and heaving bosoms. Limbs are lopped off, eyes put out, heads slivered,
and blood spilled like water; and there are scenes in dark towers and
visions of clanking chains in terrific abundance. One of the latter
description we have abridged and adapted to our pages. The hero is
convicted of murder, upon such evidence as this:--"We found the poor
dead man dead at his feet, and the sword in his hand, covered with
blood,--the murdered man lies in the ante-room run through and through."
A pretty scene of justice ensues, the fact being that the murdered man
was a noted robber who had attacked the hero, and became worsted in the
affray. The sentence is solitary imprisonment for life:]

The unfortunate persons whose crimes have subjected them to the dreadful
punishment of solitary imprisonment for life, in any of the southern
parts of Spain, are most generally sent to Tarifa.[3] Along both sides
of the port, there is a mole nearly half a mile in length; at the
extremity of which on either side, and at the entrance of the harbour,
stands a huge and ancient Moorish tower, about a hundred and sixty feet
in height above the sea. In this tower, which contains six chambers,
one above another, prisoners for life are confined; and thither I was
accordingly conveyed. It is the policy of the Spanish laws, to render
the punishment of criminals subservient to public utility; and this is
in some degree effected even by solitary confinement. The prisoners
confined in these towers are employed in turns, night by night, in
trimming the lamps--which are a beacon to the vessels at sea. From each
chamber, there is a separate ascent to the summit of the tower; so that
the prisoners never see each other, and each in his turn is obliged to
remain from night until day-break upon the summit,--part of his
punishment for the destruction of human life, being thus made
subservient to its preservation.

[3] A town in the straits of Gibraltar, the most southern point of
the continent of Europe.

From these towers there are no visible means of escape: in the chambers,
the windows are merely circular holes in walls at least six feet in
thickness; and the outside walls being entirely smooth, there are no means
of descent from the summit unless by a fearful leap of a hundred and sixty
feet into the sea; for on the side towards the town, a wall of twenty
feet high shuts out the prospect of land; serving at the same time as a
hindrance to any co