DUEL ON HORSEBACK.

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where he exercised his best horses for the affray, and madechoice of that which was most manageable on the haunches.At eleven o’clock on a beautiful. April day the parties met,accompanied by their seconds, and at least fifty of theirfriends as spectators of the fight. The combatants werefirst placed at one hundred yards distance from each other.The ground was good turf, and, as I have somewherepreviously stated, one mile square. At a given signal, theparties started towards each other with uplifted sabres.Colonel Durand cantered straight forward; the Duke, alsocantering, described a serpentine course, and curvetted hishorse well upon his haunches, almost in a zigzag direction.At the first crossing, cuts were exchanged without effect;the Duke receiving a well-intended compliment to hishead upon his sabre, but his horse passed ere he couldmake a “ risposta.” The Duke who rode a beautifulcompact galloway kind of horse, said to be English , butrather fine in the legs, wheeled rather too soon for hisantagonist, so that had it been a fight between enemies intbe field, he would have had a good chance of getting up tohim before he could turn or when just in the act of turning,but he waved that advantage, and lowering his sabre,checked his horse to give more time to Durand. The latterveered and then they met at a very moderated curvettingpace. Durand again aiming at the head or shoulder, madea blow which the Duke dexterously avoided by an extra-ordinary inclination of the body to the left, at thesame instant gave point with his Damascus which caughtDurand just-under the wrist, and partly from the motion ofhis own arm, the point run up beyond the elbow, slittingthe flesh all the way to the bone. So sharp was tbeoffending sabre, that the Duke did not know of the injuryhe had inflicted, neither did his opponent at first feel it,But the prehensile power left his hand. The duke wheeled