been found outside of the city gates entirely empty. It is said that, in 1822, a Mr. Deever, a butcher, while digging post holes on the grounds opposite to those now owned by Mr. Kingsland, just north of the city gates, came upon the cages and dug them up. One of them was made use of in his workshop by Mr. Bartolo Oliveros, a locksmith. The other one was allowed by Mr. Deever to lie near the city gate until it was appropriated by some unknown party. The cages are described as having had much the shape of a coffin; and the tradition is, that a human being had been placed in each, the solid bands of iron riveted about his body, and, after life had been extinguished by the horrible torture of starvation, cages and corpses had been buried in the “scrub” then covering the ground north of the gate. Doubtless these cages were used for the punishment of criminals condemned for some heinous crime; but whether they were introduced by the Spaniards or English is not known. An old gentleman, Mr. Christobal Bravo, tells me his mother has related to him that she had seen, during the English possession, these cages, or similar ones, suspended at the gates of the city, with criminals incarcerated therein. In the face of the facts it is feared that St. Augustine must lose much of the romance and melancholy interest excited by the stories of Spanish cruelty and torture. It is very probable that this inner cell at the fort was used as a place of confinement for criminals, and it is possible that some may have died therein. In fact, it was so reported and generally believed at the time the poet Bryant visited St. Augustine in 1843. Fairbanks, on page 157 of his “History and Antiquities of St. Augustine,” published in 1858, refers to the instruments of torture and skeletons walled in the old fort. The account, as recited by the “Old Sergeant,” Mr. McGuire, ordnance-sergeant, U. S. A., gives the current legend connected with the dungeon. The sergeant alone can do justice to the narrative, in presence of an appreciative audience clustered around his smoking torch under the vaulted arch of the grim, damp cell. No pen can transcribe the sergeant’s Irish brogue, or his periods, his tones, and his inimitable expression of countenance, which seems to evince a combination of honest doubt and wishful credence in the melancholy tale of Spanish barbarity, which has proved so remunerative to himself, and so acceptable to the novelty hunting tourist. While the sergeant’s lamp holds out to burn, no visitor to St. Augustine should fail to hear his tale, “Just as it was told to me,” as he is particular to explain.