Have you ever, reader, been under the protection of the Yellow Flag? If you have, you will probably call to mind circumstances very similar to those I am about to describe; if you have not, my sketch may afford you a foretaste of all you will be likely to enjoy when your good or evil genius shall unfurl over your head that saffron meteor.

After having been twenty-four days out of sight of land we approached, about the 19th of May, the termination of our voyage. The Mediterranean lay hushed in the deepest calm that ever brooded upon its waters. Overhead the transparent atmosphere expanded into an infinite arch of the purest blue—the sun, exerting all the power which he possesses in those latitudes, poured down his fervid rays in floods upon the surface of the sea, which, rippling and trembling as with delight, playfully cast them back again in a thousand glittering reflections. It was some little past noon; there was no employment for the sailors, who loungingly clustered about the stem of the bowsprit, amusing themselves with guessing in what point the island of Malta would make its appearance, when the next breeze that sprang up should waft us a few miles farther westward. The steersman played idly with the handle of the wheel; and the grumbling old captain, one of the most discontented descendants of Adam, sat alone in the cabin, calculating the dreadful waste of provisions occasioned by the calm, and praying for anything short of a hurricane that would carry us into port.

We—that is to say the passengers—had taken out our travelling carpets, and unrolled them on a clear space upon the deck, completely shaded by the mainsail. The length of the voyage had not entirely exhausted our cheerfulness. There were always at our command several sources of amusement—dominoes, for example, and backgammon, some few books, which had been gone through three times already; tobacco, Turkish pipes and coffee, and, more than all, an inexhaustible fund of speculations respecting the delicacies we were to be condemned to browse upon during twenty-one weary days of confinement in lazaretto, lying under suspicion of plague, and consequently shunned like poison by all the sound and healthful part of the population.

I had, for my part, another preservative against ennui, which no one on board appeared to envy me. I mean a little girl of about seven years of age, a creature of inexhaustible life and merriment, consequently a most incorrigible romp, whose feet, hands, and tongue, were never still, who, as I endeavoured to smoke quietly, reclining on my carpet, rolled over me, plucked my beard and my moustaches, kissed me, worried me, and tormented me, until I almost grew as fond of her as though she had been my own. When for a moment I desired to produce a cessation of her pranks, I would draw into my mouth and lungs a huge volume of smoke until my puffed cheeks resembled those of the god Eolus in an old tapestry, and then, blowing it forth in one clear steady current, I would direct it right in her face, which not only sent her to a respectful distance, hut exciting apprehension of a similar salute suggested the propriety of greater gentleness and forbearance. One of our party had formerly spent some years at Valetta, and, affecting from time to time the partiality of a native, would exclaim, as the envious calm withheld the wished-for rock from our sight, " O, Malta khanina,fior del mondot" which is, being interpreted, "Oh, beloved Malta, thou flower of the world!" One of our greatest troubles, which may serve to show how deeply we were afflicted, consisted in the apprehension that the season of strawberries would be over before we should arrive. This fear touched our sensitive hearts. We bewailed ourselves pathetically, more particularly when our friend, who spoke from experience, described the fragrant speronara traversing the by no means narrow frith between Sicily and Malta, and diffusing, as it darted over the waves, the richest of all perfumes on the summer breeze. Visions of baskets piled to the handles with the golden and ruddy fruit, fresh from the mountain gardens of Syracuse or Agrigentum, unpressed, unbruised, and tempting as when they looked forth amid dusky foliage from their native stems, swam before our bewildered fancies. Nor was this all. In friendly companionship with these baskets, rose the tall taper necks of sundry claret bottles, together with crystal goblets in whose ruby contents we were to dip our moustaches. In our floating prison we had fed on salt meat, and on geese and fowls drowned in their coops during a storm, until our very gorge rose at the sight of a dinner. We had drunk a dusky deleterious potion on which our complaisant captain bestowed the name of wine; we had munched mouldy biscuits which had probably circumnavigated the globe; and consequently the lazaretto of Malta appeared to our imaginations a sort of paradise, in which we were to taste, not only of the dolce far niente, a thing by no means new to us, but also of delicious fruits and aromatic wines, beneath an undulating canopy of the costliest Gebeli smoke.

