A Tour Up the Straits, from Gibraltar to Constantinople: With the Leading Events in the Present War Between the Austrians, Russians, and the Turks, to the Commencement of the Year 1789Sutherland, David, Captain
History
A Tour Up the Straits, from Gibraltar to Constantinople: With the Leading Events in the Present War Between the Austrians, Russians, and the Turks, to the Commencement of the Year 1789
Sutherland, David, Captain
Mediterranean Region -- Description and travel; Russo-Turkish War, 1787-1792
Cagliari, September 1st.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
ON the 16th of last month, we weighed anchor off the harbour of
Carthagena, and sailed out of the bay, between the rock and the
continent, to the great astonishment of the Spaniards: but, although one
might almost make hands with them on each side, there is no danger in a
steady breeze; for the shore is so bold, that, whilst we had soundings
in fourteen fathoms on one side of the ship, we found no bottom with a
line of twenty on the other.
The wind favoured us for some hours; but, before night, it got back to
its old quarter, the east, and continued there, with little variation,
till the 23d. By this time, after having had a distant view of the high
land of Majorca, we were in sight of Sardinia, in Lat. 40° 10′, and,
with the assistance of the land breeze, got down to Cape Tolero on the
24th. In the night, we passed two rocks, called the Bull and Cow, Lat.
38° 35′, and, on the 25th, anchored in the bay of Cagliari, the capital,
Lat. 39° 14′, Long. 9° 20′ East, distant from Gibraltar about two
hundred and fifty leagues.
Early the next morning, we got prattick, with an invitation to dine with
the Viceroy, Count St. André. Three carriages were sent to carry us to
the palace. The dinner was in the French stile, and the head dish in the
second course was half a young wild boar, roasted entire: it was
superior to any pork I ever tasted. We had no wine but at dinner, and
one glass of _liqueur_ after the desert. The principal people of the
island were invited to meet us, and among them, the Marchionesses of
Villarias and Pasqua, and the Baroness Tauolard, the three handsomest of
their ladies.
Villarias has captured all our hearts. I have often endeavoured to form
an idea of Eve in her state of innocence, but never succeeded until I
saw this charming _Marchesa_. With the first rank and fashion, she is a
child of Nature, and Nature in perfection. Her limbs are most elegantly
turned, and her beautiful shape is neither distorted by stays, nor
encumbered by a load of false _croupion_. It is impossible to describe
how such a woman moves. She is of the middle size, and in the prime of
youth. Her face is equal to her person, brunette, with lovely black
eyes, whose expression gives full force to the vivacity of her
conversation.
Pasqua possesses every attraction but that of drawing one from
Villarias. Tauolard is handsome and amiable, but has not so much of
_L'Allegro_ as the other two. Their dress is like the English; but the
unnatural passion for monstrous protuberances, which I am sorry to hear
still reigns among our fair countrywomen, hath not yet reached Cagliari.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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