196 



DELIGHTFUL EXCURSION. 



lowing whatever course whim or caprice may 

 suggest, in a wild and exceedingly magnificent 

 land, in an agreeable and healthy climate. Be 

 the cause what it may, I will only maintain that 

 I know nothing more exciting (always save and 

 except a good run with a good pack of fox- 

 hounds), and no better or surer cure for ennui, 

 and other ills common to civilized life in the hot 

 season in the Mediterranean, than a ride of from 

 tv>-elve to sixteen hours a day, at a jog trot, with 

 an enterprising friend or two, on w^hose good 

 humour and contempt of difficulties and danger 

 one can depend, through a wild and partly un- 

 known country, in a magnificent climate, amongst 

 some of the most splendid scenery in the world, 

 rendered doubly interesting by the classical recol- 

 lections connected with it. It is a pleasure of which 

 those who have not experienced it can form no 

 idea. I will not deny that we met with incon- 

 veniences, and that we suffered some privations, 

 but I never ate with a better appetite than I did 

 our frugal fare ; burgundy was never more palat- 

 able than was, on this excursion, common Alba- 

 nian wine ; and I never in my life slept more 

 soundly than in my clothes on the boards, or on 



