At an age when most young Scotsmen were lifting skirts, plowing furrows, and planting seed, Mungo Park was displaying his bare buttocks to al-haj' Ali Ibn Fatoudi, Emir of Ludamar.....George III was dabbing the walls of Windsor Castle with his own spittle, the Notables were botching things in France, Goya was deaf, DeQuincey a depraved preadolescent. George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell was smoothing down his first starched collar, young Ludwig van Beethoven, beetle-browed and twenty-four, was wowing them in Vienna with his Piano Concerto no.2, and Ned Rise was drinking Strip-Me-Naked with Nan Punt and Sally Sebum at the Pig & Pox Tavern in Maiden Lane.

"Water Music" - T.Coraghessan Boyle