Orders from Lord Wellington having arrived, General Hill was directed to proceed with his division towards Merida and Caceres, in hopes of being able to surprise and intercept a corps of the French army, under General Girard, as well as to re-open the communication between La Pena's Spanish troops and those of Castanos. The 2nd division marched accordingly, on the 22nd of October, from Portalegre and the out quarters. The 1st brigade, consisting of the 50th, 71st, and 92nd, under Major General Howard, was on the alarm post at an early hour; and by daylight we were pretty far on our route in the direction previously ordered.

When the clouds and mist had cleared away, the ancient castle of Alegrete, placed on the summit of a barren chain of mountains was discernible. To our left extended a long range of heights, in some parts clothed with wood, and in others with verdant pasture, the brightness of which gave the prospect a lively effect. The road was broken and uneven, and, in general, so bad, that our baggage animals could scarcely make their way. Towards noon the heaviest rain we had ever experienced set in, increasing as we pushed onwards against the storm, pelting most furiously, and blown into our faces through the clefts and openings of the mountain sides close to which we travelled. We were thoroughly wet to the skin, benumbed by the intense coldness of the cutting blast, and well nigh deprived of life and motion. However, supporting each other with hopes of better times, we jogged on amidst the ceaseless war of hail, wind and rain. We halted at the village of Codiceira, just within the Spanish frontier, where a few of us darted into one of the best looking habitations we could see. There, after taking up without ceremony a good position in the chimney corner, and before a blazing pile of fagots, we got rid of our well drenched garments; in exchange for which, cloaks and mantillas were supplied by the hands of a benevolent old dame, whose exertions to administer comfort to our exhausted frames deserve to be recorded in the annals of her country.

While we are enjoying the comforts of this snug place of refuge, I will take the opportunity of saying a few words as to certain persons who seemed to think that we had no title to such a luxury. The dragoons sometimes acted towards the infantry in rather a cavalier manner, and appeared to treat them as if they were quite an inferior order of beings. Whether it was because they had the honour of being a little more elevated from the ground, or that to their visage were appended the whisker and mustachio, and they talked their mother tongue in a lisping style, it would be difficult to determine. It is at all events pretty certain, that many of them, recently imported from the purlieus of St. James's, assumed a great variety of airs and graces, unbecoming in the field, however beautiful they might have seemed in Bond Street, and which the rough and dirty work of war and fighting failed to do away with. I can never forget the conduct of one of their noble sprigs, whose regiment happened to arrive at the town when we were halted. It was a poor place after a hard march, under bad weather and very heavy rain, but we were glad to obtain any sort of shelter in the wretched village. We had scarcely entered, when our ears were saluted with the noise of cavalry, coming down the street, and in a short space we had a sample of dragooning, such as it would be vain to look for even among the Cherokees.

Three or four of us were seated round the wide fireplace of a Spanish hearth, after taking off our well drenched jackets and accoutrements, and were enjoying the benefit of a fine blazing pile of fire, the very counterpart of that I have just described, and our servants were preparing for the culinary operations, when a loud hammering was heard at the door of the hovel, accompanied by the clanking of carbines, sabres, sabredashes, and other warlike appurtenances. At the same moment, in burst a tall, raw-boned trooper, (armed cap-a-pied, with a countenance well furnished with a most abundant crop, in which the crows might have built their nest,) followed by two others, carrying sundry hampers belonging to their masters. The intruder, who proved to be the officer commanding, gazed with awful stare upon the lodgers already in the house, and drawing himself up, as if, like Sampson, he were about to raise the building on his shoulders, called, or rather growled out, in the tone of an angry mastiff, while he curled the points of his black mustachios, "these quarters are not too good for a Col—o—nel of Dra—goons—eh!" and suiting the action to the word, he flung his implements of war on a table close at hand, with a degree of violence that shook our frail tenement to its base. His claims to supremacy being intimated to us, we gathered up our traps, and bundled out indignantly, looking round, with no very gracious glances, at the statue in whose possession we quietly left the premises, to go in search of another billet.

There was a want of courtesy and good feeling here, not in any way consistent with high bearing, and these, with many other traits of character, produced a jealousy between us, so that no very cordial intimacy could take place; nor was there much love wasted on either side. Engaged in one common cause, in duty on the same field together, all those ideas of superiority should have been forgotten, and those heroes with spurs of at least half a yard in length, should have packed up all their high opinions and fine notions, and sent them to the stores in England, there to be made use of at some future period. Such commodities never do for service, nor will they harmonize with camp or bivouac. They may pass current at home, where the pride of wealth, gold lace, and dress, go far to raise a man in public estimation; but lying in a wet ditch, or stretched by the side of a tree upon the ground, with a tattered cloak for covering, they are of little value. In that situation, a good blanket, and a well filled haversack, are worth all the lace, fringe, feathers, and aiguillettes in the British army.

About this time I remember an officer joined our camp from England, with a canteen profusely stocked, as well as a good kit. He was moreover a well dressed young man, apparently fresh from the hands of Dodd, of St. James's Street, equipped in garments that seemed as if they were pasted on his body, besides a grey frock coat, lined throughout with silk, and adorned with frogs and tassels in abundance.

