could be made to spread almost as much available
canvas as a spinnaker, and could be much more easily
set and shifted. It would also permit the course to
be safely held with the wind directly aft and a con
siderable sea. It is exasperating to have to steer a
couple of points off the course with a free wind, to
beat to leeward as well as to windward, through fear
of having the mainsail jibed over in some sharp roll.
It would hardly be prudent to select a boat that
was fit only for light weather; the season would
hardly pass without at least one sharp blow, and the
sea makes quickly and is disagreeably short. Al
though there are many ports and islands or headlands
where shelter could be found, yet the ship should be
able to last through a hard blow and to carry sail
enough in one to work off a leeshore. The harbors
are so deep and shoal water is so infrequent that any
reasonable draught can be carried. If the model is
one that combines seaworthiness with easy progress in
light winds, delays may be avoided which might seem
to the impatient voyager a large price to pay for
absolute security.
A launch is useful for excursions and occasionally
to tow into or out of harbors, or away from some foul

ground toward which a current may be setting. Our
launch used kerosene as fuel, which could always be
obtained, as is not the case, I believe, with naphtha.
Some small devices added materially to comfort on
deck and in the saloon. Scupper-valves — square pads
of leather or rubber, tacked along the vertical side
in front of the outboard scupper holes and overlap
ping them, — keep the water from rushing in when the
ship is heeled, and thus make the lee side of the deck
fit for comfortable occupation, which the shade of the
sail sometimes makes desirable. The pads do not
obstruct the escape of water which reaches the deck
through any other channel. In rough, cold weather
a comfortable sheltered seat can be arranged under
the weather rail by a deck cushion and a short plank
placed vertically against the rail to support the back ;
and a canvas wind- or sun-screen can be adjusted to
a steamer chair by two light iron rods, fixed in eye-
bolts at the back and bent forward over the head of
the occupant, a rough imitation of the Scheveningen
chair. A standing, bell-mouthed deck ventilator
adds greatly to the freshness and coolness of a state
room. In the saloon we found it a great convenience
to shift the table from the centre to a corner, where
two or three could sit upon the fixed seats instead of
chairs ; and a small wooden wedge, placed under the
lee side of a plate, leaves both hands and the attention
free, and makes the position of the lee guest less
perilous. Those to whom considerations of health specially
appeal may be interested to know that our party —
the same in four cruises — always thrived, and that we
all believe the time could not have been spent more
6

wholesomely. In its effect upon body -weight we were
surprised and pleased. We expected that the seden
tary life, the inability to take regular exercise, com
bined with the stimulus of the open air, would add to
our weight, but, on the contrary, we all lost weight
and did so each time. Mine feU regularly from 185
or 190 pounds to 170, or even less, with a distinct in
crease in comfort and the sense of well-being. I
attribute it to the constant living in the open air, day
and night, and to the simplicity and moderation of the
table. A diet of canned foods does not lend itself to
multiplicity of courses or variety of dishes, and our
meals, while always welcomed with appetite, were
very simple. Fresh meat could scarcely be carried
for more than a day, and the canned substitutes were
often absent from the table for several successive
meals; spaghetti and Boston baked beans took its
place continuously and were never wearied of.
Canned soups, brought from home, were always used
at lunch and dinner and sometimes between meals.
Artichokes lasted until July, and lettuce and toma
toes could always be carried for a week and some
times for a fortnight. Oranges and lemons lasted
throughout the trip; cherries, figs, and pears were
abundant in June and July. We used the native red
and white wines freely, with only one slight intima
tion that French clarets might have done better by us
than the somewhat heavier Spanish and Italian wines.
As for exercise, there is perhaps more of it involved
in getting about the deck and in the automatic main
tenance of equilibrium, even when seated, than would
be supposed. At any rate the health of the party
gave no indication that it was missed.

I am often asked if it was not tedious, if we should
not have preferred a steam yacht or an auxiliary. I
have no hesitation in replying "No" to both ques
tions. Yachting under steam and yachting under
sail are two radically different things. In one you
sail in order to get somewhere, and the sailing is an
incident ; in the other you sail for the sake of sailing,
and the arrival is the incident. No one planning a
cruise under sail should have a time schedule. He
must be content to arrive when he gets there, and
must find his pleasure in his daily, his hourly ex
perience. When the wind fails he finds pleasurable
anticipation in watching a coming cloud or a darken
ing ripple on the distant water, and when the breeze
does come the past is forgotten in the joy of the
swelling sails, the bending spars, and the rush of the
water past the side. No, if there were always a
breeze it would pall. If we were always happy and
fortunate we should not know it. For one who loves
the sea, for one to whom the boat is an almost sentient
being with whims, fancies, and an individuality, and
for whom every varying mood of sea and sky has
interest and charm, steam can never take the place of
sails, and even auxiliary power will be spurned until
years and growing need of little comforts and luxuries
force an unwilling acceptance.
Life on board quickly finds a routine which speeds
the hours with flying feet, and every variation in wind
or sea brings an interest. Even in the momentary
wakenings at night the mind takes interested notice of
the ripple by the side, the heeling or the motion of the
boat, to judge the strength and direction of the wind
or the changes of the weather. Our girls soon grew
8

so expert that they knew before coming on deck in
the morning what the night had done, and their first
glance from the companionway was to the trim of the
sails and the appearance to windward, and the first
question was to ask the course. They could estimate
the speed, or judge the trim, or make a good sugges
tion as well as any one ; and of course the attention
which gave them that power grew from, and devel
oped, interest.
We carried a good library, light and serious, and
often read aloud together, the actuality of the sub
jects being often increased by the coasts we were
skirting or the places we were visiting. Backgammon
could always be played on deck, whatever the weather,
and one of the party was always ready to play it.
Cards of an evening occasionally, but as a rule the
evenings were spent on deck in quiet enjoyment of
the fading scene, and all retired early. Needlework
occupied many hours, and became a passion after our
visit to Bologna and introduction to Emilian art.
Without it and beadwork time would certainly have
passed much less pleasantly for the ladies.
Among the books which we found locally useful and
interesting were the Baedekers for the countries vis
ited: Northern, Southern, and Central Italy, Greece,
and Austria for the Dalmatian coast; Hare, Southern
Italy; Murray's Handbook for Algiers. In history:
Fisher, Outlines of Universal History ; Freeman,
Sicily; Abbott, Pericles; Hodgkin, Invaders of Italy
(at least the first four volumes) ; Fyffe, History of
Modem. Europe. For Africa: Maupassant, La Vie
Errante; Daudet, Tartarin de Tarascon; Field, The
Barbary Coast. For Sicily: Paton, Picturesque

Sicily; and Thucydides for Syracuse. For Greece:
Harper's Cyclopedia of Classical Literature and An
tiquities; Pausanias; Byron's Childe Harold; Rich
ardson, Vacation Days in Greece, containing also
something for Sicily and Dalmatia; About, La Grece
contemporaine and Le Roi des Montagnes; Deschamps,
La Grece d'aujourd'hui; Gardner's small Handbook of
Greek Sculpture (invaluable on the spot) ; Mahaffy,
Rambles and Studies in Greece; Phillips, War of Greek
Independence; Barrows, The Isles and Shrines of Greece.
For Italy: Symonds, Sketches and Studies in Italy and
Greece; Howells, Italian Journeys, Venetian Days,
Tuscan Cities; Brown, Life on the Lagoons (Venice) ;
Carmichael, In Tuscany; Munro, Bosnia, Herzo-
govina, and Dalmatia ; Marion Crawford, Rulers of the
South.

The yacht sailed from New York, April 2d, and at
once encountered a northeast gale; she ran to the
southeast for two days, and then had delightful
weather to the Azores. Then the wind came strong
from the east and southeast and held for twelve days ;
following the plan which hhd worked so well at the
start, the captain took the wind and sea abeam, and
was carried 150 miles south of Gibraltar; then the
wind backed toward the north and he made the port
(May 2d) on the same tack.
We sailed from New York, April 23d, and arrived
at Gibraltar, May 3d. Leaving the yacht to shift
sails and get supplies, we took the steamer to Tan-
giers, a pleasant sail of about two hours, and spent

SUMMER IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

SUMMER IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

the afternoon in walking about the town and taking a
ride through the environs. The next morning was
similarly spent, and we returned to Gibraltar at noon,
and spent the night at the Hotel Reina Cristina in
Algeciras, a half -hour's sail across the bay. The next
day was spent in a drive to a cork forest in Spain,
returning past the head of the bay to Gibraltar in the
afternoon. These two trips were made easy and satisfactory by
a guide whom we found in Gibraltar, — a lordly gen
tleman, against whom some of our fellow-passengers
on the steamer had been warned. We found him
entirely satisfactory, and his knowledge of what was
to be seen and how to see it saved us trouble and
time, and also made us acquainted with white truffles
and a native mineral soap which did not rise to his
representations. The town of Tangiers lies on the west side of a
broad bay, widely open to the north; the anchorage
ground is extensive and the bottom sandy, and doubt
less a boat could lie there in safety in the quiet season.
But if the boat is at Gibraltar it would be better to
leave her there and visit Tangiers by the usual tour
ist means. Although Tangiers is far more distinctly
African than any of the coast towns in Algeria and
well worth a visit, not much time is required for it,
and the hotel is sufficiently comfortable and clean.
Certainly, if one is going into the interior of Algeria, a
day is all that is needed for Tangiers, for it has only
the novelty of its people, their costumes, and the en
vironment to attract and reward attention. One soon
tires of walking or riding on horseback through its
narrow, dirty streets, and inspecting its common little

shops with their medley of articles, mostly coarse and
common, and the unpleasant haggling over prices.
The sight of so much that is novel and bizarre, in
face, figure, and costume, the crowded market-place,
the camels, the snake-charmers, the jolly "man from
Timbuctoo" who visited America with Barnum and
repeats the names of its cities while he dances and
clashes his cymbals for the expected reward, greatly
interest but soon grow monotonous ; and the beauti
ful ride along the coast to the westward need not
occupy more than a couple of hours. Although many
of our fellow passengers staid over another day, we
were quite ready to return at noon and found our
stay at the charming hotel at Algeciras, and the next
day's ride iri Spain, a most agreeable substitute.
Gibraltar possesses a well-sheltered harbor and
abundant facilities for repairs and outfitting. There
is a time-ball at Europa Point, and the time can also
be got from the office by telephone. There are a
number of tugboats, sea-going as well as small, and a
wrecking vessel belonging to a Scandinavian com
pany. We towed in once from beyond Europa Point
for £2, and towed out, well past Cape Spartel — 45
miles— for ^10. The attractions of the town itself
do not require much time, and the hotels do not
invite a prolonged stay. It is an important travelling
centre, with more or less regular communication by
sea with many Mediterranean ports. Granada can be
reached by rail in about twelve hours from Algeciras.
Granada, Cordova, and Seville can be visited in a
tour of six or seven days.

North Africa
We sailed from Gibraltar on the morning of May
6th, with a fresh westerly breeze which lasted until
we reached Algiers at daybreak, May 9th — 430 miles.
On the afternoon of the 8th we ran in toward the land,
proposing to visit the Roman ruins at Cherchel, but
the sea was too heavy to permit landing by boat.
Throughout most of the voyage the mountains of
Spain or Africa are visible, and specially at evening
the snow-clad Sierra Nevada (11,000 feet high) shows
beautifully. The current sets steadily toward the east,
and is said to be strongest near the African coast.
A pilot came out at Algiers with a small tug, and
we accepted the aid of both to pass in between the
two moles and moor at one of the buoys, although
neither was necessary.
Algiers, well named la blanche, is a bit of Paris in
an African setting. The city is situated at the foot
and on the sides of a line of hills skirting the water.
Along the water-front, and thirty or forty feet above
it, runs a boulevard which in either broad or detailed
appearance might be a portion of the Rue de Rivoli.
The same color and architecture in the houses, the
same arcades, the same shape, color, and lettering of
the signs ; the only difference in the larger proportion
of offices and caf es and the smaller of shops . From this
straight piece of Paris run backward short bits of a
dingier Paris, to a parallel thoroughfare where is the
Ufe of Algiers, — a narrow street with low arcades over
narrow, crowded sidewalks and a jumble of Arab and
colonial shops, where European and Arab influences
and manners have met to produce a patently sordid 13

and often squalid compromise, as unattractive and
even repellent as such compromises usually are. The
costumes show the same interaction of influences, the
same acceptation of compromise. Between the pure
types are all combinations, and the combining ex
tends to language and ideas. A Maltese or an Italian
wears a fez and rides on the haunches of a diminutive
donkey; an Arab boy, with an Arab scantiness of
European clothing and a New York blacking-box,
accosts you with, "Shine, sir?"
As an example of Arab life and manners Algiers is
imperfect, and if it is to be accepted as a French
colonial city, it shows that, except in the administra
tion, there is much less in it of French than of other
nationalities, notably Italian and Maltese. If one
wishes to see an Arab town let him go to Tangiers or
Biskra. Algiers is not a type, or at most is a type
only of what might be of interest to a student of
sociology or to a minister of colonial affairs. It
seemed plain that what draws so many Europeans and
Americans to it in the winter and spring lies not in
the city, but in its suburbs, on the hill of Mustapha
Superieur, in the lovely views of the sea and the
mountains, the brightness, the color, the warmth —
in nature, not in man.
And yet, while modification and compromise are so
general, it may be remembered that many examples
of a pure type are to be seen. Not only is the Arab
portion of the city materially unchanged, — the same
narrow, crooked streets, the same projecting second
stories, the same repellent exteriors with occasional
glimpses of a vastly different interior, — but also many
of the men and women are typically clad, and move

