A RIDE TO MAGNESIA. 101 



I suppose it was some such profound rumination 

 as this that suggested to my two friends and myself 

 the idea of the cruise hereinafter to be recorded. All 

 three were right travel- smitten, a state of mind which 

 marvellously thrives on slight nourishment. We had 

 had substantial food in this way, and were proportion- 

 ately vigorous in enterprise. We had seen at odd 

 times a good deal of our friends the Turks, but it 

 had been chiefly of the vagabonds near the coast. 

 Into all sorts of queer creeks and corners had we 

 found our way in boat expeditions, that most capital 

 mode of adventure, though rather ticklish for those 

 who are not pretty strong in numbers. So had we 

 dug into the sinuosities of Greece, of which both 

 eastern and western borders were familiar to us ; 

 and it is not a little that I would take for my 

 Horace, which I bore with me up the Ambracian Gulf, 

 and which bears over the " nunc est bibendum " the 

 note of my personal presence off Actium. Pleasant, 

 too, are the recollections of our visit to iNlcopolis, the 

 mighty monument of this victory, now serving, as all 

 things earthly must one day serve, to display the vic- 

 tory of time. We were forced to walk on this occa- 

 sion, as to have touched a saddle or animal would have 

 exposed us to the penalties of quarantine. Our good 

 friend Achmet walked before with a long stick, boom- 

 ing the people off, who shrank from our contact right 

 and left, as if we had been the lords of the soil, or as 

 if it had been they, instead of us, who had to fear the 



