The Ship Dwellers Part 7

There are too many languages in the world, anyway. There is nothing so hopeless as to hunt for information in a place where not a soul understands your language, and where you can't speak a word of his. The first man at your very side may have all the information you need right at his tongue's end, but it might as well be buried in a cellar so far as you are concerned.

I am in deep sympathy with the people who invented Volapuk, and are trying to invent Esperanto. I never thought much about it before, but since I've been to Genoa I know I believe in those things. Only, I wish they'd adopt English as the universal speech. I find it plenty good enough.

Laura and I made our way uphill and climbed some stairways, met a _gendarme_, got what seemed to be information, climbed down again, and met a man with a fish-net full of bread--caught in some back alley, from the looks of it. Then we followed a car-track a while along the deserted street, past black, desolate-looking houses, and were cold and discouraged and desperate, when suddenly, right out of heaven, came that guide, who had been following us all the time, of course, and realized that the psychological moment had come.

We could have fallen on his neck for pure joy. Everything became all right, then. He could understand what we said, and we could understand what he said; we tried him repeatedly and he could do it every time.

That was joy and occupation enough at first. Then we asked him "Where was Cook's?" and he knew that too. It was wonderful.

We grew to love that guide like a brother. It's marvellous how soon and fondly you can learn to love a rescuer like that when you are a stranger in a strange land and have been sinking helplessly in a sea of unknown words.

He was a good soul, too; attentive without being officious, anxious to show us as much as possible in the brief s.p.a.ce of our visit. He led us through the narrow, cleft-like streets of the old city; he pointed out the birthplace of Columbus and portions of the old city wall; he conducted us to the Hotel de Ville (the old Fieschi Palace), where we decided to have luncheon; he led us back to the ship at last, and trusted me while I went aboard to get the five _lira_ of his charge.

Whatever the Genoese guides were in the old days, this one was a jewel.

If I had any voice in the matter Genoa would inscribe a tablet to a man like that and put his bones in a silver box and label them "St. John the Baptist" instead of the set of St. John bones they now have in the Cathedral of St. Lorenzo, which he pointed out to us.

But the Cathedral itself was interesting enough. It was built in the ninth century, and is the first church we have seen that has interested us. In it Laura noticed again the absence of seats; for they kneel, on this side of the water, and know not the comfort of pews.

We pa.s.sed palaces galore in Genoa, but we had only time to glance in, except at the Fieschi, where we lunched, and later were shown the rooms where the famous conspiracy took place. I don't know what the conspiracy was, but the guide-book speaks of it as "the famous conspiracy," so everybody but me will know just which one is meant. It probably concerned the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, and had strangling in it and poison--three kinds, slow, medium, and swift--these features being usually identified with the early Italian school.

The dim, mysterious streets of Genoa interested us--many of the houses frescoed outside--and the old city gates, dating back to the crusade; also some English signs, one of which said:

DINNER 3 LIRA, WINE ENCLOSED,

and another:

MILK FOR SALE, OR TO LET.

I am in favor of these people learning English, but not too well. The picturesque standard of those signs is about right.

Our new pa.s.sengers were crowding aboard the ship when we returned. They were a polyglot a.s.sortment, English, German, French, Hungarian--a happy-looking lot, certainly, and eager for the housing and comfort of the ship. But one dear old soul, a German music-master--any one could tell that at first glance--was in no hurry for the cabin. He had been looking forward to that trip. Perhaps this was his first sight of the sea and shipping and all the things he had wanted so long. He came to where I was looking over the rail, his head bare, his white hair blowing in the wind. He looked at me anxiously.

"Haben Sie Deutsch?" he asked.

I confessed that I still had a small broken a.s.sortment of German on hand, such as it was. He pointed excitedly to a vessel lying near us--a ship with an undecipherable name in the Greek character.

"Greek," he said, "it is Greek--a vessel from Greece!"