about with the same dignified, disregarding manner.
The mosque may be run as a business by the Arab
guardian who loans you slippers for a consideration
and welcomes you as a source of income, but the few
worshippers seated on its floor are apparently absorbed
in prayer and meditation, and as regardless of your
presence as if you were invisible. But environment
counts for so much! and who can feel that a dozen
Arabs crowded into an electric street-car are real
Arabs, even if they are swathed from head to foot in
the superfluous folds of a burnous.
For the yachtsman Algiers is of value. Its harbor
is commodious and perfectly sheltered, its supplies
abundant arid varied, its commercial principles ap
parently settled and honest. The port charges, in
cluding one for a passeport, good in all French ports,
are very small, — eight francs for us. The Custom
house, where the dues are to be paid, is close by a
landing-place opposite the. entrance; and the Health
Office, where the ship's papers will be found before
departure, is a little to the north of it. Pratique is
given by an officer who comes aboard. The temper
ature on deck in the evening was 62".
There are many automobiles in Algiers, and some
of them on hire. We found a good one, seating four
passengers, at Cook's. As the roads are excellent it
is very convenient and comfortable to make such
trips as are desired by automobile rather than by
carriage or railway. The charge per day is from 100
to 120 francs, and the speed about thirty kilometres
per hour. A pleasant day's trip is to Blidah and the
Gorge of Chiffa. A three days' trip of great interest
and beauty is to Fort National, spending the night
15

there ; the next day crossing the mountains to Bougie
on the coast, either southward at first by the Col de
Tirourda, or north to Azasga and then across; and
the third day to the grand Gorge of Chabet and back
to Bougie or on to Setif , a station on the railway. This
gives not only the finest accessible mountain scenery,
but it also takes the traveUer through the heart of Ka-
bylia, and gives him plentiful opportunity to observe
the manners and mode of life of the race which seems
to be the most industrious and respected in Algeria.
We left Algiers at 8.30 (May 12th), lunched at Tizi
Oozou at noon — 105 kilometres, started again at 3,
and reached Fort National about 6 p.m. Although
the sky was cloudless, the time the middle of May,
and the automobile without a hood, we felt no dis
comfort from the heat, and even comfortably wore
light overcoats to protect from the dust. The first
half of the trip is made eastward along the littoral
plain, with the mountains on the right showing many
patches of snow ; and shortly after leaving Tizi Oozou
the road rises sharply to reach Fort National at a
height of 3186 feet and a distance of twenty -six kUo-
metres. Our machine, which was not at its best that
day, found it a hard task to negotiate some of the
grades, and we had to aid it by walking.
The country was covered with olive and fig trees,
vineyards, and many fields of grain, mainly barley.
The aspect was that of great fertility and plenty,
although the profiles of the country were as broken
and rugged as could be found in any mountain region :
great gorges with steep sides and a brawling stream
at the bottom, but covered with verdure to the very
summit. As the higher levels are reached the Kabyle
16

viUages appear, each perched upon its own hill-top,
and from each issues a horde of half -naked youngters,
well-nourished and cheerful, intent on seeing the auto
and begging for sous. All spoke French ("Un sou,
M'soo; un sou, M'soo. Jette un sou"), and some of
them tried as an additional lure the recital of a La
Fontaine fable when we were stalled or moving slowly.
Each village is a cluster of stone huts, windowless and
chimney less, with earthen floors and no furniture.
But'the adults asked for nothing, and even checked
the children when their begging was too importunate,
and were as free from any suggestion of repining or
envy as a self-respecting workingman in any other
country. The begging was evidently more of a game
than an industry. Some of the younger women wore
quantities of a coarse, home-made jewelry, mainly
composed of bits of coral and red enamel set in some
base metal to form brooches, necklaces, and bracelets-
Fort National (with a plain, clean little hotel and
beautiful views) is mainly an army post, perched on a
ridge between two great valleys and commanding the
pass by the Col de Tirourda over the Djubal Mountains
to the south. We were told the road was not open,
at least for an automobile, because of snow and land
slides, and as a new road building to Azasga was not
quite completed we were obliged to return the next
day nearly to Tizi Oozou and then turn eastward.
The descent — twenty kilometres — was made in forty
minutes. After lunching at Azasga we started again
at noon for a climb of thirty kilometres along an
excellent road through a beautiful forest to the
summit of the pass — ioio metres; then a grand
coast down to the valley and a run of twenty-six 17

kilometres along it to Bougie, where we found the
yacht — 140 kilometres for the day.
Bougie, a clean, busy little town on a steep hillside,
lies on the western side of a broad, shoal bay, with a
mole covering a small anchorage. Boats can anchor
out in the roadstead or moor to the mole. It is
protected by the land from westerly winds, and the
mole is sufficient protection against most easterly ones.
The yacht had come around from Algiers, about 125
miles, while we were making the Fort National trip,
and we spent the night aboard.
The next day we rode thirty kilometres along the
shore eastward, through miles of vineyards covering
lands redeemed by drainage, and then up the river
into and through the Gorge of Chabet, — the grandest
thing of the kind we had ever seen. A narrow cleft
between precipitous cliffs, 2000-3000 feet high, bare
and rocky in part, covered with verdure in others,
with the remains of a stream amid the water-worn
rocks at the bottom, and seven miles long. The road
has been built by blasting along the side of the cliff.
Kharata, at the south end of the gorge, is about 1300
feet above the sea. There we lunched comfortably,
returned in two hours to Bougie, and sailed at once
for PhilippevUle, no miles distant. The wind was
light and baffling through the night and the following
day, and we did not reach our destination untU noon
of the second day (16th), sailing in past the mole and
mooring to a buoy.
The harbor of PhilippevUle is artificial, constituted
by a mole 1700 metres long, parallel to the shore, and
is divided into an inner and outer basin by a short
second mole running out from the shore, on which is
18

the office of the captain of the port. Vessels can lie
within the inner harbor, moored to the quay or to
one of three large buoys. Water can be had from
hydrants on the quay at a charge of one franc per
ton, and a hose can be hired from private parties.
Coal can be had apparently in any quantities, and
fresh meat and vegetables, but not much in the way
of canned foods.
Railway communication with the interior, through
Constantine, is infrequent and slow. Two passenger
trains run daily to Constantine, one starting between
6 and 7 o'clock in the morning, the other at 3 p.m. in
winter, and 4 p.m. after May ist. The road rises
rapidly on the slope of the coast range of mountains
to a height of more than 2000 feet. The country is
fertile and well watered, with fields of grain and
abundant trees of many kinds. The afternoon sun
was hot, but the air was fresh, and it grew cooler as
the higher levels were reached, so that the journey —
eighty-seven kilometres in three hours — was made
with comfort.
Constantine is far more unique and interesting in its
topography than any other city we visited, and only
a slight examination is needed to show why it has
always been so important a stronghold. It stands on
a great flat-topped cliff with bare, vertical sides, many
hundred feet high everywhere except at one corner,
where the plateau of the city is continuous across a
narrow ridge with the hills beyond. To the eastward
the adjoining land is as high as the city, and is sep
arated from it by a very deep, narrow ravine, of which
the city cliff forms one side and through which flows
the Rummel a scanty stream in May, but with ample 19

evidence upon the water- worn rocks at the bottom of
vastly augmented volume in the rainy season.
The sight to which the traveller will first turn is
the Chemin des Touristes, a pathway built along the
east side of the ravine. It is entered by a stairway on
the eastern hill at the south end, and begins as a
platform suspended against the face of the cliff near
its bottom, and continues as a pathway where the
ravine is wider and its face more broken. It affords
grand views of the cliffs, and takes the visitor beneath
the remains of the Roman bridge and above or below,
as he pleases, the natural bridges spanning the stream
near the northern end. The trip must be made on
foot, and, though toilsome, is well worth the effort.
It can be cut short midway, without much loss, by
ascending the western face to the city immediately
after passing the bridge.
The three sections of the city are readily distin
guished by the color and construction of the houses,
the Arab being light blue, the Jewish whitewashed, and
the intermediate French section of light yellow stone.
The Palace of Constantine is the old home of the
Dey, fortunately preserved unchanged and unlooted
by its occupation as headquarters after the capture of
the city by the French in 1837. It is of relatively
recent construction, and owes much of its interest to
the fact that most of its embellishment is furnished
by columns and marbles taken from Roman ruins and
harmonized by the frequent addition of the crescent,
by some fine Arab wood-carvings, and by ancient
Delft and Persian tiles. Its builder was a collector
of catholic taste and simple method. He took what
he wanted from those who had, and when his palace

was finished there was but little left in the province
worth taking. The interior walls are frescoed with rep
resentations of various cities and events in a kindergar
ten style of art, done by an Italian prisoner, whose work
secured for him from his gratified master freedom and
maintenance at the Court for the rest of his life.
The inhabitants are of the usual EuropeanTArab-
Jew combination, with perhaps a smaller proportion
of the former than is seen in the coast towns ; and the
architecture is much less French than in Algiers. The
banks and many shops are closed between twelve and
two o'clock, and all business and play goes on very
leisurely. We did not find the weather at all oppres
sive ; it was much like New York in June, hot in the
sun, but the air fresh, and the nights cool enough
for blankets. Our hotel— the Grand — was clean and
comfortable, with excellent plumbing and a balcony
from which the varied scenes in the Place de la Breche
could be comfortably enjoyed.
From Constantine to Biskra there was but one
train daUy, starting at 8.30 a.m., and covering the
240 kilometres in about eight hours, with many tedi
ous delays at the stations. It was undeniably a hot
and fatiguing ride, the heat increasing in the after
noon as we descended toward the level of Biskra.
The road at first winds among low hills, slowly ris
ing to a great plateau or tableland, thirty or forty
miles long and broad, upon which Batna is situated,
midway the route, at an elevation of 3350 feet, and
later descending rapidly to the desert at Biskra, 350
feet above the sea. At first the country is fertile and
well wooded, but as the tableland is fairly entered
upon the trees disappear and the grain-fields grow

less numerous. Flocks of sheep and goats are seen,
and also camels, and here and there a small group of
low, flat, black tents stretched over a wall of earth
or brush, or a small mud-walled hut, with a few
horses, asses, and mules standing about. The few
men seen near the flocks, or moving along the road
which parallels the railway, are swathed in the bur
nous, and scarcely vouchsafe a look as we pass. The
children seem wholly indifferent to the heat and run
across the plain to gaze at the daily sight, after the
manner of their kind elsewhere. The dresses of the
women add a vivid note, being usually of bright red,
sometimes of yellow; their faces are not veiled, and
their appearance gains by distance.
The plateau is circumscribed by distant mountains
showing a sharp, broken outline, and is itself broken
by many rounded, subsidiary hills, whose basic rock
shows roughly through the thin soil at their tops,
while all the depressions between them and the whole
plain itself are filled with a brown, tenacious soU,
looking like dried mud, and cut in all directions by
water-worn gulleys, now wholly dry, whose steep
sides and pebbly bottoms testify to the volume and
force of the water that must flow through them in the
early spring. For the snow lies deep on these moun
tains for two months, and the winter rains are fre
quent and heavy. The rock where exposed seems
crumbly, and apparently its weathering has been
great, rounding off the tops and filling the valleys
almost to a level ; while the distant mountains are
sharply cut, with the talus stopping far short of the
ridge, and are probably much harder. There is no
watershed from the plateau, and the streams collect

into broad, shallow ponds and lakes (chott), which in
May appear as broad, flat basins crusted with salt
glistening in the sun, and a small patch of water in the
centre. Ditches and rude aqueducts all along the
route testify to the preciousness of the water and
the pains taken to utilize it.
Large numbers of storks stood about in the plain and
on the housetops and chimneys at the railway stations,
and some were seen sitting in their large, rough nests
on the houses and the dead and dying trees.
The plateau ends a few miles beyond Batna, and
the road then passes to the other side of the moun
tains through a tunnel, and descends rapidly with
long curves through a country which becomes more
and more barren and brown. Even the mountains
have changed from gray to a yellow-brown and are
smaUer. At El Kantara, where the road passes
through a short, narrow defile, the striation shows
interestingly, and here are seen the last Roman ruins,
the remains of a bridge across the nearly dry bed of
the stream. At the south end of the defile is an oasis
containing sixteen thousand date palms and many
other fruit trees, spread along the sides of the stream,
but beyond it is a desolate plain. The vegetation on
the slope is mainly tufts of gray grass like sage brush,
with here and there, most unexpected and incongru
ous, a large bush with dark green leaves and large
purple and white flowers. The aspect is of great
sterility and desolation, a forerunner of the actual
desert. The soil is not sand, and this is true also of
the desert, but looks like dry mud or clay, and where
cut by the water it shows usually as a conglomerate
of pebbles matted together in a relatively scanty earth. 23

