Near to the enormous transatlantic liners were some very ancient tartans and some Greek boats, heavy and of archaic form, which recalled the fleets described in the Iliad.
On the wharves swarmed all kinds of Mediterranean men,--Greeks from the continent and from the islands, Levantines from the coast of Asia, Spaniards, Italians, Algerians, Moroccans, Egyptians.

Many had kept their original costume and to this varied picturesque garb was united a diversity of tongues, some of them mysterious and well-nigh extinct.

As though infected by the oral confusion, the French themselves began to forget their native language, speaking the dialect of Marseilles, which preserves indelible traces of its Greek origin.
The _Mare Nostrum_ crossed the outer port, the inner harbor of Joliette, and slipped slowly along past groups of pedestrians and carts that were waiting the closing of the steel drawbridge now opening before their prow.

Then they cast anchor in the basin of Arenc near the docks.
When Ferragut could go ashore he noticed the great transformation which this port had undergone in war times.
The traffic of the times of peace with its infinite variety of wares no longer existed.

On the wharves there were piled up only the monotonous and uniform loads of provisions and war material.
The legions of longshoremen had also disappeared.