on the
high seas. Scarcely did one island vanish from our view, before it
was replaced by another. On

September 11th,

between three and four in the morning, we reached Syra. The
terrible contrary winds with which we had been obliged to contend
during almost the whole of our passage had caused us to arrive a day
behind our time, to make up for which delay we only stayed half a
day here, instead of a day and a half. This was a matter of
indifference to those of us who were travelling further, for as we
came from Egypt, we should not have been allowed in any case to
disembark. Those who landed here proceeded at once to the
quarantine-house.

Syra possesses a fine harbour. From our vessel we had a view over
the whole town and its environs. An isolated mountain, crowned by a
convent and church, the seat of the bishop, rises boldly from the
very verge of the shore. The town winds round this mountain in the
form of several wreaths, until it almost reaches the episcopal
buildings. The background closes with the melancholy picture of a
barren mountain-chain. A lighthouse stands on a little neighbouring
island. The quarantine establishment looks cheerful enough, and is
situate at a little distance from the town on the sea-shore.

It was Sunday when we arrived here; and as Syra belongs to Greece, I
here heard the sound of bells like those of Mount Lebanon, and once
more their strain filled me with deep and indescribable emotion.
Never do we think so warmly of our home as when we are solitary and
alone among strange people in a far-distant land!

I would gladly have turned aside from my route to visit Athens,
which I might have reached in a few hours; but then I should once
more have been compelled to keep quarantine, and perhaps on leaving
Greece the infliction would have to be borne a third time, a risk
which I did not wish to run. I therefore preferred keeping
quarantine at Malta, and having done with it at once.

On the same day at two o'clock we once more set sail. This day and
the following I remained on deck as much as possible, bidding
defiance to wind and rain, and gazing at the islands as we glided
past one after another. As one island disappeared, another rose in
its place. Groups of isolated rocks also rose at intervals, like
giants from the main, to form a feature in the changing panorama.

On the right, in the far distance, we could distinguish Paros and
Antiparos, on the left the larger Ch