asked, and less given; for, at the period referred to, the animosity between the two parties was at its height. Many a poor wretch, sinking under fatigue, and hearing the footsteps of his blood-thirsty foes drawing nearer and nearer, till he could fancy he felt their breath upon his shoulder, shortened his horrible suspense, aud solved the question uppermost in the mind of a man flying for his life," Shall I or shall I not escape?" by throwing himself on the ground, and waiting patiently the bayonet-thrust that was to terminate his sufferings.

At length the ardour of pursuit diminished, and few others than the cavalry persevered in the chase. Even these dropped off one by one as their horses became blown, and soon barely

a

score of troopers, either better mounted or more eager for blood than their comrades, hung upon the skirts of the fugitives, flying now more from panic than real danger. A young Carlist officer, who bestrode a splendid Andalusian charger, was far ahead of his men, and made himself remarked by his ferocity. He had broken two lances, and now made use of his sabre with deadly effect, turning a deaf ear to supplications for mercy, and accompanying every blow with a heavy curse. He was within a score of yards of five or six Christino soldiers, when they suddenly turned, and levelling their muskets, made a simultaneous discharge on their pursuer. Owing to a sudden bound of the horse the bullets took effect upon him instead of his rider, and the noble animal fell. Before the Carlist could regain his feet he was in the power of the soldiers. In the ineffectual struggle he made to escape from their grasp, the boina fell from his head, and a quantity of long hair, lank with sweat, hung over bis forehead. The soldiers stared at him, and then at each other, and then again at the prisoner, with a puzzled look.

"Lo es !"* at length exclaimed one; and as though a charm had been broken, "El Mudo!" they shouted simul. taneously.

The Carlist officer smiled bitterly. Outside that handsome square at Vittoria, composed of houses of uni

form structure, and surrounded by a colonnade of stone pillars, which is known by the name of the Plaza Nueva, and of late years Plaza de la Constitucion, is an open space entitled the Plaza Vieja, or old square. Although totally unable to compete with its more elegant neighbour as an evening lounge for the fashionable of the town, because its appearance is uncouth, and its pavement uneven, and usually dirty, it is yet not entirely without interest, especially to a stranger. The fountain at the lower end of the Place, within a few yards of the Principal, or chief guard-house, is each morning the rendezvous of innumerable criadas or servant girls, and other damsels of low degree, who, having filled their wooden or earthen vessels, allow them to remain for a few minutes on the stone ledge round the spring, while they indulge in a little gossip. Here may be studied the manners and dress of the lower classes of the province. The peasants from the neighbouring mountains, who bring in mule-loads of wood and charcoal for sale, station themselves near the fountain, and address their rude attempts at gallantry to the buxom water carriers, whose brilliant yellow or crimson petticoats, neatly turned ancles, tight boddice, and abundant black hair, rendered glossy by some preparation, which is certainly not the real Macassar, constitute in the eyes of the charcoal burners the ne-plus-ultra of attraction. The lounging soldier, the pass ing muleteer, the artisan hurrying to his work, all have a smart word for the mozas,† who, after receiving a due meed of compliments and admiration, trip lightly away with their burden of aqua fresca on their heads, and make room for new comers.

Less cheerful associations than these are, however, connected with the Plaza Vieja. It is here that are usually executed the criminals sentenced to the garrote-a punishment about equivalent to the English one of hanging.

Early on the second morning after that which had witnessed the disastrous expedition to the powder mill, workmen were busy erecting scaffolding for an

* It is he.

+ Young girls.

in a voice as clear and sonorous as though he had been commanding a squadron on a field day,

Viva Carlos Quinto!" shouted he, " Mueren los negros !"*

execution, and it soon became known that the criminal about to suffer was the Carlist spy who had caused the recent discomfiture of the Queen's troops. Towards noon the whole of the garrison not on duty was formed up round the plaza, and large crowds had assembled to witness the execution. On the scaffold (a small square platform) was firmly fixed a strong wooden pillar, against which a bench had been nailed. Two or three feet above the bench was an iron bar, bent into nearly a circle, and which, by means of a powerful screw, could be brought with great force against the front of the oaken post, so as to crush any thing that might intervene. Two men, preserving somewhat of the ancient Spanish costume, in their suits of rusty black, short cloaks, and broad leafed slouched hats, were standing by the instrument of death, waiting till the moment should arrive to exercise their loathsome functions.

