138 Life and Letters of Francis Galton 



"Aug. 26. Set off' from Constantinople in the Crescent at 4 p.m. Italian captain, 

 English mate. One English gentleman, 4 ditto Ladies; French, Greeks, etc. and 

 innumerable Turks, lying about, men and women, .smoking and drinking coffee. They 

 are a great nuisance ; the clear space on the quarter deck is not 18 inches broad and the 

 consequence is that when the ship rolls you are almost sure to tumble over their feet, 

 right into the middle of them, and as they are mostly women, such a po.sition is very 

 indelicate, and as they are all sea sick highly disagreeable also. Very rainy on setting 

 out; it was soon dark. Entered the Dardanelles at 8 next morning. 



"August 27 Came to the place where Troy was, thoroughly disappointed. There 



is no truth in the proverb ' Ex nihilo, nihil fit,' for Homer has shown its fallacy. He 

 must have had a brilliant imagination to make a little bit of plain 2 miles long and 

 1 mile broad the scene of all the manoeuvres of a ten years' war. The idea too of 

 fighting ten years for a woman ! Catch me doing such a thing for the fair Mary Anne, 

 but the days of gallantry have passed. Achilles' tomb, a little hillock ; as for Tenedos 

 opposite which the Greek toiled a couple of days to reach, I would bet anything that 

 I could row over in 40 minutes (supposing the marsh on which Troy stood to have been 

 increased by alluvial deposit, still Mount Ida and the rocks of Tenedos are necessarily 

 stationary and so there cannot be much mistake about relative distances). Tenedos is 

 I'ocky and barren, has a large stone fortress built on it. Mytelene rocky and barren 

 also ; if it used to be in the same state Orpheus must have been a dab hand to find 

 beasts to charm with his lyre. Anchored off" Smyrna at 11 p.m " 



In Smyrna Galton bought two pistols and a rifle barrel and he 

 was "as happy as possible" with his purchase. On August 28 he 

 walked out to the Aqueduct, practising shooting with his pistol and 

 sketching the Aqueduct. 



"Caught a splendid locust which I keep for Delly ; got to the Aqueduct at last 

 having had previously to walk up the middle of the sti'eam on natural stepping stones 

 for about 200 yards and trespassing in orchards innumerable. The Aqueduct is a very 

 large one, I should guess 500 yards and only from 3 to 5 feet wide. I walked on the 

 top from one side to the other, a feat which my valet de place had told me had been 

 once accomplished at great peril by an adventurous Englishman 



"Aug. 29. Set off" on board a French man of war steamer Dante for Syra ; very 

 large and roomy, very slow sailer. Eat a fearfully large breakfast of meat and fruits, 

 drowsiness and some symptoms of multigrub supervened. Passed Scio, rocky and bare. 

 Eat an enormous dinner, terrible cholei'a, stomach-ache and nausea all night." 



On Sept. 3 we find Galton in the Quarantine House at Syra, 

 of which he provides a sketch. Here on the 6th he records a dream of 

 ill omen to a friend, Miss Hawke, and adds, " I can't help fancying this 

 true." A note is added at a later date, "which signified nothing." 

 Most persons record such dreams after the event and only when they 

 come off. In this Quarantine House Galton stayed 10 days, then he 

 passed to Athens with a brief visit and so to quarantine at Trieste. 



