文档介绍：About Dumas:
Alexandre Dumas, père, born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (July 24,
1802 – December 5, 1870) was a French writer, best known for his numer-
ous historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the
most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, in-
cluding The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, and The Man
in the Iron Mask were serialized, and he also wrote plays and magazine
articles and was a prolific correspondent. Source: Wikipedia
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Note: Footnotes are represented by * and are placed immediately below
the paragraph to which they refer — ED.
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Chapter 1
Marseilles — The Arrival.
On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde
signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and
Naples.
As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If,
got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island.
Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean
were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a
ship e into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has
been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an
owner of the city.
The ship drew on and had safely passed the strait, which some volcan-
ic shock has made between the Calasareigne and Jaros islands; had
doubled Pomegue, and approached the harbor under topsails, jib, and
spanker, but so slowly and sedately that the idlers, with that instinct
which is the forerunner of evil, asked one another what misfortune could
have happened on board. However, those experienced in navigation saw
plainly that if any accident had occurred, it was not to the vessel herself,
for she bore down with all the evidence of being skilfully handled, the
anchor a-cockbill, the jib-boom guys already eased off, and standing by
the side of the pilot, who was steering the Pharaon towards the narrow
entrance of the inner port, w