The main watercourse is broad, more than five hun
dred yards in places, and covered with stones; the
bridges cross at low elevations, ten or fifteen feet.
Rounding the point of the last low range we come
into sight of Biskra.
Biskra, latitude 340 52', 350 feet above sea-level,
with two thousand inhabitants, is a French and Arab
settlement and army post, on an oasis two miles long
on the right bank of the stream which descends from
the neighboring mountains, with four or five adjoining
Arab villages, and is physically as humble, not to say
squalid and uninteresting a little village as one can
often see. There is one fairly decent street, along
which are the hotels and small shops, and a public
garden thickly planted with shade trees, and beside it
are a number of dirty streets or alleys lined with Arab
quarters. The effort to make it a winter resort has
resulted in the construction of several hotels, most of
them of a suitable semi-tropical appearance, two
stories high, with broad verandas, and gUstening
white. They are built of sun-dried mud bricks thickly
coated with stucco. Most of them were closed at the
time of our visit, but we found comfortable quarters
at the "Sahara," where the temperature in the en
trance corridor at 4 p.m. was only 830.
We drove at once to the garden made by Comte
Landon, a few acres of trees of many kinds, including
banana, poplar, bamboo, pine, to show what can be
done by irrigation. Then through a filthy Arab vil
lage of mud huts, its alleys swarming with children
who looked well-nourished and content, frightful-
looking hags peering from the doorways, and the
inevitable groups of dignified, burnous-clad men
24

lounging in a corner, or squatted beside some com
panion reading aloud from the Koran. Many of the
men looked clean, some of the younger ones noticeably
so, and possibly the hidden interiors are not so bad as
the outside walls and the appearance of the women and
children would indicate; but a little of it was quite
enough, and we decided with prompt unanimity that
we would not drive to Sidi-Oukba in the morning, —
that we knew enough of the desert, of Arab villages,
and of Marabout tombs.
The dinner at the hotel was good, the white wine
mild and well-flavored, and St. Galmier could be had,
though probably it was a needless precaution, for the
water is brought from a spring far away on the
mountains. All the wine bottles on the tables were
jacketed in wet flannel to keep them cool.
The night was spent comfortably, and in the morn
ing we strolled to the market and kodaked the camels,
and then waited for the afternoon train that was to
take us to Batna. Biskra had been seen, — quickly
seen, — and, we thought, sufficiently seen. What it
may be in the winter I cannot say, but a few hours of
it in May are enough. Pease says, "Biskra must be
wooed before she becomes really lovable." I should
doubt if any wooing would produce that result, and
should be more inclined to term her a harridan of
Baxter Street than the "Queen of the Sahara."
Nevertheless, she is worth a visit. The desert was a
revelation and overturned all previous ideas, and I
shaU not again think of an oasis as a stately date
palm growing in a patch of grass beside a cool spring
and in the shadow of a great rock.
The afternoon ride to Batna was again hot and
25

trying. The temperature at the railway station in
Biskra was 930, and it must have been higher in the
railway carriage; but the hours passed, and the cool
of the evening was with us when we reached Batna.
The hotel was unattractive, and while we were at
dinner the landlord came to say that we could not
have the automobile in the morning, because the
chauffeur must then be in court to answer to a com
plaint for having overthrown some one's wagon. As
the only purpose of our stop at Batna was to visit the
Roman ruins at Timgad, forty kilometres distant, and
as Batna can be left by only one train a day — at noon,
— the information was grave, for the substitution of a
carriage for the automobile would enforce the spend
ing of a second night in the hotel. As the landlord
was the owner of the automobile, we assured him of
our determination to depart by the first train, Timgad
or no Timgad, and suggested that he should obtain
an adjournment of the trial from the judge or the
procurateur, whom he pointed out to us entertaining
a party of friends at a neighboring table. He re
turned after a while to report that it was impossible.
A New York friend had obtained for us in Paris let
ters of introduction to the Governor-General of Al
geria, which had brought us in acknowledgment of
their presentation a printed formal letter of commen
dation to the good offices of aU civU and mihtary
functionaries in case of need. It had caused much
quiet amusement to an officer whom we had met in
a train and had questioned as to its value, and he had
evidently been restrained only by considerations of
official propriety from advising us to throw it away.
With one accord we felt the time had come to test it,
26

and it was at once flashed upon the "patron" with
the request that it be presented to the judge. He
read it with visible and growing excitement: "Ah,
this will surely do it, if I can only send it in to him!"
In five minutes he was back. "C'est entendu! The
procurateur would be desole to embarrass these
ladies. The case is remitted to the afternoon."
The Governor-General was vindicated, and at 7.30
the next morning we were off at much more than
African railway speed, and an hour later were at
Timgad, forty -one kilometres distant ; but we had in
the meantime gained an abiding conviction that if
our chauffeur did not lose his case, justice would not
be done. The dogs, the cows, the camels that just
escaped death at his hands owed nothing to him.
His warning horn had such a laryngitis that it could
be heard only as we passed, but our voices were in
order and the only mishap was the fall of a baby from
a runaway mule.
Timgad — "the African Pompeii" — is quite equal to
its namesake in extent and detail, and superior in
architectural remains, for it has a fine Arch of Trajan,
a well-preserved theatre, and a number of stately
columns. The burial which came to Pompeii in a
day was more gradually effected for Timgad by the
dust of summer and the rains of winter, left to do
their work unchecked after the Arab invasion had
made it desolate. It was built in the second century,
when Rome was at her best, and is thought to have
been in a measure a summer resort for those who
sought refreshment on the high tableland. The
sewers and the water-supply are in great part un
harmed, the pavements remain — with the ruts worn
27

by the wheels, while the sidewalks and the columns
lining the principal streets give it an air of comfort
and luxury not felt at Pompeii. The work of ex
cavation and conservation has been done with skul
and knowledge, and in the little museum are pre
served several large and interesting mosaic pavements
of conventional patterns such as none of us had seen
elsewhere. The frescoes, if any, have disappeared,
and the small objects of art and use are not numerous.
Nearly midway between Batna and Timgad are a
few arches, a pretorium, and an amphitheatre belong
ing to the city, Lambassa, which was the Roman
military capital of the district.
A hot, slow afternoon's ride, which yielded a view
from the car windows of the curious tombeau de
Medrassen, brought us to Constantine and then to
PhilippevUle at dusk, and to the yacht and baths and
comfort and sleep. They had been five hard days,
and we had not known how hard until after the tardy
effects showed that night and the next day. But the
sea breezes and the quiet of the boat soon removed aU
traces, and left us with only a feeling of great satis
faction that we had made the trip, and a fund of rem
iniscence that will not soon lose its interest and charm.
On the morning of May 2 ist we saUed from PhUippe-
ville with a light northeasterly wind, worked slowly
out of the bay and along the coast, favored somewhat
by the current, and early the next morning ran into
the bay of Bona to look at the hills among which St.
Augustine walked, and upon which his eyes must so
often have rested during his long episcopate. For it
was here that the great Bishop of Hippo was ordained
and served, and here he wrote the De Civitate Dei,
28

W&K

.*-¦ ,*

>;

'¦4**

">«(&<.

BIT.
~. . #*-
•5.^. * '
^f'j>-y
,jjfc
y.
HH
'5r,
TIMGAD. "THE AFRICAN POMPEII "
and here he died while the Vandals were besieging the
city in 430. The fates were propitious, and although
there was some of the haze which had been with us
so constantly, we could distinctly trace the hills and
vaUeys and see the basilica within which is preserved
the Saint's arm, brought here some years ago from
Pavia, where the rest of his body lies.
Sicily
Turning northeastward, we continued our course
for Palermo ; the winds were moderate, and the sec
ond morning found us off Marituno with a freshen
ing breeze and running fast for the northwestern
corner of Sicily. The haze interfered with the more
distant views of the coast, which here is bold and
beautiful, with great cliffs rising sheer from the water,
and the hills and valleys covered with a wealth of
foliage and verdure. The bold outlines, the sharply
scarped gray mountains, the green talus, and the
smiling valleys are typical of much of the Mediter
ranean coasts, and roused in us a wealth of recollec
tion and of bright anticipation. As we rounded Cape
Gallo the great flat-topped mass of Pellegrino, over
looking Palermo from the west, was welcomed with
enthusiasm, and the Conca d'Oro and beautiful
Monreale nestling in the great amphitheatre of gray
mountains made even our ten-knot breeze seem slug
gish. Tlje pilot met us after we had passed within the
mole and had got everything off but the jib ; but the
narrow eastern end of the harbor was crowded and
we were glad to have him take the responsibility of
placing the anchor, though we thought we could have
done it better ourselves. The mooring place for
29

yachts is a narrow strip of the quay between some
torpedo boats on the south and coasters on the north.
The boat must be moored by the stern to the quay
with lots of chain out in front (he gave us seventy-five
fathoms), and it seems to be almost a certainty that
your chain will cross or be crossed by another. At
least, that happened each time to us. But if there
were no drawbacks Palermo would be too enchanting.
Of the two arms of the sea nearly surrounding a
strip of land which gave it its first name — Panormos,
all harbor — but little remains ; the port, fairly large
and commodious, is made by two long moles, and is
somewhat marred by a shoal adjoining the shore
nearly opposite the entrance. Ordinary supplies can
be obtained, but prices are high and bargaining neces
sary. There are several good hotels.
Our steps turned first to the Cappella Palatina, that
gem of golden mosaics, sculptured columns, and soft,
harmonious colors, in which the appeal to the emo
tions and senses has full sway, unchecked by the feeling
of awe and grandeur which is roused by monuments
of greater size. Although much more complete and
with much more detail, it may be grouped in memory
with the coeval Ste. Chapelle at Paris as the highest
expression of sensuous architecture. The ornamen
tation is Arabo-Byzantine, the ceiling of carved
and painted wood.
In strong contrast with it, but equally attractive,
is the great cathedral of Monreale, an imposing edifice,
its walls and floors covered with mosaics of the twelfth
century, — the most important ecclesiastical building
in Sicily. Beside it are the beautiful cloisters, with
low, pointed arches supported on double columns in-
3°

laid with colored mosaics, and the adjoining garden,
with its superb view over the Conca d'Oro, filled
with lemon trees, and encircled by the gray mountains
which reach far to the north and east in bold promon
tories to enclose the great blue bay. Here we spent
two afternoons, "our pulses thronged," in the words
of Sicily's native-born poet, Theocritus, "with the ful
ness of the spring " ; for we had visited Palermo often
enough to feel absolved from formal sightseeing, and
free to visit and enjoy only what specially attracted.
The other great interest for us was the museum,
mainly because of the metopes brought thither from
Selinunto, with which we wished to refresh acquaint
ance in advance of our expected visit to the ruins of
that city. That done, and a half-hour spent in the
convent of the Eremiti, we felt free to wander through
the streets, to idle on the Marina at sunset, and to
pursue and finally capture an evasive wine, — Miss-
ilmeri Vecchio, — of which tender recollections had
been preserved.
To describe Palermo in any detail, to give more
than a suggestion of all that goes to make her "that
wonderful cross-section of history" and the most
attractive city of Sicily, would carry us much too far.
Beginning as a Phoenician colony, becoming the capi
tal city of Semitic Sicily and remaining Carthaginian
longer than any other save Lilybaion (Marsala) and
Drepana, until the First Punic war, coveted and fought
for again and again by Greeks and Romans, — a city
which had seen the Grecian phalanx, Roman bat
talions, Iberian mercenaries, Balearic slingers, and
even the elephants of Pyrrhus; which was the first
object and the first prey of the ravaging Saracen and
31

Berber; which saw the crowning and became the capi
tal of Roger de Hauteville, and within which the bells
of the Sicilian Vespers had called its citizens to the
maddened revolt and massacre which overthrew
the insolent and outraging Franks, it lived through the
long, blighting despotism of the Bourbons to set its
seal upon Garibaldi's effort to redeem the island and
bring it tmder the enlightened rule of the House of
Savoy. No finer setting for a city can be imagined,
no more interesting history, no more sympathetic
adaptation to its environment, no more attractive
detail to interest and occupy the visitor. Palermo il
felice, and happy also he who visits you and who car
ries away the longing to return !
May 27th, we left Palermo for Selinunto. The
afternoon and evening were spent in quiet enjoyment
of the slowly shifting views of Pellegrino and GaUo,
and the morning found us not far on our way ; but in
the afternoon the wind freshened and we ran rapidly
past Mount Eryx (San Giuliano) , where ^Eneas buried
Anchises, and where one of the oldest and most famed
altars to Venus or Astarte was established, one on
which no blood was allowed to flow. The hillsides
and valleys were yellow with the ripened crops, but
the dark beauty of the great mountain was unchanged f
and held the eye as we passed beside it and around to
Trapani. We kept well offshore and soon met a boat
rowing lustily toward us, shouting " Tuna, tuna," and
gesticulating toward the west. If we had turned
eastward we should doubtless have gone clear, but, fol
lowing their gestures, perhaps misinterpreting them,
we turned westward to go outside the little island
Formiche, and in ten minutes more found ourselves
32

in a perfect nest of boats and nets, and had to tack
and stand to the north to clear them. Then, to be
on the safe side, we kept off and rounded Favignana
before turning to the southeast.
Daybreak of the 29th found us off Selinunto on the
south coast ; we anchored close in and went ashore in
the gig, landing between the two hills.
Selinus, founded in 628 b.c. from Megara as an out
post against the Phoenician cities to the westward,
had a brief and tragic history. As it grew it seems to
have established comfortable relations with the Phoe
nicians at Motya and Drepana, and even to have sided
with them in one of their contests with the Grecian
cities to the eastward, but it was always in trouble
with its immediate neighbor, Segesta, and at last, in
409, it was attacked by the Carthaginians, as the be
ginning of their plan to extend their control over the
whole of the island, and wholly destroyed. Destruc
tion came while the city was engaged in building some
of the temples whose ruins are now so impressive. Not
only are some of the great columns uncompleted, their
flutings absent or only partly cut, but on the road
between it and the quarries, five miles distant, from
which the stones were brought, are to be seen segments
of other columns abandoned by the roadside, and in the
quarries others only partly detached from their beds.
These temples, seven in number, are grouped on
two hills. On the western hill, the old acropolis and
fortified city, are four; on the eastern hill are the
three largest, close together, forming almost a single
pile of gigantic ruin. Portions of some of the col
umns are still erect, and all have been so well cleared
that, although their fragments are inextricably 33

mingled, their size can be appreciated and even
measured. One which we measured was thirty-three
feet in circumference. The capitals are very plain, a
simple shallow expansion with a slightly larger square
abacus. The west hill is narrow, with steep sides
except to the north; the east hill much larger and
with sloping sides; the sea lies directly in front, and
the plain spreads off on the north to the distant hills.
A small fishing village lies hidden under the eastern
hill, and a small town can be faintly seen five miles
to the north, but there is nothing to distract the at
tention, to check the imagination that seeks to recon
struct the scene, or to blunt the feeling of desolation
and abandonment which the massive stones inspire.
It is no wonder that those who have written about
them use such expressions as "the most interesting
as well as the most impressive ruins in Europe"
(Richardson), and "one of the most gigantic and sub
lime ruins imaginable" (Swinburne).
Their comparative neglect by visitors may be due
to the necessity of spending the night atCastelvetrano.
Possibly they could be visited by automobile from
Palermo or Girgenti, and surely no yachting party
should omit them.
The Finanza, where the ship's papers may have to
be shown, is close by the little village. Small, antique
terra-cotta heads and lamps and good copper coins
may be got from the villagers.
A fair breeze took us to Girgenti — forty miles — in
time to get a good view through the glasses of two of
the temples. An outlying shoal prevents a close ap
proach, but an excellent view can be had of the site
of the ancient city. As we had visited it on previous
34

