ssary having made his report to the general officers,
was deputed to the court of the emperor, who commanded that some
officers, both of war and justice, some physicians and surgeons, and
some learned men, should be sent to examine the causes of these
extraordinary events. The person who related these particulars to us
had heard them from Monsieur the Count de Cabreras, at Fribourg en
Brigau, in 1730.

CHAPTER IX.

ACCOUNT OF A VAMPIRE, TAKEN FROM THE JEWISH LETTERS (LETTRES JUIVES);
LETTER 137.

This is what we read in the "Lettres Juives," new edition, 1738,
Letter 137.

We have just had in this part of Hungary a scene of vampirism, which
is duly attested by two officers of the tribunal of Belgrade, who went
down to the places specified; and by an officer of the emperor's
troops at Graditz, who was an ocular witness of the proceedings.

In the beginning of September there died in the village of Kivsiloa,
three leagues from Graditz, an old man who was sixty-two years of age.
Three days after he had been buried, he appeared in the night to his
son, and asked him for something to eat; the son having given him
something, he ate and disappeared. The next day the son recounted to
his neighbors what had happened. That night the father did not appear;
but the following night he showed himself, and asked for something to
eat. They know not whether the son gave him anything or not; but the
next day he was found dead in his bed. On the same day, five or six
persons fell suddenly ill in the village, and died one after the other
in a few days.

The officer or bailiff of the place, when informed of what had
happened, sent an account of it to the tribunal of Belgrade, which
dispatched to the village two of these officers and an executioner to
examine into this affair. The imperial officer from whom we have this
account repaired thither from Graditz, to be witness of a circumstance
which he had so often heard spoken of.

They opened the graves of those who had been dead six weeks. When they
came to that of the old man, they found him with his eyes open, having
a fine color, with natural respiration, nevertheless motionless as the
dead; whence they concluded that he was most evidently a vampire. The
executioner drove a stake into his heart; they then raised a pile and
reduced the corpse to ashes. No mark of vampirism was found either on
the corpse of the son or on the others.

Thanks be to God, we are by no means cr