Page:Mount Seir, Sinai and Western Palestine.djvu/29

Rh were bazaars in the Eastern cities we hoped to visit with objects of still greater novelty than those even of Venice.

Owing to the quarantine regulations, the “Tanjore,” Captain Briscoe, was unable to come up to the Grand Canal, so we left Venice in a steam launch, in which we were conveyed down through the lagoons to the place in the bay where our good ship rode at anchor. We passed several islands and forts, amongst others one built by the Genoese in the fourteenth century, and several, rising from the lagoons, erected by the Austrians in 1859–60. These lagoon islands are in some cases of vast extent, and are covered by the waters of the Adriatic when the wind blows strongly from the south. In 1875, on the 5th of January, a south wind banked up the waters of the Adriatic till they overflowed most of the islands, and for two days the Piazza of St. Mark was submerged to the depth of four or five feet.

We found the “Tanjore” crowded with passengers when our contingent had come on board. These included General Sir Evelyn Wood and party returning to Egypt, and several persons bound for that country, as well as for Cyprus and India, whose company we enjoyed till we reached Port Saïd. In the evening we weighed anchor, and steamed down the nearly smooth waters of the Adriatic, often out of sight of land, but sometimes with distant views of the coasts and islands of Italy on the one hand, and of Dalmatia on the other. One of the islands, called “The Half-way Rock,” rises as a sharp ridge, apparently of limestone, from deep water.

Early on Saturday morning, we entered the harbour of Brindisi as far as the coaling depôt of the P. and O. Company, and we had all to turn out of our berths pretty early in order to pass muster before the medical officer, who was pleased to give us “a clean bill of health,” without a very strict diagnosis of each case. On this and a subsequent occasion I had an opportunity of observing the absurd nature of quarantine regulations. Like the passport system, that of quarantine only seems to give to travellers gratuitous trouble and expense, without accomplishing the object for which it is supposed to be instituted. How this was illustrated in our own case will be noticed in the sequel. In the case of the “Tanjore,” it was so long since she had left Egypt (from which the cholera had almost disappeared) that any case on board would have manifested itself long ere she had entered the Venetian waters; yet she was not permitted to enter the harbour, and her passengers coming from the