Twilight darkened over us thus; and then a light breeze tempted us again to set the sails, and we glided along smoothly, skirting the rocky coast until we reached the point opposite Broussa; which, sloping rapidly downwards to the beach, suddenly revealed to us the glorious moon, that was rising broad and red immediately on our track, and tracing a line of light along the ripple which gleamed like gold.
After having sated myself with the bright moon, the myriad stars, and the mysterious mountains, at whose base the waves had hollowed caverns, through which they dashed with a noise like thunder, and once or twice almost deluded me into a belief that I could distinguish the sound of human voices issuing from their depths, I at length yielded to the excessive fatigue that overpowered me; and, wrapping myself closely in my mantle, I stretched myself along the bottom of the caïque, and did not again awaken until the boatmen announced our arrival at Moudania.
It was an hour past midnight, and not a sound came to us from the town. A score of Arabian barks were anchored off the shore, whose seaward houses overhang the water; the white minarets of the mosques were in strong relief upon the tall, dark, thickly-wooded mountains which rose immediately behind them, and whence the song of the nightingales swept sweetly and sadly over the ripple; and had we not been drenched with the heavy dew that had fallen during the night, I should have been quite satisfied to remain until daylight in the caïque, which soon entered a little creek in the centre of the town.
But, previously to casting anchor, we were obliged to pull considerably higher up the gulf in order to show ourselves at the Custom House, and to exhibit our Teskarè, or Turkish passport, as well as to submit our two travelling portmanteaux, and our provision-hamper, to the inspection of the examining officer. After a vast deal of knocking and calling, an individual was at length awakened, who came yawning into the caïque with a paper-lantern in his hand, and his eyes only half open; and who, after looking drowsily about him, murmured out “_backschish_,” and prepared to depart; upon which a few piastres were given to him, and he returned on shore.