Monmouth weekly herald. [volume] (Freehold, N.J.) 1854-1860, 1859-12-29
fau1ilg Giirtle.
A Hospital Scene in Portugal.


tho ninth dag of our pursuit. Yet fear
that sight so terrible cannot be shad-
owed out, except in the memory of him
who beheld it. entered the town about
dusk. It had been black, grim sort of
day; at one time fierce blasts OF wind,
and at another perfect Stiffness, with far
loft thunder. Altogether, there was a
wild adaptation Of the weather and the
day to the retreat of a great army. Huge
masses of clouds lay motionless on the
sky. and then they would break up sud
denly as with whirlwind, and roll off
in the red and gloomy distance. NV i'm.
agination got the better of my other fac.
uties, and | was like man in a grand
but terrific dream. Thus feeling. pass.
ed the great cross in the principal street.
and suddenly fell in with an old haggard
looking wretch-a woman, who seemed
to have in her hollow eyes an unaccount.
able expression of cruelty-a glance like
that of madness; but her department was
quiet and rational, and she was evidently
of the middle rank of society, though her
dress was faded and squalid. She told
me, without my asking her.l in broken
English, that | should find comfortable
accommodations in an old convent that
| stood at some distance among a grove of
cork trees; pointing to them at the same
time with her long shrivelled hand and
arm, and giving sort of historical laugh,
| You will find, said she, nobody there
to disturb YOU
| II followed her advice with a kind Of
superstitious acquiescence. There was
no reason to anticipate any danger at the
convent; yet the wild eyes, and the wilder
voice of the poor creature, powerfully
affected me; aud | went on in sort Of
reverie, till l had walked up a pretty
long fight of steps, and was standing at
the entrance to the cloister of the con
vent. l then saw something that speed.
lily made me forget the old woman, though
what it was | did see, could not, in the
first moments Of my amazement and hor.
ror, very distinctly comprend.
Above hundred dead bodies Law and
sat before my eyes, all of them apparently
in the very attitude or posture in which
they had died. l looked at them for at
least minute before knew they were
all corpses. Something in the mortal ST.
lence of the place told me that alone
was alive in this dreadful company. A
desperate courage enabled me to look
steadily at tie scene before me. The
bodies were mostly clothed in mats and
rags, and tattered great coats; some of
them merely wrapped about with girdes
of straw, and two or three perfectly ma.
ked. Every face had different express
sion, but all painful. horrid agonised
bloodless; many glazed eyes were wide
open. and perhaps, this was the most
shocking thing in the whole spectacle
so many eyes that saw not, all seemingly
fixed upon different objects; some cast up
to heaven, some looking straight forwards
and some with the white orbs turned
round, and deep sunk in the sockets.
1t was sort of hospital. These
wretched beings were mostly all either
desperately or MORALLY wounded; and
after having been stripped by their com
rades, they had been left there dead and
to die. Such were they who, as the old
woman said. would not trouble me-.
= l had began to view this ghostly sight
with some composure, when saw, at the
remotest part of the hospital, a gigantic
figure, sitting covered with blood, and
almost naked, upon bedstead, with his
back leaning against the wall, and his
eyes fixed directly on mine. [ thought
he was alive, and shuddered, but he was
stone dead. In the last agonies he had
bitten his under lip almost off, and his
long black beard was drenched in clotted
gore, that likewise lay in large blots on
his shaggy bosom. | recognised the
corpse. He had been sergeant in
grenadier regiment, and was during the
retreat, distinguished for acts of savage
valor. One day he killed with his own
hand Henry Warburton, the right-hand
man OF my own company, perhaps the
finest made and most powerful man in
the British army. My soldiers had nick
named him very coarse appellation, and
| really felt as if he and | were acquain
tances. There he sat, as if frozen to
death. wentu to the body, aud, rails.
ing up the giants muscular arm, it fell
down again with a hollow sound against
the bloody side of the corpse.
| !" OJOo uuOouoClOuoty WdHuGT0u alOnR
the walls. They were covered with
grotesque figures, and caricatures of the
English, absolutely drawn in blood
Horrid blasphemies, and the most shock.
ing obscenities in the shape of songs,
we're in like manner drawn there; and
you may guess what an effect they had
upon me, when the wretches who had
Transcribed them lay dead corpses around
me. | saw two books lying on the floor.
| lifted them up; one seemed to be full
of the most hideous obscenity; the other
was the Bible! 1t is impossible to tell
you the horror produced in me by this
circumstance. The books fell from my
hands; they fell upon the breast of one
OF the bodies-it was a woman's breast.
A woman had lived and died in such
place as this What had been in that
heart now still, perhaps only few hours
before, | knew not. 1t is possible, love
strong as death-love, guilty, abandoned,
depraved, and linked by vice unto mise.
ry, but still love, that persisted but with
the last throb, and yearned in the last
convulsion towards some one of these
grim dead bodies. ! think some such
idea as this came across me at the time:
or has it now only arisen