172 AMUSEMENT ON BOARD, 



was always hailed by us with delight : its calm- 

 ness and tranquillity, its silent grandeur and its 

 beauty, made us for a time forget our own per- 

 sonal sufferings, and sometimes almost deem such 

 enjoyment cheaply purchased by them. 



My mornings were generally passed in reading; 

 while Dr. Briggs studied Arabic. A game or two 

 at chess helped to pass the afternoon away, when 

 an attack of intermittent did not disable us from 

 attending to anything but our own miserable 

 bodies. The attacks of ague generally came on 

 at noon, and each successive one was invariably 

 half an hour later, until it arrived at six o'clock, 

 when it would leave me for two or three days 

 and then begin again at noon. This order was 

 repeated so often in my case, that I could tell to 

 a minute when it was coming on. 



Shakspeare and Scott were my favourite au- 

 thors, and I can bear my humble testimony to 

 the value of the works of those great magicians 

 to such as " are sick and afar off." Many an 

 hour that would otherwise have been spent in 

 useless repining or melancholy foreboding, I 

 have passed not merely placidly, but happily, 

 in their perusal ; forgetting the present, living 

 in the past, and heedless of the future. 



