Expats really live a nice life. Nice house uptown, nice SUV and pretty girls looking for visas. But were you reading Harper’s Magazine in 1861, things would’ve seemed a lot worse…

“The title that I have given to this chapter of woe is a metaphorical one. I was not, like Columbus, exactly wrecked upon the coast of Jamaica. I was simply banished there by an Esculapian ukase, and forbidden, under penalty of death, to leave the island for six months. In this light, then, I was cast away, and – may Heaven be thanked for all its mercy! – I live to record the fact.”

Source: Harper’s Magazine