disgusting. The reader will however readily credit this report when he
has been told of the revolting state of the city itself. Mrs. Baillie,
in her recent _Letters on Lisbon_, says, "for three miles round Lisbon
in every direction, you cannot for a moment get clear of the disgusting
effluvia that issue from every house." Doctor Southey says "every kind
of vermin that exists to punish the nastiness and indolence of man,
multiplies in the heat and dirt of Lisbon. In addition to mosquitoes,
the scolopendra is not uncommonly found here, and snakes sometimes
intrude into the bedchamber. A small species of red ant likewise swarms
over every thing sweet, and the Portuguese remedy is to send for the
priest to exorcise them." The city is still subject to shocks of
earthquake; the state of the police is horrible; street-robbery is
common, and every thief is an assassin. The pocket-knife, which the
French troops are said to have dreaded more than all the bayonets of
either the Spanish or the Portuguese, is here the ready weapon of the
assassin; and the Tagus receives many a corpse on which no inquest ever
sits. The morals, in fact, of all classes in Lisbon appear to be in a
dreadful state.

* * * * *



THE CARD.

A TALE OF TRUTH.

(_For the Mirror_.)