“We lived happily together, away from the bustle, the turmoil, and what is falsely called the pleasures of life. A small cottage in the country was our home, and there we enjoyed peace and contentment. My fortune was ample, with but few desires to be gratified; and I have deeply to regret that I was unacquainted with your residence in my neighbourhood, for your society would have been an additional happiness. “But ah! how fleeting are all our joys. It was on the early part of that day, when you saw me kneeling over a new-made grave, that I had consigned the last remains of my Adele to the narrow home appointed as a resting-place from earthly trouble. Yes, she is gone, I trust, to the realms of everlasting bliss, where no sorrow can disturb; no pain be felt; but where there is fulness of joy for evermore?” THE CONVICT. “Alas! the constancy of my sad mind Is put to dreadful proof.” It was some short time after the storming of Monte Video by the British troops, when the guerilla bands were formed in the neighbourhood of the city, that a party of young men took it into their heads to ride into the adjacent country; and though the inhabitants were decidedly hostile to the English, yet with the carelessness and impetuosity natural to youth, they resolved to _seek_ adventures, cost what they might. With hearts elate, and mounted on swift horses, they passed the city gates and swept round the bay that forms the extensive harbour. After riding through some villages, they considered it as not accordant with their plan to keep the beaten road,--nor indeed was there any road which merited the name, after they had gained a certain distance from the town. The meridian sun saw them scouring across the plain, where neither tree nor shrub could mark their track, or serve as guides for their return. Frequently, from behind the jutting rock, the _paysáno_[6] would display his hardened and ferocious features, and muffling himself in his _poncho_, or long robe, grin defiance at the adventurers. His long fusee held in one hand, with his _lasso_ coiled at his side and a terrific knife stuck in his girdle, the marauder stood undaunted by danger and undismayed by the fear of death. The young men had frequently been led to pursue the wild ostrich in its course, and to chase the numerous deer; but this hunting produced consequences which might have terminated seriously, for it scattered the number into parties of two or three, who might easily have been cut off and destroyed by the enemy:--and now for my own individual portion of the excursion. Having been, with one other, separated from the rest, we used every possible exertion to discover them, but without effect. Whenever we shouted, our voices reverberated from the rocky piles that reared their heads upon the plain like monuments of ancient grandeur, and seemed to revive recollections of the field of graves.