and the second-cabin people came aft to our deck, while the English
engineer (there are English engineers on all the Mediterranean
steamers) planted a camp-stool in a sunny spot, and sat down to read
the "Birmingham Express."

Our friends of the second cabin were chiefly officers with their wives
and families, and they talked for the most part of their sufferings
during the night. They spoke such exquisite Italian that I thought
them Tuscans, but they told me they were of Sicily, where their
beautiful speech first had life. Let us hear what they talked of in
their divine language, and with that ineffable _tonic_ accent which
no foreigner perfectly acquires, and let us for once translate the
profanities Pagan and Christian, which adorn common parlance in
Italy:--

"Ah, my God! how much I suffered!" says a sweet little woman with
gentle brown eyes, red, red lips, and blameless Greek lines of face.
"I broke two basins!"

"There were ten broken in all, by Diana!" says this lady's sister.

"Presence of the Devil!" says her husband; and

"Body of Bacchus!" her young brother, puffing his cigar.

"And you, sir," said the lady, turning to a handsome young fellow in
civil dress, near her, "how did you pass this horrible night?"

"Oh!" says the young man, twirling his heavy blond mustache, "mighty
well, mighty well!"