172 MEXICO. having been found, which had been recognized as that of Victoria. A minute description was given of his person, which was inserted officially in the Gazette of Mexico, and the troops were recalled to more pressing labours in the Interior. But Victoria's trials did not cease with the pursuit : ha- rassed, and worn-out, by the fatigues which he had under- gone, his clothes torn to pieces, and his body lacerated by the thorny underwood of the Tropics, he was indeed allowed a little tranquillity, but his sufferings were still almost in- credible : during the summer, he managed to subsist upon the fruits of which nature is so lavish in those climates ; but in winter he was attenuated by hunger, and I have heard him repeatedly affirm, that no repast has affijrded him so much pleasure since, as he experienced, after being long de- prived of food, in gnawing the bones of horses, or other animals, that he happened to find dead in the woods. By degrees he accustomed himself to such abstinence, that he could remain four, and even five days, without taking any thing but water, without experiencing any serious inconve- nience ; but whenever he was deprived of sustenance for a longer period, his sufferings were very acute.* For thirty months he never tasted bread, nor saw a human being, nor thought, at times, ever to see one again. His clothes were reduced to a single wrapper of cotton, which he found one day, when driven by hunger he had approached nearer than usual to some Indian huts, and this he regarded as an inesti- mable treasure. The mode in which Victoria, cut off, as he was, from all communication with the world, received intelligence of the Revolution of 1821, is hardly less extraordinary than the
- When first I knew General Victoi-ia, at Veracruz, in 1823, he was
unable to eat above once in twenty-four, or even thirty-six hours ; and now, though he conforms with the usual hours of his countrymen, with regard to meals, he is one of the most abstemious of men.
