page_0060

219

the outer fortifications I met Purdy the queen’s messenger whom
I have mentioned as having met at the hotel at Constantinople.
We stopped to talk, and, knowing what he was, I was amused at
his importance of manner, especially when he spoke of what he
intended to do when he entered Parliament. Knowing also that
Arrowsmith was from Malta, I asked Purdy who he was, and he
replied that he was a rather unprincipled fellow who had been for-
ced by public opinion to leave the island when I met him in Con-
stantinople in December, in consequence of having been concerned
in certain proceedings in the courts for divorce from his wife in
which the testimony was much against him as a correct husband.
Purdy asked where I was staying and offered to send me an
invitation to the officers club which he never did.

England, owing to her small supply of native troops, had been
obliged in the then war, as well as in most of the preceding
ones, to enlist men in other countries besides her own territory.
The recruiting officers had been busy in several of the small
Italian States, and there had been collected at Malta about
a thousand men of what would be known as an Italian legion.
There was an inspection and review of these one day which I
witnessed and which was well attended by the “beau monde”
of Valetta. The men were newly uniformed and the usual
proceedings were gone through with on a parade ground out-
side of the city. The only feature about it which impressed me
was the black eyes and rather swarthy Italian looks of the
men - so different from the light eyed Scotch and English
and generally fair complexions of those wearing the scarlet
uniform.

Dickenson was able to walk about a little after three or four
days, and one afternoon we went to the steamer for Marseilles
to see Mr & Mrs Turner Sargent of Boston who had hurried back
from Egypt on their way to America on account of the death
of Mrs S’s mother. I had met Mrs Sargent frequently in Pa-
ris the winter before and she was always very friendly. She
was a half sister of Mrs Campbell of Charleston whose husband
was then the Rector of St Philip’s church.

There were many curious instances from time to time then of the “en-
tente cordiale” between France and England. One particularly that
struck me was to find a French artillery soldier at the door of
a small stone stable outside of Valetta with whom I stopped to
talk. He explained that he had been left in charge of two army
horses which were invalided, and I presume their stations as
well as his own were furnished by the English departments of
their army.

At the end of the week our steamer for Messina and Naples
was ready and we were on board soon after an early breakfast