visible by the faint star-light; suddenly jumping up, he offered the dirk to the nearest seaman, exclaiming, "Here, here, take it. Kill me. Have your revenge on me.”

The man calmly answered, "No, Sir, we must wait till we get on board, and then the guilty will be punished!"

After he

How recoiled at this ominous sentence, and exclaiming, "The guilty will be punished-the prophecy will be fulfilled, and I shall die no natural death!" sank upon his seat, and clasping his hands together, he leant his head forward, and did not utter another word. This recalled the Coxswain to his senses, who urged upon Wea the propriety of at once making for the brig; which was done. But Wea was unable to think of anything except the dead body at his feet. They reached the brig, the corpse was put on board-How also; and Wea, perfectly astonished at finding himself thrust into a command for which he felt as qualified as for Lord High Admiral, waited till the tide turned and then rejoined the pinnace as we have seen. The boats were soon alongside the Tom, and Wea was sent to bury the body on the beach. had read the service, and the earth was heaped up, curiosity, or some other motive, led him into the bush; this had nearly cost him dear. The fairness of his complexion formed such a contrast with every one else in the boats, that it gave him the appearance of a woman, and his propensity for blushing tended to the same end. had proceeded only a few yards, when he was seized by some natives who were lying in ambush. Despite his desperate resistance, he was borne off; but his shouts alarmed the men in the boat, who gave chace; and only after a severe encounter, in which one or two of the natives got skewered, was he rescued, but not before great violence had been done to his feelings, by the fond embraces of two Herculean framed chiefs, who, believing him to be a woman, kissed and slobbered over him as they were bearing him to the rear. Fortunately a musket-ball made one bite the dust, and a boarding-pike brought the other to a stand-still.

He

They had scarcely got back to the boat and shoved off, when the shore was covered by the natives shrieking vengeance; it was a lucky escape. On reaching the brig, Rush was put into the cutter; How, under arrest, was taken into the pinnance, as also was Wea, and after some angry recriminations between the Master of the Tom and Row, the boats hoisted their sails and made for the mouth of the river. On passing abreast of the savages, who mustered in great numbers, a round shot was thrown amongst them, which sent them flying into the woods. They had learnt on board the Tom, that the canoes which were seen the first night after leaving her were war canoes, and intended to attack the boats at the instigation of King Jacket, in return for the uncivil answer from Row. Not finding them in the river, it was supposed they had either gone to sea, or, as was originally intended, endeavoured to reach the River Bonny through one of the connecting streams. Under the latter supposition, the canoes had gone in chase of them, and thus terminated the first visit of an English man-of-war's boats to a friendly territory.

On reaching the mouth of the river, they found the water like a boiling cauldron; although they had their sails set and their oars out, they could make little or no way for more than an hour; at length they

got through it, when another difficulty presented itself directly, in the shape of a roaring bar, formed like a half-moon round the mouth of the river, without a break to escape through. It was flood-tide or high water when they entered-it was the extreme ebb or low water now; hence the reason no bar was discernible on passing up. The passage of the bar was attempted and achieved, but at considerable risk, and in four days after they fell in with the ship, and How was continued under arrest. For more than a month they cruised in search of the Commodore in vain, sickness having broken out amongst the crew. They were on their way to Ascension and expected to arrive in a day or two, the Midshipmen were at dinner, when the Steward rushed into the berth, exclaiming" Mr. How has shot himself!" It was too true. Poor fellow, he had waited till they neared the land, expecting to be buried on shore; in this-if the spirit retains its consciousness-it was not to be gratified; he was sewn in a hammock and buried in the sea.

The end of the others is soon told. The slaver got clear off the coast, but was captured near the Havana full of slaves and was condemned; the officers and crew transferred themselves to a felucca, and re-visited the coast, where they committed many acts of piracy; among others, they captured the St. Helena, colonial schooner, lashed the Captain and Chief Mate back to back and threw them overboard, and murdered all else on board except the Carpenter, who stowed himself in the hold. After cutting away her masts, they left her, as they hoped, to sink, but the Carpenter carried her into Sierra Leone. However, they were ultimately captured by an American man-of-war, and hung as pirates. The Tom remained in the River Nun till she lost all her hands; her Master lived long enough to refuse the ransom demanded by the natives for one of the Messrs. Landers (the African travellers), and then died of fever. What became of the brig is not known. Row persisted in his propensity for brandy, and ultimately, to escape a court-martial, cut and run through a stern port, while his ship was lying at Spithead. He had applied for his discharge, and enclosed his paybills, as a present to the Admiralty, never having drawn pay, from first entering the service; however, his pay-bills were returned to him and his discharge was refused, but his escape was winked at. After knocking about for many years the Pride of Point, the Hero of the Hard, died at New York, in the extreme of poverty and wretchedness. Wea derived one important advantage from the cruize; it gave him confidence, he got over his bashfulness, but not his blushing, that was a constitutional complaint; but to mention the name of Arabella or an Indian Chief at any time, threw him into confusion. On his return to England, he found his mistress married to a Life Guardsman, this so disgusted him, he swore he'd never marry; true to his text, he is still a musty bachelor, with the rank of Purser.

