1 693-] I WRITE AN INSCEIPTION. 127 



to our true and noble titles of Freemen, to become e'er long 

 the Sport and Prey of a little Scoundrel Tyrant/ 



I have already shewn, that the day before our first De- 

 parture, we left a little Monument behind us, to inform all 

 such as might one time or other happen to Land in this Isle 

 of our Adventures. But that being very short, and con- 

 taining some General Things, I had a mind before our second 

 Departure, to add some Particulars in a little Writing, a Copy 

 of which I have here very freely inserted. If the Eeader 

 is of Opinion that it breaks off the Thread of the History, it 

 is easie for him to turn over and pass it by, and he will soon 

 come at what he seeks after. 



" Dear Adventurer : 



Read, if thou wilt, tliis weak and sliglit Monument. 



FRANCIS LEGUAT, 



Who now writes these Lines with his own Hand, 



^^'as born and honourably bred, 



In the good and little Province of Bresse- ; 



Which our Predecessors, call'd the Country of the 



Sehusians^ some thousands of years agoe. 



'Tis a fruitful Peninsula, 



Form'd by the Rhosne and the Soane^ 



And blest with the most benign Aspects of the Father of Nature. 



There I liv'd Innocently in Prosperity and Peace, 



When an Irruption of wild Beasts, 



Which rose out of the bottomless Pit, 



Like a Vomit of Fire, 



Impetuously falling from the horrible Vesuvius,^ 



^ Diodati, Governor of Mauritius. (Vide infra.) 



2 Bresse was an old division of France, now comprised in the depart- 

 ment Ain. It was obtained by exchange from Savoy in 1601. 



3 Sehitsian.t, in orig., Sebusiens, probably a misprint for Segusiens, i.e., 

 Segusiani, a people of Gallia Lugdunensis, on the banks of the Rhone 

 and Saone. 



■* In orig. : "le Rhone & la Saone." 



5 Max. Misson ascended to the summit of Mount Vesuvius in March 

 1688, and descended into the crater, which he describes as a vast sub- 

 terraneous abyss. He gives a careful account of the volcano in Letter 



