We Had Sheets Of Our Own, Which Were Spread Upon A Mattrass, And Here I Took My Repose Wrapped In A Greatcoat, If That Could Be Called Repose Which Was Interrupted By The Innumerable Stings Of Vermin.

In the morning, I was seized with a dangerous fit of hooping-cough, which terrified my wife, alarmed my people, and brought the whole community into the house.

I had undergone just such another at Paris, about a year before. This forenoon, one of our coach wheels flew off in the neighbourhood of Ancisa, a small town, where we were detained above two hours by this accident; a delay which was productive of much disappointment, danger, vexation, and fatigue. There being no horses at the last post, we were obliged to wait until those which brought us thither were sufficiently refreshed to proceed. Understanding that all the gates of Florence are shut at six, except two that are kept open for the accommodation of travellers; and that to reach the nearest of these gates, it was necessary to pass the river Arno in a ferry-boat, which could not transport the carriage; I determined to send my servant before with a light chaise to enter the nearest gate before it was shut, and provide a coach to come and take us up at the side of the river, where we should be obliged to pass in the boat: for I could not bear the thoughts of lying another night in a common cabaret. Here, however, another difficulty occurred. There was but one chaise, and a dragoon officer, in the imperial troops, insisted upon his having bespoke it for himself and his servant. A long dispute ensued, which had like to have produced a quarrel: but at length I accommodated matters, by telling the officer that he should have a place in it gratis, and his servant might ride a-horse-back. He accepted the offer without hesitation; but, in the mean time, we set out in the coach before them, and having proceeded about a couple of miles, the road was so deep from a heavy rain, and the beasts were so fatigued, that they could not proceed. The postilions scourging the poor animals with great barbarity, they made an effort, and pulled the coach to the brink of a precipice, or rather a kind of hollow-way, which might be about seven or eight feet lower than the road. Here my wife and I leaped out, and stood under the rain up to the ancles in mud; while the postilions still exercising their whips, one of the fore-horses fairly tumbled down the descent, arid hung by the neck, so that he was almost strangled before he could be disengaged from the traces, by the assistance of some foot travellers that happened to pass. While we remained in this dilemma, the chaise, with the officer and my servant, coming up, we exchanged places; my wife and I proceeded in the chaise, and left them with Miss C - and Mr. R - , to follow in the coach.

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