224 THE VOYAGE TO INDIA 



As a world-voyager himself his one regret for taking a new 

 way back into Lisbon was not 



to have looked once more at Belem Church, where Columbus 

 dreamed that an Angel directed him to the discovery of 

 the New World, if I remember aright ; and where especially 

 Vasco da Gama and his successors offered up, some their 

 prayers, and others their thanksgivings (to St. Nicholas, 

 by the way) on the occasion of their several voyages to the 

 Eastern Indies, or return therefrom. 



Still the quarter of Lisbon by which they returned was 

 magnificent by night, albeit the high and handsome squares 

 were perhaps whited sepulchres. Night also offered another 

 advantage : ' After the heat of the day is over the many smells 

 are in a great measure dissipated ; the dogs gone to kennel ; 

 and little else but drunken seamen to disturb one's reveries.' 



The fortified rock of Malta provokes agreeable comparison 

 with St. Helena and Gibraltar : for here the heat that is fervid 

 on the black soil of St. Helena and scorches at Gibraltar is tem- 

 pered by the yellow stone, which neither attracts like the one 

 nor reflects like the other the powerful rays of the sun. There 

 is a thumbnail sketch of the town with its magnificent entrance 

 to the harbour, its ' church and convent bell-towers innumer- 

 able, ringing all day long, many with good voices, some with 

 bad,' its rocks bare of any green save the Caper plant, and 

 its picturesque streets, which 



form a sort of square telescope, with busy people along the 

 bottom, handsome yellow carved stone balconies projecting 

 on either side, bright blue sky above, and the sea like a 

 perfect jewel at the further end. 



Apropos of the carved stone work everywhere (of which 

 he bought some for the Geological Museum) : 



Stone cutting and carving is indeed the besetting employ- 

 ment of the Maltese ; and the facility afforded by the lime- 

 stone has the same effect on this, their hereditary disposition, 

 that a soft deal bench has on a schoolboy. 



At Citta Vecchia, he tells Miss Henslow, 



