already I felt the cold knife as again and again it dug into my flesh. Stab followed stab. This deliberate murder made me mad with indignation and despair. I howled and bit all round like a wild beast-all three had attacked me; and Carlos had saved himself, as he was a little way behind. He could not have helped me, even if he had staid, as he had not even a knife with him. While I live I shall never forget those dreadful figures, as they stood above me, darkly relieved upon the cloudy sky. The courteous ness of the little man was the most revolting thing of all. In a quiet mild voice he kept saying to me," Callese ud," (be silent). Mire ud la santa pobreza" (behold the holy poverty).

Be silent, my dear sir-the money, dear sir-I beg you will be silent;" and at every word followed a stab.

Instinctively I had thrown myself on my left side to guard, as long as possible, the region of the heart. With my right arm and foot I managed to parry a good many thrusts, which were principally aimed at the breast and body. It was evident they wished to finish me as quick as possible, as they were afraid my friend, who had escaped, would make an alarm at the gate. The first villain stood before me with his drawn dagger, and called hurriedly, "Las unzas, demonio ! Las unzas, ladron! El dinero paur la pobreza." The tall one, in the mean time, tore away my watch. A thought at that moment struck me, which proved my salvation. I threw the rascals my purse, and exclaimed, "Aqui, aqui, mi todo! (there, there my all!) O Santa Virgen!" Whether it was the sight of the gold, or my exclamation to the Virgin, they left off for a moment, and looked greedily into the purse. The little one then observed a ring upon the little finger of my right hand, and as it did not come off quite easily, he drew a large gardener's knife from his pocket, and tried to cut off the finger. I guarded myself as well as I was able, but at last he got off the ring, and a piece of flesh at the same time. The last rage of a dying man now got hold of me. "Maldito seas," I exclaimed, "con padre, madre, y hyos -punnatero!" (Curses on you, your father, mother, and children!) Punnatero is a national term of reproach, impossible to be translated; but this is the greatest imprecation that can

be uttered in Spain, as it is believed some diabolical influence resides in it. A deeper stab, however, was the only answer, and it entirely took away my senses. I felt my muscles straining in agony; and, with "maldito!" on my lips, I sank backward, resigning myself to death, and fainted. I must have lain there full ten minutes ere my senses returned. For the first moment I was unconscious of what had befallen me. There was a rushing in my head, as if the Turia had been flowing through my brain. I could not move a limb; and, if I may speak poetically, my soul stood on tiptoe on my body, and prepared for her last flight. I can by no means account for what befell me then; for, at the moment when I scarcely knew my own name, when Death's scythe, as it were, had almost cut off the ego from my existence, I, as clearly as I ever saw any thing in my life, saw the room where I was born, and where I had passed my childhood. It seemed as if I were in it, and some little time elapsed before my consciousness was completely restored. Gradually, all the circumstances of my unhappy position recurred to me. The cloister that was so near me showed its lights -so peaceable, so clear-but its gates were closed! There I lay beneath cypresses, roses, and plane-trees-a paradise where fiends had sacrificed me; and the deaf insensate church stood near, listening to my groans! and my murderers, I thought, might enter it to-morrow to hear mass, and confess that they had stumbled on a dead body, and so escape suspicion, and be innocent men as ever. cannot venture to describe the thousand thoughts that passed through me at that moment-thoughts so rapid and various that they were above all ordinary exertions of the mind-but the thoughts were there.

But I

"For we're o'ermastered by the hours of might"

and by the great and true God! that was an hour of might!

I committed my soul to heaven, and praying that hell might be the portion of my murderers, stretched myself painfully out on the cold ground, and calmly expected death.

In a short time I heard a rustling noise, about thirty or forty yards off, and, with renewed consternation, perceived that those Christian Catholic

from the draught, it is impossible to describe. When the watchmen perceived it, they blamed me severely; but I doggedly answered, "Quiero morir!"-(I wish to die). In spite of my weakness, a fiery glow ran through me; they gave me up for lost, and carried me softly and gently further on to the surgeon's house, and laid me in a great wooden arm-chair. The surgeon came. It did me good to be once more in friendly hands. I was undressed and examined; they counted the wounds, and the surgeon numbered them with a sigh-veinti-trestwenty-three; such had been the number of stabs; and even now I retain the scars of twenty. Three were slight picadures, as they are called in Spain. The strength of the wine excited me to a sort of half-insane irony, and I exclaimed, "Here sits the murdered Cæsar!" and fell into hysterical fits of laughter, which renewed the intolerable pains I had experienced at first. I threw over my letter-case and money-girdle to Carlos. Whilst the surgeon wrapped some temporary bandages round me, several people of the suburbs came in. The eighty Napoleons I had preserved, were counted in their presence; and the people cast many looks of suspicion upon Carlos. He was now, therefore, in as bad a condition as I was. A speedy death might deliver me; but if I died, he would be held for my murderer, and would have great difficulty, though he sacrificed half his fortune, in seeing his fatherland or his bride again. He has often told me since, that at that moment he envied me, suffering as I was. The cannibals had apparently struck the girdle, which in so far saved me, by not being easily penetrable. I had a deep breastwound near the heart, two stabs close together in the lower part of the body, thirteen in the right arm, two in the foot, two behind the right ear, and three lighter wounds or picadures in the neck and the right side-facit, twenty-three.

Towards midnight, my agonies be

gan.

