with less diffidence; for nothing can exceed the rapidity, spirit, and accuracy of the sketches which Mr. Newton made during our tour. They bring the scenes back to the memory with all the vividness of reality; and he has added to the pleasure I derived from his company, the advantage of allowing me to have some of them engraved, to illustrate my narrative. The nature of this little work does not admit of introducing them in adequate size or number, but half a dozen scenes have been selected-not as the most picturesque, but as being either less generally known, or of a particularly characteristic aspect: but these engravings, like my own imperfect descriptions, afford but faint copies of the vivid originals. 5 CHAPTER II. COAST OF PORTUGAL, CADIZ, GIBRALTAR, AND A [3RD TO 11TH OF JANUARY.] ABOUT eleven o'clock on the morning of Sunday the 3rd of January, 1836, we embarked on board H. M. steam-packet Hermes, in Carrick Roads, about a mile from Falmouth, whence we were conveyed by boats supplied by the several inns at which the passengers may put up, at what seems the exorbitant charge of half a guinea each person. We sailed about three o'clock, but in general the departure follows the embarkation more nearly; the previous dispatch of two other packets somewhat retarded ours. We found assembled various passengers bound for the several ports of Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, and the different Grecian Isles at which the steamer was to touch. We ourselves had as yet no determined haven, but intended to be governed by circumstances-entertaining, however, as our first hope and object, if it should be found practicable, a visit to Greece. The packet was new, comfortable, and spacious, with a cabin some thirty feet long and nine feet six high, which for a ship is colossal. Our fellow prisoners were agree able and pleasant companions, and our fare was good; in short, there was nothing to complain of, except, for two or three days, the intolerable, and to those who have not felt it, the unimaginable horror of sea sick ness. The penalty which I had paid on a recent voyage to and from the West Indies, stood to my credit on this occasion, and I suffered less than my companions: but our society in general did not recover its tone till we had crossed the Bay (as that of Biscay is distinctively called) and approached the coast of Portugal. To us, whose only business was sightseeing, it was a great disappointment that the weather was unfavourable for seeing the coast; though passing within a few miles, the clouds concealed not only its beauties, if it had any, but even its outline —one momentary burst of sunshine lighted up the palace of Mafra and the heights of Torres Vedras, but only sufficiently to tantalize us with a transient glance, and all was cloud again. We stood on deck straining our eyes to discover the features of the land, but, even when the sky cleared a little, we saw nothing but a series of by no means lofty cliffs, surmounted by a kind of table-land. It was not to be expected that in any state of the weather we could have had any distinct view of the scenery, yet I confess we went below rather sulkily when the night fell, and the receding lights on either side of the entrance of the Tagus told us that we had left Lisbon behind. We Early next morning we passed Cape St. Vincent, the south-western point of Portugal-a bold and rocky promontory, which has given its name to a great naval victory -and to a later engagement, which I think it would have been better taste to have distinguished by some unoccupied title and at night anchored in Cadiz harbour. of course rose at daylight, and had ample leisure of viewing the sea front of the town before the sanita or quarantine officers came off; in vain gun after gun was fired, we found that there was no hurrying a Spaniard out of his usual course, and it was not until we had consumed more than an hour anxiously looking at the shore, that they made their appearance and granted us pratique-as release for quarantine is technically called. Cadiz has beeu so often described, that |