LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 8r 



" We had arrived at Baccano in the evening, and whilst we were 

 at tea, I proposed to our excellent friend Mr Fletcher, who had 

 joined us at Cologne, that we should leave the inn at four the next 

 morning on foot for Rome, and secure lodgings for the ladies, who 

 would follow us in the carriage after a nine o'clock breakfast. Hav- 

 ing been accustomed to go without shoes month after month in the 

 rugged forests of Guiana, I took it for granted that I could do the 

 same on the pavement of his Holiness Pope Gregory the Sixteenth, 

 never once reflecting that some fifteen years had elapsed from the 

 time that I could go barefooted with comfort and impunity ; during 

 the interval, however, the sequel will show that the soles of my feet 

 had undergone a considerable alteration. 



" We rose at three the morning after, and having put a shoe and 

 a sock or half-stocking into each pocket of my coat, we left the inn 

 at Baccano for Rome just as the hands of our watches pointed to the 

 hour of four. Mr Fletcher having been born in North Britain, ran no 

 risk of injuring his feet by an act of imprudence. The sky was 

 cloudless and the morning frosty, and the planet Venus shone upon 

 us as though she had been a little moon. Whether the ^severity of 

 the frost which was more than commonly keen, or the hardness of 

 the pavement, or perhaps both conjoined, had deprived my feet of 

 sensibility, I had no means of ascertaining ; but this is certain, I 

 went on merrily for several miles without a suspicion of anything 

 being wrong, until we halted to admire more particularly the trans- 

 cendent splendour of the morning planet, and then I saw blood on 

 the pavement; my right foot was bleeding apace, and on turning the 

 sole uppermost, I perceived a piece of jagged flesh hanging by a string. 

 Seeing that there would be no chance of replacing the damaged 

 part with success, I twisted it off, and then took a survey of the 

 foot by the light which the stars afforded. Mr Fletcher, horror-struck 

 at what he saw, proposed immediately that I should sit down by the 

 side of the road, and there wait for the carriage, or take advantage 

 of any vehicle which might come up. Aware that the pain would 

 be excessive so soon as the lacerated parts would become stiff by 

 inaction, I resolved at once to push on to Rome ; wherefore, putting 

 one shoe on the sound foot, which, by the way, had two unbroken 

 blisters on it, I forced the wounded one into the other, and off we 



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