A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil | Page 6

the pillared dimness softly lighted by the great window in the west. This seems to me to be the greatest achievement of the Christian architect, noble alike in conception and in execution.
There is no means of procuring a cold more certain than lingering too long in a cold and vault-like church or picture gallery, so we adjourned to the Palazzo Daniele, now a mere hotel, where we browsed on the literature--chiefly cosmopolitan newspapers--until it was time to start for Trieste.
The journey is not an attractive one, as we seemed to be perpetually worried by Custom-house authorities and inquisitive ticket-collectors! If possible, the wary traveller should so time his sojourn at Venice as to allow him to go to Trieste by steamer. The H?tel de la Ville at Trieste is not quite excellent, but 'twill serve, and we were remarkably glad to reach it, somewhere about midnight, having left Milan soon after seven in the morning!
Trieste itself is rather an engaging town; at least so it seemed to us when we awakened to a fresh, bright morning, a blue-and-white sky overhead, and a copious allowance of yellow mud under foot!
There were various final purchases to be made. Our deck chairs were with the heavy luggage, which the passenger by Austrian Lloyd only gets at Port Sa?d, as it is sent from London by sea; so a deck chair had to be got, also a stock of light literature wherewith to beguile the long sea hours.
A visit to our ship--the _Marie Valerie_--showed her to be a comfortable-looking vessel of some 4500 tons. She was busily engaged in taking in a large cargo, principally for Japan, and she showed no signs of an early departure. Her nominal hour for starting was 4 P.M., but the captain told us that he should not sail until next morning. So we descended to examine our cabin, and found it to be large and airy, but totally deficient in the matter of drawers or lockers.
Well! we shall have to keep everything in cabin trunks, and "live in our boxes" for the next three weeks.
There was cabin accommodation for twenty passengers, but at dinner we mustered but nine. This is, of course, the season when all right-minded folks are coming home from India, and we never expected to find a crowd; still, nine individuals scattered abroad over the wide decks make but a poor show.
The first meal on board a big steamer is always interesting. Every one is quietly "taking stock" of his, or her, neighbours, and forming estimates of their social value, which are generally entirely upset by after experience.
Of our fellow-passengers there were only five whose presence affected us in any way. A young Austrian, Herr Otto Frantz, with his wife, going out as first secretary of legation to Tokio; Major Twining, R.E., and his wife; and Miss Lungley, a cosmopolitan lady, who makes Kashmir her headquarters and Rome her annexe.
We became acquainted with each other sooner than might have been expected, by reason of an exploit of the stewardess--a gibbering idiot. The night was cold, so several of the ladies, following an evil custom, sent forth from their cabins those vile inventions called hot bottles. Only two came back..., and then the fun began. The stewardess, who speaks no known tongue, played "hunt the slipper" for the missing bottles through all the cabins, whence she was shot out by the enraged inhabitants until she was reduced to absolute imbecility, and the harassed stewards to gesticular despair.
The missing articles were, I believe, finally discovered and routed out of an unoccupied bed, where they had been laid and forgotten by the addle-pated lady, and peace reigned.
We sailed from Trieste early on the morning of the 28th of February, and steamed leisurely on our way. The Austrian Lloyd's "unaccelerated" steamers are not too active in their movements, being wont to travel at purely "economical speed," and so we were given an excellent view of some of the Ionian Islands, steaming through the Ithaca channel, with the snow-tipped peak of Cephalonia close on our starboard hand.
Then, leaving the far white hills of the Albanian coast to fade into the blue mists, we sped
"Over the sea past Crete,"
until the tall lighthouse of Port Sa?d rose on the horizon, followed by the spars of much shipping, and the roofs of the houses dotted apparently over the waters of the Mediterranean. At length the low mudbanks which represent the two continents of Africa and Asia spread their dull monotony on either hand, and the good ship sat quietly down for a happy day's coaling.
Port Sa?d has grown out of all knowledge since I first made its acquaintance in 1877. It was then a cluster of evil-looking shanties, the abode of the scum of the Levant, who waxed fat by the profits of