Such a set of poor unfortunate gypsies as we were must have been doubtless held in little estimation by our hero, who viewed with scorn our dingy costume, tarnished and tattered in so vile a manner that even a Jew broker or an Irish beggarman would have scarcely picked them up. We had however each of us a good blanket, (and some had two) that was designed a double debt to pay—

Johnny Newcome, well scented, had a good stock of odours and essences for service in the field; and instead of beef or rum, his hampers were amply stored with otto of roses, macassar oil, and other articles of sweet perfume. He glanced with horror at our ugly trim, but when he beheld the saddle cloth, he laughed outright, and called us, "blanket merchants."

It was then cold and wintry weather, the rain occasionally came down in torrents, so that when the night set in, we found our friendly coverlet a most timely aid. The green-horn, who was certainly one of his majesty's hard bargains, eyed us most wistfully askance, and, shivering in his stays and broadcloth, envied the old stagers while he tried to crouch from the rain and nipping air under any shelter he could find.

One of our fellows, an admirable wag, peeped out from beneath his fleecy counterpane, and observing the plight of Master Superfine, who lay ensconced behind the stump of an old tree, he hallooed, and bellowed out so that the whole camp might hear him, "Halloo, old boy! How do you like the blanket merchants now?" The field was in an uproar at the joke, and the unfortunate recruit having no desire for war's alarms, of which he had seen quite enough to damp his fiery spirit, took himself away soon after, and the Blanketeers never had the pleasure of seeing his pretty face again.

Having despatched these gentlemen, we will now pursue our march, in search of General Girard. Early in the morning, on the 23rd of October, the troops were assembled, and about day-light, it being clear and fine, we were on the road to Albuquerque. At a considerable distance, the celebrated castle appeared towering above the hills that constitute a branch of those which extend from the Sierra de Arronches, in Portugal, into the heart of Spanish Estrimadura.

Having gained the heights, we entered the town at its base by a narrow causeway, paved with large stones. Albuquerque, which gave the title of Duke to a patriot general, is a populous, and good sized place, enclosed by lofty turreted walls. Similar to others throughout the country, the houses are flat-roofed, and the streets narrow, close and dirty.

Marching again on the 24th we passed through the thick woods bounding the Sierra, our route lying over a wide and level plain. It was late in the afternoon when we halted in a valley of broom, interspersed with cork and chestnut trees, beneath the spreading branches of which we took shelter for the night, and, wrapped up in warm cloaks and blankets, around huge bundles of burning cork, solaced our weary limbs after the labours of the day. The only habitation that we saw upon the desolate road, was a sort of Posada, a large tenement, standing on the brow of a steep hill, called La Caza de la Castilana. We continued during the whole of the following day, on the same line and at a late hour halted on the top of a high and bleak promontory, exposed to the rain, and all the miseries of a dismal bivouac; but so completely were we jaded, that we enjoyed good sleep without the aid of rocking; our chamber was sheltered from the northern blast by large bushes of thick broom. Travelling for the remainder of the night, we arrived on the morning of the 26th at Malpartida, a small straggling village, in the midst of barren grounds, with a most abundant crop of stones. The inhabitants appeared to be decent and well clad; the women were good-looking, with ruddy cheeks, and the full glow of health. A number of buxom wenches, with stout rotundity of limbs, were seated at the door of their humble mansions on our approach; most of whom were employed in knitting, and seemed, by the eager glance of their keen black eyes, to enjoy the novel dress and martial bearing of our soldiers.

These fair ones were clothed in many colours, their bodies in jackets of brown cloth, and petticoats to match, of sparing length, thereby exposing to the rude and vulgar gaze of man their well formed pedestals. Those were encased in blue stockings with red clocks, and, to complete this part of their attire, well polished shoes with brass clasps were appendages of which they were not a little vain. The mantilla of blue or yellow, gracefully thrown across the shoulders, and a profusion of rich dark hair, neatly tied with various ribbons, imparted to the figure an air of peculiar liveliness and interest.

We started from Malpartida betimes on the 27th. The rain again poured down on us with violence, and throughout the day there was but little intermission. We rested in a field, near the village of San Antonio, under a most inclement and desperate night, without the means of cover, or any refuge from the weather. Fires were not permitted, lest the enemy should discover our movements, and, as it was intended to come upon them unawares, we travelled without the slightest noise, the most rigid silence being preserved in all our movements.

Before daylight we were drawn up in the neighbourhood of Arroyo del Molino. This place lies on the borders of a wide forest, extending along the base of the Sierra de Montanches, and was scarcely visible above the trees, the church-spire alone pointing out its retired and lonely situation, beneath the adjacent hills.

As the mist, by which the distant Sierra was mantled, gradually withdrew, we discovered that the French troops were, at that hour, quietly enough lodged in the town. Little dreaming of the near vicinity of such unwelcome visitors, they were in the full enjoyment of their slumbers; and, as they had made no arrangement to guard against surprise, our unlooked for arrival threw them into the utmost consternation.

The 1st brigade halted on some rising ground, on the road leading to the village, into which the 71st Light Infantry was promptly despatched to pay their respects, as well as to assist Monsieur in the adjustment of his toilet.

