his legs with soft-soap and brandy, and put him
to bed. He had no other ailment than sheer
downright fatigue.

We had now to skirt Wasserburg, the last
fortified town in Bavaria; but Alison broke
down in crossing a swampy marsh, and six
hours more of incessant toil and climbing entirely
prostrated him. We rested and dined,
and Alison exerted all his eloquence to detain us;
but we knew the next post-house, seven miles
off, was on the Bavarian frontier, and we wanted
all next day to elude the outposts. We gave
him an hour and a half to rest. A few yards,
however, and he dropped; nature was exhausted.

'' Stay by me or leave me," he said; " I cannot
go a step further."

A sledge coming by at the moment, I asked
the driver to give a poor unfortunate worn-out
traveller a ride. " I will give you all one," he
said, and drove us to the frontier.

Here, by the landlord's advice, we took a
sledge, hoping to brazen it out with the police.
We were stopped; but we passed ourselves off
as Americans returning home from Barcelona by
Trieste, who had thrown away our passports.
Innis handed in a forged American letter, and
we were all allowed to pass. This was a miraculous
escape.

On reaching the Austrian frontier, we jumped
out of the carriage and claimed protection as
Englishmen. After a toilsome march among
enemies for twenty-two days, we were now safe,
and were sent guarded to Saltzburg, where our
two companions who had deserted us at Bitche
joined us. The police director there gave us
passports as Americans.

Unable to raise money at Saltzburg, we met
at the inn an Austrian general of engineers,
who lent us seven pounds; we had now spent
our last sixpence. We left Alison there, and
pushed across the mountains to Trieste, two
hundred and eighty miles distant. The roads
were choked with snow, the Carinthian people
rude and inhospitable. Everywhere the same
incessant demand for passports. My shoes were
by this time worn out; our legs began to swell,
and our feet to burn like coals. But for the
want of shoes, we should have been as fresh as
when we started, for our feet had never blistered,
nor had we lost much flesh.

As soon as we got near Trieste, we went into
an inn to shave, brush, and wash, for we looked
like tramps. Our faces were dirty brown, our
hats brimless, our hair long and tangled, our
shirts seventeen days from the laundress, our
pantaloons encrusted with mud, our stockings
trodden away, our shoes tied to our feet, our
gaiters in rags, and our coats looking as if they
had been stolen from scarecrows.

At three o'clock on the seventh day from
Saltzburg, and at the two hundred and eightieth
mile, we saw Trieste lying below us with all its
shipping and the free blue sea. After our
tedious march of thirty days, we sat down to
contemplate the shipping, and realise God's
goodness and our freedom.

Then to carry out our old prison proverb,
" down the hill to Trieste," we marched with
light hearts into the town to the British consul,
and to our delight met Alison, quite recovered
and in good spirits. We rigged ourselves out,
and in three days started for Malta in an
Austrian brig. We reached Malta in twenty
days, and in two days more, the governor, the
excellent Sir Alexander Ball, gave us passages
borne on board H.M.S. Lucifer (bomb). She was
soon under weigh, with two brigs of war, and we
glided out of the harbour with a brave train of
forty sail of merchantmen as our convoy.

WOODS AND FORESTS.

KINGS have at all times had a personal regard
towards wild beasts, and often of old they took
more care of their forests than of their towns,
that were but covers of an ignoble game. The
forests used to be the king's. Even long since,
when Nehemiah was in captivity in the court
of Artaxerxes, the prophet, after having asked
for letters of safety to the governors beyond the
river, also requested " a letter unto Aseph, the
keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me
timber to make beams for the gates of the
palace." Our own kings formerly might turn
towns into forests if they pleased. Manwood,
a good authority on these matters, says: " It is
allowed to our sovereign lord the king, in respect
of his continual care and labour for the preservation
of the whole realm, among other privileges,
this prorogation: to have his places of recreation
and pastime wheresoever he will appoint.
For, as it is at the liberty and pleasure of his
grace to reserve the wild beasts and the game
to himself, for his only delight and pleasure, so
he may also, at his will and pleasure, make a
forest for them to abide in." And so, even at
the time of the Heptarchy, every petty prince
had his royal demesnes. In Anglo-Saxon days,
forest law was in force, and not considered very
burdensome by the great mass of the community.
But under the Norman princes, forest law
especially assumed a harsher character. William
the Conqueror, to begin with, ordered the fertile
lands between the Humber and the Tees to be
laid waste for the extent of sixty miles, and
seized upon the whole tract for a royal forest. To
make it, many towns and villages were burnt
down, implements of industry destroyed, people
and cattle driven away. Lord Lyttleton, speaking
of these devastations, and those occasioned
by the forest laws, observes: " That Attila no
more deserves the name of the ' scourge of
God,' than did this merciless tyrant, nor did he,
nor any other destroyer of nations, make more
havoc in an enemies' country than William did
in his own."

In those old times, there were constant encroachments
on private property, cruel punishments
for even slight offences within royal
forests. Heavy tolls were levied upon all merchandise
passing through them, and extravagant
claims were made by various officers, whose
names and duties have become obsolete. We