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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