DICKENS ON HOLIDAY

Evening Star, Issue 20958, 24 November 1931, Page 14

DICKENS ON HOLIDAY

How delightful a (correspondent Charles Dickens was is revealed in a long series of letters from him to Baroness Burdett-Coutts, which are being published in the • Cornhill Magazine ’ Among them is an account of a sea trip from Genoa to Naples, written from Rome in - November, 1853- „ , “ Wo came from Genoa to Naples— I ought rather to say went—in the Valetta steamer, an English ship placed upon this route chiefly to convey the overland India mail from Malta to Marseilles when it becomes due. Our country men and women, and the men and women of all other European regions, are so much attracted by the fame of the ship that we found it when we went on board perfectly crammed. There were about forty passengers without any berths, blankets, seats at dinner, or other accommodation in the way of eating, drinking, or sleeping, the whole having paid heavy first-class fares. The first night wo lay on the planks of the decks with thirty-seven unfortunates, ox whom thirty-two declared all night that they would write to the 4 Times in the morning. You never saw so ridiculous a scene. Insane attempts to make pollows of carpet bags, hatboxes, and lifebuoys—wild endeavours to screen ladies off with flags, which invariably fell down as soon as they had tied their heads up in extraordinary dimity machines taken out of reticules elaborately worked in worsted—and in the middle of the night a perfectly tropical rain which swept the whole gtip clear in a minute and* crowded us all together on the cabin-stairs, where we remained all night, whenever a desperate creature came below, all tumbling down; and whenever any other desperate creature ascended to the deck, all tumbling up again. “As a distinguished Englishman in my way, I became the brother of all the officers in half arbour, and set off with them next day to see Pisa, which expedition I made with the comfortable assurance that the Valetta could never go without us, as the captain was in our company. He was so much affected by our suffering that next night he put Mr Collins and Mr Egg in the storeroom (opened foi. occasion), where they slept, on little dressers, with pickles sPfces tea, fruits, and a very large double Glo ster cheese in cut, the whole forming a combination of smells of which they were profoundly innocent after they had been there (it was under water, too) five minutes, but which to my senses has left a general flavour of chandlery and grocery about them ever since. I was superbly lodged in the steward’s cabin, that Potentiate sitting in an armchair all night and resigning his bed (four feet and a-half by one and a-quarter) to me. It was very comfortable, though the engine was under my pillow, and tjiej ex " tremely nervous, and the whole m a profuse perspiration of. warm, on.