unmutilated horse, which has never
stumbled, and is absolutely black. They make him ride about the
cemetery and pass over all the graves; that over which the animal
refuses to pass, in spite of repeated blows from a switch that is
delivered to his rider, is reputed to be filled by a vampire. They
open this grave, and find therein a corpse as fat and handsome as if
he were a man happily and quietly sleeping. They cut the throat of
this corpse with the stroke of a spade, and there flows forth the
finest vermilion blood in a great quantity. One might swear that it
was a healthy living man whose throat they were cutting. That done,
they fill up the grave, and we may reckon that the malady will cease,
and that all those who had been attacked by it will recover their
strength by degrees, like people recovering from a long illness, and
who have been greatly extenuated. That happened precisely to our
horsemen who had been seized with it. I was then commandant of the
company, my captain and my lieutenant being absent. I was piqued at
that corporal's having made the experiment without me, and I had all
the trouble in the world to resist the inclination I felt to give him
a severe caning--a merchandize which is very cheap in the emperor's
troops. I would have given the world to be present at this operation;
but I was obliged to make myself contented as it was."

A relation of this same officer has written me word, the 17th of
October, 1746, that his brother, who has served during twenty years in
Hungary, and has very curiously examined into everything which is said
there concerning ghosts, acknowledges that the people of that country
are more credulous and superstitious than other nations, and they
attribute the maladies which happen to them to spells. That as soon as
they suspect a dead person of having sent them this illness, they
inform the magistrate of it, who, on the deposition of some witnesses,
causes the dead body to be exhumed. They cut off the head with a
spade, and if a drop of blood comes from it, they conclude that it is
the blood which he has sucked from the sick person. But the person who
writes appears to me very far from believing what is thought of these
things in that country.

At Warsaw, a priest having ordered a saddler to make him a bridle for
his horse, died before the bridle was made, and as he was one of those
whom they call vampires in Poland, he came out of his grave dressed as
the ecclesiastics usual