One great danger, too, occurred, from which they were only rescued by the promptitude of Newman and Mr. Parnell (as throughout the diary Newman alludes to Lord Congleton). Once, in travelling by canal near Marseilles, Newman found the level of the canal-boat was "dangerously high, from the arches. Once we had a narrow escape. There was a sudden cry of '_A bas_!' We turned and saw we were rapidly nearing an arch which would knock off our heads. The horses kept at a short canter. Old Mrs. C. was sitting quietly on deck, wholly absorbed, and never dreaming that the sailors could be calling to her. Miss C. was sitting on a box, fast asleep. Several of us rushed at once towards them, and pulled them off their seats on to the deck. Literally they fell upon me in a heap, and we just passed safe under the arch. Mrs. C.'s bonnet and my hat got smashed." Here comes a touch of what later on in life was to be the subject of his keenest thought--the subject of statesmanship, the chief aim of which should be _the people:_ how to make the land sufficient for the people, how to make the people sufficient for the land--a counsel of perfection far removed from the party spirit of politicians, who then, as now, did not recognize that principles and a sacred sense of responsibility for their country should be their motive power. "We are delayed here" (Marseilles) "for a ship. We are likely to go to Cyprus. The vintage was going while we were _en route_ hither. I was interested to see men walking bare-legged, stained purple nearly to the knee, _with treading the wine vat_. I then understood the Scripture metaphor.... The men seemed to have been wading in blood.... I should deprecate a whole district being dependent for its livelihood on the sale of wine.... for as _some_ seasons are sure to be fatal to the crop, the failure, when it comes, is universal.... To make each component part--I mean each _local_ part--of society self-supporting, and self-relieving even in times of calamity, ought, I think, to be the aim of every statesman." As regards sight-seeing for sight-seeing's sake, it was _nil_. And for a reason which seemed not to allow for any of the travellers having discretion, "We make it a tacit rule never to go ten yards to see anything; for if once we became sight-seers it is impossible to draw the line. So in fact I see nothing but what I cannot help seeing." The next diary-tic letter is not until 14th January of the next year (1831), when the party had arrived at Aleppo. Frank Newman had been studying Greek and talking it with a master, and during the voyage from Marseilles landed for three days at Larnica. On the ship was an old Greek, and he used to go and talk with him to practise his Greek. "You may be amused to hear his judgment of my Greek dialect; he called it 'very beautiful and very funny'; that is, no doubt, because I am apt to mix up too much of the old Greek, which seems grandiloquent on trifling subjects....