SELINUNTO. TOP OF A COLUMN

trips we did not land. There is a harbor at Empe-
docle, about three miles from the temples ; possibly a
carriage could be got there or by telephone from
Girgenti. Girgenti is easily and pleasantly reached from
Palermo by rail, a journey which has the advantage
of passing through the site of ancient Himera, and
which probably could be combined with a visit to
Cefalu and its important Norman cathedral. If the
afternoon train is taken, Girgenti is reached after
dark, and if the traveller goes to the excellent Hotel
des Temples, southeast of the town, and secures a
room on the south side, he will have a view in the
morning that cannot be surpassed for charm. Be
fore him in the distance lies the blue Libyan sea,
and immediately below him a rolling green plateau
covered with olive and almond trees, amid which
rise five Greek temples, two of them in excellent
preservation and showing all their original beauty of
form. There is nothing modern, nothing human, to
distract the attention or disturb the impression, and
if he has filled himself with the dramatic story of the
great city the visitor can spend the morning in the
bright sunshine among the ruins, with a pleasure and
satisfaction that will long remain a cherished posses
sion of his memory.
A light favoring breeze brought us by morning
around the southeast corner of the island, and into
the spacious harbor of Syracuse by the early after
noon. This portion of the coast is comparatively
low, the hills lying rather far back; but Etna was
seen the previous afternoon and again in the morn
ing, as a faint, snow-clad cone above the haze, as if
35

detached from earth and floating in the sky. As
such, and later in all its lovely detail, it was to be
our companion until long after all else of Sicily had
sunk below the horizon.
Siracusa! what' a wealth of association clusters
about the name of the city which Cicero said had
been the most beautiful and one of the most impor
tant in the world. Founded from Corinth in 734, —
one year after Naxos, the first Greek settlement in
Sicily, — it had become after three or four centuries
the most powerful Greek city in the world, rich in
art, science, and letters, only to fall later into the
hands of Rome, to be despoiled by knavish rulers,
and to sink into poverty and insignificance. Within
its great harbor, in 413 b.c, the maritime power of
Athens was shattered, and upon its shore the Athen
ian generals surrendered their defeated and hope
less troops, only to have them slowly give up their
lives in confinement in the great quarries that scar
the neighboring hills. With Thucydides in hand or
mind, all the details of that great conflict can be
followed on the spot and almost every place can be
identified, from the little rocky islet upon which the
Athenians erected the trophy of their early and only
naval victory in the harbor, to the camp beside
the Anapo, the great wall they undertook to build
across from bay to sea, but which they prosecuted
so leisurely that the Spartan Gyllipus had time to
enter with reinforcements and give them their first
knowledge of his presence by his haughty offer of
a five-days' truce to permit them to decamp, and
down to the Latomia de' Cappuccini in which the
sad story ended.
36

Of all that it was, little beside what nature gave
remains, but "nature is the circumstance that dwarfs
every other circumstance." There is the island
Ortygia, the site of the first settlement and the abode
of the present thirty thousand inhabitants, all that
now represent the wealthy, cultivated, powerful
million of its time of prosperity. There are the out
lying hills over which the city spread, and which were
enclosed by the Dionysian walls — thirty miles long,
with the great fortress Euryelus at the extreme
western end of the plateau, — a fortress still showing
the lines of communication, the magazines, and even
the stabling for the horses. A great Greek theatre,
hewn out of the hillside, and close by it a Ro
man amphitheatre partly of similar construction;
and remains of aqueducts, some still bringing water,
which served the great city. In the present city is a
Greek temple of the seventh century b.c, that has
been curiously preserved by being built up to form
a church ; the spaces between the columns were filled
with masonry, upon the surface of which they appear
as low projections. A few columns belonging to
another temple, now ascribed to Diana, have been
in part exhumed from another building and are said
to have interest for archaeologists.
Above, all in interest for the unspecialized traveller
is the underground crypt of St. Marcian, connected
with the Church of S. Giovanni, in which St. Paul
preached when on his way to Rome. It is a mass of
dark, low-vaulted aisles and great square supports,
with the remains of Byzantine frescoes and a de
tailed history which we would be glad to believe as
it is told by the brown-robed monk who guides you
37

through it with the aid of a little grease burning on
a flat plate of iron swinging from his hand. Ac
cording to him the church was built by St. Marcian
in 40 a.d., the first Christian church in Europe and
second only to one in Antioch. The short, thick
pillars were of the original church, and he points out
the one to which St. Marcian was bound in his mar
tyrdom, and finally he lays his hand upon a square
block and says, " Here St. Paul preached."
Some interesting mythological associations may
be mentioned. The fountain of Arethusa, a copious
spring beside the quay, represents the chaste com
panion of Diana who, in her flight from the ardent
Alpheios across the fields of Elis, was transformed
by the commiserate goddess into a stream which
passed beneath the sea to come to the surface here.
A more recent and better-established fact is that
Nelson watered his fleet from it before going to the
battle of the Nile ; an earthquake promptly cracked
its bed and let in the water of the sea, as one some
times breaks a glass after a specially inspiring toast.
And the beautiful pool on the Ciani, a branch of the
Anapo, now thickly bordered with papyrus brought
from Egypt, is the transformed nymph who sought
to arrest the abduction of Proserpine by Pluto. The
angry god here plunged down to Hades and left
Ciani in this form to mark the place.
On a still, bright morning (June 2d) we slowly
fanned out of the harbor of Syracuse and turned
northward. The wind freshened and we moved
steadily along the coast, near enough to see the
details, even to the rocks which Polyphemus threw
at Ulysses. As far as Catania — thirty miles — the
38

coast is like that south of Syracuse, comparatively
low, with outcropping rock amid the fields and vine
yards, and distant hills; then comes the great cone
of Etna, extending from Catania on the south to the
gray mountain mass rising abruptly from the sea at
Taormina and shutting off all to the north.
This view of Etna from the sea is unmatched by
that of any other mountain I know of ; Hecla is equaUy
unobstructed, but is much smaller. Its mass is seen
in its full length and height — thirty miles long and
1 1 ,000 feet high from the sea at its base to its snowy
summit — without a single intervening obstacle. And
surely from no point on the land can such a view of
it and of the mountains about Taormina be had as
from the deck of a boat three or four miles south of
Taormina, and yet the view from that town has been
declared by more than one experienced traveller to be
one of the finest in the world. Sir Henry Holland
grouped it with that of Damascus at sunrise as
unequaled. It is easy for the yachtsman to make the compari
son for himself. Taormina bay has a beach; he can
land in his boat, as we did, drive up to the town, and
see the famed view from the Greek theatre ; then let
him go back to his ship, move off a little to the south
east, and ask himself if he is not incomparably more
fortunate than those whose feet are fixed upon the
land. As the sun sank toward the mountains we turned
eastward to the Adriatic ; the wind freshened to half
a gale before we had crossed the straits, but soon
quieted. Our objective was Ragusa, on the eastern
shore of the Adriatic, four hundred miles away ; and
39

while the yacht is making her leisurely way thither
we may turn to that portion of a former cruise not
now to be repeated, but which could easily be added
at this point, — that to Greece and the ^Egean and
Ionian islands.
Greece and the ^Egean
In the 1 90 1 cruise we left Palermo May ist for
Malta, passing westward around Sicily, skirting the
shore of the island as we approached the port of La
Valletta, and passing close by the bay where St.
Paul's storm-tossed boat was beached.
La Valletta was reached as evening fell, and we
ran into its capacious harbor before a fresh breeze
with a swarm of bumboats, headed by Bubbly Joe,
vainly trying to keep up with us, dropped anchor and
moored to the quay. A polite call, with an offer of
any needed assistance, was promptly made from an
English naval vessel, according to their kindly cus
tom, and duly returned the next day. Early the
next morning the combined Mediterranean and Chan
nel fleets — thirty great ships — came into the harbor
in stately column and rounded to their buoys with
impressive precision. The morning was spent in the
curious old town, with its interesting souvenirs of
the Knights of Malta, the body to which no one with
a gap in, or a blemish upon, his quarterings could
obtain admission, its staircase streets, and its
hooded women, and in the afternoon we sailed away
for Greece.
The winds at first were light, but we had one grand
day's sailing with a growing sea that kept the spin-
40

naker-boom rising further and further, until, late in
the evening, it swung upright and the sail went over
the forestay into the sea. We passed the southeast
corner of the Peloponnesus toward morning, and all
the next day and night floated slowly up its east
coast and anchored at Nauplia early May 6th.
The day was being given up by the inhabitants to
the unveiling of a statue of one of the half -brigand,
half -patriotic, wholly Greek captains of the War of
Independence, — a ceremony honored by the presence
of the king, and the town was en fUe, the streets filled
with country people, soldiers, and large black -bearded
priests in their flowing black robes and cylindrical hats ;
but we were able to secure a carriage and a portable
luncheon for a visit to Tiryns, Mykene, and Argos.
The former, a mass of roughly shaped, huge Cyclo
pean rocks upon a hillock rising from the plain, shows
only its encircling wall and a few foundations and
floors. Access to the enclosure is still by the road
passing obliquely to the left, after the general fashion
of the time, so as to present to the defenders on the
wall the right side of the attacker unprotected by his
shield. Mykene, on the mountainside four or five miles
distant, the home of Agamemnon and of Clytemnestra,
preserves a portion of its wall, also built of huge
stones without mortar, the Lion gate, a few founda
tions, and the tombs within which Schliemann found
the gold ornaments and vases now preserved in the
museum at Athens. Near by is the "Tomb of Aga
memnon," or the "Treasury of Atreus," a circular
chamber about twenty-five feet in diameter, with a
conical roof composed of square blocks laid without 41

mortar, the whole covered by the soil except where
the broad stone-lined approach has been laid bare.
The remains are so scanty that most of the interest
lies in the historical associations, and in the thought
that the observer is in the presence of the oldest
Grecian remains in Europe ; of the house from which
the leader of the Trojan war set forth and to which
he returned to be murdered by his faithless wife,
while just across the plain lies Argos, where Paris
came to visit Menelaus and win the love of Helen.
From Nauplia we sailed around the promontory,
past Poros and Hydra with their lofty green hills and
nestling villages, and up the bay toward Athens as
the sun was setting, and anchored in the Bay of Pha-
lerum, close by the heights of the Peirseus. The next
day the ship went to a mooring within the port, and
we to Athens for a three-days' stay.
Of Athens it would be superfluous to speak. Its
wealth of association, interest, and beauty is known
to all. But it may not be amiss to mention the im
pression made by the sculpture of its two museums.
One feels that he has never before been face to face
with the real virility, dignity, and beauty of the art,
and that beside its statues almost all the famed ones
of western Europe, except the incomparable Venus of
Milo and a few others, themselves brought from
Greece, are weak, emotional, even sentimental. A
strange chance has preserved for us there a perfect
thesaurus of pre-Phidian art. When the Athenians
in 480 b.c retired before the Persians and took refuge
in their "wooden walls," as counselled by the oracle,
walls which served them so well at Salamis a few days
later, Xerxes overthrew the temples and statues of
42

the Acropolis in a common ruin; and when Pericles
set out to rebuild the place he gathered together all
these statues and buried them in one trench on the
hill. There they remained forgotten for twenty-
three centuries, and there, a few years ago, they
were found and exhumed, and now they constitute
the museum of the Acropolis, — a collection unequaled,
unapproached, one which the untrained visitor feels
he can enjoy as honestly, if not so intelligently as the
trained artist or student, and be as much uplifted
thereby. There are the lovely bas-reliefs from the
temple of Nike, the wingless Victory, the home, ac
cording to Stillman, of the Venus of Milo, one of
which in plaster reproduction hangs on so many walls
at home; and there, too, is the quiet, placid "archaic
smile" greeting you at every turn, and telling you
that, if you will but believe it, all earthly sorrows,
woes, and death itself are as nothing against the
might and sufficiency of the sustained soul.
The large museum in the city has also, in addition
to its statues, a unique collection of gold vases and
ornaments from Mykene and other places of Trojan
and pre-Trojan times, bones and weapons from Mara
thon and Platsea, and an unrivaled collection of steel
and other mortuary sculpture supplemented by that
of the Street of the Tombs. There is also a large col
lection of Roman portrait busts, which show a singu
lar persistence of type, for the originals of some of
them might walk the streets of a New England town
as unquestioned natives.
With hearts and minds still responsive to all we
had seen; with, it must be confessed, palates still
agreeably reminiscent of the table of the Grande 43

