HKB
1840-1841
I left Constantinople with a farewell glance, full of pleasant memories, over its forest of minarets, over the Bosphorus and the smiling Princes Islands, and at the snowy peak too of Mount Olympus, which, with my taste for mountaineering, I had climbed but a short time previously. An interesting ascent it had been, first of all through that Eastern Switzerland around the pretty town of Broussa, and then over the snow and rocky debris to the summit, whence a matchless panorama is to be seen. The squadrons, one French and one English, forming a strong force of ships, were at that time on guard at the mouth of the Dardanelles. I went back to my duty in ours, which was still as active and incessantly drilled as ever. The English squadron, commanded by Sir Robert Stopford, a handsome white-haired old man, was less restless. But the fleets dispersed before long. Ours sailed for Smyrna, whence the Admiral sent the Belle-Poule under my command, and the Triton, Captain Hamelin, back to France. We sailed in company, and after a somewhat lengthy winter passage, we got to Toulon only to find ourselves put into thirty-five days of quarantine. Five and thirty days of prison and solitude and uselessness imposed on a crew without a single sick man, which was daily inspected by its officers as to cleanliness, whose health was looked after by three doctors, and which had just gone through the best and safest of purifying operations--a long sea voyage. Five and thirty days during which 400 men ate and drank and lived at the expense of the National Budget without doing the smallest work for the country--the whole thing inflicted by the Sanitary Board--a purely local and irresponsible body, with its eternal round of red tape. A good thing it is indeed that such a monstrous and intolerable abuse should have been abolished! The only reason it lasted so long is, that it brought in a revenue to the members of the board. To begin with, they filled the inn they kept under the title of "Lazaretto" by force, and then they sold the disinfectants. "Gentlemen," the sanitary officer would say, with his provencal accent--"Nous allons faire le parfum." The crew were shut up below, the officer lighted a sort of pastille which made a great smoke, everybody pretended to sneeze at once ... and we were disinfected! The farce was over! There was a great dinner too, which the board gave itself at Saint Roch, at the expense of the persons in quarantine, which put the finishing touch to the scandal. Wherefore, during my own detention, I always had the band on deck as soon as the boat belonging to the board appeared in the port, and greeted it with the most horrible and discordant of music. Further, I asked guilelessly for leave to carry on my ship's firing drill in the Lazaretto Bay, and I took care to open fire so close to the Lazaretto itself that I heard all the glass in the windows fall out with a crash. As I expected, I was forbidden to do it again, the board being furious, and having lodged a complaint, stating that I used bad cartridges, but I had a delicious moment of vengeance all the same.