where I was stationed, who usually occupies his time in making coffins for the dead and trunks for the living, brought out of his yard some heavy boards, of great length, which extended completely across the street, and formed an excellent skeleton for a barricade. Before eight in the morning, the firing had begun on all points, and the bullets were singing through the streets in every direction. Besides defending their positions and attacking those of the military and civil guards—who had taken possession of houses here and there in the districts occupied by the people, and held them with great tenacity—the insurgents busied themselves in various other ways, completing and strengthening the barricades, collecting arms, making cartridges, preparing the houses for defence in case the soldiers forced their foremost defences. Quantities of paving-stones were taken up to the roofs and higher floors of the houses, to throw down upon the enemy. Women and children assisted in this labour. It was curious to observe the women. Notwithstanding danger from bullets, they were all at their doors and windows. Some of them—these were the younger ones—seemed to think it great fun; some of the older ones looked ghastly and terrified enough; whilst others, chiefly of quite the lower orders, were fierce partisans—as much so as their husbands and brothers, who in perfect silence, but with deadly resolution, were loading and firing from barricade, window, and house-top. I heard one sturdy dame, crimson with exertion and excitement, who bore in her brawny arms a basket of supplies to a barricade then under fire, express her determination, should the troops get into the street, to shower upon their devoted heads the whole of her kettles and crockery. When a thrifty housewife comes to such extremes as this, it is evident her blood is up. But the forced loan imposed by Sartorius had come home to the pockets of the lower classes of tax-payers, and had greatly exasperated the women.