34 Fro77i 1850/(7 1862 



II 



smoking away as usual, and the light, ?^^^cy clouds 

 threw the most delicious soft, dove-coloured shadows 

 on the bright, white snow. . . . 



'This town of Messina has a bustle and a life 

 about it which is quite refreshing after the silence 

 and isolation of those wild marshes in which we 

 have been lately. It is really a pleasure to hear the 

 noise, to feel the pressure of the crowd about one, 

 and the very air seems full of human sympathy. I 

 am entertaining great hopes that I shall be able to 

 make up a good book on the Balearics ; they are 

 quite unknown to the world, and are, I hear, full of 

 wonders and beautiful scenery.' 



But the ignorance of the world with regard to the 

 wonders and the beautiful scenery of the Balearic 

 Islands was never enlightened by a description of 

 them written by the pen of George Kingsley. He 

 explored Ivica, and the curious secondary crater, the 

 hot lake, and the strange valleys of Formentera ; but 

 while he was at Palma, preparing to start on a tour 

 of investigation through the largest of the islands, 

 he received a letter asking him whether he would 

 accompany the Duke of Sutherland as his doctor, on 

 a visit to Egypt which he was about to make as the 

 guest of the Khedive.^ He accepted this offer with 



^ Apparently, Said, son of Mehemet Ali. In a short letter from 

 Alexandria, the Doctor says : ' The Pasha we came out to see died 

 the night before last ; I should be sorry to see him now, if all they say 

 be true. Sold five hundred blacks to the French, and this business is 

 supposed to have killed him. Promised them to the Emperor as he 

 went through Paris, and was startled at a French frigate arriving to 



