The Mediterranean was for them only a port that they crossed carelessly on departure and arrival.

None of them knew the white Amphitrite even by name.
Moreover, they did not have the devil-may-care and romantic appearance of the bachelor of the _Marina_, ready to live in the water like an amphibian.

They were gentlemen of the coast who, having retired from the sea, were entrusting their barks to captains who had been their pilots,--middle class citizens who never laid aside the cravat and silk cap that were the symbols of their high position in their natal town.
The gathering-place of the rich was the Athenaeum,--a society that in spite of its title offered no other reading matter than two Catalunian periodicals.

A large telescope mounted on a tripod before the door used to fill the club members with pride.

For the uncles of Ulysses, it was enough merely to put one eyebrow to the glass to be able to state immediately the class and nationality of the ship that was slipping along over the distant horizon line.