St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-06-27
LETTER FROn ITALIA.
Memories of the MedIterranean'-The
War in the ACCOMPLISHMENTS |
Service of Consul GrOut.

Mediterranean Sea,
Of Coco Island
French Steamer Moses"
May 81, 1900.
DEAR CALEDoNIAN:-
The name of our steamer fits the
occasion, for we shall be wanderers
for six months, and before we see our
winter home again our tent will be
pitched in many places. We have
not been driven out of our posses
sions by any hard-hearted Pharaoh,
but by a too warm. hearted southern
sun. Our promised land into which
we hope to enter six weeks hence is
southern France, but between this
ships deck and our resting-place
among the Pyrennees we shall halt be-
side the sea, at Tunis, Bizerta, and
Marseilles, and on the land at Dion,
Paris, Orleans, limoges, Toulouse,
Lourdes, Pau and early in July at
Faux Chandes, Hautes Pyrennees.
We will establish our summer home
where we shall forget our acquaint-
ance with this rolling, vile-smelling, ill
ventilated, contracted "Moses" and
breath as bracing an atmosphere and
look down on as fair plains and as
smiling valleys as the old prophet
and law-giver of Bible memory
feasted his eyes on from the heights
of Moab overlooking the Jordan.
These Mediterranean waters are
very much like home to me. | made
their acquaintance in 1861 where
the lookout on the Atlantic and that
first acquaintance extended east only
to Sicily and Italy. Since then l
have seen the whole Of this tideless
sea, crossing and recrossing it from
east to west and zig-zagging across
it from north to south till it has the
same familiar look to me which Cal
edonia county has to you, and feel
for it the same affection you cherish
for st. Johnsbury, for my winter
home Malta is on its shore, and the
bastions Of the Grand Masters look
down on it as Barker Hip looks
down on that quiet home which was
so long the home of your editor. To
name the fifty places alongside of or
near these shores which have made
the deepest impression on my men,
DRY would be as difficult as to name
the ten books which have given me
the most intellectual pleasure. To
catalogue them in the order of their
historic interest would be still more
difficult. They all mean such differ
ent things, and as your scale COM
pany make no instruments OF preci-
sion for weighing sensations there
can be no way Of settling this ques-
ton of historic precedence.
If flowers have their language how
much more eloquent are the tongues
which speak to US from the cities and
mountains and rivers which lie with
in the circuit OF this blue sea. Do
not Rome, Carthage, Troy and SYRIA
cuse speak of conquest, Jerusalem OF
faith, Genoa and Venice of commerce,
Athens of philosophy and art, Con-
stantinople and Naples of nature in
her fairest creations, while Vesuvius
and Etna of hidden fires and thunder
bolts which have staggered human
ity" more than could all the widest
prophecies OF Paul Kruger in their
most successful fruition. The "Pil.
lars Of the Hercules" which stand
sentinel at the western portals of the
Mediterranean, were they not to the
ancient world its ultima Thule y
and the sDow-capped mountains o.
Cilicia on the east and the Syrian
Mount Carmel, are they not both
rich in incidents of Bible history
Does not the Tiber recall the land o.
painting and sculpture, the land o.
poetry and eloquence; and the Nile
does it not stand for land OF mys.
terry and enchantment such as nc
other part of this planet can boast
OF? Last but not least, Malta, my
adopted home, does it not speak O
heroism which has made our little
island immortal, drawing from oul
own Prescott's pen, a chapter on the
"Siege of St. Elmo" which always
thrills me as l walk about my home
and try to reproduce the scene.
which he so wildly portrays. With
in sight of our parlor window is tn,
rocky point where Dragert, the ole
Corsair, was killed by the Christians
paralyzing the heart of the Turkish
army and MAKING the cross triu,1