Bretagne, and with a store of the honey of Hymettus
big with coming disillusion in the lockers, we sailed
out of the Peiraeus in the early morning and down
the bay to round the promontory of Sunium, capped
by its temple of Athene. A strong breeze sent us
flying up the gulf of Petali to an anchorage at dusk,
behind the promontory of Cynosura which shelters
the upper portion of the bay of Marathon, and the
next morning was spent in a visit to the battlefield.
Then northward again between Eubcea and Bceotia,
with their green, fruitful hillsides, to an anchorage
two miles below Chalkis, where we lay for two nights
and a day, hoping for a change in the wind that would
enable us to traverse the narrow passage between the
island and the mainland, and pass on to Thermopylae,
Olympus, and the gulf of Volo. But it was not to be ;
the bow was turned again to the south, and before a
strong northeast wind we raced away down the gulf
and past the islands — Andros, Tenos, Kea, and Jura
— to the harbor of Hermoupolis on Syra. The town
sprang into electric light as the anchor went over the
bow, but the wind and waves were high and we stayed
aboard. The anchor dragged during the first part of
the night, but held when it reached the rising slope
of the bottom at a safe distance from a threatening
reef. The next morning, as the wind still held strong,
we decided to go on at once. Two or three short
tacks cleared the harbor, and with started sheets we
rushed for Delos, only a few miles away. There we
came to anchor in a sheltered little bay, whose waters
were so clear that the bottom and even the fish swim
ming far below the surface could be distinctly seen,
and spent the afternoon ashore.
44

Except for the undersized, slack-breeched guardian
of the rocks who humbly accompanied us about,
stood for his photograph, and removed stones from
our path, we had the hallowed island to ourselves.
The young palm tree to which Ulysses compared
Nausicaa is no longer there, nor any representative
thereof, nor even any tree. Only the grass, the
flowers, and the bushes, the foundations of the tem
ples, the lake beside which Apollo and Diana were
born, and, best of all, the grotto far up the side of
Kynthos, the most ancient site of the cult of Apollo
known. This grotto, largely natural, its rocky wall supple
mented only by some great blocks forming part of
one side, some slabs for the roof, and a square altar,
looks down upon the sacred enclosure. From it and
from the hill-top above is a glorious view embracing
all the Cyclades.
We wandered through the sacred enclosure, noting
the Hall of the Bulls, the temple of Apollo, and the
huge torso of the god ; passed with less interest by the
few Roman remains, and stayed long in contempla
tion by the grotto ; then we closed a most delightful
afternoon by a visit to the lake and rejoined the
ship. Out of deference to the Friday superstition, the
captain was allowed to make sail at n o'clock in the
evening, and the next morning found us rushing with
a grand breeze eastward through the sparkling blue
water past Nikaria; [soon Patmos, where St. John
passed so much of his long life and where he saw the
Apocalyptic vision, came into view ahead, and as we
passed between it and Sarnos we could easily pick
45

out the site of his home and the churches erected in
his honor. The horizon swarmed with islands, each
with its history and associations, but all, alas, were
under Turkish rule and barred to us by quarantine
difficulties and probable delays. So on we rushed,
past Sarnos, through the narrow strait between it and
the mainland, and northward past the hill where
stood Ephesus, — Ephesus, where was the great tem
ple of Diana, — Ephesus, where Paul fought with wild
beasts. The wind fell as evening came and we headed again
westward along the south shore of Chios, with its
mournful story of Turkish massacre and pillage. The
next morning we were still beside it, and all the next
day we moved slowly over the glassy sea toward the
strait between Andros and Eubcea. The next night
was of amazing beauty. In the cloudless sky the
stars shone with a brilliancy not surpassed by our
own winter nights, and were so perfectly reflected on
the motionless sea that one seemed to stand at the
centre of a celestial sphere. None of us will ever
forget the beauty of that night or the unmarred charm
and interest of that week in the ^Egean.
I doubt if it could be reproduced in a steamer.
There is something in the individuality of a sailing
yacht — in its life and swing, in the proximity of the
waves, in the rush and sparkle of the water as it
sweeps by within reach of the hand — that cannot live
beside the throb of the engine, — the stately, un
swerving movement of a great machine doing its
appointed work heedless of the chance of wind or
wave. Such an environment holds one fast in the
grip of the twentieth century, while here in the AZgean
j6

DELOS. THE GROTTO OF APOLLO

we wish to think of the "wine-colored waves," "the
purple-backed billows," to hear the "laughter of the
seas and the waves," to think of the "well-greaved
Greeks" and the "deep-bottomed boats" that crept
timidly from headland to headland and waited on the
winds and oracles. We looked back upon that week
and declared that whatever an adverse fate might
hold in store our trip had been a success.
A brief stop at Athens for letters and we sailed for
Corinth, taking a lingering farewell of the Parthenon
as it faded behind us. We towed through the canal,
a long, narrow, straight-walled gap cut through rock
two hundred feet high, and started with a rush across
the gulf, only to lose the wind in an hour and occupy
twenty more in slowly floating on to Itea, the port of
Delphi. The great charm of Delphi, apart, of course, from
the associations which it shares with all of Greece, is
found in the beauty and grandeur of its scenery. The
approach from Itea is across a plain thickly covered
with olive trees, evidently once an estuary of the sea,
with arms running into the narrow, steep-walled val
leys between the foothills of the mountains that rise
all about it. The road climbs the bare side of one of
these for three or four miles, and then turns suddenly
into the amphitheatre of Delphi. It stands in a
shallow recess on the steep mountainside; directly
opposite is a somewhat smaller foliage-covered moun
tain; in the narrow cleft between, and far below, a
stream. Beyond, to the eastward, the "shining
rocks" — the Phcedriadce — thrust their great mass for
ward as if to block the way, and reach back west
ward far overtopping and encircling the site. The
47

Castalian Fountain sends its waters down from them
at the eastern end of the city, and close beside it at
the roadside are two great plane trees, which one
easily believes to be the direct descendants of the
one planted there by Agamemnon.
The ruins are the usual floors, ways, and scanty
walls, serving only to mark the site and the dimen
sions of the buildings which stood there. Everything
of artistic value has been removed to museums.
Higher up on the mountainside is the Stadium. One
goes to Delphi, not to gaze on the handiwork of man,
but for Delphi itself, — for the setting of the oracle
which for so many centuries controlled the action of
rulers, even to expected and accepted loss, for the
visible shrine and centre of the ideas and aspirations
which then filled the hearts of men.
The afternoon was spent sailing quietly westward
in the Gulf of Corinth, with the great bulk of Par
nassus behind and snow-tipped Erymanthus on the
south, and the near foreground on each side filled
with foliage-covered hills ; and the early morning found
us in the harbor of Patras in time to take the slow-
moving train for Olympia. We took our leisurely
way along the sandy shore amid the currant-filled
plains of Elis, and reached our destination in time for
lunch and an afternoon in the museum and among
the ruins.
The little museum is made notable by the posses
sion of the Hermes of Praxiteles and the massive
groups from the pediments of the temple of Zeus, ar
ranged, so far as can be determined, as they originally
stood, and the metope reliefs from the wall of the cella
of the same temple. Of the buildings little more than
43

DELPHI — LOOKING EASTWARD

the foundations remains, — nothing to indicate the
wealth and magnificence noted by Pausanias sixteen
hundred years ago, although even then many of its
three thousand statues and other treasures had been
carried away to Rome; but of the Stadium — the
scene of the Olympic games, the calendar of ages —
there remains the most important part, — the start
and finish of the races marked by strips of marble,
the arched way through which competitors and judges
entered, and, alongside, the hill of Kronos on which
the spectators sat.
Sitting under the pines on the hillside one sees still
a view which justifies the old characterization of it
by Lycias, as "the fairest spot in Greece." Close
before us lies the "sacred enclosure," freed from the
sand spread over it by the Alpheios, which now flows
as a harmless-looking little stream along the southern
side of the plain; beyond it are the foothills, and,
extending far to the left, the mountains over which
still passes the road along which so many eager feet
hastened to the contests, whose prizes were the am
bition even of kings. And over all the blue sky, the
brilliant atmosphere of Greece.
From Patras our way led us among the Ionian
islands, with a brief stop at lovely Corfu, — where
the stout-hearted Ulysses dragged his wearied limbs
ashore after his week's swim through the tumultuous
waves, and waked to see Nausicaa and her maidens
playing with the golden ball, — and then with light
and baffling winds along the grand Albanian coast,
"the Norway of the South," to Cattaro, with a most
interesting visit to Montenegro, and then Ragusa,
where the tale of 1904 is rejoined. 49

The Adriatic
The crossing to the Adriatic and Ragusa from Syra
cuse may be summarized in the statement that the
distance was 450 miles and the time six and a half
days. The wind was light and intermittent and gen
erally so much ahead that, if not beating, we were
close-hauled on the course. As a rule a breeze began
about 9 a.m. and lasted until evening, and half the
time we had a fair breeze during part of the night.
The mornings from four or five o'clock until nine
were still, hot, and humid. The temperature in the
shade was never more than 720, but the direct rays
of the sun were oppressive. The temperature of the
water varied from 68° in the Mediterranean to 710 in
the Adriatic. There was so much haze that, although
our course lay at first along the Italian, and later
along the Albanian, shore, the land could be but
dimly seen unless we were close aboard, except for
the mountain tops which showed above the haze.
The Albanian coast was reached in the early morn
ing, four days from Syracuse, at Cape Languetta, just
opposite Sta. Maria di Leuca on the Italian coast, a
little too far to the north to give the very best view
of the mountains. For one who has not already
seen it, a preferable variant, I think, would be to
make the coast at Corfu, visit it, and then go north
ward. The slight addition to the distance would be
well compensated for by the visit to that charming
island. The Albanian mountains come down abruptly to
the shore with maximum elevations of more than
seven thousand feet, upon which patches of snow are
50

visible. There are no villages and few signs of cul
tivation. The character of the coast, including that
of Dalmatia to the north, is determined by the main
topographical features of the western part of the
Balkan peninsula. The Dinaric Alps, constituting
the watershed between the Adriatic and the Black
Sea, run parallel and close to the Adriatic coast,
leaving Bosnia to the east, and Dalmatia, Herzo-
govina, and Montenegro to the west. On the east
the slope runs off to broad, fertile plains, traversed
by several long rivers ; while the west slope is broken
by broad limestone ridges lying parallel to the coast,
with narrow valleys and short, precipitous streams,
a remarkable feature of which is that almost all of
them either disappear into or emerge from subter
ranean passages. The abundant rainfall of the
winter converts the little valleys into ponds or
marshes which, after drying in the spring, yield abun
dant crops, while the courses of the streams are
bordered by fertile fields and terraces. The moun
tains, above the height of 1500-2000 feet, are singu
larly barren and gray, often hardly distinguishable in
color from the gray portions of the clouds which rest
upon or above them. Because of this lack of color
the scenery is not beautiful, nor are the mountains
high enough for grandeur, but the sharpness of out
line, the precipitousness of the towering cliffs, the
ruggedness of combination, and the singular extent
and uniformity of the gray coloring make it very
impressive. On the islands near Spalato the rock crops out
curiously in long, low, parallel ridges, which at first
we supposed to be artificial walls made of the stones 51

removed from the adjoining land to make it tillable.
Everywhere the thin soil on the slopes is protected by
breast-high walls from being washed away by the
rain ; and on the narrow little terraces thus made are
vineyards, grain-fields, and trees. At the upper edge
of a patch of such terraces there is often a line of aloes,
serving, as they also do in Africa and Sicily, to give
stability to the soil by their deep-branching roots.
Some of the walls made of the stones thrown out to
clear the land were twenty-five feet wide, and even
then the land had not been half cleared; the little
cultivated patches are pitiful in their isolation and
scantiness. North of Spalato the mountains lie far
ther back; the broad littoral strip, broken only by
low-rolling hills, is covered with vegetation and looks
very fertile.
The natives are exceptionally fine-looking. The
men are tall and spare, with well-shaped heads, clean-
cut features, and manly, intelligent, dignified expres
sion. The women are large and well filled out, and
walk erect and with vigor. Some of the women of
the easier classes are noticeably graceful in form and
carriage, and often with beautiful faces. The chil
dren are sturdy, well-nourished, and cheerful. There
is very little begging and but little apparent poverty,
although life is evidently on a very simple scale.
The whole region was the Illyricum of the Roman
Empire and seems to have furnished most of its gold ;
across it ran the roads over which the Roman legions
passed to the conquest oftiie East, and back and forth
over which passed such a multitude of warring Em
perors and Caesars, of armies and of embassies, of
revolting mercenaries and invading borderers in the
52

constant strifes between rulers and pretenders, and
between the eastern or the western Rome and her
harrying neighbors. The great gateway for the gold
of the mountains and the grain of the Bosnian plains
was at Salona (Spalato), that for troops and missions
was at Durazzo, farther to the south. It was on this
coast that the great Emperor Diocletian was born, —
a simple peasant, — and to it he returned when, weary
with the cares of his office, he laid it down and found
"amid his cabbages" so much contentment that he
refused again to assume the purple.
Cattaro, with its beautiful bays and grand moun
tains, perhaps the most impressive scenery on the
entire coast, we passed by without again stopping;
and after loitering all the afternoon got a fine southerly
breeze after sunset, hove to off Ragusa shortly before
midnight, and ran in to an anchorage behind Lacroma
Island at daybreak.
At Ragusa there is only an open roadstead, the
small artificial harbor being large enough only for
small coasters and steamboats. Lacroma Island,
however, gives good shelter against everything but
southeast gales, and the holding is good. Upon this
island, adjoining an imperial residence, is a church
built by Richard Cceur de Lion in fulfilment of a vow
made when in peril by sea near by on his return from
his crusade. The vow was to build it where he
landed, but the Pope gave permission to substitute
this beautiful island for the bare rock, probably one
lying off Ragusa Vecchia, a few miles distant, on
which he found a hasty shelter.
Ragusa is the most interesting and unique place we
visited on this coast. Apparently most of its earlier 53