It is reported, that Rush joined some Foreign Service, were promises were plentiful, but pay was not, and in some sharp, unchronicled affray, he got cut off, and lost the number of his mess.

SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A FOREIGN MEDICAL OFFICER.

I was born in Manheim, intended by my friends for the profession of the law, but expressing a preference for surgery and medicine I was permitted to follow the bent of my inclination. I well recollect the bombardment of that city, though I was then but a child, being obliged to take refuge with my mother in a cellar, to escape the shells. After that siege the march of different bodies of troops through the city, with its temporary occupation, and the levy of intolerable pecuniary exactions, as well as of the means for the subsistence for such merciless occupants, reduced many of the inhabitants to poverty. The population began to decrease rapidly. Numbers quitted their homes to live elsewhere, even by manual labour, whom military rapacity had ruined,-French or German rapacity, as the accident of the day turned the tide of war. My mother had relations at Nieustadt, in Swabia, then in possession of Austria. With such property as we were able to take with us we journeyed into that country towards the end of the last century, but for reasons I do not know, probably from the coolness of our reception on the part of those from whom we expected welcome and sympathy, we proceeded further southwards to Zurich. This step very ill mended our previous position. We were destined afterwards to become witnesses of the terrible battle between General Massena and the Archduke Charles with the Russians under Korsakow, in 1799, terminating in favour of the French. This battle had the effect of leaving us in peace for some time afterwards, as they continued to occupy Switzerland in force, but we were in a state bordering upon famine, the country being poor and exhausted.

I saw that renowned battle from an eminence over the city, or at least a portion of the contest. The obstinacy of the combatants, the fury with which the attacks were made, the masses of men victorious for a moment and then driven back, and the roar of the firing, were to me both novel and astounding. I imagined that a battle was a more orderly thing than I saw; my juvenile fancy depicted line fronting line, all regularity, in place of which I well remember the confusion surprised me. I did not consider the nature of the ground, nor how much the smoke of the contending armies deprived me of observation. The French had crossed the Limmat, a river which runs out of the lake at Zurich, and separating a large Russian force from the main body of the Austro-Russian army, ascended the bank towards Zurich, attacking the allies in front of the city, crowning the heights, aud getting possession of the suburbs. The victory was then achieved, their enemies retreating before them. The battle began at break of day. The people of Zurich were not sorry to be rid of the savage-looking and dirty Russians, whom they had seen for the first time not long before, with no small surprise. Since that day these Scythians have assimilated more to the appearance of the other continental armies.

Zurich was filled with the wounded of both sides. There was more to do than the French medical men could achieve. A Captain of French Infantry, quartered in our house, rendered himself agreeable to me by his conversation, from the moment he became an inmate, con

versing about the battle, and deploring that several of his friends were among the wounded. His manners pleased me. Frank and intelligent, he answered my abrupt questions readily. Among other matters he lamented that the surgical attendance upon the wounded was not equal to the exigency of the circumstances, that the surgeons were too few, and already greatly fatigued. I made known my profession to him, and offered to assist, thinking it would be excellent professional practice and nothing more. My offer he reported, and it was thankfully accepted. Upon that offer hung the destiny of my future life. I was soon in the midst of the wounded, my coat off, working hard to alleviate human suffering. Early and late I laboured, until worn out with fatigue I took a short rest and renewed my task, labouring thus twenty hours out of the twenty-four. The French Medical Staff noticed my exertions. My friend, Captain Latour M, was quartered for some time with us in the city, he became acquainted with the narrow circumstances of my family, and my natural anxiety to remain no longer a burden to my parents.

"M. Ernest," he said one day, "enter our service. The fortune of war may befriend you. Let me persuade you to join us; say you will, and I will speak to the General of Division here, who is my relation as well as friend; let me persuade you."

