do know to be the fact, that they deal with Priestcraft; and, in that way, make their people so much afraid of them. Seeing so much of their wickedness and Priestcraft, was one thing that led me to see my lost situation.

7*

CHAPTER IV.

"Cautious and swift the Indian went,
"His head was raised, his bow was bent,
"And as he, like a wild deer, sped,
"So light, so silent, was his tread,
"That scarce a leaf was seen to move,
"Of flower below, or branch above."

MISS L. M. DAVIDSON.

Rosamond attacked in her house by robbers.- Wounded and supposed to be dead.-One robber killed.-Another taken.-His punishment.—Loses her senses under the shock from Manuel's entering her room.—She recovers, and removes to another house.-Learns who sent the robbers to her house.-Altars of private devotion to the Saints.

I HAD been living in Havanna about three months, when on the third of October, 1828, at seven o'clock in the evening of a rainy day, I was assailed by the robbers in my house. I was alone sitting in my boutak, or Havanna armed chair, at the window, looking into the street. My servant girl, Sarah, had put the front door a jar, on her way to the grocer's, and then turned back for a few moments, to the yard. As she re-entered the back door, three ruffians entered the front door, throwing it wide open upon its hinges. The first that entered was a white man, who flew and seized me by the throat, and presented a knife to my breast; while a black seized the colored girl, and presented a knife to her breast, and a mulatto guarded the front door, walking to and fro. I screamed aloud; for, at the first sight, I knew they were robbers. The Commissaries, with the city guards, are not usually stationed before half past seven or eight o'clock; and at seven is the hour of evening prayers, or oration in the Convents, when the Convent bells ring, and the Priests must all be in their Convents; and when the devout or even formal Roman Catholics, in their houses, or in the streets, riding or walking, stop; or, sitting and eating, rise up, and Cross themselves, and offer a prayer. And this hour of common devotion, is the precise time for the robbers to be on the alert.

I could not understand Spanish, and the robbers did not understand English. My servant begged of them for me, and begged of me, to cease screaming, or they would certainly kill us both, and to give them what money I had, and they would leave the house. My servant could speak three languages, and she pleaded with them for our lives, while I cried murder! help! robbers! But all my crying was of no avail; for when the robbers make an attack, all the neighbors close their shutters and doors, and no one dares to come to your assistance. There is but little chance of any one's coming to your assistance, because they fear to be taken for the robbers themselves. They do not open the shutters again until the robbers have fled, or have been secured. And the custom of the place is, not to cry an alarm, or make any noise, when attacked by robbers, but silently to give them what money you have, in the confident expectation that if you do this, they will spare your life; but that if you make an outcry they will kill you. I had not yet learned the customs of the place.

Seeing the shutters of the neighbors all closed, and myself all a gore of blood, I asked my servant what we should do if they were going to kill us. She said, no, if I would not halloo any more, and would give them what money I had. For the robber had removed my left earring; and in his effort to take out the right hand one, he was embarrassed by the spring; and when I raised my hand, to take it out for him, and I saw my hand and arm were covered with blood, I shrieked, O, do come! he has killed me! so loud, that it is said I was heard to the Place de Amos, which was distant several squares. He rent out the ear-ring, tearing it through the flesh; and I found myself stabbed in my mouth, in my side, and in my hand.* I did not know when I received these

*The scars of these four wounds which she received upon this occasion, are now distinctly seen upon her body. Her right ear is slit by the wrenching out of the ring, the length of about one third of an inch. The other scars are about an inch long. One is on the right side of her cheek, near her mouth; one on the right hand; and another on her side.-ED.

wounds, but the flowing blood made me think I was surely killed. Then, for the first time, I thought of calling on my God for help; and I cried: Lord! have mercy on me! for I felt that I was going in a moment to eternity. Instantly I was calm,-I stopped crying,-and it did appear to me, as if God was with me. I went readily into the next room, the robber still holding me fast by the throat, and I gave him what money I had in the house. I became perfectly resigned, and expected every moment to be launched into eternity.

By this time the Commissaries came. A noise was heard in the front room. The robber let go his grasp on my throat, and ran. In passing out, he wounded the Commissary who stood guard at the door, while the soldiers had pursued the two other robbers. The white robber came unexpectedly upon the Commissary, who supposed there were but two robbers in the assault; and the wound he gave the Commissary, enabled that robber to escape. But the mulatto was stabbed and killed by one of the soldiers in pursuit, and the black was taken. I have seen the end of the soldier's sword, which was broken off in the body of the slain mulatto.

After they had left the house, I heard my servant girl crying in the street, "they have killed my Mistress !"She escaped unhurt into the street, as soon as the robbers had gone. I ran towards the sound of her voice, and fell senseless to the ground in the middle of the street.

Here no one dared to lift me up, until the head Commissary and a Physician were called. The crowd gathered round, supposing, from the quantity of blood, that I was dead. But after the Commissary and the Surgeon came, I was removed into my house, and my wounds were dressed.

These robbers neither put out the lights of my house, nor shut the door, nor shutters; and people were passing in the street all the time. But in Havanna, the people will neither stop, nor gather in a crowd, nor look round, if there is a robber in the way. One American lady saved herself, when her house was assailed by robbers, by going

upon the roof, and crying fire! fire! This brought the people out, and the robbers fled; when, if she had cried "Robbers!" every door and window shutter would have been closed, and the robbers would have plundered the house, and perhaps murdered the mistress.

The black robber who was taken in the attack on my house, was put in prison, and kept until his trial. Then he was condemned, and sentenced to be exposed half naked on a mule, and whipped at the corners of the principal streets, and afterwards to be sent five years to the Spanish mines.

The mode of whipping is this.-The criminal is taken by the Commissary, and placed on a mule, on a wooden saddle. The Commissaries and their soldiers walk on either side. The multitude follows behind, to see the whipping. At every corner of the street, where the Commissary passes, he stops the mule, rings a bell, and proclaims the crime of the convict, and then he strikes him on the naked back, one blow, with an instrument resembling, in shape, a common hand-card for carding cotton or wool. It is full of sharp iron points, which at every stroke make the blood flow. After the one blow, he drives on to the next corner, and there repeats the same ceremony.

After I was relieved, and my wounds were dressed, my Priest came. He was in his Convent at the time the robbery happened. As soon as he entered my room, I lost my reason. I remained in this situation three months. In this time, I was removed to a friend's house, Mrs. ATT's, a Spanish lady, where Manuel provided for me every thing to make me comfortable. It was said that he was kind to me, and mourned much about me. This became all public, up to the governor, and down to the lowest class, who I was, and who I was living with. It excited more attention, on account of my being a foreigner, and of my living with a well known and respected Priest.

At the time that I was brought to my reason, which was three months after, then I was brought to see what a