Here, on the 15th, forsaking our galley, we encountered a little foul weather, which made us creep terra, terra ((“To coast or sail along the shore” -GS)), as they call it, and so a vessel that encountered us advised us to do; but our patron, striving to double the point of Savona, making out into the wind put us into great hazard; for blowing very hard from land between those horrid gaps of the mountains, it set so violently, as raised on the sudden so great a sea, that we could not recover the weather-shore for many hours, insomuch that, what with the water already entered, and the confusion of fearful passengers (of which one was an Irish bishop, and his brother, a priest, were confessing some as at the article of death), we were almost abandoned to despair, our pilot himself giving us up for lost. And now, as we were weary with pumping and laving out the water, almost sinking, it pleased God on the sudden to appease the wind, and with much ado and great peril we recovered the shore, which we now kept in view within half a league in sight of those pleasant villas, and within scent of those fragrant orchards which are on this coast, full of princely retirements for the sumptuousness of their buildings, and nobleness of the plantations, especially those at St. Pietro d’Arena; from whence, the wind blowing as it did, might perfectly be smelt the peculiar joys of Italy in the perfumes of orange, citron, and jasmine flowers, for divers leagues seaward. ((Evelyn seems to have been much enchanted by the fragrancy of the air of this coast, for he has noticed it again in his dedication of the “Fumifugium,” to Charles the Second. – AD. From the dedication:
“Those who take notice of the Sent of the Orange-flowers from the Rivage of Genöa, and St.Pietro dell’Arena; the Blossomes of the Rosemary from the Coasts of Spain many Leagues off at Sea; or the manifest, and odoriferous wasts which flow from Fontenay and Vaugirard, even to Paris in the season of Roses, with the contrary Effects of those less pleasing smells from other accidents, will easily consent to what I suggest: (i.e. that it is wise to plant sweet-smelling trees).”Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, p. 208. –AD“))
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