Here was a pretty caldron of piscatorial productions. As the rest of our party made their appearance up the cabin stairs I broke the dreadful news to them, and made a careful study of their features as they received it. If there had been any profane persons in our number, I think a swearing band could have been organized without much difficulty.
Weren’t we on our ears and didn’t we go to the office of the company and make a row? { 237}We had a printed time-table and demanded why the steamer sailed before her advertised time. The agent explained that he was very sorry, but the fact was the steamer did not touch at Naples on account of the quarantine there, and therefore she had reached Syra twenty-four hours ahead of time. There was nothing for her to do at Syra and no reason why she should wait, and so he had let her go.
We demanded a special steamer to take us to Smyrna, in season to overtake the _Tibre_, but the agent wouldn’t give it. We could hire one for one thousand dollars, but that was paying rather high for our passage, and we demurred.
The only thing left for us was to take a small steamer of the Austrian Lloyd’s that was to leave next day and might get us to Smyrna in season to catch the _Tibre_. The agent telegraphed the state of the case to the agent at Smyrna, and away we went for the other boat.
There she lay in the harbor, a little, old, paddle steamer, named the _Wien_, a wooden craft that had been running a quarter of a century. She did not look inviting externally. We wanted to go aboard and take a look at her cabins, but here was a difficulty. A yellow flag floated from her topmast. She was in quarantine, and if we once set foot on her we could not go ashore again in Syra. She had come from Trieste by way of Italy, and there was a five days’ quarantine in Greece against all ships from Italy. So we waited until about the time of her departure. She was stopping for the steamer with the mails from Trieste, and there were no less than four steamers in port waiting the same mails.
We took a lounge around the public square of Syra, and drank beer and coffee at a restaurant; then we took another lounge and more beer and coffee, and then we took a couple of carriages and drove to the interior of the Island, where there were some pretty orange groves and some very attractive country seats. Then we came back and drank some beer and coffee, and went on the steamboat--the steamer that brought us from the Piræus--to sleep.