“Hulking and vast the gallant warship rides!”

We had some pride in looking at the Barham, once in a particular manner our own abode.  Captain Pigot and some of his officers dined with us at our house of captivity.  By a special grace our abode here is to be shortened one day, so we leave on Monday first, which is an indulgence.  To-day we again visit Dragut’s Point.  The guardians who attend to take care that we quarantines do not kill the people whom we meet, tell some stories of this famous corsair, but I scarce can follow their Arabic.  I must learn it, though, for the death of Dragut[493] would be a fine subject for a poem, but in the meantime I will proceed with my Knights.

[November 25-30.][494]—­By permission of the quarantine board we were set at liberty, and lost no time in quitting the dreary fort of Don Manuel, with all its mosquitoes and its thousands of lizards which [stand] shaking their heads at you like their brother in the new Arabian tale of Daft Jock.  My son and daughter are already much tired of the imprisonment.  I myself cared less about it, but it is unpleasant to be thought so very unclean and capable of poisoning a whole city.  We took our guardians’ boat and again made a round of the harbour; were met by Mrs. Bathurst’s[495] carriage, and carried to my very excellent apartment at Beverley’s Hotel.  In passing I saw something of the city, and very comical it was; but more of that hereafter.  At or about four o’clock we went to our old habitation the Barham, having promised again to dine in the Ward room, where we had a most handsome dinner, and were dismissed at half-past six, after having the pleasure to receive and give a couple hours of satisfaction.  I took the boat from the chair, and was a little afraid of the activity of my assistants, but it all went off capitally; went to Beverley’s and bed in quiet.

At two o’clock Mrs. Col.  Bathurst transported me to see the Metropolitan Church of St. John, by far the most magnificent place I ever saw in my life; its huge and ample vaults are of the Gothic order.  The floor is of marble, each stone containing the inscription of some ancient knight adorned with a patent of mortality and an inscription recording his name and family.  For instance, one knight I believe had died in the infidels’ prison; to mark his fate, one stone amid the many-coloured pavement represents a door composed of grates (iron grates I mean), displaying behind them an interior which a skeleton is in vain attempting to escape from by bursting the bars.  If you conceive he has pined in his fetters there for centuries till dried in the ghastly image of death himself, it is a fearful imagination.  The roof which bends over this scene of death is splendidly adorned with carving and gilding, while the varied colours and tinctures both above and beneath, free from the tinselly effect which might have been apprehended, [acquire a] solemnity in the dim religious light,