and that the peace and happiness of a province was not to be disturbed
year after year by the malignity of a few thousand rascals; his threats
were carried out to the letter, and, whatever may be said against his
methods, he certainly succeeded. At the end of a few months' campaign,
every single brigand, and all their friends and relations, were wiped
off the face of the earth--together with a very considerable number of
innocent persons. The high roads were lined with decapitated bandits,
the town walls decked with their heads; some villages had to be
abandoned, on account of the stench; the Crati river was swollen with
corpses, and its banks whitened with bones. God alone knows the
cruelties which were enacted; Colletta confesses that he "lacks courage
to relate them." Here is his account of the fate of the brigand chief
Benincasa:

"Betrayed and bound by his followers as he slept in the forest of
Cassano, Benincasa was brought to Cosenza, and General Manhes ordered
that both his hands be lopped off and that he be led, thus mutilated, to
his home in San Giovanni, and there hanged; a cruel sentence, which the
wretch received with a bitter smile. His right hand was first cut off
and the stump bound, not out of compassion or regard for his life, but
in order that all his blood might not flow out of the opened veins,
seeing that he was reserved for a more miserable death. Not a cry
escaped him, and when he saw that the first operation was over, he
voluntarily laid his left hand upon the block and coldly watched the
second mutilation, and saw his two amputated hands lying on the ground,
which were then tied together by the thumbs and hung round his neck; an
awful and piteous spectacle. This happened at Cosenza. On the same day
he began his march to San Giovanni in Fiore, the escort resting at
intervals; one of them offered the man food, which he accepted;
he ate and drank what was placed in his mouth, and not so much in order