with my hand and counteract the tremulousness of the knees, which made
mounting so difficult. On one occasion, however, my dread of being
observed induced me to make too great an effort. Hearing some one
approach, I attempted to raise myself in the stirrup without the aid
of stone or fence, but it was more than I could manage. Hardly had I
succeeded in raising myself from the ground when my extreme feebleness
was manifest, and I fell prostrate upon my back. With the help of the
colored woman, the astonished witness of my fall, I finally succeeded
in getting upon the horse. Once seated, however, I felt like another
person. The vigorous application of a whip, heartily repeated for a
few strokes, would arouse the pony into a sullen canter, out of which
he would drop with a demonstrative suddenness that made it difficult
to keep my seat. In this way considerable relief was obtained for
several days from the exasperations produced by the long continuance
of pain. After about a fortnight's use of the animal, and when I had
learned to be content with half a dozen grains of opium daily, I found
myself too weak and helpless to venture on his back, and thus our
acquaintance terminated. As this is the first, and probably the last
appearance of my equine friend in print, I may as well say that he was
sold a short time afterward in the Fifth Street Horse Market, for the
sum of forty-three dollars. This is but a meagre price, but the horse
had not then become historical.

For the week I was dropping from sixteen grains to nine the addition
of new symptoms was slight, but the aggravation of the pain previously
endured was marked. The feeling of bodily and mental wretchedness was
perpetual, while the tedium of life and occasional vague wishes that
it might somehow come to an end were not infrequent. The chief
difficulty was to while away the hours of day-light. My rest at night
had indeed become imperfect and broken, but still it was a kind of