VOYAGE TO CADIZ, THENCE TO GIBRALTAR, SICILY, MALTA, MILO, AND CONSTANTINOPLE. JOURNAL OF TOUR TO ZANTE, ALBANIA, AND GREECE. APPENDIX. JOURNAL, : &c. CHAPTER. Į, HAVING been attached. by Marquis Wellesley in 1811, to the embassy with which Mr. (now Sir Robert) Liston was charged to Constantinople, I embarked on the 8th April, 1812, with the other gentlemen of the embassy, on board the Argo, Captain Warren, which was appointed to carry us to the Dardanelles. We lost sight of England that night. My first few days were, as is usual with inexperienced travellers, days of wretchedness. The depression of spirits occasioned by leaving home was not yet lightened by the variety of travel. Though we enjoyed moderate breezes and clear weather, there was so considerable a swell on the Bay of Biscay, that I was happy, on the 19th April, to see Cape St. Vincent, of which, besides its national interest to an Englishman, the picturesque headlands afforded a prospect very pleasing to an eye accustomed for some days to see nothing but sky and water. On the point of the Cape stood an old convent converted into barracks. The morning of the 20th was cloudy, but the weather cleared in the afternoon, and at 4 o'clock Cadiz appeared fifteen miles ahead: it's appearance to the naked eye at that distance was only an indistinct mass of white, but the prospect round it was delightful. To the left appeared Rota with the French batteries and fortifications, and San Lucar here closed the view. The country surrounding these towns was cultivated and cheerful. It contained several gentlemen's seats, and some convents which at a distance resembled parish churches in England. Before us was Cadiz, the harbour of which, full of shipping, extended to the right. We made signal for a pilot, who came on board at half past five, and at eight we anchored in the Bay. We staid seven days in Cadiz. The town is about three quarters of a mile long, and half a mile broad, and its first appearance pleased me greatly. It was neat and clean, the houses being universally whitewashed, and its ramparts afforded an agreeable walk, commanding a view of the harbour, but they were paved with light-coloured stone, and this mass of white was painful to the eye in a place exposed to a hot sun. The roofs of the houses are all flat for the purpose of catching rain-water, which by this means is procured in quantities sufficient for the constant supply of the town. Almost every house has a small turret on its top, to serve as a look-out, which has a handsome effect, and all the better sort have balconies. I entered few; but most of them being, as I was told, alike, I could judge of them by that of Sir Henry Wellesley, the British Ambassador, who received us with great hospitality. More attention was paid to appearance in its entrance than in its interior. The outer hall led into a quadrangle (on which a gallery looked down from each story) quite open to the sky, exposed to the air in summer, and in winter sheltered by glass. After ascending three flights of a handsome wide staircase of marble, we entered his drawing-room, in which my eye was at first rather hurt to see whitewashed walls and a brick floor, the latter indeed partly covered by a carpet, which was contrary to the custom of the place. There are no fire-places, but on a chilly day, of which our stay afforded me only one instance, (though, whilst we remained, the thermometer did not rise higher than sixty-five in the shade,) a brasier full of charcoal, previously burnt to a red heat in the air, was brought in. Almost all the old-fashioned houses had every window guarded by a projecting iron cage quite round it; but many of these had been pulled down to provide chevaux de frise for the fortifications; and in the more modern buildings, constructed since the jealousy of Spaniards had somewhat yielded to their enlarged converse with European society produced by the late invasion, the practice was totally discontinued. At intervals appear a few convents with high walls, little remarkable for beauty of architecture in their construction, or chasteness of ornament in their interior |