1830.] the Company s Charter. 507 



two extremes ; but that the advocates of free trade have overshot the 

 mark, to a far greater extent than their adversaries have fallen short of it. 

 We have been led into a digression from the topic more immediately 

 before us, of greater length than we had in the first instance contem- 

 plated, and our limits forbid our resuming the thread at present ; but 

 our time will not have been wasted, if we have succeeded in bringing 

 out in relief the peculiar mode of reasoning adopted by certain assailants 

 of the company. We shall resume the general subject " demense in 

 mensem," and trust that in the course of a few numbers we shall be able 

 to do much towards clipping the pinions of not a few fallacies which are 

 now " towering in pride of place/' and in affording our readers such data 

 as may form the ground- work for a durable superstructure of opinion. 



TEN DAYS QUARANTINE : AN ANECDOTE. 



THE beauties or wonders of natural scenery are not remembered by 

 the traveller with more fondness and minuteness than are the incidents 

 which have attended him in his commerce with his foreign fellow-crea- 

 tures. The strange situations into which he or they have been cast, 

 their own eccentricities of character, and the wild results from these two 

 causes, sometimes leave a tablet filled with occurrences more vivid and 

 glowing and picturesque than the brightest scenes of Tuscany or Tempe. 

 Something of this sort comes to my mind at present, and as it happened, 

 so will I relate it. 



At a port in the Mediterranean I was performing quarantine after a 

 voyage from Alexandria, at which city a visit of two days only had en- 

 tailed an after-imprisonment in a lazaretto of a month and a half. Our 

 vessel lay in the quarantine harbour, and having but poor accommoda- 

 tion on board, we disembarked and obtained apartments in a large build- 

 ing devoted to the use of those wayfarers whose cognisance, like ours, 

 was that of the yellow flag. One or two of the ship's officers, an Italian 

 passenger and myself, constituted the whole of this small party, and of 

 these none remained with me at night but the last mentioned gentleman. 

 The lazaretto was an immense structure, in the shape of a square, sur- 

 rounding an open court, and overlooking the sea on every side but one. 

 It was built on a thin peninsula, which being barricaded and guarded on 

 the land side, was in fact almost isolated, and therefore admirably 

 adapted for the purposes of the building. On our front, the waters of 

 the harbour came up to the very doorway, and in a long row, with little 

 space between them, lay a string of vessels from various unhealthy ports, 

 undergoing the same penance with our own ; which, as being the last 

 comer, was for the time moored immediately beneath our windows, and 

 close astern of another Turkish vessel which had left Alexandria about 

 a week before ourselves. Though very extensive, our hospital was not 

 lofty. It consisted of only two stories ; the ground floor being occupied 

 by various sets of unpurified voyagers, chiefly of a more plebeian order, 

 and the upper story, silent and deserted, save in the few rooms whose 

 echoes rang awfully with occasional efforts of conversation. A gallery 

 ran round the central court, and every room opened into it, so that no 

 part of the building was without free and healthy ventilation, or pre- 

 cluded from a view of what was going on below. 



My companion, the Italian, was a man of furious temper, which had 



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