Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

LETTERS.

LETTER I.

Plague at Odessa.- Contagion.-Quarantine Regulations.-Lazaretto.-Precautions. En.barcation.-Storm at Sea.-Lee Shore.-Escape.Arrival.

Constantinople,

I CAN readily conceive with what avidity you will seize upon these pages, headed as they are by a name which carries with it so many and such singular associations. But your impatience to arrive at this point cannot have exceed. ed my own, since the time when, at Vienna, six months ago, we were turned by circumstances from our purpose of penetrating immediately into the East. The extraordinary and pleasing excitement, however, under which I have constantly been, has, in a measure, served to control that impatience; and the pleasure and information derived from the many interesting objects that have passed before me while traversing Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe, have more than compensated me for the first disappointment. How far the hasty and unconnected lines which I have imposed on you from various points of my journey may have served to stay your craving appetite for sketches of Oriental wanderings, I cannot presume to say; but only hope that, like caviare before the feast, they may have been the means of whetting it to a keener edge. It will be impossible for my imperfect de scriptive powers to mete out to you such a portion as you may expect, of the mental feast which I now begin to realize VOL. I.-B

« PreviousContinue »