appearance is preserved in its houses, its narrow
streets, its walls, industries, and the costumes of the
people. The old wall encircling the town is pre
served, and a walk along it not only gives interesting
glimpses of the streets and roofs, but also creates an
environment which carries one back to the romances
of plume and sword which have entranced us, and
makes one feel, as one of our party said, like a Pris
oner of Zenda.
There are no formal sights worth mention, only the
town itself, — its little shops and its people, including
among the latter many Herzogovinians and a few
Montenegrins and Albanians with their characteristic
costumes. At the Hotel Imperial, a weU-placed and
apparently well-managed establishment, at which we
lunched, we were told that their season extends from
October to June and is active, many people coming
to spend the winter.
We found a good market, with an abundance of
fruit and vegetables, and in the shops a plethora of
barbaric jewelry and ornaments at prices which per
mitted feminine cravings to be easUy gratified.
In the early evening we sailed away for Spalato.
The wind became squally, but held in the southeast,
and daylight found us emerging from the Sabbion-
cello channel and heading up to weather the east end
of Lessina, and before midday we were at anchor
within the mole at Spalato, a roomy and weU-shel-
tered harbor (a variant would be to keep on a few
miles farther at Lessina to Narenta, and visit Bosnia
by rail). Excellent water can be had from hydrants
on the piers, but vessels drawing over twelve feet
should go to the one at the east end, not to the
54

one on which is the office of the Captain of the
Port. Spalato is an animated little town, whose centre is
built within and into the walls of Diocletian's palace,
thus preserving for us a considerable portion of the
enclosure. His mausoleum is now the cathedral,
largely overlaid by additions, with a campanile said
to be very beautiful, but now for many years hidden
by a vast scaffolding within which slow repairs are
making. In the little museum near the eastern gate
is the sarcophagus of the Emperor, and within its
glass cases a collection of more than two thousand
engraved gems, while stored away in boxes are some
twenty thousand coins awaiting the construction of a
museum spacious enough for their exhibition. The
little temple of ^Esculapius, now used as a baptistery,
has an interesting ceiling and some early-Christian
decorative carving.
The streets are narrow, the shops humble, the
people picturesque (in spots), amiable, and with
plenty of time to gratify an interest in strangers. An
unpleasing air of modernity is given to the water-front
by new houses in glaring stucco, the outward sign of
a prosperity which is further indicated by the active
traffic of the harbor. The railway is still rudiment
ary — a short line along the coast to Sebenico, and a
cog-and-pinion line up the mountain to Sinj.
Three of the sights may be conveniently grouped
in an afternoon's ride: the ruins of Salonas, the
source of the Jader, and the heights of Clissa. The
former have but little interest save for the archaeolo
gist; they are an amphitheatre, the foundations of
an early Christian church destroyed in the sixth
55

century, and a large number of stone sarcophagi,"
many of them of martyrs. The Jader, which sup
plies Spalato with water, issues from the mountain
side as a deliciously cold, clear stream; the fertile
valley and the bare, precipitous, gray walls are pic
turesque and characteristic. Clissa lies above it, a
village high up on the rock, with a grand view seaward.
The immediate surroundings of Spalato are so bare
of natural advantages that one wonders why Dio
cletian should have chosen it. Possibly he sought
only to put a little distance between himself and Sa-
lonae, and as a man whose life had been that of a
soldier he was indifferent to the aesthetic side, and as
a forceful ruler whose will no other had crossed he pro
posed to bend circumstance to it ; or he was grown
old and indifferent, he had returned to the land of
his birth, he would stay there and make the best of
his surroundings. His last days must have been sad
ones. The Christians, whom he had persecuted as
vigorously as he had done all other things, were now
tolerated and were soon, under Constantine, to be
come supreme; his statues in Rome were cast down,
his wife and daughter living there were shamefully
maltreated and humiliated. If his cabbages still
brought him content they mUst have grown luxuri
antly. And now his mausoleum is a Christian church
and his carved sarcophagus an empty object of idle
curiosity. Trau, a town at the west end of the bay on which
Salonae stood, we visited by the launch — eleven miles.
The small coasting steamboats stop there long enough
for a visit to its sights. It is well worth a visit as an
antique, — a poor little town, fallen from a high estate,
56

its elegant homes degraded to the uses of an impover
ished people, left aside in the march of events and the
change of conditions. Like Ragusa and Spalato, it
was under a sort of overlordship of Venice, the traces
of which are plainly seen in the buildings — private and
public, and in the lion of St. Mark on the walls. It
had a much earlier origin than Spalato or even
Salonae, for it was founded by Greeks.
Its chief sight is its little square bordered by the
cathedral, the loggia, and the town hall. Of the
cathedral Richardson says it is "in Romanesque
style, complete and unencumbered with later addi
tions. The great west portal is held by good judges
to be unsurpassed by any other portal, whether Ro
manesque or Gothic." The ceilings are deeply cof
fered, and the capitals of the pulpit elaborately
carved. In strange contrast with the architectural
elegance is the rude modelling of the statues of Adam
and Eve in the portal. In the sacristy is an interest
ing MS. book on parchment dated 1324. An inscrip
tion on the flyleaf at the back says, "I began this in
1324; I completed it in 1399," but the writing does
not look like that of an octogenarian.
To go from Spalato to Zara, about seventy-five
miles, we took a tow, for the course lies in part
through narrow channels within which it would not
be easy to work to windward or properly to care for
the ship if the weather turned bad. The start was
made at 4.30 a.m., and at nine o'clock we anchored off
the mouth of Sebenico channel and went up to the
town on the tug. A half -hour sufficed for our visit to
Sebenico, but we were held there an hour longer by
the needs of the tug, a delay which led to a very
57

unpleasant incident, for as we started back a violent
thunder-squall came in from the southwest, and as
we emerged from the narrow channel the yacht was
seen to be ashore ; she had taken ground at the stern
and was lying broadside to the wind with both an
chors out. Fortunately there was no sea, the wind
promptly fell, and we hauled her off by the windlass
before the tug had got her hawser to us. No damage
had been done, but it was not a pleasant sight.
When the anchor was got aboard one of its flukes
was found to have been broken off. Probably the
break occurred when we anchored, for the ship was
still moving when the towboat signalled us to let go,
and some of the men said two sharp jerks were felt
while the chain was running out. She had begun to
drift as soon as the wind rose, and thinking that she
only needed more chain they had paid out forty-five
fathoms, and had only let go the second anchor just
as she touched.
Zara was reached at 5 p.m., — Zara, that old thorn
in the politico-commercial side of Venice, whose re
moval was the first fruit of the iniquitous compact
between the blind Doge, Enrico Dandolo, and the
leaders of the Fourth Crusade. Venice agreed to fur
nish transportation for the troops in return for a sum
of money and an agreement by which the troops
should be used to subjugate such of her rivals and
enemies as should lie along the way. Zara was the
first to be stormed, and Constantinople the last, and
there the crusade ended. Venice took, as her share of
the plunder of the latter, the monopoly of the trade
of the Black Sea. Among the later consequences
may be counted the arousal of a taste for learning in
58

Europe by the scattering throughout it of the MS.
treasures of Constantinople, and that weakening of
Constantinople which made her an easy prey to the
Turk two centuries later. A souvenir at Zara of
Dandolo is the cathedral which he built.
It is a thoroughly Italian town of considerable ac
tivity and interesting historical associations, but with
few formal sights. A couple of hours sufficed for
sightseeing and the purchase of a little Maraschino, a
specialty of the place.
In the morning a light wind set in from the south
east, so that we ran easily out of the narrow harbor
under foresail and jibs, and were soon on our thirty-
mile run between the islands to the sea, passing out
by Gruisa islet at 5 p.m. After an hour or two of
calm the wind came fresh from the northwest and held
through the night, so that although it fell light in the
morning, we sighted the low Italian shore a little
south of Ravenna before noon. It was our intention
to anchor off the little village, Corsini, and go up to
Ravenna by the canal in the launch, but the water
proved even shoaler than was indicated by the charts,
— less than four fathoms between two and three miles
off shore, — and the weather seemed threatening, the
sky growing overcast and the wind shifting to the
southeast and freshening, so we determined to go on
to Venice and visit Ravenna by rail.
After we had got ten miles away it fell calm and we
remained practically becalmed for forty hours, when
a light breeze came from the west and we ran pleas
antly up to Venice, anchoring off the jetties in the
evening of the 17th. Early in the morning a pilot
came aboard and we sailed between the jetties — two
59

miles — to the Lido (Fort S. Nicolo), at which is the
Health Office (Sanita) . Thence we took a tug to the
city, about three miles, anchoring and mooring close
by the custom-house, a convenient berth.
The port of Venice can be reached by either of two
routes: the one we took by the jetties and the Lido,
the other by Malamocco, about seven miles to the
southward, and thence by a deep, narrow channel
across the lagoon. The latter is the one taken by
deeply laden steamers, but it has a difficult sharp turn
near the city. The northern (Lido) channel has, ac
cording to the books, nineteen feet of water, but our
pilot said it would take vessels of twenty-two feet.
Improvement of it by dredging is going on, and
apparently it is planned to make it the principal
entrance. Pratique must be obtained at Fort S. Nicolo by
those entering by the jetties, but clearance papers are
got at the office of the Captain of the Port in the city,
opposite the Dogana, where also the pilotage is paid.
Outside pilotage through the jetties to the Health
Office, Lido, is optional; inside pilotage, from the
Lido to the city, I was told, is obligatory, but we
came out twice under tow without it.
An interpreter's fee (ten lire) at the Health Office
is not obligatory, but the individual who is charged
with the function is not above lying for it if not al
lowed to earn it. He tried also to put us in the hands
of Spagnol, a ship-chandler, who comes off in a gon
dola as the anchorage is approached, alleging to be
the bearer of directions where to anchor. I should
not let him aboard again. We found it easy and
advantageous to get all needed information and to
60

make all purchases without his aid. We kept a gon
dola for the service of the ship, one of the small ones
without a prow, and found the gondolier a thoroughly
honest and efficient aid in procuring supplies of all
kinds. The water-supply of the city is brought from
the mountains and is said to be excellent ; it is sup
plied by the city at three francs a ton.
Relieved of the necessity of formal sight-seeing, we
spent the time renewing sensations and impressions.
Each day, and more than once each day, we sought
the coolness and restful harmonies of St. Marc's, and
in the afternoon we floated through the shaded canals,
stopping here and there to see some picture or carving
or church corner, which we remembered with pleasure
and were interested to see again. In the evening we
floated by the music-boats on the Grand Canal, or
through the enchanting small ones where nothing
breaks the stillness but the ripple of the water and
the low warning call of the gondolier, or drifted far
out in the moonlight on the lagoon.
The revisitnig of Ravenna had been one of the
chief pleasures anticipated in our trip. We had now
missed it twice on the yacht — the other time, three
years before, because of a gale which met us as we
sailed away from Venice — and we would take no more
chances, but go there by rail. The leisurely after
noon train from Venice brings you there in time for
dinner, and even if on time gives half an hour in
Ferrara for a hasty look at its castle and cathedral.
And instead of staying in Ravenna over the second
night, you can go on after an early dinner to Bologna,
arriving at 9.30 p.m., and find there, at the Hotel Brun,
a comfort unsurpassed by that of any other hotel we
61

encountered, and ample time in the morning for the
museum with its unrivalled Etruscan and Umbrian
antiquities, and Rafael's St. Cecilia at the Accademia.
We took, also, a third day for Verona.
The historical and architectural interest of Ravenna
is greater than that of any other city in Italy except
Rome, and as it is rather scantily treated by the
guide-books it may not be amiss to ampUfy the ac
count somewhat here.
Originally a lagoon settlement, like Venice, the
silting of the waters slowly shut it off from the sea
except through the adjoining port of Classis, but left it
so protected by the surrounding marshes that it was
impregnable against a land force. It long remained
a subject town of Rome, part of Cisalpine Gaul, with
only one incident worth mention, namely, that from
it Caesar started out to cross the Rubicon and make
himself the master of the world. Augustus saw its
naval possibilities, and made at Classis a port large
and safe enough to shelter his Adriatic fleet. In the
troublous times of the third and fourth centuries it
gave frequent and safe shelter to many an emperor
and many a general fleeing before an invader or in
the adversities of internecine war; and to it came
early in the fifth century the craven Honorius and
his stout-hearted sister, Galla Placidia, for a perma
nent residence that extended over a third of a century,
and left the still existing mausoleum of the latter and
its unequaled mosaics.
As each invading army or armed nation of bar
barians, as they called them, — Vandal, Visigoth, Hun,
and Ostrogoth, — swept down in turn from Pannonia
or Thrace around the end of the Julian Alps, by what
62

