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254 the same way; and the head, upon the whole, presented a similar ghastly mass. Shuddering at the sight, I turned quickly away; less able than before to account for the horrid spectacle by any conceivable explanation.

On turning the corner of the same street, I came upon a troop of prisoners from the Accordada, chained two and two, and employed in the capacity of scavengers. I stopped for a while, noting the unwilling way in which they stooped to their labour, and speculating upon the different degrees of villany exhibited in the countenances before me. The avaricious propensities of one little man, with a keen, restless eye, and a puckered mouth, and the brutality stamped upon the coarse and repulsive features of another, had alike struck me; when an individual in the background raised his head from the earth, and turned his face in the direction I was standing. His face, do I say? No:—he, too, had neither features nor expression. His front displayed the same blighting appearance that had already shocked me. I could scarcely restrain an exclamation of horror at the sight; and after exchanging a word with the officer who guarded the prisoners, I beat a hasty retreat, endeavouring to