Ernestus Eremundus Frisius,[264] in his History of the Low Country Disturbances, gives us an account from Gonsalvius, of another kind of torture. There is a wooden bench, which they call the wooden horse, made hollow like a trough, so as to contain a man lying on his back at full length; about the middle of which there is a round bar laid across, upon which the back of the person is placed, so that he lies upon the bar instead of being let into the bottom of the trough, with his feet much higher than his head. As he is lying in this posture, his arms, thighs, and shins are tied round with small cords or strings, which being drawn with screws at proper distances from each other, cut into the very bones, so as to be no longer discerned.[265] Besides this,[266] the torturer throws over his mouth and nostrils a thin cloth, so that he is scarce able to breathe through them; and in the mean while a small stream of water like a thread, not drop by drop, falls from on high, upon the mouth of the person lying in this miserable condition, and so easily sinks down the thin cloth to the bottom of his throat; so that there is no possibility of breathing, his mouth being stopped with water, and his nostrils with the cloth; so that the poor wretch is in the same agony as persons ready to die, and breathing out their last. When this cloth is drawn out of his throat, as it often is, that he may answer to the questions, it is all wet with water and blood, and is like pulling his bowels through his mouth. There is also another kind of torture peculiar to this tribunal, which they call the fire. They order a large iron chafin-dish full of lighted charcoal to be brought in, and held close to the soles of the tortured person’s feet, greased over with lard, so that the heat of the fire may more quickly pierce through them. ----- Footnote 264: P. 19. Footnote 265: These two methods of punishment seem to be taken from the two different forms of the antient Eculeus. Footnote 266: Gonsalv. p. 76, 77. -----