is now Laybach, to overrun the rich vaUey of the Po,
to which they so commonly limited their main attack,
the Roman Emperor with his large body of civU offi
cials and his smaU army retired precipitately behind
the Ravenna swamps to await the spontaneous de
parture of the foe, or the slow development under
some faithful "barbarian" general of a force that
should drive the invader out. Against the walls that
protected its one causeway of approach, the bar
barian, skiUed only to fight in the open field, beat in
vain, and he was powerless to cut off the ample sup
plies that came by sea. There the emperor remained,
inglorious but safe, and so soothed and cradled in his
security that he could forget the stress to which his
subjects were subjected. When the breathless mes
senger announcing to Honorius the capture of Rome
by Alaric cried, "Roma perdita est," "Roma per-
dita ! " replied the chicken-loving and chicken-hearted
emperor; "it is not an hour since she was feeding out
of my hand."
It requires an effort to realize that the time came
when the city Rome was not the Roman Empire, not
even the Western Empire ; that even a century could
pass without seeing an emperor more than once or
twice within its waUs ; that it could shrink in popula
tion even to actual abandonment for a few months,
and that Belisarius could support his little army, be
sieged therein, with grain grown within its walls.
During this time the emperors in Italy lived at Milan
or at Ravenna, and when the Western Empire died
with Augustulus in 476 the conquering Teuton,
Odovakar, and his great Ostrogothic victor and suc
cessor, Theodoric, made their home in, and ruled the
63

peninsula from, Ravenna. And again, after another
century had passed and Justinian's general, Narses,
had completed the work so well begun by Belisarius,
and had brought all of Italy under his master's control
by means of an army landed from Constantinople at
and supported through Ravenna, it was there that
the exarchs lived and ruled over Italy in the Eastern
Emperor's name.
In buildings and decorations contemporaneous with
those times, much of absorbing interest remains. It
may be grouped in three periods: one corresponding
to the time of Galla Placidia, died 450 a.d.; one to
that of Theodoric, ending nearly a hundred years
later ; and one to that of Justianian and the exarchs.
Galla Placidia built her own mausoleum and the
church of S. Giovanni Evangelista. The former is a
small brick building in the form of a Greek cross, of
plain exterior, but decorated within with the oldest
and most beautiful mosaics. The vaulted ceilings
are of blue, studded with golden stars, and below are
various figures and scenes. Opposite the entrance is
a huge sarcophagus within which the enbalmed body
of the lady, clad in her royal robes and seated in a
chair, remained for more than a thousand years, vis
ible through a small hole in the back. Some curious
children in the sixteenth century introduced a light
and reduced her to ashes. On each side is another
sarcophagus, both of marble and bearing Christian
symbols carved upon the sides ; one of them, Hodgkin
says, contains all that is left of Honorius to cumber
the earth, and the other, two of the royal children and
their tutor.
The church of S. Giovanni was built by Galla in
64

remembrance of the succor brought her by the saint
when in peril by sea. It is decrepit and changed,
with only some quaint mosaic pavement recently re
covered and preserved upon the wall of a chapel, and
said to represent scenes of her memorable voyage.
To the fifty years between the death of Galla Pla
cidia and the rule of Theodoric belong the Baptistery,
the Archiepiscopal Palace, and the church of St. Peter
Chrysologus. The former is a transformed Roman
thermes with Christian mosaics.
Of Theodoric's buildings remain his grand mauso
leum outside the city, the church which he dedicated
to Jesus Christ, but which is now known as S. Apol-
linare Nuovo, and some walls and arches thought to
have been part of his palace. The mausoleum is a
two-story cylindrical building, about thirty-five feet
in diameter, built of Istrian marble which shows very
little weathering, and is covered with a single block
of stone said to weigh more than four hundred tons.
The sarcophagus stood on the upper floor, to which
was no approach; but two outside staircases have
since been built to give access to the empty chamber
and the narrow, encircling platform. The level of the
ground has now risen to half the height of the lower
story. A curious detail, which we noticed nowhere
else, is that the sides of the stones forming the arches
are not straight, but have an interlocking notch.
There is no sign of settling, and apparently the struc
ture is as well able to last another fourteen hundred
years as when it was built. The custodian said it
rests upon a masonry foundation extending about one
hundred feet all around.
The fate of the sarcophagus and of the body of the
65

King is not known, although there are several tradi
tions. The Gothic rule did not long survive him, and
in one way or another his body must have suffered by
the odium theologicum manifested in so many ways
by the orthodox conquerors against the Arian Goths
who, though good Christians, were deemed by the
orthodox worse than the infidel.
S. Apollinare Nuovo is of basilica form, with an out
standing round campanile. To the architecturally
uninformed its chief interest is in the mosaics that
cover the upper walls of the nave. It is claimed by
experts that the long lines of virgins and martyrs
which occupy the greater part of the lower sections on
each side are substitutions for those inserted by
Theodoric, which then must either have been tainted
by Arianism or must have represented incidents in the
life of the King. It is known that the name of the
church was immediately changed by the orthodox
conquerors, and the tradition that these mosaics also
were changed is supported by the differences in con
ception and treatment, those of Theodoric's time
suggesting statuary in their lines, and showing much
more attention to detail and a far wider choice and a
careful handling of colors ; whUe the others are coarser
and more decorative and Byzantine in character.
The representation of the port of Classis on one side,
and of Theodoric's palace on the other, were left
undisturbed. Of the buildings of the Justinian period I will take
the space to mention only two, — the church of S.
Vitale in the city and that of S. Apollinare in Classe,
about two miles outside. S. Vitale is most notable
architecturally and by the possession of two large
66

A SUMMER DAY ON THE ATLANTIC

mosaics containing contemporaneous portraits of Jus
tinian and his Empress, Theodora. The building,
Byzantine in character, and almost unique in Western
Europe, is octagonal and of two stories, with a central
nave and surrounding aisle. It served as a model to
Charlemagne for his cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle.
The capitals of the columns are elaborate to an extent
rarely seen elsewhere.
S. Apollinare in Classe stands solitary in the plain,
with the usual brown brick exterior and detached
round campanile. The interior is large and impres
sive, but robbed of its former splendor by the removal
of the marble which lined its walls. The body of St.
Apollinaris, who, ordained by St. Peter and sent to
preach at Ravenna, was slain by Vespasian, was kept
in a niche in the wall until the twelfth century, and
then was placed in the sarcophagus now occupying the
crypt under the altar. Hodgkin quotes the tradition
that some zealous Dutch monks on their return from
a pUgrimage to Rome, desiring a relic for their mon
astery, stole the saint's head. But while descending
the Rhine with it, their boat suddenly began to whirl
about violently, and they, terrified and believing their
theft to be the cause of the phenomenon, hastily
made their way to shore and buried the head. Im
mediately sprang up beside it the Apollinaris springs,
with the waters of which we are all so familiar.
By the addition of a mile to the ride, Sta. Maria in
Porto Fuori can be seen, with its lovely frescoes by
Giotto and the portraits of Dante and Francesca da
Rimini. The city has lost the deserted, ancient look which a
few years ago made it seem a unique survival of a
67

far-distant time, and has taken on a modern and active
appearance, with fine new houses, broad streets, a good
hotel, — the Byron, — tramways, and even a consider
able steam commerce through its canal. The walls
too, are now gone, except for a couple of gateways.
This somewhat lessens the charm, but the old build
ings and the association with Galla Placidia and Theo
doric remain, and will long make it a Mecca for those
who have fallen under their spell.
Middle and Western Mediterranean
Although the barometer was low and the wind
southeast, we sailed from Venice on the morning of
June 26th, towing out beyond the jetties. The first
day was a beat which brought us to the Austrian coast
near Pola, but afterwards we had favoring winds
and reached Sta. Maria di Leuca at the end of
the Adriatic — 450 miles — on the evening of the 29th,
and Cape Spavimento, near the SicUian end of the
mainland, late on the ist July. That day had been
sultry, with but little wind, and the clouds gathered
on the mountains in the afternoon and burst in fierce
thunder-showers and squalls in the evening, which
brought us down to the foresaU, and as the weather
remained threatening we continued under that sail,
moving slowly on our course until nearly morning.
Daybreak, July 2d, found us crossing the entrance
of the Messina Strait, near Cape Armi. As the light
of dawn was added to that of the waning moon the
summit of Etna appeared, streaked with snow and
resting on the light clouds, and as it caught the first
rays of the sun it took on for a moment a lovely pink
color. All were on deck for the sight and that of the
68

beautiful shore slowly gathering definition as the day
light strengthened.
If there is a more beautiful view than that of the
coast between Taormina and Messina, especially as
seen from the water in the early morning light, I
know not where to find it. The elements of which it is
composed are those found in such abundance through
out the Mediterranean, and, indeed, wherever moun
tains come down abruptly to the sea; but nowhere
else are they more picturesquely combined and with
more charm of form, color, and detail, while the dis
tant Etna adds a suggestion of the grandeur that
belongs to great heights and wide extent of view.
Passing on, as we did the same day, to the adjoining
north coast of the island and the west coast of Italy,
where the same elements are found, we were im
pressed anew with the charm and beauty given by
differences of combination and detail. And also, as
the morning grew, we noticed a great change in color
which added much to its beauty: at first the moun
tainsides appeared green to the summit, but as the
sun rose higher this gave place in large part to the
dark gray of the rock, for only the vineyards and
large trees held their color, while that of the soil now
showed through the scanty vegetation of the heights.
We felt it had placed an unsurpassable capstone
upon memory's edifice of all that we had seen in
Africa, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Italy; and again we
rejoiced that it had been given to us to see it in all
its length and breadth from the boat, and not piece
meal and marred by the conflicting suggestions of
proximity. No words at my command can describe it, but
69

nevertheless the elements and composition may be
indicated. To the left, over the long, sloping promon
tory of Taormina, rose the peak of Etna; to the right
the mountains sank and faded in the distance; in
front, a mile or two of blue sea, out of which rose the
green hills and mountains to the low-lying clouds
which just covered their summits. The surface of
this mountain-mass is of great irregularity, covered
throughout in the foreground with thickly grouped
ridges, separated by sharp-sided water-cut ravines
running down to the sea, and on the higher levels by
more rounded masses, further softened by the soft
green or dark gray coloring. The human element
appeared in the greener vineyards and olive trees, the
little white houses, collected here and there into vil
lages whose occasional situation on some little peak,
accessible only along a narrow ridge, vividly suggested
the troublous centuries of war and foray that had
preceded the present peace and calm, and stimulated
memory and imagination. And then, as the day ad
vanced and Messina was reached, the scene changed,
the curtain fell, and we came back to the world of
actuality. Nature was bountiful, if not wholly artistic, that
morning. Heavy clouds lowered and heavy showers
fell at times, cutting off parts of the view and modify
ing the colors, and twice, very early in the morning,
a brilliant, not to say gaudy, rainbow was stretched
in an almost complete circle athwart the view.
The passage through the straits was favored by a
strong tide; the wind was ahead and light, but we
got well past Faro, at the north end, before the tide
turned. Several boats with six or eight rowers apiece
70

came out from both shores and offered, with much
vociferation and persistence, to tow us. Their ser
vices were accepted later by a neighboring brig, and
it looks as if they might find plenty to do.
The next days, occupied in getting to Naples — 150
miles, — were of calm and light headwinds, practi
cally becalmed from midnight to noon, then a north
westerly wind gradually freshening through the
afternoon and ceasing at midnight. The land was in
sight all the time, and we passed between Capri and
the mainland at six o'clock on the evening of July 5th ;
the wind lasted long enough to carry us well across
the bay, and early in the morning we put the launch
out and towed into the port of Naples, about two
miles, anchoring and mooring to the mole, well in.
Stromboli was not so complaisant as in the past;
it gave out smoke, but no flame. The Calabrian
coast is of the usual Mediterranean type — medium-
sized gray and brown mountains, with an occasional
peak, coming down to the sea in an abrupt, rocky
coast-line. The south shore of the Sorrento penin
sula, about Amalfi, was seen in detail and to great
advantage after we had gone in close enough to break
through the light veil of haze.
On our previous cruise we had turned in at the
south end of the Bay of Salerno and visited Paestum,
an easily made visit. We anchored, landed in the
dinghy, and walked by country roads to the temples,
about a mile. They stand in the fields, free from
hampering buildings, where their form and excep
tional size can be appreciated. Of both the basilica
and the great temple of Neptune all the columns are
standing, and the two-storied cella of the latter is
71

sufficiently complete to show its size and shape. The
temple of Neptune ranks as one of the largest and
best-preserved Greek buildings left to us, and to one
who is interested in such Paestum is well worth a
visit. The port of Naples, though artificial, is spacious;
we should have been very comfortable there had it
not been for a large German Lloyd steamer which
came in a few hours after we did, and moored diagon
ally across our bows so that the dust of her coaling
blew thickly over us. Although the first week of
July, the weather was not too warm for comfort, and
we spent two days there pleasantly. Food supplies
are scanty and dear.
We sailed away from Naples, July 8th, for Elba,
with a fine breeze which carried us well through the
Procida channel. Thereafter, until Elba was reached
on the afternoon of the 1 2th, we had the usual night
and morning calm and pleasant afternoon and even
ing breeze. The only incident was a rather narrow
escape in the night from collision with a large passen
ger steamer. The night was clear, and we had seen
her lights for fully fifteen minutes, but she stood
straight for us until we shouted warningly ; then she
stopped her engines and passed astern, her passengers
swarming out to the rail to look at us. I suppose
she had underestimated our speed and thought to pass
ahead, or else the watch officer was asleep. More
than one steamer in the Mediterranean compelled us
to shift our course, in the daytime as well as at night,
and we came to think them the chief navigational
risk. The mornings were hot and still, and the heat was
72