Advancing cautiously in double quick time towards the streets, without noise or sound of bugle, the light bobs soon gained possession of all the principal outlets, and although the alarm given by the enemy's pickets flew like lightning throughout the cantonments, their cavalry alone, (many of whom were pulling up their saddle girths), succeeded in making a good retreat before our men appeared. Their infantry, however, after starting from their beds, out of which they had with so little ceremony been roused, hastened with all speed towards the wood, and having extended themselves along its boundaries, a close and well directed fire was immediately opened on both sides; but the 71st in a little time pressing in rapidly, followed by the 50th and 92nd, the Frenchmen gave way in all directions. Retiring across the plain, into the depth of the forest, they flung away knapsacks, accoutrements, and other trappings, by which they were encumbered, making, as they vanished among the trees, such very good use of their legs, that we found it no easy matter to keep them within hail, or within the range of those missiles that were despatched to bring them to.

While those performances were going forward, the 3rd brigade, together with some cavalry, made a rapid flank movement on the Merida road. In consequence of this, the fugitives became hemmed in, between our troops and the mountain ridge, on the left. Making a last and desperate effort, they tried to scramble up the rugged face of the precipice, but failing in their exertions, the principal number of their veterans fell into our hands, their leader Girard, with a few of his ill-fated companions alone escaping across the steep and nearly impassable heights. Among the officers of rank who became prisoners was the Prince d'Aremberg. The whole of their guns, baggage, and commissariat, were left on the field.

A more complete coup-de-main was not made during the war; it was executed in a manner honourable alike to the military skill and the courage of our justly respected Chief of Division, General Hill, by whose talent and steady perseverance the brilliant achievement was planned, and carried to a successful termination, in spite of the obstacles opposed by a long march in the most inclement weather. The object of the expedition was attained in the fullest manner, and the consequences were most important to the prosperity of the succeeding campaign.

The firing on all sides having ceased, and the prisoners being collected under sufficient escort, preparatory to their final exit from the coast, our brigade proceeded in open column along the plain, on emerging from which we entered the high road to Merida, on the Guadiana, passing on to the right of the lofty Sierra. In the woods about five leagues further we encamped, and on the following day, the 29th of October, we marched into the old town of Merida, when on the 30th we halted.

This ancient town had been completely plundered, and thrown into a state of ruin and desolation, by the frequent visits of the invaders. The celebrated buildings, which for ages had stood secure from the ravages of any other hand than that of time, were now either partially dismantled, burned, or destroyed. The remains of a Roman amphitheatre, and those of the Triumphal Arch, built by the Emperor Trajan, are still, however, in good preservation, and together with the numerous vestiges of ancient structure are well deserving the attention of the antiquary.

The convents, nunneries, and other religious edifices, were converted into barracks and stables for the French army, and therefore exhibited nothing but naked walls, blackened and scorched by the fires made therein. The only place of worship that escaped the general wreck was the grand cathedral in the Plaza, which being a large unsightly pile, built without taste or uniformity, is not particularly ornamental to the town. Beyond the outskirts, are the ruins of an aqueduct, which bears upon its venerable front evidence sufficient of past respectability, and, though many centuries have rolled away since it was erected, several of its arches are still in a perfect state. On the road to Truxillo a new aqueduct has been built, which is not so light or well finished as the old one. The bridge across the Guadiana is remarkable for its great length and solidity; it has seventy-four arches, a great number of which are over a low marsh, on the banks of the river, dry in the summer months. The extent between each extremity is about eight-hundred yards. There are watch towers and seats along the battlements, and the whole structure, composed of a greyish stone, is well cemented, and seems formed to stand for as many more ages as it has already stood.

Passing through Montijo and Talavera de la Real, we arrived on the 1st of November at Campo Mayor, in Portugal, where we found good quarters and civil inhabitants. The town is fortified, and is distant three leagues from Elvas, and three from Badajos.

Campo Mayor was attacked and taken about a year before by the French, who afterwards gave it up as a situation unworthy of the garrison necessary to defend it. The houses are generally solid and well built, most of them had, however, been plundered and stripped of their interior workmanship and furniture, by their late visitors.—The streets are narrow, dirty, and ill-paved, but there are a number of respectable and well supplied shops. The market is good, and was well stocked with the abundant produce of the fertile country by which it is surrounded.

Campo Mayor was at one time one of the richest and most considerable towns in the Alentejo; but since the period at which this part of Portugal became the immediate seat of war, and the French and British troops alternately came into possession of the place, it has suffered greatly; a number of its principal houses and public buildings having been burned, and its castle, citadel, and works, much injured by both armies. There is a curious charnel house in the main street, the walls of which are composed entirely of human skulls, laid and cemented together in regular layers. The establishment has a most horrid appearance, as beheld through the bars of a small grating, and is rendered still more dismal by the pale glimmering light thrown around by a lamp suspended from the arched roof of the death-like sepulchre. The inhabitants of Campo Mayor evinced much joy on our arrival; our late successes encouraged them to receive us with the warmest welcome, which they testified by every possible demonstration of merriment and festivity.