Travels in Egypt and Palestine Author:John Thomas General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1853 Original Publisher: Lippincott, Grambo Subjects: Egypt Palestine 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 t... more »o Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: LETTER II. PHOSPHORESCENCE OF THE SEA -- ARRIVAL AT YALETTA -- CITTA VECCHIA -- GROTTO OF ST. PAUL -- MALTESE BEGGARS -- RUINS OF HADJAR KHEM -- MNAIDRA -- ANTIQUITIES OF MALTA. I Omitted to mention, in my last letter, that we understood, on our arrival at Gibraltar, that the storm which we had encountered in the Straits, was the severest gale " within the memory of the oldest inhabitant." But some of the younger inhabitants (whose memories may reasonably be expected to be better than those of the oldest) stated expressly that it was the severest easterly gale that had occurred for forty-five years. As, however, there may be some who will attach but little value to such random, rash assertions -- assertions often made without any effort of memory, and almost without reflection, merely for the purpose of giving a little extra force to any statement -- I will say what is, perhaps, more to the point, that we were eye-witnesses to the damage occasioned by the aforesaid storm to the vessels lying in Gibraltar harbor; and we learned, on direct and satisfactory testimony, PHOSPHORESCENCE. 31 that at Malaga, on the coast of Spain, a number of vessels had been greatly damaged, and several lives lost. It was, therefore, in all probability, better for us that we did not succeed in reaching the harbor, and that we were forced, against our wishes, into the broad Atlantic, where we were sure of having plenty of sea-room. The occurrence perhaps most worthy of mention, during our passage from Gibraltar to Malta, was a rather remarkable exhibition of...« less