May, 1813. — IN the early part of this month our division was reviewed by Lord Wellington, preparatory to the commencement of another campaign and I certainly never saw a body of troops in a more highly efficient state. It did one's very heart good to look at our battalion that day, seeing each company standing a hundred strong, and the intelligence of several campaigns stamped on each daring, bronzed countenance, which looked you boldly in the face, in the fullness of vigour and confidence, as if it cared neither for man nor devil.
    On the 21st of May our division broke up from winter quarters and assembled in front of Ciudad Rodrigo, with all excepting the left wing of the army, which, under Sir Thomas Graham, had already passed the Douro and was ascending its right bank.
    An army which has seen some campaigns in the field affords a great deal of amusement in its assembling after winter quarters. There is not only the greeting of long-parted friends and acquaintances in the same walks of life, but, among the different divisions which the nature of the service generally threw a good deal together, there was not so much as a mule or a donkey that was not known to each individual and its absence noticed; nor a scamp of a boy, or a common Portuguese trull, who was not as particularly inquired after, as if the fate of the campaign depended on their presence.
    On the 22d we advanced towards Salamanca, and the next day halted at Samunoz, on our late field of action. With what different feelings did we now view the same spot! In our last visit winter was on the face of the land as well as on our minds; we were worn out with fatigue, mortification, and starvation; now all was summer and sunshine. The dismal swamps had now become verdant meadows; we had plenty in the camp, vigour in our limbs, and hope in our bosoms.
    We were this day joined by the household brigade of cavalry from England; and, as there was a report in the morning that the enemy were in the neighbourhood, some of the lifeguards concluded that everything in front of their camp must be a part of them, and they accordingly apprehended some of the light dragoon horses which happened to be grazing near. One of their officers came to dine with me that day, and he was in the act of reporting their capture when my orderly-book was brought at the moment containing an offer of reward for the detection of the thieves!
    On the 27th we encamped on the banks of the Tormes, at a ford about a league below Salamanca. A body of the enemy who had occupied the city suffered severely, before they got away, in a brush with some part of Sir Rowland Hill's corps, chiefly, I believe, from some of his artillery.
    On the 28th we crossed the river and marched near to Aldea Nueva, where we remained stationary for some days under Sir Rowland Hill, Lord Wellington having proceeded from Salamanca to join the left wing of the army beyond the Douro.
    On the 2d of June we were again put in motion, and, after a very long march, encamped near the Douro, opposite the town of Toro.
    Lord Wellington had arrived there the day before without being opposed by the enemy, but there had been an affair of cavalry a short distance beyond the town in which the hussar brigade particularly distinguished themselves and took about three hundred prisoners.
    On the morning of the 3d we crossed the river and, marching through the town of Toro, encamped about half a league beyond it. The enemy had put the castle in a state of repair and constructed a number of other works to defend the passage of the river; but the masterly eye of our chief, having seen his way round the town, spared them the trouble of occupying the works; yet, loth to think that so much labour should be altogether lost, he garrisoned their castle with the three hundred taken by the hussar brigade, for which it made a very good jail.
    On the 4th we were again in motion and had a long, warm, fatiguing march; as, also, on the 5th and 6th. On the 7th we encamped outside of Palencia, a large rickety looking old town with the front of every house supported by pillars, like so many worn-out old bachelors on crutches.
    The French did not interfere with our accommodation in the slightest, but made it a point to leave every place an hour or two before we came to it, so that we quietly continued our daily course, following nearly the line of the Canal de Castile, through a country luxuriant in corn-fields and vineyards, until the 12th, when we arrived within two or three leagues of Burgos, (on its left,) and where we found a body of the enemy in position, whom we immediately proceeded to attack; but they evaporated on our approach and fell back upon Burgos. We encamped for the night on the banks of a river a short distance to the rear. Next morning at daylight an explosion shook the ground like an earthquake and made every man jump upon his legs; and it was not until some hours after, when Lord Wellington returned from reconnoitring, that we learnt that the castle of Burgos had been just blown up and the town evacuated by the enemy.
    We continued our march on the 13th through a very rich country.
    On the 14th we had a long harassing day's march, through a rugged mountainous country which afforded only an occasional glimpse of fertility in some pretty little valleys with which it was intersected.
    We started at daylight on the 15th through a dreary region of solid rock, bearing an abundant crop of loose stones, without a particle of soil or vegetation visible to the naked eye in any direction. After leaving nearly twenty miles of this horrible wilderness behind us, our weary minds clogged with an imaginary view of nearly as much more of it in our front, we found ourselves all at once looking down upon the valley of the Ebro near the village of Arenas, one of the richest, loveliest, and most romantic spots that I ever beheld. The influence of such a scene on the mind can scarcely be believed. Five minutes before we were all as lively as stones. In a moment we were all fruits and flowers and many a pair of legs that one would have thought had not a kick left in them were, in five minutes after, seen dancing across the bridge, to the tune of "the downfall of Paris," which struck up from the bands of the different regiments.
