"We heaved the anchor at two o'clock. A pilot brought us out of harbour. The wind was faint and southerly. We kept for three days within sight of Pompey's Column, which we discovered on the horizon. On the evening of the third day we heard the evening gun of the port of Alexandria. This was as it were the signal for our definite departure, for the north wind rose and we made sail for the west. "On the 1st of December, the wind, veering due west, stopped our way. Gradually it fell to the south-west and turned into a tempest which did not cease until we reached Tunis. To occupy my time, I copied out and set in order my notes on this voyage and my descriptions for the _Martyrs._ At night, I walked the deck with the mate, Captain Dinelli. Nights spent amid the waves, on a vessel beaten by the storm, are not barren; the uncertainty of our future gives objects their true value: the land, contemplated from the midst of a tempestuous sea, resembles life as it presents itself to a man about to die[698]." We continued our voyage and anchored before the Kerkenna Isles. MY ITINERARY. "A gale rose, to our great delight, from the south-east, and in five days we arrived in the waters of the island of Malta. We came into sight of it on Christmas Eve; but, on Christmas Day, the wind, shifting to west-north-west, drove us to the south of Lampedusa. We remained for eighteen days off the east coast of the Kingdom of Tunis, between life and death. I shall never in my life forget the day of the 28th. "We cast anchor before the Kerkenna Isles. For eight days we lay at anchor in the Gulf of Cabes, where I saw the commencement of the year 1807. Under how many planets and amid what varied fortunes had I already seen the years renew for me, years which pass so quickly or which are so long! How far away from me were those times of my childhood in which, with a heart beating with joy, I received the paternal blessing and the paternal gifts! How I used to look forward to New Year's Day! And now, on a foreign vessel, in the middle of the sea, within sight of a barbarous land, that New Year's Day sped for me without witnesses, without pleasures, without the kisses of my family, without the fond wishes of happiness which a mother shapes with such sincerity for her sons! That day, born in the womb of the tempests, let fall on my head nought but cares, regrets and silver hairs." [Sidenote: The Kerkenna Isles.] Julien is exposed to the same fate, and he rebukes me for one of those fits of impatience of which I have, fortunately, corrected myself. JULIEN'S ITINERARY.