Abridged from The Totall Discourse of the Rare Adventures and Painefull Perigrinations of Long Nineteen Years Travayles from Scotland to the most Kingdoms in Europe, Asia and Africa in 1632 William Lithgow, a Scottish tailor, after having his ears cut off by the outraged brothers of a lady he had dishonoured, found it advisable to leave his home town of Lanark for a lifetime of foreign travel. In the Adriatic, his ship was attacked by corsairs. After an overland expedition from Patras to Athens and back, he sailed to Crete, and crossed the Aegean, visiting some of the islands of the Archipelago, before continuing on to Constantinople. In Crete, then under Venetian lordship, he was several times in danger of his life. Although very much inclined to self-pity, his adventurous curiosity, and his self-righteous and abrasive personality, coupled with the anarchy of the regions through which he travelled, led him into many "rare and painful adventures" which are happily not open to travellers in a later age; but which are immensely entertaining for the armchair traveller to read about.