crossed the Nahrel-Melek, or King's River, passed through Baneas, the ancient Balanea, and arrived towards sunset at Tortosa, the Orthosia of antiquity, erected on the edge of a fertile plain so close to the sea that the spray still dashes among its crumbling monuments. Continuing their journey towards Tripoli, they beheld on their right, at about three miles' distance from the shore, the little island of Ruad, the Arvad or Alphad of the Scriptures, and the Andus of the Greeks and Romans, a place which, though not above two or three furlongs in length, was once renowned for its distant naval expeditions and immense commerce, in which it maintained for a time a rivalry even with Tyre and Sidon themselves. Having travelled thus far by forced marches, as it were, they determined to remain a whole week at Tripoli, to repose their "wearied virtue," and by eating good dinners and making merry with their friends, prepare themselves for the enduring of those "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," which all flesh, but especially travelling flesh, is heir to. But the more fortunate and happy the hero of the narrative happens to be, the more unfortunate and melancholy is his biographer, for happiness is extremely dull and insipid to every one except the individual who tastes it. For this reason we hurry as fast as possible over all the bright passages of a man's life, but dwell with delight on his sufferings, his perils, his hair-breadth escapes, not, as some shallow reasoners would have it, because we rejoice at the misfortunes of another, but because our sympathies can be awakened by nothing but manifestations of intellectual energy and virtue, which shine forth most gloriously, not on the calm waves of enjoyment, but amid the storms and tempests of human affairs.
We therefore snatch our traveller from the rural parties and cool valleys of Tripoli, in order to expose him to toil and the spears of the Arabs. The
