ities, and had only four florins remaining.

From the public papers I learned my cousin, the Austrian Trenck, was at
this time closely confined, and under criminal prosecution. It will
easily be imagined what effect this news had upon me.

Never till now had I felt any inconvenience from poverty; my wants had
all been amply supplied, and I had ever lived among, and been highly
loved and esteemed by, the first people of the land. I was destitute,
without aid, and undetermined how to seek employment, or obtain fame.

At length I determined to travel on foot to Prussia to my mother, and
obtain money from her, and afterwards enter into the Russian service.
Schell, whose destiny was linked to mine, would not forsake me. We
assumed false names: I called myself Knert, and Schell, Lesch; then,
obtaining passports, like common deserters, we left Braunau on the 21st
of January, in the evening, unseen of any person, and proceeded towards
Bielitz in Poland. A friend I had at Neurode gave me a pair of pocket
pistols, a musket, and three ducats; the money was spent at Braunau. Here
let me take occasion to remark I had lent this friend, in urgent
necessity, a hundred ducats, which he still owed me; and when I sent to
request payment, he returned me three, as if I had asked charity.

Though a circumstantial description of our travels alone would fill a
volume, I shall only relate the most singular accidents which happened to
us; I shall also insert the journal of our route, which Schell had
preserved, and gave me in 1776, when he came to see me at
Aix-la-Chapelle, after an absence of thirty years.

This may be called the first scene in which I appeared as an adventurer,
and perhaps my good fortune may even have overbalanced the bad, since I
have escaped death full thirty times when the chances were a hundred to
one against me; certain it is I undertook many things in which I seemed
to have owed my preservation to the very rashness of the action, and in
which others equally brave would have found death.

JOURNAL OF TRAVELS ON FOOT.

From Braunau, in Bohemia, through Bielitz, in Poland, to Meseritsch, and
from Meseritsch, by Thorn, to Ebling; in the whole 169 miles, {3}
performed without begging or stealing.

January 18th, 1747.--From Braunau, by Politz, to Nachod, three miles, we
having three florins forty-five kreutzers in our purse.

Jan. 19.--To Neustadt. Here Schell bartered his uniform for an old coat,
and a Je