great even under the awning, but as soon as the
breeze came the conditions were pleasant, and the
evenings were delightful. The islands on the coast
were in sight most of the time, and one afternoon,
when quite near the land, we were even able to recog
nize the dome of St. Peter's at Rome in the distance,
and some buildings which we supposed to be on the
Palatine Hill.
Porto Ferraio, on the northern side of Elba, was
reached in the afternoon, and while the yacht stood
off and on we went ashore in the launch for a hasty
view of the town and of the villa on the hillside where
Napoleon spent the ten months of his sovereignty of
the little kingdom created for him. The port is spa
cious and accessible, and the surrounding hills are very
beautiful. The town is so small that it seems like
a plaything; it lies within the walls of an elaborate
old fortress on a narrow, level strip and the adjoining
hillside. To pass from the little quay through a gate
way into the little piazza, with a diminutive market
place on one side, a cafe" or two on the other, and a
few artificial-looking trees against the sketchy build
ings in the background was like seeing the curtain
rise upon a scene of comic opera. A bit of local color
which specially interested the ladies was a lad selling
boiled devil-fish; the tentacles were cut up in small
pieces, which the customer would pick out and eat, as
others, less broad-minded, might buy and eat an apple.
The Villa Napoleon, now a private residence and
closed to visitors except at certain hours and by per
mit, is on a hillside two or three miles from the town,
and so shut in by the hills that the view from it is
much restricted. It is a plain, small, two-story 73

building, and the museum below it, built by Prince
Demidoff to contain the Napoleon relics, is now empty,
the contents having been sold by the builder's heir.
The great industry of Elba is in its iron mines, the
ore having a quality which makes it of special value
for admixture with others, so that a large part of the
product goes to England.
From Porto Ferraio we beat our slow way to ViUe-
franche, the wind and weather remaining as before.
There was an exasperating pertinacity about this head
wind, and it reached its climax, we thought, when
it turned Elba as we did. The morning of July 15th
found us in sight of the lighthouse on the east point
of Villefranche harbor, with Monaco showing on the
dim hillside abeam. As we drew slowly nearer, the
beauty of the coast came into full view, and after a
brisk squall had come down in the afternoon the haze
cleared away and the distant snow peaks of the Mari
time Alps came out grand and clear. The coast
seemed quite different from the Mediterranean type
we had had for two months — the color was darker,
the vegetation much more abundant, the foot-hills
much less water-worn. The view had more height,
extent, and grandeur than that of the Sicilian coast
south of Messina, but lacked, we thought, the beauty
of detail which had so charmed us in the latter.
After the squall had passed we ran into ViUefranche,
a large, commodious harbor, and anchored off the
citadel in time to go to Nice for dinner. Nice is
easily reached in fifteen minutes by trolley — a beauti
ful ride along the cliffs, and as we passed its port
we congratulated ourselves that we had chosen the
quiet and spaciousness of Villefranche instead of the
74

cramped quarters and noise of Nice. The distance
between them is only a couple of miles by land or
water, and supplies can be got from Nice as easily as
if in its port.
The next morning was spent in Nice, which was in
full summer tenue, the hotels and many of the shops
closed, and an hour or two would have sufficed had
not the ladies found a store of linen goods whose bar
gain character could not be withstood. It seemed too
hot and dusty for the automobile trip we had planned
to Monte Carlo, so we took the trolley thither late in
the afternoon. It gave beautiful views in detail -of
the coast, greatly enhanced by the changing colors of
an approaching thunderstorm which broke upon us
midway. The motorman stopped the car and came
inside to avoid a wetting, but the remonstrances of
a passenger who desired to take a train at the next
station finally sent him back, reluctant, to his place
and we proceeded. But at Monaco the rain had
filled a switch with gravel, which proved too much for
the intelligence and labor of the drivers and conduc
tors of the half dozen cars which soon collected on
either side, and as a term to the delay was not in
sight we secured a cab for the last mile to Monte
Carlo, and were finally deposited on the steps of the
Casino an hour behind the schedule, but still with
time enough for a stroll through the rooms and a
delicious roast chicken at the Restaurant de Paris.
Then back to the ship by train.
We agreed that, beautiful as were the rocks and
bays and trees of the coast, and the wonderful colors
of the water, the full beauty of the coast could be had
only from the sea, and we felt that the traveller by
75

land should not be content to pass over the roads, but
should also take a sailboat or a tug and go out to sea
four or five mUes for the large impression upon which
the details could then be superimposed.
A calm kept us at anchor until the next afternoon
(July 17th), then we beat slowly out of the harbor
to meet our constant friend — the head wind. But it
blew with some force and limited its antagonism to
about two points, and it lasted two days, bringing us
nearly to Minorca — 260 miles — by the afternoon of
the 19th. Then it fell too light for progress against
the head sea, and we turned to pass north of the
islands and had a fine view of them for two days.
Minorca is a low plateau, bordered on the north by
a sheer cliff. A conical mountain — Toro, 1700 feet
high, rises near its centre, capped by an old castle,
and widely visible. Majorca is much more moun
tainous and irregular; its north coast seemed utterly
barren and desolate, of a gray or drab color, which
yet appeared to be in great part vegetation. Only a
few patches were recognized in the eastern half, but
there seemed to be an abundance of them in the
western portion. Only one small town was seen and
a few scattered villages.
After a night's calm off the northwestern corner
we turned to the south with a southeasterly wind,
which turned the scales against a contemplated visit
to Palma, and soon shifted enough to force us a little
off the course toward the west, but we were able to
turn it to advantage in the early evening by slipping
through the narrow strait between Iviza and For-
mentera — the Fuo Grande — and moved on quietly
through the night.
76

THE GALE

AM AUGUST GALE ON THE ATLANTIC

Two Ught days brought us to the coast of Spain,
twenty mUes north of Cape de Gata, and there began
a long speU of calm and light winds with a contrary
current, so that we spent eight days in covering the
remaining two hundred miles to Gibraltar. On the
afternoon of July 29th we sighted the Mount of Apes,
and at sunset, when the haze lightened, we saw Gib
raltar, forty miles distant, just as the sun sank with
gorgeous coloring beside it. There was a breeze, too,
and we went to our beds with orders to be called
when off Europa Point. But four more nights were
yet to pass before that order could be filled. A calm
feU, and the next day and the next we drifted farther
away; then a breeze enabled us to make the Spanish
coast at Cape Calaburra, and we kept close to it
thereafter, because we found that during part of the
day the current ran westerly, the rate and duration
increasing as we approached Gibraltar, and because
there were a number of anchorages where we could
hold on if necessary. Little by little we progressed
along the coast, and the morning of August 3d found
us opposite the north end of the Rock, moving south
ward with a light air and the current. As we reached
Europa Point a tug came out, and the long journey —
nearly seventeen days — was ended.
The coast of Spain, in sight for so many days, is
very picturesque. The mountains are sharply out
lined and show comparatively little weathering, the
talus being quite low ; at places strips of fertile plain
lie between them and the sea, and behind are the
higher ranges which, in the Sierra Nevada, reach
heights of more than 11,000 feet, and stiU showed in
August many patches of snow near their summits. The
77

coloring is gray, with occasionally a red tinge. The
scattered towns and villages are glaringly white;
the pine forests, the orchards, the brown hUls from
which the crops had been harvested, occasionally a
tall chimney or a scour on the mountainside marking
the site of a mine, and the many fishing-boats with
their stubby, forward-tilted masts and lateen sails,
gave interest and variety to the scene and mitigated
the tedium of the delay.
The weather was more cool and comfortable than
it had been in the central and northern parts of the
Mediterranean; the sun was hot, and the awning was
needed, but the air was fresh, and its temperature and
that of the water was lower, 740 instead of 8o°. Linen
gowns gave place to cloth, wraps and rugs were wel
come after sunset, and extra coverings at night, a
welcome relief from our fear that we should find it
warmer as we went south.
The sea, too, furnished more incident. We saw
several whales, porpoises in large numbers, and many
bonita, but only an occasional nautilus, and no jeUy-
fish. We saw several turtles and captured one. It
was always so hazy that the details of the lower shore
were unrecognizable at any distance, and within a
hundred miles of Gibraltar there was considerable fog,
but the sky was always clear and the stars briUiant.
The necessary work at Gibraltar was hurried
through, and in the afternoon we crossed the bay to
Algeciras to spend the night at the very comfortable
Hotel Reina Cristina> to whose spacious, cool rooms,
good table, and beautiful gardens we had long looked
forward with impatience. Our recollection had not
outgrown the reality, and even the blue bathtubs rose
78

to the level of cherished reminiscence. It was so
pleasant that the stay was prolonged until after lun
cheon, even at the price of limiting the search in
Gibraltar for lace and drawn-work to the afternoon
hours. Across the Atlantic
Everything was aboard by 7 p.m., August 4th, and
shortly thereafter we started out under tow of a
large ocean-going tug, to be taken about forty-five
miles through the straits and left off Spartel or Traf
algar according to the wind. At three o'clock in the
morning (August 5th) the tug left us eight miles
northwest of Cape Spartel, and after we had lain
nearly becalmed until noon a breeze came from the
northwest, which enabled us nearly to lay a course for
the Azores. It freshened and drew northerly, and
then held so well that at noon, August 9th — we had
covered over seven hundred miles and had passed
four very enjoyable days. It was delightful to be
back upon the ocean, to be refreshed by its breezes,
to feel again the rush and swing of swift motion over
the long rollers. Four days more of calm and light
winds, generally easterly, brought us to a mooring
inside the mole at Ponta Delgada, St. Michaels, at
2 p.m., August 13th, — one thousand miles from
Gibraltar. On the evening of the nth we met with our only
mishap. While going six knots with a smooth sea,
the lashing of the spinnaker halyard block parted and
the sail fell into the water ; before the drag could be
relieved by slacking the sheet the forward guy parted,
and the boom, bringing up against the forerigging, 79

broke inboard. All was recovered without difficulty,
and the boom was afterwards cut down to carry the
small spinnaker.
The harbor of Ponta Delgada, formed by a mole
still in course of extension, is long and narrow, with
a central line of buoys to which ships moor, bow
and stern. It has direct cable communication with
Portugal, and through Fayal with the United States.
There is provision, more or less regular and uncom
fortable, for passengers to Portugal and England, but
the better class go first to Madeira and connect there
with the large liners. There is a quiet little hotel on
the hillside at the south end of the town, where we
went for breakfast, and found three or four Ameri
cans who were spending the summer in the island.
The climate is said to be much like that of Madeira,
and tuberculosis has not been introduced, as it is said
to have been to a disturbing extent at the latter place.
There is not much to attract attention in the clean
streets of the little town, and the high walls that
border the roads in the adjoining country interfere
considerably with the views. Of the Fayal lace and
drawn-work we found nothing in the stores; it was
said that the American trade takes the entire output
and confines the manufacture almost entirely to the
cheap patterns.
We sailed away on the afternoon of August 14th
with a light southwesterly wind, headed for Sandy
Hook, 2240 miles distant; we arrived there at day
break, September 3d, having travelled 2360 miles,
the extra 1 20 being due to a long board to the north
ward made to cross the Gulf Stream just west of the
Banks. This crossing was forced upon us by weather
80

THE GALE

conditions earlier than we had planned. During the
first week we made 908 miles, with a maximum day's
run of 240 — the best of the trip ; the second and third
weeks were about 700 miles each. The winds in gen
eral were light and for only six days, all told, from the
S.W. quadrant ; most of the time we were able to lay
the course. The weather was fine, with very little
rain, except for one day when we passed through the
right semicircle of a circular storm, and we had no
fog, not even on our own coast.
The circular storm was met the morning of August
2 2d; it was the one which passed over New York,
August 19th and 20th. The previous day we had
been becalmed, barometer, 30.40; the wind came at
midnight from the south-southwest and freshened
steadily; at 8 a.m. the barometer had fallen to 30.12,
and we put two reefs in mainsail and foresail and
took the wind abeam. The sea got up fast, but the
ship was taking it so easily and travelling so fast on
her course withal, that it was decided to disregard
the rule and keep on the port tack. The wind was
shifting a little to the right, and it was evident we
were not in the line of the centre's progress. At
n a.m. the mainsail was taken in, and we continued
with the sea abeam under the staysail and double-
reefed foresail for six hours. It was really very ex
hilarating as confidence grew that the great seas were
not coming aboard. They would rush up with the
top curling well above our heads, and then slip under
and pass to leeward without giving us more than the
spindrift and an occasional bucketful. The lee rail
of course, was often well under water, but there was
no pitching and very little water coming in over the

bows. Some of the rolls to leeward were pretty
heavy, and the ladies said that, while seated under
the weather main rigging, they could often see the
horizon well above the furled mainsaU.
At 5 p.m., the barometer having meanwhile fallen
to 29.82, came a furious squall, with rain and light
ning, but without change of direction, and the stay
sail was taken in. It lasted for fifteen or twenty
minutes ; then the wind shifted to the northwest and
held there through the night. At six o'clock we wore
and hove-to on the starboard tack . During the squall
the surface of the water was white with driving spray,
whose impact stung the face. It looked Uke the
street in a driving snowstorm. My limited experi
ence contains no heavier blow, arid it seems weU
worth going through to renew such complete confi
dence in the ability of the little boat to take care of
herself and those entrusted to her. Both my officers,
men of long experience in sailing vessels, said they
had never seen her equal in a beam sea, and one of the
quartermasters, who had been with us three years,
broke in upon their eulogy with the assertion that in
addition she would "stay" under a foresail alone.
At daylight the barometer began to rise and the
wind and sea to fall, and by afternoon we were on
our course again under full sail. In the night of the
26th and 27th we were again hove to for a few
hours, and after that had only light winds.
Very few vessels were seen until after the meridian
of Halifax had been passed and we had come into the
west-bound steamer track. Nantucket Lightship was
passed in the afternoon, September ist, Fire Island
the next evening, and Sandy Hook Lightship at day-
82

break on the 3d. After getting well within the bar a
heavy fog set in, but on the west bank a tugboat came ,
alongside, and the sails, which had carried us over so
many thousand miles of water, were furled for the last
time, and our cruise was ended.

83