Although in the harbor, the steamer was pitching and rolling about, and we had experienced a very lively tossing on our way from shore to ship. A regular _vent du diable_ was blowing outside, and things indicated that we should have all we wanted when we got into it and were plowing our way towards the Piraeus.
Half a dozen passengers were sitting at the cabin table and contemplating a bottle of Scotch whisky, which they discussed in a polyglot of languages. Two who were drunk imagined themselves sober, and two who were sober, imagined themselves drunk, so that there was a very mixed condition of things. Smoking was forbidden in the cabin, but as there was only one lady passenger, and she had retired, and moreover belonged to our party, and had a smoking husband, we lighted cigars and made ourselves comfortable before going to bed.
Just as I entered my bunk I heard the anchor chain coming in, and soon we were out on the open waters. We went along nicely for a while, till we had passed the shelter of the Island of Syros and then we caught it. Our course lay between the islands of Thermia and Zea, in the direction of Cape Sunium, which forms the extremity of the Peninsula of Attica.
All night long we tossed, and the timbers of the ship creaked so that you couldn’t hear yourself snore. Sometimes we didn’t make two miles an hour, and I could hear the other passengers, in momentary intervals of creaking, groaning and falling to pieces in the agonies of _mal-de-mer_. In the morning the captain said it was one of the roughest nights he had ever known in those waters. “Had I not felt,” said he, “the greatest confidence in my ship, and known that she was perfectly staunch and strong, I should have turned back after passing the Island of Syra, and learning the strength of the wind.”
And yet the Stamboul was an old tub, with a quarter of a century on her head, and barnacles on her bottom.. { 193}Let no one despise an old tub hereafter. I would give more now for the one in which Dionysius--no it was Diogenes--used to live, than for the best modern article of the same sort from the hands of the most skillful cooper that breathes, as I could sell it for more money.
When I went on deck in the morning Mount Olympus was in sight, and we could see the classic shores of Greece (expression claimed as original and secured by two patents). They were not over-cheerful in appearance, but the leaden sky, and the cold wind that was then blowing, had doubtless much to do with their aspect. Mount Olympus was less lofty than I expected to find it, and greatly disappointed me, but I felt better afterwards, when I learned that the real mountain chain which bears that name, is on the Morean peninsula and between Thessaly and Macedonia. The mountain which was pointed out to me was a small affair opposite to Mount Keratia; between the two is a small village called Olympus, and inhabited by a few Greeks, and a great many fleas.