Desertion-Thirst and sufferings - Mecca- The Kaaba-Pilgrims-Ceremonies-Vale of Arafat-Sacrifice-Interview with Ma- homet Ali – Journey to Taifa - Djibbel Kara-Tossoon Pasha defeated at Taraba -His Camp at Ciulla-Barusce-Ill suc- cess and retreat-Two Wahabee Chiefs THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF GIOVANNI FINATI. CHAPTER I. The Author's Parentage-Education-Conscription-First and Second Desertion-Recapture-Imprisonment-Voyage to Dalmatia— Sea Storm—the Montenegrini-Flight into Albania, and Adventures there -Embarkation-and Passage to Alexandria. THE lives of some men, neither distinguished for worldly advantages, nor eminent talents, may yet, from singular turns of fortune, and by the association of remarkable places and events with their VOL I. B story, supply such a field of amusement, and even instruction, as can hardly be looked for in those of a more uniform tenor. My own life may perhaps appear to be of this number. In publishing it to the world, let me hope that I shall not be suspected of assuming to myself any of the requisite qualifications of an author, beyond that of speaking the truth: what has happened to myself, and what I have seen with my own eyes, that I shall endeavour to relate; but am fully aware that the same incidents, and the same scenes, had they fallen in the way of one possessed of more knowledge and information than I am, might have furnished a work of a very different description from any that I can pretend to offer. My name is Giovanni Finati; I was born a subject of the pontifical states, at Ferrara, not indeed of rich, but of respectable, parents; my father had a small landed property with a house upon it, at Zello, on the river Tartaro; and he had another house belonging to him at Trecenta, so that his income was sufficient for the decent maintenance of a limited family. He was tenderly attached to my mother, and I was the eldest of their four children. I will take up no further time in enlarging upon family details, but pass at once to what concerns myself and my own ad ventures. So soon as I was ten years old, my parents decided upon the profession which I was to follow, and did this, as is but too often the case, without looking at all to the |