The Argosy — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

132 A DAY AT MALTA. By CuHartes W. Woon, F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF “* LETTERS FROM Majorca,” ETC. E left Gibraltar “‘as the clocks were striking the hour,” though it was not the midnight hour. The strains of the military band on the Ala- meda grew faint and fainter yet ; the lights died out; very soon the outlines of the gigantic rock could no longer be traced. We ploughed our course through the wide waste. In due time we passed through the Straits, and once more were on the deep blue waters of the Mediterra- nean : to see whose shores, said Dr. Johnson, was the great ob- ject of travelling. I don’t know whether he would have said so had he lived in these days ; but Europa POINT. it is doubtful whether any other shores can equal them. It was Monday night and we were due at Malta on the Friday morning. During the intervening days we should touch nowhere ; see very little of the Egyptian coast and nothing of the European, In the course of our journey we should at one moment pass not far from our dear Palma de Mallorca. If only we could bribe the Captain to put in for an hour or two, that we might once more gaze upon the grand outlines of the Cathedral, revisit some of our favourite Courts, give the Bon jour to good old Don Negro, and assure the fair Mallorquinas that H. C. was faithful to them ! It was not to be thought of. The Captain kept on his course as straight as an arrow from a bow. He would not budge a mile to right or left for a Jew’s ransom, or even to be made Commodore of the P. and O. Service. Two of our sextett had left us at Gibraltar. But as the judge remained, with all his humour, his strange experiences of human nature, his fund of anecdote, and his quaint and original views of life, we felt that we had still a great deal of social enjoyment before us. We were by no means abandoned, and not at all depressed. connicbooks.co