"On the other side, a Greek family in three generations lies along the deck, fortified by a stout man-servant across their legs, whose attentions to the girls during his own heart-rending ailments is very pretty. The huge grandmother was set on fire and smouldered away most stoically, until her foot began to burn, when, while others put her out, she sank blubbering to sleep again. The pretty granddaughters find the long prostration more irksome; but send their flashing eyes about with careless movement, and so the mass goes on. Here one appears to be offering up _nazam_, but nearer inspection shows that his shoe is only receiving the offering to the heaving waves.... "Our steamer had passed sad hours of toil, and pitched and tossed us all out of temper before we entered the calm waters to leeward of Rhodes, and at last, passing the low points covered with detached houses and windmills, we shot round in front of the harbour. Our view of the intervening coast had been too vague to form a judgment upon it; but here and there a peak towered up above the mists, all else being veiled by the cloudy sky.... No place it has ever been my fortune to visit, more, by its appearance, justifies its character than Rhodes. Around the harbour's shore, one continued line of high castellated wall, unbroken save by flanking towers or frowning portals; from the wave on either side, dovetailed to the rock, rise the knightly buildings; and as the eye reaches round, no dissonant work mars the effect, save that one lofty palm rears its tropic head--but it adds to, rather than lessens, the effect. Above the walls, a mosque with its domed roof or minaret appears; and the fragile building speaks, how truly! in its contrast to the massive walls and ponderous works of former rulers, that the battle is not always to the strong." In speaking of the sister island-fortress, Malta, our author remarks (in a former page) the immediate contrast presented by these luxurious arsenals:-- "The Eastern reclines on the cushioned divan, the embodiment of repose; the softest carpets, the freshest flowers, surround him--soft women attend the slightest motion of his eye--all breathes of indolence, abandonment, and ease; yet his girdle bristles with arms--his gates are locked and guarded. So at Malta, the bower is a bastion, the saloon a casemate, the serenade the call of martial music, the draperies war-flags, the ornaments shot in ready proximity."