thus describes the prison itself:--"What a strange
appearance had those mighty caserns (five or six of them, he says, but
there were sixteen) with their blank, blind walls, without windows or
gratings, and their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where
the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of grim heads,
feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded
from that airy height."

Then again, in his account of the food supplied to the prisoners, he thus
grossly libels the Government, and indeed the English nation:--"Much had
the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of
England be it said--of England, in general so kind and bountiful:--rations
of carrion meat and bread, from which I have seen the very hounds
occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most
ruffian enemy, when helpless and a captive. And such, alas! was the fare
in those caserns."

What could have been the matter with the man to write such stuff as this!

One other instance of the reckless way in which he writes about Norman
Cross. Speaking of the manner in which a good many of the prisoners
employed themselves in straw-plaiting of a very superior description, and
how in course of time they thus competed in what was an employment of the
English in certain neighbourhoods, Borrow gives the following ridiculous
account of the manner in which the aid of British soldiery was invoked,
to put a stop to the manufacture on the part of the poor prisoners:--"Then
those ruthless inroads, called in the story of the place _straw plait
hunts_, when in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in
order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries of life, were in the
habit of making, red-coat battalions were marched into the prison, who,
with the bayonet's point, carried havoc and ruin into every convenience
which ingenious wretchedness had been endeavouring to raise around it:
and the triumphant exit with the miserable booty: and, worst of all, the
accursed bonfire on the barrack parade of the plaited contrabands beneath
the view of the glaring eye-balls from their lofty roofs, amidst the
hurrahs of the troops, frequently drowned in the curses poured down from
above like a tempest shower, or in the terrific whoop of 'Vive
l'Empereur.'"

Very rhetorical, but altogether improbable and utterly nonsensical!

The explanation of these exaggerations and misstateme