With these most elevated and intellectual speculations we entertained ourselves as the afternoon wore away, until when, just as coffee was served round to us on our carpets, a slight breeze came murmuring astern from the islands of the Archipelago; the sails immediately began to swell, the waves sprang up like a group of children refreshed by sleep, sportively chasing each other toward the setting sun. A change, too, had, unobserved of us, taken place in the aspect of the heavens, where a lofty belt of clouds, exceedingly dense at their base, but growing thin, rent, and broken towards their summits, extended round the whole western horizon. Presently, the sun dipped behind the peaks of these unreal mountains, which appeared, however, to sink as he descended; so that for some time he bore the same relative position with respect to that wild world of crags, caverns, and glaciers, which he painted with hues so fantastical and varied.

Most persons have travelled, every man has seen the sun set; nevertheless, who does not observe nightly some beautiful effect of light and shadow new to him and to the whole world, which really, in all its features, has never before been contemplated since the creation, and which, throughout all eternity, may never perhaps be beheld again? We were standing on the eastern skirts of that circle of light which, stretching over the great Atlantic, in the western edge of its periphery was dawn in some parts of America; and throughout its whole circumference every object was beautiful, and clothed with the colours of joy and gladness. So, at least, it seemed to me. My heart beat with rapture at the scene, touched, perhaps, by some undercurrent of feeling, not to be revealed here, which connected me with persons far away. Perhaps it was the consciousness that I was approaching them that carpeted the sea and tapestried the sky with loveliness. Perhaps I thirsted in Malta for the first sight of the beloved European land from which I had been long absent. Be this as it may, I felt persuaded that beneath that gorgeous chain of clouds which, with its peaks of indescribable brightness and glory, appeared to support the heavens, the island of Malta, with its longed-for lazaretto, lay concealed. And never were its rugged features disguised by a lovelier mask From time to time, as a limb of the sun appeared through rents in the masses of glowing vapour, we gazed on ridges and valleys of carbuncle, bordered on the one hand by cliffs of chrysolite, and on the other by lakes of molten sapphire and beryl. Pillowed on these visionary heights, the god seemed to linger in the firmament as if fascinated by the beauties he had called into existence. The heavens above were meanwhile flooded with a soft amethystine effulgence, through which, far in 

the east, the stars already began to twinkle brightly, long before the illusions of the day were over. The magnificence of this marine landscape had roused and delighted every one on board, many of whom had their pleasure greatly enhanced by one slight feature in the scenes which I pointed out to them as the sun's disc disappeared for the last time. This was in the midst of the moveable mountains which gradually flattened and disappeared behind the line of the horizon, a small fixed point which I suggested to the captain might be Malta.

Each passenger tried his hand at the telescope in turn, and all corroborated my agreeable theory, but the veteran mariner, whose optics had been rendered somewhat opaque by time, refused to confirm our conjecture, maintaining that what we looked on with so much earnestness was nothing but the last lingering cloud. There, however, it remained, unchanged in outline, though growing every moment less perceptible until nightfall, when we seemed to be left alone with the stars upon the ocean, except that the delightful breeze continued impelling us steadily towards the west, and not even relaxing its exertions when the interposition of sleep rendered us unmindful of their value.

Your true traveller is generally an early riser, at least I always am when on a journey; accordingly, in conformity with the rule which I had set myself, I was up next morning before the lark, or perhaps it would be more proper to say before the captain, as larks in that particular locality there are none. We had made considerable progress during the night, and there lay the island of Malta, stretched out picturesquely in the imperfect light of the dawn. It might be fancy, but to my apprehension it looked exactly like one of those dreamy etherial mountains which one discovers in the scriptural pieces of Raffaelle and the older Italian masters. Besides, it was Sunday morning, and a sabbath stillness seemed to brood over the whole island. As we neared the shore no sounds of labour were heard. We could discover a sprinkling of cottages here and there on the rocky slopes of the hills, but not a chimney as yet smoked, there was no barking of dogs, no bleating of sheep, or lowing of kine, but in their stead, absolute stillness, except that here and there we seemed sometimes to detect the faint splash of the waves as they broke in the distance against the rocks.

