The Elba arrived at Bona on June 3, and Jenkin landed at Fort Genova,
on Cape Hamrah, where some Arabs were building a land line. 'It was
a strange scene,' he writes, 'far more novel than I had imagined; the
high, steep bank covered with rich, spicy vegetation, of which I hardly
knew one plant. The dwarf palm, with fan-like leaves, growing about two
feet high, forms the staple verdure.' After dining in Fort Genova, he
had nothing to do but watch the sailors ordering the Arabs about under
the 'generic term "Johnny."' He began to tire of the scene, although,
as he confesses, he had willingly paid more money for less strange and
lovely sights. Jenkin was not a dreamer; he disliked being idle, and if
he had had a pencil he would have amused himself in sketching what he
saw. That his eyes were busy is evident from the particulars given
in his letter, where he notes the yellow thistles and 'Scotch-looking
gowans' which grow there, along with the cistus and the fig-tree.
They left Bona on June 5, and, after calling at Cagliari and Chia,
arrived at Cape Spartivento on the morning of June 8. The coast here
is a low range of heathy hills, with brilliant green bushes and marshy
pools. Mr. Webb remarks that its reputation for fever was so bad as to
cause Italian men-of-war to sheer off in passing by. Jenkin suffered
a little from malaria, but of a different origin. 'A number of the
SATURDAY REVIEW here,' he writes; 'it reads so hot and feverish, so
tomb-like and unhealthy, in the midst of dear Nature's hills and sea,
with good wholesome work to do.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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