Читать книгу An Australian Ramble; Or, A Summer in Australia онлайн

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I land as soon as the necessary formalities have been gone through—for they are very particular at Naples, and our purser and medical officer have first to go ashore in order to satisfy the authorities, a work sometimes extending over two hours. Fortunately, however, in a little while they are back, and we crowd on board the company’s tender, which for half-a-crown conveys the passengers on shore and returns them safe and sound as late as eleven or twelve o’clock at night. Boats of all kinds are around us. One contains a bold swimmer, who performs all sorts of wonderful exploits; others are laden with straw hats and baskets, and vendors of oranges and cheap jewellery and pipes, lava match-boxes, and amber mouthpieces. As I board the tender a pretty, smiling Italian flower-dealer puts a small camellia in my coat, which, however, I am ungallant enough to return. I fear she is like the flower-girls of Paris of whom Tom Moore writes, that they spoil a romance with pecuniary views. In a few minutes I am on shore amid a crowd of dirty black-haired and black-eyed Italians, who offer me carriages and guides with an intensity of verbosity (recalling that of a certain Grand Old Man) sufficient to appal the stoutest heart.