The background closes with the melancholy picture of a barren mountain-chain.

A lighthouse stands on a little neighbouring island.

The quarantine establishment looks cheerful enough, and is situate at a little distance from the town on the sea-shore.
It was Sunday when we arrived here; and as Syra belongs to Greece, I here heard the sound of bells like those of Mount Lebanon, and once more their strain filled me with deep and indescribable emotion.
Never do we think so warmly of our home as when we are solitary and alone among strange people in a far-distant land! I would gladly have turned aside from my route to visit Athens, which I might have reached in a few hours; but then I should once more have been compelled to keep quarantine, and perhaps on leaving Greece the infliction would have to be borne a third time, a risk which I did not wish to run.

I therefore preferred keeping quarantine at Malta, and having done with it at once.
On the same day at two o'clock we once more set sail.

This day and the following I remained on deck as much as possible, bidding defiance to wind and rain, and gazing at the islands as we glided past one after another.