he fine plains of Italy;
one of the officers said to him, gravely, "_I remember that we have been
deserted by the boats; but fear nothing; I have just written to the
governor, and in a few hours we shall be saved._" Mr. Correard replied in
the same tone, and as if he had been in an ordinary situation, "_Have you a
pigeon to carry your orders with as much celerity?_" The cries and the
tumult soon roused us from the state in which we were plunged; but scarcely
was tranquillity restored, when we sunk back into the same species of
trance: so that the next day we seemed to awake from a painful dream, and
asked our companions if, during their sleep, they had seen combats and
heard cries of despair. Some of them replied that they had been continually
disturbed by the same visions, and that they were exhausted with fatigue:
all thought themselves deceived by the illusions of a frightful dream.

When we recal to our minds those terrible scenes, they present themselves
to our imagination like those frightful dreams which sometimes make a
profound impression on us; so that, when we awake, we remember the
different circumstances which rendered our sleep so agitated. All these
horrible events, from which we have escaped by a miracle, appear to us like
a point in our existence: we compare them with the fits of a burning fever,
which has been accompanied by a delirium: a thousand objects appear before
the imagination of the patient: when restored to health, he sometimes
recollects the visions that have tormented him during the fever which
consumed him, and exalted his imagination. We were really seized with a
fever on the brain, the consequence of a mental exaltation carried to the
extreme. As soon as daylight beamed upon us, we were much more calm:
darkness brought with it a renewal of the disorder in our weakened
intellects. We observed in ourselves that the natural terror, inspired by
the cruel situation in which we were, greatly increased in the silence of
the night: then all objects seemed to us much more terrible.

After these different combats, worn out with fatigue, want of food and of
sleep, we endeavoured to take a few moments' repose, at length daylight
came, and disclosed all the horrors of the scene. A great number had, in
their delirium, thrown themselves into the sea: we found that between sixty
and sixty-five men had perished during the night; we calculated that, at
least, a fourth part had drowned themselves in despair