t as if I had been
broken on the wheel; not an inch of my whole person but ached and smarted.
My hands were grown thin and transparent, my cheeks fallen in, my eyes
deep sunk in their sockets. When I touched my face I could feel the change
that had taken place, and as I did so I caught myself once or twice
laughing like a child--I was becoming delirious.

In the morning I could scarcely rise from the ground, so utterly weakened
and exhausted was I by my three days' fasting, anxiety, and fatigue. I
have heard say that a man in good health can live nine days without food.
It may be so in a room, or a prison; but assuredly not in a Texian prairie.
I am quite certain that the fifth day would have seen the last of me.

I should never have been able to mount my mustang, but he had fortunately
lain down, so I got into the saddle, and he rose up with me and started
off of his own accord. As I rode along, the strangest visions seemed to
pass before me. I saw the most beautiful cities that a painter's fancy
ever conceived, with towers, cupolas, and columns, of which the summits
lost themselves in the clouds; marble basins and fountains of bright
sparkling water, rivers flowing with liquid gold and silver, and gardens
in which the trees were bowed down with the most magnificent fruit--fruit
that I had not strength enough to raise my hand and pluck. My limbs were
heavy as lead, my tongue, lips, and gums, dry and parched. I breathed with
the greatest difficulty, and within me was a burning sensation, as if I
had swallowed hot coals; while my extremities, both hands and feet, did
not appear to form a part of myself, but to be instruments of torture
affixed to me, and causing me the most intense suffering.

I have a confused recollection of a sort of rushing noise, the nature of
which I was unable to determine, so nearly had all consciousness left me;
then of finding myself amongst trees, the leaves and boughs of which
scratched and beat against my face as I passed through them; then of a
sudden and rapid descent, with the broad bright surface of a river below
me. I clutched at a branch, but my fingers had no strength to retain their
grasp--there was a hissing, splashing noise, and the waters closed over my
head.

I soon rose, and endeavoured to strike out with my arms and legs, but in
vain; I was too weak to swim and again I went down. A thousand lights
seemed to dance before my eyes: there was a noise in my brain as if a
four-and