Garrison Library, Gibraltar.—Is glad his health has improved. They (he and Lucy) have done little sightseeing. Refers to his meeting with a Monsignor Clifford, and to the views of Milner Gibson and others on the prospect of war. On Thursday they start for Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Patras, Corfu, and Venice.
(Misdated Tuesday, 24 April 1878. The 24th was a Wednesday. The reference to ‘Thursday’ rather than ‘tomorrow’ suggests that the error is probably in the day of the month.)
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Transcript
Garrison Library, Gibraltar
Tuesday Apr. 24/78
Dear Sir Frederic†
I am very glad indeed to hear reports of your mending, and hope that by the time this reaches you there will be nothing the matter. We have been very happy and lazy here, and have carefully avoided all objects of local interest. We meant to go over to Tangier today, but thought at the last moment that it would be rather a business, and that we could very well imagine the camels and the fleas. We have not even been to see the monkeys on the rock, though there are now 18 of them. The chaplain tells me that a register is kept of their births and deaths, but there is a difficulty about the marriages, as they do not apply to him for his services.
There is a Mgr. Clifford here, who comes to breakfast at the hôtel sometimes. He was much interested to find that we were namesakes and that I came from Devonshire. I assured him that my father came from Herts and that I had not the faintest idea who my grandfather was; and then he said “there was a Professor Clifford, of Exeter ‥” to which I replied “that’s me”. At that he grinned hugely and said he knew where he was. He seems a nice man, and says he has been yer tu months in a way that sounds quite like home.
Milner Gibson has turned up in a little yacht. He seems to have been doing so for about 50 years. He says he got the last pass of the Algerine pirates in 1830, just before the French went in. {1} He has bet Lucy a pair of gloves that there will be no war for 12 months, and all the foreign military and the sea captains say so too; but the English officers think that the Indian contingent is to go straight to Gallipoli, and that the new housing at Malta is for some of the 1st Corps. We get a short telegram here every afternoon, but the papers are 6 days late.
On Thursday we start by a Cunard for Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Patras, Corfu and Venice,—after that the skipper only knows where. They say we may get letters at Naples in answer to those posted today, as we loiter a day or two at each port; but I should think Venice the safest place, because we take 17 days to get there. I presume that we shall not be captured by a privateer. Mind you get well.
yours always
W. K. Clifford.
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{1} Gibson was on board his yacht, the Resolute, at Algiers, at the time of his death in 1884.
† Sic.
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