At length the criminal made his appearance, strongly guarded, and attended by a grey-haired priest. His head was bent upon his breast, and he appeared to be lending an attentive ear to the exhortations of the reverend father; but his step was firm, nor did it lose any of its steadiness as he ascended the half-dozen steps leading to the scaffold. After embracing his penitent, the priest stepped on one side, averting his eyes from the sad spectacle that was to follow, and the prisoner, dropping the cloak which had hitherto protected him from the inclement weather, and also partly shrouded his face, appeared in the short green jacket and red overalls of the Carlist cavalry. Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he snatched his boina from his head, and

When, by this action of the prisoner, his face became visible to the surrounding crowd, a suppressed hum ran through the lines of the soldiery, and the words "El Mudo" passed from mouth to mouth. Before this murmuring noise, instantly repressed by the officers, had entirely subsided, the prisoner had tranquilly_ seated himself on the fatal bench, the iron collar was adjusted round his bare neck, and one of the executioners gave a few rapid and vigorous turns to the screw. A slight crushing noise reached the ears of the nearest bystanders, as the vertebræ of the neck were broken against the wooden pillar. El Mudo di Santa Domingo had paid the penality of his offences.

After the corpse, according to custom, had remained a short time exposed to the gaze of the multitude, it was removed from the scaffold, and buried outside the town. The following morning, however, the grave in which it had been laid was open, and the body had disappeared.

In the cemetery of a church, a few leagues north of Vittoria, is a plain slab of grey stone, which for a great part of the year is nearly undiscoverable, so concealed does it lie under the tangled profusion of red and white roses which the village maidens have planted around. When, however, the fragrant but thorny barrier is put aside, an inscription is visible. It is short, and runs thus

Valentin-17 Diciembre,
Doleres-23 Diciembre.
Poco le sobrevivia,

WENT this morning to see the galley slaves in their interior. The nest of these hornets is sadly picturesque. Unaware of the place, we came upon it somewhat unexpectedly, from the summit of a steep short mound like the Monte Testacio at Rome, raised out of broken earthenware and rubbish. We looked right down on the stagnant ditch of the fort within which they are confined, and saw a mass of beings, the clank of whose chains might be heard for several minutes before they could be discovered. As they came up, two by two, through a narrow covered passage from the recesses of the fort, upon a platform, where they drew up in ranks, we saw about thirty marked men with their faces towards us, of whom the law tells frightful tales behind their backs, while their physiognomy, air, and deportment, too readily sustain some damning word on the reverse of the medal. There they stood, and so vivid was the impression made by thirty picked scoundrels, that they seem even now to stand, some utterly reckless and sullen, others, like mountebanks at a fair, glad to court the astonishment of those who contemplate them in security across the moat. Our attention is at first called to the distinction of two uniforms, yellow and red, of which you will not be two days in Leghorn without learning the interpretation. The faded yellow is to last for life; the "red," although you read on it, "omicidio in rissa," "furto violento con mano armato," housebreaking, incest, or other appalling felonies, is but for a definite, though always for a long, period. These ruffians are coupled like hyenas together, and, like them, live only as the useful scavengers of this foul town. Soldiers with loaded guns stand by, but stand aloof, as if even they dreaded coming in contact with them; and there are eight or ten policemen for ordinary discipline, who exceed our hardest featured turnkeys. This party were waiting for the boat which was to convey

them across the moat into the town. Another had already landed, and was receiving, out of a neighbouring shed, the shovel and the rake, with which they are to collect and fling into their cart the feculence of the drains. Two old men, of very unequal stature, but both grey headed, in whom the fire of the eye has been quenched, but not its sedate satanic glare, lead the van; one of them, the murderer of a sister, stands the full glance of the timid visitor in silence; his companion, with a face of which for ferocity we never saw the equal, whines for alms, and coolly refers you to the hump on his back, where the half-obliterated word grassazione" makes you look again. The house-breaker and the cattle stealer, "abigeato," clank their fetters rythmically, (unless they happen to fight for the end of a cigar which has been thrown away,) and discourse on the mysteries of their particular line, or change permitted jokes with their keeper, as they draw the empty handcart towards the next embankment of dirt. The other detachment is now on board, and is nearing our side of the moat. A crew of branded slaves passing the fosse of Leghorn, and ferried over by one of themselves, chained to his post to work the old rude craft, is a picture ready for the artist! At six in the morning the ferryman is padlocked to his boat; having carried over these unblest spirits to their vile labours, he goes for more, and takes the different relief gangs, consigning the last of them to their quarters at sun set. As we, too, had to go over, we pressed our way through the set just landing-between rape, and murder, and all other revolting enormities-who seem surprised at our surprise, and disposed to say, what do you stare at? Did you never see a bloody hand before? We commit ourselves, however, to the slave boatman, who tugs us over, and would no doubt turn us overboard, for sixpence; a horrible offence is stamped on his jacket for life, an offence which none convicted of it in England can