    I lay down that night in a cottage garden, with my head on a melon and my eye on a cherry-tree, and resigned myself to a repose which did not require a long courtship.
    We resumed our march at daybreak on the 16th. The road, in the first instance, wound through orchards and luxurious gardens, and then closed in to the edge of the river, through a difficult and formidable pass where the rocks on each side, arising to a prodigious height, hung over each other in fearful grandeur, and in many places nearly met together over our heads.
    After following the course of the river for nearly two miles the rocks on each side gradually expanded into another valley, lovely as the one we had left, and where we found the fifth division of our army lying encamped. They were still asleep, and the rising sun, and a beautiful morning, gave additional sublimity to the scene; for there was nothing but the tops of the white tents peeping above the fruit trees and an occasional sentinel pacing his post that gave any indication of what a nest of hornets the blast of a bugle could bring out of that apparently peaceful solitude.
    Our road now wound up the mountain to our right; and, almost satiated with the continued grandeur around us, we arrived in the afternoon at the town of Medina and encamped a short distance beyond it.
    We were welcomed into every town or village through which we passed by the peasant girls, who were in the habit of meeting us with garlands of flowers and dancing before us in a peculiar style of their own; and it not unfrequently happened that while they were so employed with one regiment the preceding one was diligently engaged in pulling down some of their houses for firewood — a measure which we were sometimes obliged to have recourse to where no other fuel could be had, and for which they were, ultimately, paid by the British Government; but it was a measure that was more likely to have set the poor souls dancing mad than for joy, had they foreseen the consequences of our visit.
    June 17th. — We had not seen anything of the enemy since we left the neighbourhood of Burgos; but, after reaching our ground this evening, we were aware that some of their videttes were feeling for us.
    On the morning of the 18th we were ordered to march to San Milan, a small town about two leagues off, and where, on our arrival on the hill above it, we found a division of French infantry, as strong as ourselves, in the act of crossing our path. The surprise, I believe, was mutual, though I doubt whether the pleasure was equally so; for we were red hot for an opportunity of retaliating for the Salamanca retreat, and, as the old saying goes, "there is no opportunity like the present." Their leading brigade had nearly passed before we came up, but not a moment was lost after we did. Our battalion, dispersing among the brushwood, went down the hill upon them, and with a destructive fire broke through their line of march, supported by the rest of the brigade. Those that had passed made no attempt at a stand, but continued their flight, keeping up as good a fire as their circumstances would permit; while we kept hanging on their flank and rear, through a good rifle country, which enabled us to make considerable havoc among them. Their general's aide-de-camp, amongst others, was mortally wounded; and a lady on a white horse who probably was his wife, remained beside him until we came very near. She appeared to be in great distress; but, though we called to her to remain and not to be alarmed, yet she galloped off as soon as a decided step became necessary. The object of her solicitude did not survive many minutes after we reached him. We followed the retreating foe until late in the afternoon. On this occasion our brigade came in for all the blows, and the other for all the baggage, which was marching between the two French brigades; the latter of which, seeing the scrape into which the first had fallen, very prudently left it to its fate and dispersed on the opposite mountains, where some of them fell into the hands of a Spanish force that was detached in pursuit; but I believe the greater part succeeded in joining their army the day after the battle of Vittoria.
    We heard a heavy cannonade all day to our left, occasioned, as we understood, by the fifth division falling in with another detachment of the enemy which the unexpected and rapid movements of Lord Wellington was hastening to their general point of assembly.
    On the early part of the 19th we were fagging up the face of a mountain under a sultry hot sun until we came to a place where a beautiful clear stream was dashing down the face of it, when the division was halted to enable the men to refresh themselves. Every man carries a cup, and every man ran and swallowed a cup full of it — it was salt water from the springs of Salinas and it was truly ludicrous to see their faces after taking such a voluntary dose. I observed an Irishman, who, not satisfied with the first trial, and believing that his cup had been infected by some salt breaking loose in his haversack, he washed it carefully and then drank a second one, when, finding no change, he exclaimed, — "by J — s, boys, we must be near the sea, for the water's getting salt!" We soon after passed through the village of Salinas, situated at the source of the stream, where there is a considerable salt manufactory. The inhabitants were so delighted to see us that they placed buckets full of it at the doors of the different houses and entreated our men to help themselves as they passed along. It rained hard in the afternoon, and it was late before we got to our ground. We heard a good deal of firing in the neighbourhood in the course of the day, but our division was not engaged.
    We retained the same bivouac all day on the 20th; it was behind a range of mountains within a short distance of the left of the enemy's position, as we afterwards discovered; and though we heard an occasional gun from the other side of the mountain in the course of the day, fired at Lord Wellington's reconnoitring party, the peace of our valley remained undisturbed.

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