Notwithstanding the barbarous nature of duels, they are rarely resorted to by ferocious nations, who prefer the more certain revenge that assassination affords. There is a civilization and an honourable bearing in a duel, foreign to the Spanish character; and it cannot be expected that men capable of murdering women can meet a brave adversary in single combat, governed by the laws of honour. What can be thought of a nation whose generals issued orders to put any surgeon to death who had been known to dress the wounds of an enemy? It is painful to reflect, that after the events of June in 1833, the French police issued an order nearly as barbarous to all medical men, to send in the names of the wounded they had been called upon to dress. Frederic the Great had also issued an edict in which surgeons were prohibited from attending any person wounded in a duel! CHAPTER XIX. DUELS IN GERMANY AND THE NORTH OF EUROPE. During the middle ages Germany was desolated by feuds and hostile meetings, which had succeeded the barbarous excesses committed by the savage hordes poured forth from the northern woods and fastnesses that sheltered the descendants of the ancient Scythians and Sarmatians. The Scandinavian traditions of the wonderful deeds of their champions may prove interesting to the lovers of fiction, but they are of little importance to the historian; for, although the sages of Iceland abolished duelling after the fatal meeting that took place between the poets Gunnlang and Rafn for the beautiful Helga, in which both lovers fell, the annals of the north are fraught with the poetic details of numerous single combats and wondrous exploits.