auded me of
one-half of the oatmeal, although I had purchased it myself in Petigo
for the occasion; being determined that as I was only to get two meals
in the three days, they should be such as a person could fast upon.
Never was there a man more bitterly disappointed; for they were not
thicker than crown-pieces, and I searched for them in my mouth to no
purpose--the only thing like substance I could feel there was the warm
water. At last, night came; but here to describe the horrors of what I
suffered I hold myself utterly inadequate. I was wedged in a shake-down
bed with seven others, one of whom was a Scotch Papist--another a man
with a shrunk leg, who wore a crutch--all afflicted with that disease
which northern men that feed on oatmeal are liable to; and then the
swarms that fell upon my poor young skin, and probed, and stung, and
fed on me! it was pressure and persecution almost insupportable, and yet
such was my fatigue that sleep even here began to weigh down my eyelids.

I was just on the point of enjoying a little rest, when a man ringing
a large hand-bell, came round crying out in a low, supernatural growl,
which could be heard double the distance of the loudest shout--"Waken
up, waken up, and come to the prison!" The words were no sooner out of
his mouth, than there was a sudden start, and a general scramble in the
dark for our respective garments. When we got dressed, we proceeded to
the waters of the lake, in which we washed our face and hands, repeating
prayers during the ablution. This to me was the most impressive and
agreeable part of the whole station. The night, while we were in bed,
or rather in torture, had become quite stormy, and the waves of the lake
beat against the shore with the violence of an agitated sea. There was
just sufficient moon to make the "darkness visible," and to show the
black clouds drifting with rapid confusion, in broken masses, over our
heads. This, joined to the tossing of the billows against the shore--the
dark silent groups that came, like shadows, stooping for a moment over
the surface of the waters, and retreating again in a manner which the
severity of the night rendered necessarily quick, raising thereby in the
mind the idea of gliding spirits--then the preconceived desolation
of the surrounding scenery--the indistinct shadowy chain of dreary
mountains which, faintly relieved by the lurid sky, hemmed in the
lake--the silence of the forms, contrasted with the tumult of