like weary cattle; and drunken
men had fallen by the road-side. On a rock, under the shade of lofty
trees, a large party of men and women had lighted a fire, cutting down
fuel around to keep it alive all night. They were drinking, smoking, and
laughing with all their might and main. I felt for the trees whose torn
branches strewed the ground. Hapless nymphs! your haunts, I fear, were
polluted by many an unhallowed flame, the casual burst of the moment!

The horses went on very well; but when we drew near the post-house the
postillion stopped short and neither threats nor promises could prevail
on him to go forward. He even began to howl and weep when I insisted on
his keeping his word. Nothing, indeed, can equal the stupid obstinacy of
some of these half-alive beings, who seem to have been made by Prometheus
when the fire he stole from Heaven was so exhausted that he could only
spare a spark to give life, not animation, to the inert clay.

It was some time before we could rouse anybody; and, as I expected,
horses, we were told, could not be had in less than four or five hours. I
again attempted to bribe the churlish brute who brought us there, but I
discovered that, in spite of the courteous hostess's promises, he had
received orders not to go any father.

As there was no remedy I entered, and was almost driven back by the
stench--a softer phrase would not have conveyed an idea of the hot vapour
that issued from an apartment in which some eight or ten people were
sleeping, not to reckon the cats and dogs stretched on the floor. Two or
three of the men or women were on the benches, others on old chests; and
one figure started half out of a trunk to look at me, whom might have
taken for a ghost, had the chemise been white, to contrast with the
sallow visage. But the costume of apparitions not being preserved I
passed, nothing dreading, excepting the effluvia, warily amongst the
pots, pans, milk-pails, and washing-tubs. After scaling a ruinous
staircase I was shown a bed-chamber. The bed did not invite me to enter;
opening, therefore, the window, and taking some clean towels out of my
night-sack, I spread them over the coverlid, on which tired Nature found
repose, in spite of the previous disgust.

With the grey of the morn the birds awoke me; and descending to inquire
for the horses, I hastened through the apartment I have already
described, not wishing to associate the idea of a pigstye with that of a
huma