expiate with less than life itself. We spring out impatiently before the boat has well touched the opposite shore, and are directed to a covered archway which leads us to the slave yard. Af ter passing the guard-house, we descend a narrow stair into a sort of impluvium or court, with a shed round it; some of the criminals were sawing, some breaking wood, and some trundling a wheel-barrow full of filth, to a place from which it is to be precipitated into the water of the calm sea sleeping at their feet. How calm! how beautiful! does the sea look to day with the Gorgona, Elba, Corsica, in the distant view, and the shipping and the boats in the harbour! How cheering, after such sights as we are leaving, and glad to leave, is the oar's light stroke, and the plash of the sporting bather, and the voices of the distant market, and the cry of the itinerant fish-men or bean - seller! How invitingly the boats glide about, in and out through the bar; how sparkle those broad spread nets from their sterns, with the silvery scales of fish they are conveying to the steamer! How finely coloured is yonder distant ridge of the Carara quarries, and how animating the groups of the lookers on -the soldiers, with their women and children; the idlers sitting on the wall, and gazing like ourselves; and the priest or the monk taking their morning's walk along the rampart.

We are now in the parlour of the head of the "Bureau;" he sees we are strangers and Englishmen. He hands us over to a tall jovial fellow, who expects a reward for showing his menagerie, else would he treat our curiosi. ty and interest with derision. He first takes us to the dormitories-filthy rooms they are not; but dingy, crowd ed, incommodious, and rare places for the spread of any contagious disease; they are four rooms, two over two, with sixty and forty beds in each, disposed in tiers, for the economy of space, like sailors' hammocks. Each bed has a straw mattrass and a bol ster, and the convict's cloak or coverlet, similar in colour to his jacket of the day, lies on it. Inside the cloak, the name of the criminal; outside, the crime. At sundown they all return to the fort, get their irons unclinched, walk about half an hour unchained, take off their jackets, and lie down under their cloaks.

Silence is now rigorously exacted, and blows from the custode fall on such as are refractory. A few whose friends enable them to eat a second meal in the evening, are allowed to do so, and they take this coveted addition to their common allowance by themselves. The dormitories, the dining-room, the kitchen, and parlour, have one miserable table in the midst, on which, at ten o'clock, twenty-four ounces of bread and six ounces of beans are given to each. They thrive on this spare diet; besides which they get, every now and then, something extra. They have four quattrina (about five farthings English) for doing particularly dirty work; for work in which there is particular danger, half a paul is given them in consideration of the added risk; and they must go to mass once a week, and confess! Confess!! The forced confessions of branded galley-slaves must be strange indeed! But the Church is here in more ways than one, and in some more promising. By every convict's bed hangs a little lead crucifix, with holy water; coarse prints of sacred subjects, placed here with the best intentions, grace the begrimed walls: devotional verses are printed upon each; and a coloured print of the Madonna, behind a small, ever-burning lamp, is placed at the head of each room, to which the guard, making the convicts imitate his example, touches his hat as he passes. Over every bed, the convict's shoes, stockings, and civil costume are hung up, to remain there during his legal death, like dead men's garments at the morgue at Paris; and here they often remain unworn for many years! You see the shoes, by whose nails the housebreaker may have been tracked; the hat that he wore in the murderous scuffle; the linen still stained with his own or his neighbour's blood; the coat rent in the affray. We asked for a little glossarial information. "Latrocinio's" jacket turned up, and the convict himself had no objection to tell us,"Mine is only highway robbery; but if I rob you with violence at the corner of a street, I wear a yellow jacket, and am marked Grasazzione'-grazia! If I slay you off-hand, it is only red homicide for a few years; but if I bear the badge of omicidia premeditata' on my yellow jacket, it is for thirty years"-bene! We saw a