第49章

I am staying in the ship, tonight.I generally stay on shore when we are in port.But yesterday I just ran myself down.Dan Slote, my room-mate, is on shore.He remained here while we went up the Black Sea, but it seems he has not got enough of it yet.I thought Dan had got the state-room pretty full of rubbish at last, but a while ago his dragoman arrived with a bran new, ghastly tomb-stone of the Oriental pattern, with his name handsomely carved and gilded on it, in Turkish characters.That fellow will buy a Circassian slave, next.

I am tired.We are going on a trip, tomorrow.I must to bed.Love to all.

Yrs SAM.

U.S.CONSUL'S OFFICE, BEIRUT, SYRIA, Sept.11.(1867)DEAR FOLKS,--We are here, eight of us, making a contract with a dragoman to take us to Baalbek, then to Damascus, Nazareth, &c.then to Lake Genassareth (Sea of Tiberias,) then South through all the celebrated Scriptural localities to Jerusalem--then to the Dead Sea, the Cave of Macpelah and up to Joppa where the ship will be.We shall be in the saddle three weeks--we have horses, tents, provisions, arms, a dragoman and two other servants, and we pay five dollars a day apiece, in gold.

Love to all, yrs.

SAM.

We leave tonight, at two o'clock in the morning.

There appear to be no further home letters written from Syria--and none from Egypt.Perhaps with the desert and the delta the heat at last became too fearful for anything beyond the actual requirements of the day.When he began his next it was October, and the fiercer travel was behind him.

To Mrs.Jane Clemens and family, in St.Louis:

CAGHARI, SARDINIA, Oct, 12, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We have just dropped anchor before this handsome city and--ALGIERS, AFRICA, Oct.15.

They would not let us land at Caghari on account of cholera.Nothing to write.

MALAGA, SPAIN, Oct.17.

The Captain and I are ashore here under guard, waiting to know whether they will let the ship anchor or not.Quarantine regulations are very strict here on all vessels coming from Egypt.I am a little anxious because I want to go inland to Granada and see the Alhambra.I can go on down by Seville and Cordova, and be picked up at Cadiz.

Later: We cannot anchor--must go on.We shall be at Gibraltar before midnight and I think I will go horseback (a long days) and thence by rail and diligence to Cadiz.I will not mail this till I see the Gibraltar lights--I begin to think they won't let us in anywhere.

11.30 P.M.--Gibraltar.

At anchor and all right, but they won't let us land till morning--it is a waste of valuable time.We shall reach New York middle of November.

Yours, SAM.

CADIZ, Oct 24, 1867.

DEAR FOLKS,--We left Gibraltar at noon and rode to Algeciras, (4 hours)thus dodging the quarantine, took dinner and then rode horseback all night in a swinging trot and at daylight took a caleche (a wheeled vehicle) and rode 5 hours--then took cars and traveled till twelve at night.That landed us at Seville and we were over the hard part of our trip, and somewhat tired.Since then we have taken things comparatively easy, drifting around from one town to another and attracting a good deal of attention, for I guess strangers do not wander through Andalusia and the other Southern provinces of Spain often.The country is precisely as it was when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were possible characters.

But I see now what the glory of Spain must have been when it was under Moorish domination.No, I will not say that, but then when one is carried away, infatuated, entranced, with the wonders of the Alhambra and the supernatural beauty of the Alcazar, he is apt to overflow with admiration for the splendid intellects that created them.

I cannot write now.I am only dropping a line to let you know I am well.

The ship will call for us here tomorrow.We may stop at Lisbon, and shall at the Bermudas, and will arrive in New York ten days after this letter gets there.

SAM.

This is the last personal letter written during that famous first sea-gipsying, and reading it our regret grows that he did not put something of his Spanish excursion into his book.He never returned to Spain, and he never wrote of it.Only the barest mention of "seven beautiful days" is found in The Innocents Abroad.