When they tried to lay me on a mattress, I screamed so as to waken the whole suburb. It was the utmost extent of torture; and it was only on the chair, and bent nearly double, that it was endurable at all. The wine had naturally inflamed the wounds; my breath grew shorter, and at every inhalation I felt the pain. I could have

taken poison with pleasure. Carlos prayed the whole night through; and I exerted the last remains of my strength to establish his innocence. The surgeon, resolving to let me die as easily as possible, gave me strong cordials, mixed with opium; the alleviation was only momentary; and in this way, in the expectation of death every instant, I spent a miserable night in the arm-chair. In the morning, at four o'clock, Carlos hastened into the city, accompanied by four men. A splendid spring morning succeeded the storm. The sun shone clearly on my blood-stained countenance; and for the first time a settled melancholy possessed me. But the horror of despair soon vanished before the clear light of heaven; and, as it was now all that my bodily sufferings allowed me, I thought, with many a pang, on my distant fatherland, and the friends who made it dear to me.

At six o'clock, the Alcaide Mayor made his appearance, with four clerks and two surgeons. They all despaired of me.

One of them, who thought I did not understand him, allowed me to drink the cordial; and as it immediately awoke my sufferings, and I screamed with the anguish, he said, "Es un sennol de la muerta" ('tis a sign of death.) The magistrates had already taken Carlos's deposition, and they now took down my declaration, as it is called, and I gave it, interrupted by many pauses.

My countryman, Heinrich Elch, with several more Germans and Frenchmen, now arrived. My good compatriot, who had indeed only once met me before, had taken means to secure my admission to the great hospital; but I was no longer in a state to be removed. I would sooner have died than have placed myself in a tartana with all those wounds. They covered me up in my sleeping cloak, which Carlos had brought with him, bound my head round with yellow hospital cloths, and six labradores carried me in the arm-chair, accompanied by half the population of the suburb, into Valencia. The magistrate and my new friends followed in tartanas. I thought now it was for the last time I saw the glorious blue sky, or inhaled the balmy breezes of spring; and full of sadness, I saw the red crucifix at the high-walled Puerta del Cid, close to the gate through which I was carried. The multitude that crowded

after us were sent back; and I was carried by side-ways to the hospital, which is also called Casa de la Misericordia, and was deposited in the great Sala de los heridos (hall of the wounded).

A cloister of nuns is attached to this magnificent establishment, in whose praise I can never say enough; and their duty is to attend upon the sick. The nuns are called Hyas de la Caridad (Daughters of Charity), and do honour to this noble appellation. Amidst excruciating pains, and in the presence of four physicians and all the surgeons of the hospital, my wounds were carefully sounded, and bound up with the utmost attention. "We have never had so bad a case," said one of the elder surgeons. One of the younger ones, to whom I took a great fancy, Don Bernardo by name, exclaimed, on every new wound he discovered, "Ah, los picaros!" (ah, the villains). The binding up lasted more than an hour, and at the end of that time the physicians retired, giv. ing further directions as to what was to be done; but I read in the expression of their faces, that my case was desperate.

Two Jesuits now visited me, and enquired if I wished to confess and communicate. I answered in the affirmative. Henry and my other friends were then asked to retire. The Lady Superior of the convent now came to me an honourable dame, called Sor Paula Figuero, of an Andalusian family-attended by two nuns. They comforted me, recommending me to the favour of God, and with their own hands hanging round me, with many prayers, the "Virgen del carmen," whose image is called the last comfort of the dying, ("el oltimo consuelo de los agonizantes.") This made an indescribable impression on me. Soon after this a confessor appeared, who, far from terrifying me on the brink of the grave with the thunders of God's wrath, spoke mildly and impressively a few words of consolation, gave me absolution, and prepared me for the extreme unction.

Now came the sad procession with the host, preceded by sacristans bearing lighted torches. I received the sacrament and extreme unction, and solemnly the choir of priests uttered over me the Requiescat in pace. Nothing ever affected me so much as

this. My pain diminished by degrees; and, motionless, I gazed on a splendid crucifix that hung at the end of the hall, where formerly a chapel had been. I longed to have my bed removed to where it was, and my wish was gratified, evidently much to the satisfaction of the nuns. Many wounded people were lying in the hall; I attended not to their groanings, but gazed ever-ever-on the sun-illumined image of the Redeemer.

The reader need not be under any apprehension that I am going to disgust him with the repulsive experiences of an hospital. I will pass over, as quickly as possible, the seven weeks I spent in the Casa de la Misericordia; yet I cannot altogether omit some account of them, for that noble and benevolent establishment still lives in my grateful remembrance; and, besides, it is not the fate of every traveller to see Spain in this point of view, and to get an insight into her hospitalar and conventual institutions.

The arrangements in this beautiful hospital-which consists of a number of spacious halls, many laboratories, an enormous and truly royal kitchen, a contiguous cloister with its church, besides a mad-house and a receptacle for foundlings-are truly exemplary. At five every morning, I saw the first cura arrive; this is the name of the rounds which the physicians and surgeons make three times a-day. First came two surgeons to my bed, with two assistants and an hospital attendant. The elder of them, whose name was Don José (Joseph), examined the wounds very carefully, and spoke in a low tone of voice to the others, because he observed that I exerted myself to understand him. It was then their duty to arrange the bandages, and do whatever else was necessary. The younger one, whom I have already mentioned, Don Bernardo, was the only one who did not give me up. After the chirurganos came the medico, accompanied by six assistants, of whom two took down the particulars of my case in writing. The exhibition of the medicines prescribed, and of the cooling draughts (refrescos), was a part of the duty of the nuns, who kept constantly coming and going. The lady superior visited the sick wards sometimes ten times in a day, and several times also during the night. As the