Constable's Miscellany of Original and Selected Publications in the Various Departments of Literature, Science, & the Arts Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1826 edition. Excerpt: ...called, and the next day it was known throughout the city, that the priest had been seen crossing the frontiers, escorted by a military guard. An account of the whole transaction, with the correspondence between the parent and the confessor, was also published officially in the Gazette, and full authority given in future to every person to teach any branch of knowledge not inconsistent with morals and religion. I set out, on horseback, from Santiago for the port at four o'clock, and reached the village of Casa Blanca at midnight, a distance of about sixty miles, and as I was detained an hour at the station of Bustamante, the average rate of travelling may be stated as more than eight miles an hour. It being the custom to change the horses frequently, and the pace a hand gallop, the fatigue is much less than by the ordinary method of riding in England. The evening was very fine, the air mild, and a bright moon shining. As I had passed over the same country in day-light upon a former occasion, I could just recognise the different parts of the landscape; but the whole aspect of the scenery was changed, and much softened by the feebleness of the light. The freshness of the night air was also most grateful, as compared with the burning heat of the former journey in the day-time. It was a dead calm, and there was now no dust, no glare, and the parched soil, lately so painful to look at, was chequered and broken in the most pleasing manner, by the shadows of the scattered trees. Instead of the burnt, choking smell which arose on all hands from the baked ground, a delicious perfume was now breathed from the sweetsmelling shrubs, steeped in the copious dews by which the bountiful arrangement of providence compensates these arid districts for the absence...