November 20.—­A fair wind all night, running at the merry rate of nine knots an hour.  In the morning we are in sight of the highest island, Pantellaria, which the Sicilians use as a state prison, a species of Botany Bay.  We are about thirty miles from the burning island—­I mean Graham’s—­but neither that nor Etna make their terrors visible.  At noon Graham’s Island appears, greatly diminished since last accounts.  We got out the boats and surveyed this new production of the earth with great interest.  Think I have got enough to make a letter to our Royal Society and friends at Edinburgh.[489] Lat. 37 deg. 10’ 31” N., long. 12 deg. 40’ 15” E., lying north and south by compass, by Mr. Bokely, the Captain’s clerk[’s measurements].  Returned on board at dinner-time.

November 21.—­Indifferent night.  In the morning we are running off Gozo, a subordinate island to Malta, intersected with innumerable enclosures of dry-stone dykes similar to those used in Selkirkshire, and this likeness is increased by the appearance of sundry square towers of ancient days.  In former times this was believed to be Calypso’s island, and the cave of the enchantress is still shown.  We saw the entrance from the deck, as rude a cavern as ever opened out of a granite rock.  The place of St. Paul’s shipwreck is also shown, no doubt on similarly respectable authority.

At last we opened Malta, an island, or rather a city, like no other in the world.  The seaport, formerly the famous Valetta, comes down to the sea-shore.  On the one side lay the [Knights], on the other side lay the Turks, who finally got entire possession of it, while the other branch remained in the power of the Christians.  Mutual cruelties were exercised; the Turks, seizing on the survivors of the knights who had so long defended St. Elmo, cut the Maltese cross on the bodies of the slain, and, tying them to planks, let them drift with the receding tide into the other branch of the harbour still defended by the Christians.  The Grand-Master, in resentment of this cruelty, caused his Turkish prisoners to be decapitated and their heads thrown from mortars into the camp of the infidels.[490]

November 22.—­To-day we entered Malta harbour, to quarantine, which is here very strict.  We are condemned by the Board of Quarantine to ten days’ imprisonment or sequestration, and go in the Barham’s boat to our place of confinement, built by a Grand-Master named Manuel[491] for a palace for himself and his retinue.  It is spacious and splendid, but not comfortable; the rooms connected one with another by an arcade, into which they all open, and which forms a delightful walk.  If I was to live here a sufficient time I think I could fit the apartments up so as to be handsome, and even imposing, but at present they are only kept as barracks for the infirmary or lazaretto.  A great number of friends come to see me, who are not allowed to approach nearer than a yard.  This, as the whole