I assented; but this was not enough. I had to obtain the concurrence of my friends, who offered a considerable resistance to my wishes. I wrung from them at last a reluctant consent, was introduced with the credentials of my qualification to the heads of the acting Medical Department of the army, and in a week was in the French service, not the less spoken of from having spontaneously volunteered to aid in attending to the wounded in Zurich. Youth indulges in brilliant hopes; I looked upon a bright future arising from amidst the scenes of misery and suffering in which I was now professionally placed. As my design is not to relate the "ups and downs of my life, but merely two or three striking incidents connected with it, I pass over the recital of events that happened in peaceful quarters at Zurich and at Basle, under General Moreau, until I was ordered to Lyons. Though employed in the healing art, and not among the active manslayers, except through errors in judgment, I was frequently in great danger. It was the custom among the French to dress wounds and amputate within reach of the enemy's fire, if the ground was not likely to be retrod by the combatants. Such operations cannot be performed too early for the unfortunate sufferers, both in regard to success in cure, and the good effect it undoubtedly has upon the soldiery, by showing that they will not be neglected in case of a casualty. In fine weather, the inconvenience of the earth as a bed is to the veteran soldier but little; his wounds dressed, and a garment thrown over him, in addition to his own clothes, always obtainable on the field, and he is already in a fair way of becoming convalescent, if his case will admit of it. Men with slight wounds, and a few armed soldiers, who might always be spared to attend on the surgeons and their assistants, are in such cases necessary to keep off plunderers, by treating them without mercy. This plan can be more frequently followed than it has been, especially when an enemy gives ground, and leaves the spot of the warmest contest covered with sufferers. That it is not more strongly enforced is

owing to the inattention of those officers who disregard in other objects all the promptings of humanity. The French were much more adroit and active than the Germans in performing surgical operations. I endeavoured to imitate them in the faculty, in which they were my superiors, that of prompt decision, followed by instant operation. The Germans deliberated, consulted, talked, and thus delayed a common case of amputation for a time in which the French would have performed half-a-dozen. How this tells on a battle field may be well imagined. Thus a French army was better off than a German. A number of ingenious devices too were applied to aid the operations and assist the wounded, besides the well-known ambulances for their conveyance, known so well afterwards in the French armies.

The truce that followed the battle of Zurich, left the Austrians in possession of Swabia, and the Black Forest; the Russians marched home. In the month of April, 1800, hostilities again commenced. I had previously been ordered to Basle, where Moreau had taken the command of the French, and actually was preparing to move with some divisions of the army of the Rhine. I anticipated seeing myself called upon very quickly to witness again the struggles of active warfare, when an order came to Basle that such of the medical officers attached to the army of Moreau, as could be spared, should proceed forthwith to Lyons. Of these I was one, selected on my own solicitation. I did not like being employed directly against Germans. Not that I had any feeling of allegiance or love to the petty governments of the country, tyrannous and oppressive as they were to all but the highborn of their little states, nor that I regarded fighting against the Emperor of Austria, to whom I owed nothing, deeming the inhabitants of the Palatinate alone my countrymen. I set out immediately, with several others, for Lyons, proceeding through France by Besançon. It appeared, from what we heard on our arrival there, that we were destined for the celebrated Army of Reserve, then in course of formation in that city, but we were speedily undeceived, by getting an order to proceed to Nice, and join the division of General Suchet, who was with the main body of the Ligurian army, under General Massena, the sufferings of which in sick and wounded were reported to be very great. We travelled with the utmost speed, and having been employed but a few days under General Suchet, found ourselves suddenly separated from it by an Austrian corps of great strength, which attacking him cut him off from the corps of General Soult. In place of being with the former we suddenly found ourselves with the last, near the town of Savona, on the sea-shore, not far from Genoa. From hence we got to Voltri, after an unsuccessful attempt, on the part of the garrison of Genoa, under Massena, to form a junction with General Suchet. A number of desperate, but partial conflicts followed, at one of which I was present. At length, neither the courage of General Massena, nor the ardour of his men, could do more, from the overwhelming masses brought against him, than to keep the enemy on the alert by sallies from Genoa, and attacks on the different Austrian posts commanding the roads leading to that city.

Genoa, looking upon the Mediterranean, stands at the bottom of a concavity of mountains which rise in a double range behind. The crests of the nearer range form the defences, which are in two lines;