568 EXPERIENCES OF A SURGEON. 



by dint of good feeding were large and fierce ; and as they served the 

 same purpose as vultures and jackals in the east, namely, scavengers, 

 we did not often disturb them. At times they became so bold and 

 so impudently familiar, and withal so disgusting, that we waged a 

 war of extermination against them. The place was, however, 

 quickly re-colonised; and as long as the new-comers kept their 

 proper distance, they were unmolested. On entering the room, there- 

 fore, at that hour which is the holiday of rats as well as of love, I 

 had an opportunity of seeing the entire family whisking away, of the 

 size of half-grown kittens : I hate rats, and did then, and was by no 

 means pleased with my immediate attendants. 



I descended to the dissecting-room, mentally swearing at the negli- 

 gence of both resurrectionists and porter, for having condemned me to 

 visit a depository into which, alone, and at this hour, I felt unwilling 

 to enter. My nose and my imagination alike anticipated disturbance ; 

 the one, that the room was small and very imperfectly ventilated, and 

 that during the last week it had been nearly closed; the other, that I 

 knew there were the fragments of three or four bodies lying festering 

 in corruption, in all the confusion of dismemberment and mutilation. 

 Bound by my promise, I opened the door reluctantly, and, averting 

 my eyes as completely as possible from the mouldering relics of 

 humanity before me, I sought out for the new tenant : none was to 

 be found, and I concluded that the men, having been half-paid in 

 advance, had neglected to complete their bargain a very common 

 trick ; and thanking my stars, I drew my cloak about me, and 

 prepared to return to the open air and my pillow, not a little pleased 

 to have escaped remaining a solitary and half-starved inhabitant 

 through the night, as a companion with dead bodies and rats. 



I accordingly locked the doors; but in turning round in the narrow 

 passage to lift the lantern from the table, I was struck motionless, 

 by seeing at its very extremity two white hands uplifted as if in an 

 attitude of entreaty. The door was locked behind me, and there 

 was not a single house within hail, so that I had nothing for it but to 

 stand staring, expecting every moment to see something horrid in 

 the shape of a resuscitation. As the hands, however, remained 

 motionless, and as my wits returned, I ventured to bring the candle 

 to bear more directly upon the startling objects. All that I could see 

 still was a pair of deadly white hands projecting above a dark body, 

 which might be a man's trunk for any thing I could tell. It then 

 occurred to me, that it might be a mischievous prank of one of the 

 resurrectionists, as the dark body was reared against the wall, and 

 the hands might be supposed to be held up as a screen to hide his 

 face. Full of this idea I advanced boldly, bent on making my foot 

 and his ribs better acquainted : a few steps forward convinced me 

 that my supposition was erroneous ; the dark part resolved itself into 

 the shape and size of one of the wicker-baskets used by vitriol- 

 dealers to hold carboys, and, on approaching more closely, I perceived 

 that in this limited space was contained a human body, as a grizzled 

 head and wrinkled brow showed themselves beneath the hands. On 

 touching these, I at once was aware that they could not be held up 

 in entreaty, as the man had evidently been dead some time; but how 



