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Notes of a Clercical Furlough, Spent Chiefly in the Holy Land
Notes of a Clercical Furlough Spent Chiefly in the Holy Land Author:Robert Buchanan General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1859 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: LEAVING ALEXANDRIA. 7o CHAPTER II. The voyage from Alexandria to Jaffa -- First sight of Judca -- The landing -- The town of Jaffa -- A bird's-eye view of the land abont to be visited -- Ride to Ramleh -- First night in Palestine. On Monday, the 20th of April, 1857, we bade adieu to Egypt -- the land of the Pharaohs -- the house of ancient Israel's bondage. It was about an hour after noon when we weighed anchor, and began to creep cautiously out, through the long and intricate channel of the harbour of Alexandria, where shoals and sunken rocks are uncomfortably numerous, and where the singular clearness of the water makes them appear much nearer the surface than they really are. The wind was both light and bare; and only such a vessel as the St. Ursula, able to walk when necessary into the wind's eye, could have contrived, in the circumstances, to make her way so cleverly to sea. A fine ship yacht, which had been lying near us, went out an hour before, towed by a tug-steamer, and had already gained a good offing, and set all sail for Jaffa before we had passed the light-house. Her people had been "jawing" our men the night before, and telling them they would take the news of our coming to the Syrian coast. Bound as we were for the same port, a race was inevitable. It was slow work so long as we were entangled with the long line of reefs on the one hand, and with the little island of Fort Marabout on the other. Till we got fairly out of the grips of the land, our course kept us close-hauled; but no sooner had we made a little sea-room, where we could slack away a few points off the wind, and take a l...« less