The Ruffian Bombardment

A few of my friends are in Lebanon for pre-wedding festivities this week; in honor of that I found this 1799 travel narrative (Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the Year 1792 to 1798 by William George Browne) which has that distinct eighteenth-century advantage, namely that the lower-case s's are typeset almost the same as f's, giving the whole thing a very funny lisping look, and not a few fun outright misreadings (like that key Syrian export, filk).