Travels of Lady Hester Stanhope (Complete)
9781465684400
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The writer of this narrative had just completed his studies in medicine, when he was engaged, through the recommendation of an eminent anatomist and surgeon, to attend Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, in the capacity of her physician, on a voyage to Sicily; in which island it was her intention to reside two or three years, for the benefit of her health, that had suffered greatly from family afflictions. Her ladyship was accompanied by her half brother, the Honourable James Hamilton Stanhope, and his friend, Mr. Nassau Sutton. On the 10th of February, 1810, we embarked at Portsmouth, on board the Jason frigate, commanded by the Hon. James King, having under convoy a fleet of transports and merchant vessels bound for Gibraltar. Our voyage was an alternation of calms and gales. We were seven days in reaching the Land’s End; then, having passed Cape Finisterre and Cape St. Vincent, we were overtaken, on the 6th of March, by a violent gale of wind, which dispersed the convoy, and drove us so far to leeward that we found ourselves on the shoals of Trafalgar. It was for some hours uncertain whether we should not have to encounter the horrors of shipwreck, on that very shore where so many brave sailors perished after the battle which derives its name from these shoals: but, on the following morning, by dint of beating to windward, under a pressure of sail, in a most tremendous sea, we weathered the land, and gained the Straits of Gibraltar, through which we ran. We anchored in the Bay of Tetuan, at the back of the promontory of Ceuta, facing Gibraltar, on the African coast. Mount Atlas, the scene of so many of the fables of antiquity, was visible from this point; but its form was far from corresponding with the shape pictured by my imagination, presenting rather the appearance of a chain of mountains than of one single mount. The wind abated the next day, when we weighed anchor, and entered the Bay of Gibraltar. As we approached the rock, we were struck with the grandeur and singularity of its appearance. Lady Hester and her brother were received at the Convent, the residence of the lieutenant governor, Lieut. Gen. Campbell. Mr. Sutton and myself had apartments assigned to us in a house adjoining the Convent, where we occasionally partook of the hospitality of Colonel M’Coomb, of the Corsican Rangers, although we dined and lived principally at the Governor’s palace.