He was deeply moved. To him that vessel--a rather poor, grimy affair--with its name in the characters of Homer and aeschylus was a thing to make his blood leap and his eyes grow moist, because to him it meant the marvel and story of a land made visible--the first breath of realization of what before had just been a golden dream. I had been thinking of those things, too. We did not mind the cold, and stood looking down at the Greek vessel while we sailed away.

But a change has come over the spirit of our ship. It is a good ship still, with a goodly company--only it is not the same. We lost some worthy people in Genoa and we took on this European invasion. It is educational, and here in the smoking-room I could pick up all the languages I need so much if I were willing to listen and had an ear for such things. I could pick up customs, too. It is after dinner, and the smoking-room is crowded with mingled races of both s.e.xes, who have come in for their coffee and their cigarettes, their gossip and their games.

Over there in one corner is a French group--Parisian, without doubt--the women are certainly that, otherwise they could not chatter and handle their cigarettes in that dainty way--and they are going-on and waving their hands and turning their eyes to heaven in the interest and ecstasy of their enjoyment. Games do not interest them--they are in themselves sufficient diversion to one another.

It is different with a group of Germans at the next table; they have settled down to cards--pinochle, likely enough--and they are playing it soberly--as soberly as that other group who are absorbed in chess. At still another table a game of poker is being organized, and from that direction comes the beloved American tongue, carrying such words as "What's the blue chips worth?" "Shall we play jack-pots?" "Does the dealer ante?" and in these familiar echoes I recognize the voices of friends.

The centre of the smoking-room is different. The tables there are filled with a variegated lot of men and women, all talking together, each pursuing a different subject--each speaking a language of his own. Every nation of Europe, I should think, is represented there--it is a sort of lingual congress in open session.

The Reprobates no longer own the smoking-room. They are huddled off in a corner over their game of piquet, and they have a sort of cowed, helpless look. Only now and then I can see the Colonel jerk his hat a bit lower and hear him say, "h.e.l.l, Joe!" as the Apostle lay down his final cards. Then I recognize that we are still here and somewhat in evidence, though our atmosphere is not the same.

That couldn't be expected. When you have set out with a crowd of pleasure-seeking irresponsibles, gathered up at random, and have become a bit of the amalgamation which takes place in two weeks' mixing, you somehow feel that a certain unity has resulted from the process and you are reluctant about seeing it disturbed. You feel a personal loss in every face that goes--a personal grievance in every stranger that intrudes.

The ship's family has become a sort of club. It has formed itself into groups and has discussed its members individually and collectively. It has found out their business and perhaps some of the hopes and ambitions--even some of the sorrows--of each member. Then, suddenly, here is a new group of people that breaks in. You know nothing about them--they know nothing about you. They are good people, and you will learn to like some of them--perhaps all of them--in time. Yet you regard them doubtfully. Rearrangement is never easy, and amalgamation will be slow.

Oh, well, it is ever thus, and it is the very evanescence of things that makes them worth while. That old crowd of ours would have grown deadly tired of one another if there hadn't been always the prospect and imminence of change. And, anyhow, this is far more picturesque, and we are sailing to-night before the wind, over a smooth sea, for Malta, and it has grown warm outside and the lights of Corsica are on our starboard bow.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIII

MALTA, A LAND OF YESTERDAY

We came a long way around from Algiers to "Malta and its dependencies,"

the little group of islands which lies between Sicily and the African coast. We have spent two days at sea, meantime, but they were rather profitable days, for when one goes capering among marvels, as we do ash.o.r.e, he needs these ship days to get his impressions sorted out and filed for reference.

We were in the harbor of Valetta, Malta, when we woke this morning--a rather dull morning--and a whole felucca of boats--flotilla, I mean--had appeared in the offing to take us ash.o.r.e. At least, I suppose they were in the offing-- I'm going to look that word up, by and by, in the ship dictionary, and see what it means. They have different boats in each of the places we have visited--every country preserving its native pattern.

These at Malta are a sort of gondola with a piece sticking up at each end--for ornament, probably--I have been unable to figure out any use for the feature.

