We were by no means certain, as I learned, that our fight would come off after all, for it appeared the magistrates had given strict and specific instructions to the police that no combat was to take place in the county of Essex. Consequently the parties whose duty it was to make preparations had fled from that respectable county and gone away towards Six Mile Bottom, just in one of the corners of Cambridgeshire, as if the intention was that the dons of the University should have a look in. Constables slept more soundly in Cambridgeshire than in Essex. Moreover, the Essex magistrates would themselves have a moral right to witness the fight if it did not take place in their county. Thus we set out for the rendezvous. Charley soon discovered that our steed was not accustomed to the whip, for instead of urging him forward it produced the contrary effect. However, we got along by slow degrees, and when we came up with the crowd--oh! Such a scene I had never witnessed in my life, nor could have conceived it possible anywhere on this earth or anywhere out of that abyss the full description of which you will find in "Paradise Lost." It was a procession of the blackguardism of all ages and of all countries under heaven. The sexes were apparently in equal numbers and in equal degrees of ugliness and ferocity. There were faces flat for want of noses, and mouths ghastly for want of teeth; faces scarred, bruised, battered into every shape but what might be called human. There were fighting-men of every species and variety--men whose profession it was to fight, and others whose brutal nature it was; there were women fighters, too, more deadly and dangerous than the men, because they added cruelty to their ferocity. Innumerable women there were who had lost the very nature of womanhood, and whose mouths were the mere outlet of oaths and filthy language. Their shrill clamours deafened our ears and subdued the deep voices of the men, whom they chaffed, reviled, shrieked at, yelled at, and swore at by way of _fun_. Amidst this turbulent rabble rode several members of the peerage, and even Ministerial supporters of the "noble art," exchanging with the low wretches I have mentioned a word or two of chaff or an occasional laugh at the grotesque wit and humour which are never absent from an English crowd. As we approached the famous scene, to which every one was looking with the most intense anticipation, the crowd grew almost frenzied with expectancy, and yet the utmost good-humour prevailed. In this spirit we arrived at Bourne Bridge, and thence to the place of encounter was no great distance. It was a little field behind a public-house.