due east, which would take us directly to the Rhine, and a considerable distance to the northward of Strasbourg.”
On this occasion, Mr. O’Brien and his companions succeeded in crossing the Rhine close to Dourlach, having in the night of Sept. 19th, providentially found a boat made fast to some wood, with which they supposed she was to have been loaded at day-light. Up to this period they had never once approached the abode of any human being. On the 20th, they passed Rastat, four miles north of Baden. and dined at a small village, where Mr. Battley was obliged to remain behind until he could recover the use of his limbs, which had now entirely failed him. The others then proceeded past Offenburgh and Gibenbach; through Hornberg, the Black Forest, Kriemshieldach, and Tutlingen; across the rivers Andalspach, Iler, Wardach, Lech, Amper, and Inn; over a branch of the lake of Kempzee; and past the last Bavarian barrier, into the Austrian dominions, where they arrived, after an anxious and most harassing journey, Oct. 17, 1808. Their subsequent adventures are thus related by Mr. O’Brien:
“We were now, as one might say, between the frontiers of two nations; one would not allow us to advance without the proper documents, and the other, if we remained a moment, would pursue and arrest us for having passed theirs without showing them what entitled us to do so. Well knowing which power we had to apprehend most, I proposed to endeavour to avoid the Austrian officer, and to get into their territory as soon as possible. We accordingly chose a pathway that led into a wood, on the side of an immense mountain, expecting to be followed instantly by the Austrian guard; but also calculating in being too far in their dominions, for any one to return us to the Bavarians. I need not say that we advanced very briskly, until we got into the wood, quite out of breath, tolerably sure that we were now in Austria, and astonished that we were not pursued. After stopping some little lime to breathe, we again proceeded. It was impossible to cross the mountains, they were quite inaccessible. We therefore kept the wood as long as it lay in the direction that suited us; and, in a short time, we saw the high road, and found we were about a mile within the Imperial barrier. This was an inexpressible consolation.
“We proceeded with confidence to the road; when, just as we had stepped on it, four men sprang up from behind a rock where they had lain