We leaned over the rail, watching them and admiring the boatmen while we tried to recognize the native language. The Diplomat came along and informed us that it was Arabic, mixed with Italian, the former heavily predominating. The Arabs had once occupied the island for two hundred and twenty years, he said, and left their language, their architecture, and their customs. He had been trying his Arabic on some natives who had come aboard and they could almost understand it.

The Patriarch, who had been early on deck, came up full of enthusiasm.

There was a Phoenician temple in Malta which he was dying to visit. It was the first real footprint, thus far, of his favorite tribe, and though we have learned to restrain the Patriarch when he unlimbers on Phoenicians, we let him get off this time, softened, perhaps, by the thought of the ruined temple.

The Phoenicians had, of course, been the first settlers of Malta, he told us, thirty-five hundred years ago, when Rome had not been heard of and Greece was mere mythology; after which preliminary the Patriarch really got down to business.

"We are told by Sanchuniathon," he said, "in the Phoinikika, which was not only a cosmogony but a necrological diptych, translated into Greek by Philo of Byblus, with commentary by Porphyry and preserved by Eusebius in fragmentary form, that the Phoenicians laid the foundations of the world's arts, sciences, and religions, though the real character of their own faith has been but imperfectly expiscated.

We are told--"

The Horse-Doctor laid his hand reverently but firmly on the Patriarch's arm.

"General," he said (the Patriarch's ship t.i.tle is General)--"General, we all love you, and we all respect your years and your learning. We will stand almost anything from you, even the Phoenicians; but don't crowd us, General--don't take advantage of our good-nature. We'll try to put up with Sanchuniathon and Porphyry and those other old dubs, but when you turned loose that word 'expiscated' I nearly lost control of myself and threw you overboard."

The bugle blew the summons to go ash.o.r.e. Amidst a clatter of Maltese we descended into the boats and started for the quay. Sitting thus low down upon the water, one could get an idea of the little shut-in harbor, one of the deepest and finest in the world. We could not see its outlet, or the open water, for the place is like a jug, and the sides are high and steep. They are all fortified, too, and looking up through the gloomy morning at the grim bastions and things, the place loomed sombre enough and did not invite enthusiasm. It was too much like Gibraltar in its atmosphere, which was not surprising, for it is an English stronghold--the second in importance in these waters. Gibraltar is the gateway, Malta is the citadel of the Mediterranean, and England to-day commands both.

But Malta has had a more picturesque history than Gibraltar. Its story has been not unlike that of Algiers, and many nations have fought for it and shed blood and romance along its sh.o.r.es, and on all the lands about.

We touched mythology, too, here, for the first time; and Bible history.

Long ago, even before the Phoenicians, the Cyclops--a race of one-eyed giants--owned Malta, and here Calypso, daughter of Atlas, lived and enchanted Ulysses when he happened along this way and was shipwrecked on the "wooded island of Ogygia, far apart from men."

I am glad they do not call it that any more. It is hard to say Ogygia, and it is no longer a wooded isle. It is little more than a rock, in fact, covered with a thin, fertile soil, and there are hardly any trees to be discovered anywhere. But there were bowers and groves in Ulysses'

time, and Calypso wooed him among the greenery and in a cave which is pointed out to this day. She promised him immortality if he would forget his wife and native land, and marry her, but Ulysses postponed his decision, and after a seven-year sample of the matrimony concluded he didn't care for perpetual existence on those terms.

Calypso bore him two sons, and when he sailed away died of grief.

Ulysses returned to Penelope, but he was disqualified for the simple life of Ithaca, and after he had slain her insolent suitors and told everybody about his travels he longed to go sailing away again to other adventures and islands, and Calypsos, perhaps, "beyond the baths of all the western stars." Such was life even then.

The Biblical interest of Malta concerns a shipwreck, too. St. Paul on his way to Italy to preach the gospel was caught in a great tempest, the Euroclydon, which continued for fourteen days. Acts xxvii, xxviii contain the story, which is very interesting and beautiful.

Here is a brief summary.