r daughter, who were very
kind to me during my stay there, which was for about a fortnight.
Then I received intelligence that a hundred and fifty others were well
enough to rejoin the army, so I asked the doctor if I might accompany
them. He told me that my wounds were not yet sufficiently set for me
to undertake the journey; but I was by this time sick of hospitals,
physics, Estremoz, and the lot of it, and was mad to get back to my
regiment, so I went to the captain, who was still lying wounded in the
hospital, and asked him to speak to the doctor to let me go. The
result was that next morning I again saw the doctor, who said I could
go, but I must abide by the consequences myself, as he would not be
answerable for my safety; so about three days after that our little
group started on the way to the army, which had meanwhile moved
northward from Badajoz to Salamanca, about two hundred miles distant,
which we found rather a tedious march in our then condition.

I had not been many days at Salamanca before a fever broke out, which
I caught very badly, and so was ordered back into hospital at Ciudad
Rodrigo, along with a number of fellow troops who were troubled with a
like malady with myself. On my arrival at the hospital, my hair was
cut off by order of the doctor, and my head blistered; and I had not
been there many hours before I became quite insensible, in which state
I remained more or less for three months, which brought on great
weakness. I received kind treatment, however, from the doctor and our
attendants, and was allowed to eat anything my fancy craved, and
amongst other things, without having to resort to any contrivance as
at Estremoz, I could get wine.

After being in hospital nearly two months longer, my strength had come
back enough to allow me to be removed out of the town to a convent,
the very one before mentioned which I had helped to storm when we were
throwing up batteries for the assault of the town. There I found a
number like myself who had lately recovered, and amongst them some of
my own comrades of my own regiment, which made the time pass more
lively than if we had been all strangers. By the time my strength was
sufficiently recruited to again permit me to go on active service,
November had again come round, so that from the time of receiving my
wound at Badajoz, at least seven months had passed away before I was
free from sickness and in a proper condition to again join my
regiment.

The