vering, pierced with a square hole in the centre, to admit air. In these pits, I was informed, that the unfortunate conspirators against the life of the late king Joseph the First, had been imprisoned by the sanguinary Marquis de Pombal, previously to their execution on a scaffold before his palace, on the 18th January, 1759.

The Portuguese have long been notorious all over Europe for the inhuman cruelty of their punishments, and the dreadful state of their prisons. Formerly, when a person was obnoxious to the government, he suddenly disappeared, and was rarely ever heard of again.

Imprisonment in the Bastile must have been a mere joke to that of a Portuguese dungeon. I am almost petrified by the horrible accounts which have come to my ears on this subject, since I have been in Lisbon.

Many of the cells are, I am told, on a level with the Tagus, with which they communicate, so that a foot of water, or more, flows in every tide; and in these the victims of despotism and superstition, linger out a miserable existence.

Sterne has touched upon this subject, in his affecting

tale of Corporal Trim's poor brother Tom; and I never pass the door of a sausage shop, or through the square before the Inquisition, but I think either of that unfortunate youth, or of his more celebrated fellow-sufferer, poor Pangloss. Adieu.icons

Lep Indrac kõik quruesť alex. Noch, notending V

LETTER XVII.

THE EARTHQUAKE OF 1755-APPEARANCES STILL EXISTING.—A VO

TIVE TABLET IN THE CHURCH OF THE ESTRELLA CONVENT.—BITUMEN OFTEN FOUND IN THE TAGUS.—THERMAL SPRINGS.—GENEROSITY OF THE BRITISH NATION IN 1755 STILL GRATEFULLY MENTIONED BY THE PORTUGUESE.—FINE TRAIT IN A PORTUGUESE NOBLEMAN.

Lisbon, 16th October, 1808.

I HAVE this day been favoured with your letter of the 12th of last month, and am truly happy to receive such good accounts of your improving health. I shall not fail to answer all your inquiries as I proceed; indeed you will find, on the receipt of my last letters, that I have already anticipated some of your requests.

As to the earthquake of 1755, (when to make use of the words of Seneca- Inter magnam urbem et nullam nox una interfuit') one is constantly reminded of that dreadful calamity, on walking the streets situated near the

river and Praça de Commercio. Immense masses of ruined churches and convents rise up in all directions among the modern buildings; while the perpendicular mounds on which they stand, exhibiting the fractured stratums of rocks, clearly demonstrate the nature of the convulsion. which caused the destruction of the incumbent buildings.

An entire city swallowed up in one instant, presents to the human mind the idea of a scene so extremely terrific, that, on a first glance, one feels a difficulty to comprehend it; but if you lay hold of a single incident, the domestic tale, for example, of a private family, one or two members of which were providentially preserved, while the rest perished in the common ruin, you may conceive, in some measure, the heart-rending scenes of which I speak.

I was led to make this reflection, by casting my eyes accidentally, the other day, on a small votive tablet, suspended in the interior of the church in the Estrella convent. It is a picture containing an humble representation of a very affecting little episode, which formed a part of this grand epic of human misery.

A man and his wife, seized with terror, had rushed into

the street on the first alarm, and in an instant beheld their home a mass of ruins. After the first moments of horror, they missed their only child, whom they had left within in a cradle. You may conceive their distress. Invoking the almighty Author of their being, they vowed to bestow a sum of money on the church of the Estrella convent, if it should please Him to spare their first-born's life. It was discovered alive amid the ruins, curiously nestled under some rafters, which by falling obliquely over it, had saved it from destruction. They performed their vow, and this tablet commemorates the event.

Earthquakes are still common here, especially towards the month of November. Two or three slight shocks are generally felt every year.

Bitumen is often found floating in the waters of the Tagus, and in the lower part of the city, there are some thermal springs. The waters of one of these have been collected, and furnish some baths. I have used them, and find that their heat is about eighty-eight degrees; that is two degrees higher than Buxton. The water appears to be slightly impregnated with sulphur, the sulphurated hydrogen gas.

These are pretty strong proofs, I think, that subterra