highly efficient, and the cruel punishment
of the strappado. The garrucha or strappado and the garrotes, combined
with the water-torture and the rack, represented the survival of the
fittest in the natural selection of torments concerning which the Holy
Office in Italy and Spain had such a vast experience. The strappado as
described by Smollett, however, is a more severe form of torture even
than that practised by the Inquisition, and we can only hope that his
description of its brutality is highly coloured. [See the extremely
learned disquisition on the whole subject in Dr. H. C. Lea's History of
the Inquisition in Spain, 1907, vol. iii. book vi chap. vii.] Smollett
must have enjoyed himself vastly in the market at Nice. He gives an
elaborate and epicurean account of his commissariat during the
successive seasons of his sojourn in the neighbourhood. He was not one
of these who live solely "below the diaphragm"; but he understood food
well and writes about it with a catholic gusto and relish (156-165). He
laments the rarity of small birds on the Riviera, and gives a highly
comic account of the chasse of this species of gibier. He has a good
deal to say about the sardine and tunny fishery, about the fruit and
scent traffic, and about the wine industry; and he gives us a graphic
sketch of the silkworm culture, which it is interesting to compare with
that given by Locke in 1677. He has something to say upon the general
agriculture, and more especially upon the olive and oil industry. Some
remarks upon the numerous "mummeries" and festas of the inhabitants
lead him into a long digression upon the feriae of the Romans. It is
evident from this that the box of books which he shipped by way of
Bordeaux must have been plentifully supplied with classical literature,
for, as he remarks with unaffected horror, such a thing as a bookseller
had not been so much as heard of in Nice. Well may he have expatiated
upon the total lack of taste among the inhabitants! In dealing with the
trade, revenue, and other administrative details Smollett shows himself
the expert compiler and statistician a London journalist in large
practice credits himself with becoming by the mere exercise of his
vocation. In dealing with the patois of the country he reveals the
curiosity of the trained scholar and linguist. Climate had always been
one of his hobbies, and on learning that none of the local
practitioners was in a position to exact a larger fee than six