With the rapid growth of the light the island put on every moment a new aspect, till at length, as the whole orient grew deeply suffused with red and saffron, it exhibited a brilliant variety of tints, which were rendered less magnificent when the first golden rays of the sun smote upon its summits. My eye glancing carelessly up the cordage of the ship, now first caught the yellow flag flapping in the morning breeze, at our mast-head. It had been hoisted on the moment of our first getting sight of land to give notice to all whom it might concern that we were coming from the plague countries, and might, for aught that they or we knew, have a cargo of the seeds of death on board. Presently from a number of coves and creeks we beheld a variety of boats darting forth, like a flight of sea-fowls skimming along the waves; but when the men on board them beheld our flag, they respected us, and kept aloof, and permitted our venerable hulk to float towards the quarantine harbour in solitary grandeur. Besides that it was forbidden on pain of death, no one probably felt the slightest inclination to shake hands with us, for, whatever our anti-quarantinists may affirm to the contrary, in the Levant all persons, whether high or low, experience certain unaccountable qualms and something very like a shudder, at the approach of anything which has the suspicion of plague about it.

Very soon, however, my mind was carried away by a new current of ideas. I beheld the flag of England waving proudly far aloft on the top of the castle of St. Elmo, over the subject land and sea, and almost at the same moment, as we turned round a promontory, discovered one of those floating reservoirs of thunder which extend her influence and render her name respected wherever the ocean has sufficient depth to bear her iron strength upon its bosom. And why may I not now give utterance to the thrill of pride and exultation which trembled through my heart at that moment ? Wherever I had been I had found myself surrounded and protected by her invisible influence. But still I I could call to mind certain situations in which it had been just possible that the pirate by sea, or the fierce marauders of the desert by land, might have forgotten for a moment what was due to her. Nothing of the kind was possible where I now stood. I felt myself at once within the impregnable belt of civilisation, beneath the shelter of that flag hitherto inviolable, because it is the symbol of theguns She fired in honour of the departed, for every year of his life, one. The whole population of Valetta crowded the rocks and the ramparts, terrace above terrace, all in their gayest holiday costume. Military uniforms were numerous, and amid groups of the dark-eyed women of the south we beheld, through our friendly glasses, numbers of the fairest daughters of the north in the newest fashions of London and Paris. Contrasted with the muffled beauties of the harem, concealed beneath mountains of drapery, sitting astride on asses, and guarded by black eunuchs with long staves in their hands, our countrywomen's naked faces showed to much advantage, and the firing of guns, the shouting of sailors, the screaming of boys and children on the beach, the laughter of the soldiers on the fortifications, the waving of the streamers, the bright green foliage of the orange groves peeping here and there over the impregnable walls of the fortress, the cheerful bells calling the inhabitants to church, —all these and a thousand other circumstances strengthened the pleasant feeling of home; for all countries where England is mistress must be such to the Englishman. It would be useless to describe the many minute and unimportant circumstances which consumed the better part of the day, but it was late in the afternoon before we lauded on the lofty stone terrace, paved with large flags, which runs along the whole front of the lazaretto, situated on a small island, and looking like a huge edifice reared by magic in the middle of the waves.

We were met, as we sprang from the boat on the flight of steps leading up from the water to the esplanade, by the man who, for half-a-crown a day, was to serve us in the capacity of guardian and domestic, exposed to the hazard of contagion, and subjected to imprisonment like ourselves. Our sensations were far too agreeable, however, at that moment, to allow of our making any observations either on our jailor or the place of our captivity. It seemed quite enough that we were once more on terra firma, and indeed it was for some tine difficult to believe that we had exchanged the slippery reeling deck, the rocking cabin, and the smell of tarry ropes and sails, for the firm support of mother earth. Glad as we were, however, to relinquish the sea for the land, I should have quitted the ship's crew with some regret, but for certain peculiarities of manner by which they seemed to be characterised. Once inside of the harbour, every man on hoard appeared to retreat within himself, to lay aside his sociability as he did his sea-garments, and to be interested in nothing in the universe but number one. The captain was. obviously possessed of a single feeling only, namely, the desire to pocket as soon as possible the cash which we had to hand over to him; but as I went down the ship's side, two or three sailors, with whom I had been in the habit of conversing, quitted their work for a moment, and leaning on the bulwarks, with hat in hand, bade me farewell in a very kindly tone of voice.